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Photonic Dreams : A sequel to Looking Glass Milk

(this is set shortly after Pathfinder though the events from then on bear no relation to canon)

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"So do you really think Harry is gonna ask her out? I mean, I can't see it myself. Not that he doesn't love her. Don't get me wrong, I *know* he loves her but I can't see him actually saying the words. Well, not unless he's pissed as a fart and even then he's more likely to just slide under a table with embarrassment if she walks over to him. I mean he's been mooning over her for *years*, Chak, and the only time she turned around and offered to sleep with him he ran away like the white rabbit and hid in his quarters for two weeks. Mind you, I guess she's more approachable these days and he's running out of time now and she *is* hot, if you like that kind of thing. Which I don't, obviously, but Harry does and...."

"Tommy," Chakotay groaned into the nape of his neck. "Shut up."  He wondered whether he could use his greater body weight to shove Tom's face into the pillow and muffle the incessant chatter.

Tom froze for a moment. He was well aware he had been babbling complete nonsense for the last twenty minutes and that his exhausted husband probably was struggling with the urge to throttle him but the silence in the room was crushing him. If he stopped talking he would start *thinking* and that was something he couldn't afford to do. He decided to go on the offensive.  

"Shut up? Charming. Very nice pillow talk, big guy. Jeez. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I see in you." 

"This," Chakotay grunted, humping his hips slightly to grind his softening but still substantial cock deeper into his husband's ass.

"Oh yeah," Tom grinned, thrusting his tush backwards with an eager wriggle. This was a far better distraction than talking, he decided. "You ready to go again?"

Chakotay's only reply was another long-suffering groan before he rolled off Tom's back to collapse in an exhausted heap at his side.

"I take it that's a no then," Tom sniffed.

"Tom, please," Chakotay begged. "We're on duty in less than four hours. Just let me get some sleep, okay?"

"And they said romance was dead," Tom griped sarcastically, rolling onto his own side to face away from his husband.

Chakotay sighed as his bleary eyes took note of the stiff offended posture of Tom's back. He edged over until their flesh touched, until his whole body was spooned up behind the long lean warmth of the man he loved more than his own life and, despite his bone-deep exhaustion, his cock gave a slight twitch as it settled comfortably against the crack of Tom's butt.

"I love you, Tommy," Chakotay whispered sleepily, slipping his hand over Tom's waist and nuzzling his face into the sweet scent of Tom's flesh.

"I love you too, big guy," Tom replied with a purr of pleasure, as Chakotay's soft breath tickled his nape, "and don't call me Tommy," he whispered with a fond smile.

Chakotay's only answer was a low snore, so Tom willed himself to join his husband in sleep. He closed his eyes, leaned his weight back against Chakotay's warmth, and tried to relax. Yet, as the minutes passed, as Chakotay's breathing evened and deepened, Tom's mind continued to twist and gyrate. He could feel the trickling sensation of Chakotay's juices seeping down his inner thighs, the low hot burn of pleasure in his well-used ass, the tingling heat in his left nipple where Chakotay had bitten him with almost savage delight and his fingers cautiously traced the slightly raised welts on his abdomen where square fingernails had raked his skin to the point of raising blood.

Without consciously been aware of doing so, he adjusted his matrix. His bruises faded,  his loosed ass regained a virginal tightness, the scratches and bites of their mutual passion blended back to pale unmarked flesh and within seconds the only evidence of their wild lovemaking was the come that still continued to seep out of his now bereft ass.

Because the come was real, just as Chakotay's hot breath was real, whereas Tom himself was merely a trick of light.

The sadness hit him in a wave and he carefully edged away from Chakotay's embrace and climbed to his feet. Staring down at his sleeping husband in the dim light of their bedroom, Tom wiped furiously at the hot, stinging tears that burned his eyes.  What the hell was wrong with him? He'd just been fucked so well and hard that poor Chakotay was collapsed in an exhausted heap on their bed. Chakotay didn't care that he wasn't 'real'. If anything, as the months had passed, their sex life had become so good that it was hard to imagine how they had ever satisfied each other before Tom's 'accident'.

Chakotay had always been an enthusiastic and inventive lover, but his lovemaking had always been tempered by consideration and gentleness.  Tom had always preferred sex furious and hard, never minding if the price of his passion was paid for with a regenerator or a limping gait the morning after.

These days, of course, Tom simply *thought* himself better and so Chakotay had slowly lost his caution until the only complaint Tom had about their lovemaking was that it never lasted *quite* long enough.

That thought made him smile fondly and he bent over to softly stroke Chakotay's forehead, pushing a stray strand of hair back into place. He didn't know whether the spirits Chakotay believed in were real but if they were Tom was grateful to them for allowing this man's presence in his life.

