PWP

a Ready Room Vignette

by

vanhunks

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Paramount owns the characters. They're lovely to play with!

SUMMARY: A short PWP piece set in the Captain's ready room. Kathryn has a blinding headache, and who is her first officer to refuse aid?

NOTE: For those who wish to know: PWP stands for "Plot? What Plot?" In this story, however, the acronym gets a different meaning... My attempt at humour after some serious and intense writing.

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PWP

Kathryn Janeway decided that she had had enough of staring at the main viewscreen for hours on end, seeing nothing, hearing nothing and quietly allowing the headache that had been brewing since morning, to gain impulse and then pitch into warp speed.

She wished that ten alien warships would fill the screen, the lead ship hail her and the leader command she stand down weapons. Whereupon she'd get up from the command chair, adopt her usual pose of "catch me if you can" and then her headache would dissolve instantly because finally, after seventy two days of flying at warp seven, staring at nothing, something was happening.

In short, she was desperately in need of a diversion.

Before the day was over, she was going to lose what coffee she consumed at lunch time on an empty stomach, because already, there was a queasy feeling building from the pit of her stomach that was heading towards her throat. Kathryn twisted her head, craned her neck, even rubbed at her temples, but no relief was in sight. Matters was made worse the second she cast a glance at her first officer.

The man was gloating. That was not a smile; that was not his 'I'll be by your side forever' look. Quickly she looked at the main viewscreen again.

Wrong move.

Dead space. No sight. No sound. Just all pain in the neck.

So, Kathryn Janeway did what all self-respecting Captains of Starfleet did.

"Chakotay."

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"The bridge is yours."

"Aye, Captain." She was about to get up from her chair when Chakotay gave her that dimpled, eyes-almost-closing, gloating smile. "And don't you dare make any comment, Commander," she hissed.

Before anyone could blink, Kathryn Janeway vanished through the doors and lost herself in the depths of her ready room.

Chakotay stared around him. Tom didn't look back and smirk like he always did when Kathryn got up and dipped into the ready room. Tuvok looked impassive. Seven of Nine looked impassive. B'Elanna smirked. Harry looked...silly. He was staring at the viewscreen as if ten alien war ships would appear and fill it any moment.

Chakotay's eyes returned to the empty seat beside him.

Kathryn was mad at him, and thunderclouds were forming above her head. If he looked closely enough when she was still in her seat, he would have seen the smoke signals. Still, the lady was ill and all and who was he to remind her again that she had two days off and refused to take it? She could even wallow in the darkness of her cabin for the two days if she wanted to, he told her. He was concerned, but couldn't help letting her see that Common Sense should be a term in any Starfleet Captain's personal datapadd. But as usual, Captain Janeway never listened.

So Chakotay did what any self-respecting Starfleet First Officer was supposed to do in matters of...well, in the circumstances. He rose from his seat, and when he reached Tuvok's station, said calmly, "The bridge is yours," before he too, vanished into the depths of the Captain's ready room, ready to rescue the Captain from whatever ailed her.

It was a wonder that the woman actually said "Come" when he pressed the chime.

Kathryn sat hunched in her high backed chair when Chakotay entered. Fingers were rubbing temples, an expression of intense irritation was on her face. The lady was really suffering and Chakotay had the intense urge to massage her aching neck muscles. That thought was soon aborted. He remembered once before when he did so and she calmly threw a few rules at him. Mainly the rule said, "Do not touch me again, for I shall not know myself then." To think that the ambience at the time warranted whatever event would have followed the neck-rub action. At the time he had agreed to Kathryn's demands and then he told her a cockamamie story about a warrior who stayed by the princess's side and who never got to kiss the dead princess so her eyes could come alive again.

But lo! Captain Janeway was suffering in her ready room.

What was he to do? The lady looked at him through pain-filled eyes, and he thought that any moment she would disgrace herself in his presence by losing her coffee, or what was left after most of it had been digested into her bloodstream and went directly to her head. That was something he was not going to broach with her again, since the whole coffee issue was what brought on the...biliousness and short-temperedness.

"Uh...Kathryn?"

"Have you come to gloat?"

"No. I've come to relieve you of your headache."

"Chakotay," she said with a preceding groan, "I can ask the EMH to hypospray the damned thing away."

"Uh...oh."  Did the woman like to suffer in silence?

"What are you standing there like a statue? Are you going to help me, or not?"

She peered up at him, squinting like she was in real pain - she was in real pain -  because the lady had not thought to lower the illumination of the ready room. That at least would have induced some comfort. But it was clear to Chakotay, whose eyes lit up not on account of the light in the ready room, but the realisation that the lady was asking him to offer help of the physical kind that he might just be able to recreate the ambience of many moons and ten parameters ago. 