Not that 'life' was a completely accurate term for his current state of being, he reminded himself, his smile slipping away like a ghost.

He turned abruptly, and pulled on the sweatpants he'd discarded earlier in his haste to debauch his husband. After a momentary hesitation, he picked up Chakotay's tee instead of his own and slipped it over his head slowly, allowing the scent of the older man to caress his nostrils as the fabric slid over his face. Then, after looking back to check Chakotay was still asleep, Tom crept out of their quarters.

~#~#~#~

"Please state the...oh, it's you. What do you want?"

"Yeah, nice to see you too," Tom drawled sarcastically.

"It's 0346, Lieutenant. What are you doing in Sickbay?" 

"I couldn't sleep."

"So you decided to share the joy of your experience with me?"

"You *don't* sleep. You don't *need* to sleep, Doc."

"But you do," the Doctor replied in a far less antagonistic tone, his eyes narrowing with concern as he looked at the pilot. Although Tom's matrix was as bright and perfect as usual, Tom's stiff posture radiated distress and while the Doctor was all too aware that Tom couldn't be in physical distress he *did* consider that the part of Tom that was still human, his mind, was still his medical responsibility. "You don't need physical rest, Lieutenant, but you *do* need sleep."

"I told you, I *can't* sleep," Tom snapped. "I'm not tired. I'm wired."

"Wired?"

"My mind's bouncing like a shuttle in an ion storm. How the hell am I supposed to sleep if my body isn't tired and my head's full of crap?"

"That 'crap', as you put it, is exactly why you need sleep, Lieutenant. How many times do I have to tell you that you need to sleep because you need to dream. Your mind needs that respite. Dreaming is your mind's chance to subconsciously resolve the issues that are making you feel so 'wired'.  I'll make an adjustment to your matrix."

Tom bit his lower lip and dropped his eyes from the Doctor's.  Tom knew he was right but he couldn't prevent himself from shivering as the Doctor turned to his console to program the adjustment.

"What's really wrong, Lieutenant?" the Doctor asked, seeing Tom's poorly hidden fear.

Tom gave him a wide high-wattage smile. "Wrong? What makes you think anything's wrong?"

"Tom?"

Tom winced at the Doctor's soft word and lost control of his matrix enough for the false smile to bleed off his face.

"I don't *want* to dream," he confessed in a small voice. "I dream I'm alive, Doc, and it hurts."

"You *are* alive, Tom."

"No, I'm not," Tom replied bitterly, his eyes dull.

The Doctor stared at him with both concern and confusion.  Since the day Tom had awoken in his new photonic body, over six months previously, the Doctor and most of the crew had been waiting for the reality of what had happened to catch up with the pilot. Yet, it never had. Between the Captain's insistence that Tom was to be treated no differently than before and Chakotay's ceaseless love and support, Tom had adjusted to his altered circumstances with remarkable aplomb.

Perhaps *too* remarkable, the Doctor now realized.

"Is there a problem between yourself and the Commander?" he asked cautiously.

Tom coughed a sound of near-hysterical laughter.

"Only the fact that I seem determined to drive the poor bastard to an early grave too."

The Doctor ignored the 'too' for a moment and simply cocked an inquiring eyebrow at the pilot.  Tom gave a self-depreciating smile.

"It was bad enough before," he explained. "I mean he already *knew* I was a slut when he married me."

"Having a high sex-drive doesn't constitute being a slut, Tom. You've never been unfaithful to him, have you?"

"Of course not," Tom snapped.  "I don't want anyone else."

"And the Commander is a passionate man, who seems invigorated by your libido rather than repelled by it."

"Yeah," Tom agreed, with a self-satisfied smirk.

"So what's the problem?"

"What do you think?" Tom snarled. "I'm living the ultimate wet-dream, Doc. I have a body that never gets tired or sore and a husband who gives me a hard-on just by walking in the room. If I don't stop jumping his bones, his dick's gonna erode away. The poor bastard's developing a permanent wince."

"Are you sure that's not a smile?" 

"Maybe that as well," Tom admitted, with a rueful grin.

"You said it yourself, Tom. You always *have* been more sexually orientated than the Commander and he was well aware of that fact when he married you. I can't imagine him ever doing anything he doesn't *want* to do."

"I never said he didn't *want* to," Tom sniffed. 

"Are you saying he no longer satisfies you now that you have a body that doesn't tire?"

"NO," Tom shouted. "It's not about me. I mean, sure, sometimes I wish he didn't get tired but, hell, the guy's a fucking animal when he isn't tired."

"A little too much information," the Doctor replied mildly.

Tom's face flushed uncomfortably and he gave an embarrassed semi-grin. "It's Chak who worries about it," he confessed quietly. "He gets snappy with me sometimes, when he's tired and I won't leave him alone, then he gets all guilty about it and starts to feel...."

"Inadequate?" the Doctor suggested.

"He's not fucking inadequate, you bastard," Tom snarled. "He's my husband and I love him and he's worth ten of you and..."

The Doctor raised his hands placatingly. "We were talking about how he *feels*," he reminded Tom softly, more pleased to see Tom jumping to Chakotay's defense than offended by Tom's comments.

"I'm sorry," Tom mumbled. "I'm just wound up tonight."

"I understand your concerns," the Doctor replied, "and they're valid in many respects. Chakotay is inevitably going to have to adjust to the fact that you won't visibly age and that, coupled with your boundless energy, could have an effect on his own ego. He's spent the last six months so consumed by his need to reassure *you* that he still finds you attractive that he possibly hasn't paused long enough to deal with his own feelings. While the idea of having an eternally youthful and enthusiastic lover is a fantasy of many men, the reality of dealing with your future lives together may affect his own self-confidence."

"Future lives," Tom muttered. "That's a good one."

"I don't understand."

"Don't you?" Tom challenged, his eyes sparkling with angry resentment. "You given much thought to your own future *life*, Doc?"

"I don't understand," the Doctor repeated in confusion.

To his surprise, Tom's angry expression was immediately replaced by a look of intense shame.

"Look, forget I said anything. I'm just spouting off, Doc. I didn't mean anything by it."

Despite the fact that his body was simply an arrangement of photonic light, the Doctor had the strange sensation of something dark and unwelcome creeping through his bowels and his imaginary stomach appeared to do an involuntary back-flip as his program translated his sudden fear into pseudo-physical symptoms.

"What do you know, Tom? What did the transmission say?" he demanded.

Tom turned away, his eyes frightened. "I don't know anything," he lied over his shoulder. "The Captain would have told you if there was any news."

"Not if it was bad news," the Doctor replied, sitting down heavily onto one of the biobeds as though he truly felt as weak as his processors suggested. "She'd spare me that. She'd be too sure of changing their minds. She wouldn't want to tell me until it was unavoidable. But you know, don't you?"

Tom turned back to face him, his face grief-stricken. "I shouldn't have said anything. She's probably right. We've barely had a chance to exchange information yet so they don't really *know* how much you've evolved and she says she has absolutely no intention of using the program."

"Then they *did* send the upgraded EMH program with yesterday's transmission?"

"Yeah," Tom admitted, unable to look the Doctor in the face.

The news was shattering for the Doctor. Whatever Tom said, in his attempt to cushion the blow, the Doctor knew perfectly well that the Captain had sent a full and thorough report on his own evolution from a mere EMH to a sentient being because she had been kind enough to let him see the report before it was transmitted.  The fact that Starfleet's response had been to send a program-upgrade with their reply proved that the report had fallen on deaf ears. As far as Starfleet were concerned he was simply an outdated program that had learnt a few clever tricks.  He was defunct, obsolete and still considered nothing more than a piece of software by his creators.

No wonder the Captain had kept the transmission to herself.

"Thank you for telling me," he told Tom sadly. "It's better to know and what I suspected anyway."

"She won't give in, you know," Tom told him firmly. "She'll fight for you the same way as she's been fighting for the Maquis."

"What *did* they say about the Maquis?"

"Well, they're being cagey about full pardons at the moment but they *have* officially stated that no arrests will be made so that's practically as good as. The minute the Cardies showed their true colors, people started to see the Maquis as freedom fighters instead of terrorists and so it's become 'unpolitical' for the Federation to discriminate against them. Seems they've even released anyone already in prison."

The Doctor beamed, putting his own worries aside as he enjoyed Tom's good fortune.

"So both Chakotay *and* you can look forward to going home," he announced. "I admit I was a little confused when I heard that Starfleet hadn't sent a confirmation that your sentence had been commuted to time served.  I couldn't believe they'd send you back to Jail after all this time but it's still better to know for sure, isn't it?"

Tom just gave a rueful chuckle, as though the Doctor had said something funny.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," Tom lied. "Can you finish that adjustment? I want to get back to bed before Chak wakes up."

"What's wrong, Tom. What's really wrong? Is there something else you don't want to tell me? Something about what's going to happen to me?" The Doctor asked fearfully.

"No. Shit, I'm sorry Doc. I shouldn't have told you what I did, but I swear that's all I know and the Captain isn't going to let anything happen to you, anyway."