Chakotay walked round the desk, took her hand and pulled her up from the chair and walked with her to her grand couch. It was a good sign. She was not protesting. There he made her sit down, sideways-like and he positioned himself behind her. He thought that once before he had also stood behind her in a manner of speaking, smelling her glorious hair and wanting to bury his face in it. Then he had clasped her shoulders with his large, gentle hands and massaged her muscles.

Now, she wanted him to do the same. So he did. He smelled her glorious hair, didn't bury his face in it...yet. Kathryn gave a moan of pleasure and he didn't know if it was because she wiggled herself against him and made herself really comfortable. What was the woman thinking? What was he thinking?

He was thinking that the time to take charge of affairs and hold her right there against the broad cushion that was his chest, was the way things should have been many moons and ten parameters ago.

"Chakotay, if - "

"Shhh..." he commanded as he gripped her shoulders and began gently, rhythmically kneading into her tightened and knotted muscles; on and on he kneaded, massaged, rubbed, his thumbs reaching into the knots that dotted every spinal vertebra and pressing into them. Then he pressed his thumbs against the knots formed at the base of her skull and Kathryn gave a deep moan. Chakotay couldn't smile. It was too early to crow and he was sensible to know that any moment she might do the many moons and ten parameters thing. Kathryn snuggled closer into him as he pressed; she made those nice, moaning sounds of pleasure and croaky moans that accompanied the pleasure because the pain was nice and on its way out. He could feel the knots dissolving under his ministering fingers and he could feel Kathryn leaning further and further back into him.

He was the master of control.

"That feels so good, Chakotay," she whispered softly and he was dead certain that one of two things might happen in the next few seconds. She could turn round like she did that time, look like a frightened faun because he was overstepping some boundary he didn't know could exist until that moment, and he'd know he must stop, or, she could...well, he just waited for the moment that she would turn round to face him and come hell or high-water, he'd take whatever she was going to give him.

How was he to know that the next moment when she did turn to look, that her eyes would indeed look wide, like a frightened faun? Only, the faun part was there, and the frightened part was replaced by eyes that had gone dark, and he could swear they were smouldering. That was not all. The lady's lips were parted and he could feel her heat as she breathed. Smoulder...heat... What was a man to do?

"Kathryn..." he groaned, still keeping his hands where they were supposed to just in case she did remind him of those boundaries.

"Chakotay..."

"Yes, Kathryn?"

She turned round completely and his hands left the boundaries. Her eyelids looked suddenly heavy as they sheltered smoky eyes.

"I need some massaging...here..." she murmured in a husky voice, pointing to her bosom.

Oh hell...

One parameter coming and going...

His hand came and settled against her breast. It felt soft and firm at the same time. No more fantasies as they played out for real. Kathryn breathed, and her heat fanned his face, inflaming him. He told himself not to think as his hands travelled to her shoulders again and he pulled her closer to him.

Beautiful red lips, hot and ready, waited for him.

Chakotay closed his eyes and went for broke. His lips touched hers and something exploded behind his closed eyelids. Did he just see a supernova? It went bright, brilliant colours lighting up the thick, black expanse that was all his dashed hopes and broken dreams. Her lips tasted - actually tasted -

sweet, like wild honey sprung from a tree on dewy mornings, flavoured with incidental mixes of cinnamon and musk. Musk? Oh hell...

"Chakotay..." she breathed again against his lips. Then suddenly, her lips left his and he felt old, oddly robbed, only to be intensely pleasured the next moment when gentle hands cupped the sides of his head and hot, intoxicating honey-cinnamon flavoured lips burned against his tattoo, pressed searingly in the centre of his forehead and then a third kiss on the other side, just over his right brow.

He thought he was drunk. Maybe he was, if drinking honey-cinnamon could induce inebriation. There were three more supernovas in quick succession. His hands searched for her breasts while his lips found hers again, unerringly, and groaning his ecstasy, plunged into her depths when Kathryn allowed him entry.

More honey...

Hands tangled into her hair, pulling her head gently back to expose her neck.

Oh, hell...

He pulled her jacket open, hooked his fingers into her turtleneck and the next moment he heard her give a soft cry as his lips burned into her neck, sucking, brushing. He became greedy, their movements frenzied; her arched neck was... Groaning, he sucked into her turtleneck collar, feeling still the heat of her skin through it. Teeth grazed, lips teased... Thirst and hunger were difficult to appease as both ate and nipped at each other; their breath mingled, tongues lashing in a pas de deux of love. Waves of pleasure ripped through him; he was tossed about on a sea of desire, for Kathryn...Kathryn was destroying her own boundaries...

He pressed her so that she lay back on the couch and he spread himself over her. He thought dazedly that about seven parameters had come and gone as his hands slipped under her turtleneck and cupped her breasts.

"Oh, more...more..." she crooned, tossing her head sweetly, overcome by the heady breathlessness of his fingers that dipped under the bra and found nipples ready and waiting. His tongue dipped into her navel and a royal wave of pleasure shot through his body as Kathryn arched into him.

"More...?"

She sat up suddenly. Her eyes looked on fire. Blue-grey ice that burned from the top of a blue-grey snow-capped mountain. Her lips were parted, smudged, burning, moist. Her face was flushed. He reckoned he didn't look much better as be breathed heavily, managed only through sustained gasps to bring his raging arousal down and cool the fire temporarily.

"Chakotay... we have two more hours bridge duty," she purred.

"What about uh...our parameters?" Chakotay asked, knowing that they've already broken a few. "You know what we decided on many moons ago on uh...New Earth..."

Kathryn frowned beautifully.

"Parameters? What parameters?"

That was when Chakotay knew the lady was his forever.

"Uh...dinner, my quarters," he croaked. It was time he took charge and Kathryn served under him. Parameters be damned. She said so herself. The noise of freedom buzzed in his head.

"I'm ready...your room...two hours from now, Chakotay."

Her burning eyes shot aflame. She really looked...ready...for his room.

Kathryn rose to her feet and he jumped up too. Seconds later they brushed down their uniforms, brushed fingers through hair to look tidy and unkissed and once more.

Kathryn looked at Chakotay and gave a little smile, lifted her left eyebrow.

"Are you certain you're ready for bridge duty, Commander?"

Did she know something he didn't know?

"I am," he responded firmly.

"I have a bits and pieces of headache left - "

"In my room. Ready?"

" - which can only be dissolved if I serve...er...under you."

He was about to become aroused just by the suggestion and tone of her voice. But the moment Kathryn raised that eyebrow again, Chakotay frowned.  However, happiness was ten supernovas that blinded him.

"Of course. I'll go first."

"After you, Commander," Kathryn said, waving her hand with a flourish and smiling suggestively.

****

Chakotay tried to walk like he didn't almost have sex with the Captain in her ready room. His pants were smoothed down; he had run his hands through his hair and thought it must look presentable. Then he pranced past Tuvok, nodded at Seven of Nine standing hands on the rail behind the command chairs, and grinned evilly at Tom who turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees to look at him. Then Tom swivelled his chair back to face the viewscreen.

Chakotay sat down and rested his hands on the armrests of his chair, feeling smug. He looked straight ahead at the dead nothing that showed on the main viewscreen.

Tom Paris did a double take; his eyes popped.

Harry Kim snickered.

B'Elanna grinned.

"What?"

"Oh...nothing, Commander," Tom said as he busied himself again at the conn.

A minute later the ready room door opened and Kathryn came out, covering the two steps to Tuvok's level with sprightly ease. Tuvok looked, then turned to study the Great Nothingness out there. Kathryn paused briefly. He was the master of pokerfaced study. Kathryn smoothed down her uniform once more and sat down next to Chakotay. She looked blissful.

Tom Paris turned to look back at them, busied himself at the conn for one second then did another double take.

"What?" Kathryn Janeway asked.

"Oh...nothing, Ensign."

Ensign? Kathryn frowned.

One minute later.

"Chakotay, why are they staring at us?"

"You noticed? It's discomfiting. I'm crawling in my skin here."

Several minutes, pointed glances in their direction and some chuckling later.

"Kathryn, why are you looking at me from a different angle than normal?"

The lady turned to face him, smiled with that nice upturned corner of her mouth and covered his hand like she was offering comfort and telling him her headache was almost something of the past, thanks to his ministrations that would be continued later in his quarters.

"Why, Chakotay, it's because you're sitting in my chair, and there are three pairs of lipstick marks on your forehead. Nice and symmetrical, too. And such a nice colour of strawberry..."

"I saw four supernovas...uh...Captain..." Harry reported.

Chakotay shot up from the Captain's chair, pulled her up and forgot about the lipstick marks he was supposed to brush away in furious embarrassment. He was about to exchange seats with her when he froze. Something was missing from the Captain's person; he couldn't figure out what it was. Chakotay scratched his head, looked around the bridge, saw the knowing smirks coming from Seven of all Borgs, Tom Paris, even Tuvok, the master of expressionless study. Harry continued to look excited and pointed to the viewscreen.

"We thought you'd have noticed that ten minutes ago, Captain," came Tom Paris's voice which  sounded like he was laughing at them.

"The Captain has been demoted to Ensign," Seven of Nine declared.

"And booked herself the wrong command chair."

"What?"

Kathryn's hand flew to her neck. Her eyes popped. Chakotay stared, and his eyes popped. He felt suddenly nauseous, then groaned and clutched at his stomach.

"Uh...Kathryn..."

"What?"

"It seems I have swallowed three of your rank pips..."

**** 

END

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