The Doctor sighed with relief.  He was still worried about his future, but he knew Tom was right about the Captain. She might not have the power to save him but she'd damned well fight to the last breath in the attempt.

"There, that should do it," he announced, typing in the last command codes with a flourish. "I've entered it directly onto your main-frame back-up so as soon as you interface with it you can access the amended file.

"Thanks, Doc," Tom replied, with a grateful smile not only for the help but for the fact that the Doctor hadn't even suggested programming his inbuilt emitter directly. Since the day he'd been 'activated', the Doctor had always allowed Tom to keep at least the illusion that he was real.  Just as he couldn't be turned off, neither was his matrix ever amended directly. While a clever hacker could break though the passwords that protected his main-frame backup and make changes to his programming, only he himself had the ability to log in and accept those changes into his mobile emitter. 

Tom was half-way to the door, relieved that the Doctor had seemingly forgotten his worry about his state of mind, when the Doctor innocently asked the question that completely shattered his pretence.

"Did you get a letter from your father in the transmission?"

Tom froze, his suddenly overloaded synapses refusing to control his matrix. It took him a moment to compose an answer that could escape his constricting throat.

"Not directly." His face was a grimace of pain as he turned enough to look at the Doctor. He owed him the truth, he decided, after so cruelly blurting out the Doctor's *own* shattered dreams and, oddly, it was a relief to say it aloud after hiding his pain all day behind work and sex and meaningless chatter. "You see, my dad is kinda the reason my sentence hasn't been commuted."

"Your own father wants you to go back to prison?" The Doctor demanded in complete disbelief.

"Oh, no. It's not that," Tom replied, with an attempt at a nonchalant shrug. "My dad doesn't see there's any need to do it.  The Captain sent Starfleet a full report of my 'accident' and my current status."

"And?" 

"And it seems that I'm dead, after all," Tom announced, his mouth curling into a bizarre smile. "They don't put dead men in Auckland."

"I don't understand," the Doctor gasped. "Your consciousness was never affected. My medical records prove that beyond any doubt. You *are* Thomas Eugene Paris-Chakotay."

"Apparently not," Tom replied bitterly. "I am a 'hologram merely incorporating memory engrams of a deceased crewmember'.  According to Starfleet Regulation 54.37 it is an offence to create the image of a Starfleet officer in holographic form for the purpose of sexual and/or operational exploitation by a senior officer. Apparently, Chakotay is guilty of both."

"The regulation doesn't apply here because you *are* Tom Paris," the Doctor argued. "Besides, the regulation clearly states a 'living' officer. They can't have it both ways. Either you are legally alive or you're legally dead. They can't say you are both."

"Check your files, Doc. 54.37 says it's an offence to re-create *any* living person, but in the case of Starfleet Officers the rule has no exceptions. Do you know how many cadets get thrown out of the Academy every year 'cos they're caught fucking Captain Kirk?" Tom laughed bitterly.

"Have you told the Commander?" The Doctor asked, although he was pretty sure the answer was no.

"Even the Captain doesn't dare tell him," Tom laughed, his eyes glittering with frightened tears. "How the hell can she?"

"I can't imagine him caring whether he's court-martialed," the Doctor argued. "He's expressed no desire to stay in Starfleet when we get home so what difference does it make? Surely you don't think his feelings for you will change just because those idiots at Starfleet are incapable of understanding you are alive.  *He* knows you are, and surely that's all that matters? He's not going to stop loving you just because other people don't understand, any more than you're going to stop loving *him* as he gets older. Chakotay *loves* you, Tom." 

"I know," Tom agreed, closing his eyes tightly against the tears that were now pouring down his photonic face.

"Then why are you so scared?" the Doctor asked worriedly.

"The message from my father," Tom whispered.

"But you said he didn't write to you."

"He didn't. He wrote to the Captain."

The Doctor was tempted to grab the pilot by the shoulders and shake him. Instead he carefully pitched his voice in a tone of far greater patience than he was feeling.

"What did he say to her?"

For a long moment, Tom didn't appear to hear him. He just swayed there, eyes still closed, tears still streaming down his cheeks. Then he pulled himself together with a visible effort, throwing his shoulders back, straightening his spine, his eyes flying open above a sudden fly-boy smile.

It was that bizarre performance that prepared the Doctor for the worst. It had been years since he'd seen that particular, annoyingly cocky smirk on Tom's face and he now knew that expression to be Tom's last line of defense against unbearable pain.

"He ordered her to terminate my program," Tom announced, then swung on his heel and practically ran from the room before he witnessed the Doctor's reaction to his bombshell.

Go to Part Two