Trek fic: Waiting for Tomorrow, part 2
Part 1
“Oh for fuck’s sake, please don’t do this.” Christopher had sat down next to him and he could feel the heat of the other man, they were so close together, but he no longer cared. Christopher was just another well-meaning stranger offering empty platitudes. He and Chris had had plenty of friends and he’d not been short of comforters after the disaster but none of them could reach in to the aching emptiness that lay in his heart. That burden was his to carry alone.
A hand reached out and began to stroke gently through his hair. “You have to know that this is not what your Chris would have wanted for you,” said Christopher at last. “I’m not stupid, I can work out that going universe-jumping was a Russian roulette gamble between finding an amenable version of me and getting yourself killed, with the odds stacked towards the latter.”
“Right,” snapped Phil, keeping his face buried against his knees, “and Philip would be impressed by you sunk in misery, drinking alone on the ranch after all this time? I’m sure he’d have told you all the trite stuff. Find a new partner, love again, move on with your life.”
“Yeah, well, he’s dead so he can fuck right off,” replied Christopher, his tense tone at odds with the gentle touch of his hand on Phil’s head.
Phil laughed humorlessly. “They both can. I’m sure that’s what I’d have said to Chris, but nothing prepares you for the truth of being left behind. Being dead is a damned cushy posting compared to this.”
“You know what I hate most about it all,” said Christopher eventually, his hand now curled tightly against the skin of Phil’s neck, just above his collar, his voice rough with an edge of tears. “That the only person in the world who could understand how lost I feel, how lonely and miserable, is Philip. The only person whose advice I want to ask about how the hell to cope with the rest of my life, is Philip. And he’s the reason---” Christopher’s voice cracked and he stopped abruptly. “Oh fuck it,” he continued, “come here.”
Christopher pulled him round so that Phil’s bent legs were across Christopher’s thighs and Phil’s side was set against Christopher’s chest. Phil twisted so he could bury his face in the crook of Christopher’s neck. “I know what you mean,” he admitted at last. “Everyone was so full of damned bright ideas about dealing with it all and the only person I wanted to talk to was Chris. And he was gone. I was so angry with him and so lost without him and all I wanted to do was ask him how he could do this to me and what the hell I was supposed to do next and I couldn’t... I couldn’t” His shoulders were shaking now as he hid wet eyes against Christopher’s neck.
“I know, I know.” Christopher was gently rocking them both. “God, I feel a tool for every set of empty platitudes I ever said to the families of my dead crewmen.”
“Died bravely in defense of the Federation? Yeah, I signed off my share of those too,” muttered Phil.
They sat in silence for a long while. Phil tentatively slid his arms around Christopher’s waist but there was no objection, and he pulled himself in tight against the reassuring bulk of the other man. The familiarity of it just made his heart ache more, he didn’t want to start out with someone new. He didn’t want the whole slow dance of finding someone who might be interesting, trying to get to know them, finding ways to compromise over all your differences, and then finally deciding that they weren’t worth the effort after all, and having to start over yet one more time. He really didn’t think he had the tenacity for it. He just wanted Chris back.
“It’s strange,” Phil said at last, “the idea that multiple versions of you exist right across the multiverse is enormously reassuring to me, it makes creation feel like a much safer place. The idea that there are multiple versions of me out there, people claiming to be me but doing it wrong? I hate the idea.” What he really hated was the idea that a version of himself had been foolish enough to abandon this lovely man to this kind of grief, in a clearly futile bid to offer aid to strangers.
Chris chuckled. “You always were impatient with people you didn’t think were up to the job.”
“Damn right,” Phil grumbled. “There ought to be minimum standards these men have to meet before they can claim to be me. And leaving you behind violates all those standards.”
Christopher ran a hand curiously over the insignia on the shoulder of Phil’s jacket. “I can’t believe you made Admiral, someone in your universe can’t have been thinking straight. You are so damn bloody-minded.”
“Hey, they know quality when they see it, where I come from. If you’re a mere Rear Admiral, then I outrank you,” retorted Phil.
“My universe, my rules,” replied Christopher with a grin.
“Your rules, hmmm?” replied Phil, quirking up an eyebrow. He couldn’t help himself, flirting with all versions of Chris seemed to be built into his DNA. He was pretty certain he had a type and his type was Christopher Pike.
Christopher smiled back at him, lowering his voice in recognition of the innuendo. “Oh yeah, my rules are the fun ones.”
“I’ll bet they are.” Phil felt rather giddy, he could sense the frisson of sexual interest in the air. It was achingly familiar, a long lost friend who had unexpectedly walked back through the door. But it was also strange, this man wasn’t his Chris and this held all the edge of a new encounter, when you weren’t sure how far you’d go or how well it would end, but had building hopes of great outcomes.
“Do you think you flirt with me right through the multiverse?” he asked, partly to check that that was what they were now doing.
“Assuming I have two good eyes and decent taste, I’m sure I do,” replied Christopher, his blue eyes alight with interest, focusing on Phil with the kind of intensity that had always left him breathless. Christopher’s eyes were increasingly flickering down to his mouth. Phil licked at his suddenly dry lips and watched Christopher’s eyes narrow. There was a static charge building deep in his belly and leaking out into the air between them. He tilted up his face, moving close enough that Christopher’s face was going out of focus, and waited.
He was rewarded by a soft brush of lips across his own. They had never been tentative with each other, not after he’d had to endure three years of pretty boy Chris Pike cock-teasing him as a cadet. They’d come together in a wild conflagration within hours of Chris’s graduation and kept it hot and heavy ever since. This cautious exploration was new to him, achingly sweet and deliciously teasing. For the first time it really did feel like he might be moving towards something new rather than just trying to re-find what he’d lost.
He teased softly at the corner of Christopher’s mouth with the tip of his tongue, exploring the rougher skin just beyond the slick lips. His Chris had always been properly clean-shaven but Christopher seemed a little more relaxed about his appearance and was sporting some very attractive stubble. Phil ran his cheek across it, letting the roughness send a shiver of arousal down his spine. Christopher chased down his mouth, catching Phil’s bottom lip between his teeth and pulling at it gently, before sliding his tongue into Phil’s mouth.
They were making out like teenagers, kissing for the sake of it, taking the time to delight in each new sensation. Phil was in no hurry to push towards orgasm, aware that this might be the only chance he would get with Christopher. Eventually, Christopher pushed him down onto the floor and began to unbutton his jacket, pulling it open and running his hand up under Phil’s undershirt. Phil was briefly self-conscious, suspecting that he wasn’t as well honed as the action doctor Philip that Christopher was used to, but the other man didn’t seem to notice. He simply continued his slow, curious exploration of the swell of Phil’s stomach and the rough curls on his chest.
Phil relaxed under the familiar weight of Christopher’s body and obligingly turned his neck when Christopher began to nibble up the side of it, shivering at the rasp of Christopher’s stubble across the sensitive skin. “Oh god, so good Chris.” Phil realized his mistake the moment he opened his mouth, even before he felt Christopher pull away from him.
“My name’s Christopher,” he said tersely, the horrible edge of tension back in his voice. Phil could sympathize, he didn’t want to know if Christopher was thinking about the late - and his opinion entirely unlamented - Philip.
Phil kept his voice light and looked straight up into Christopher’s face, deep into his eyes. “Hello, Christopher, I’m Phil, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He relaxed as he got a reluctant smile in return. Then with a wicked smirk, Christopher shifted on top of him, pushing a firm thigh between his legs and grinding down with it in ways that sent blood spiraling down into Phil’s groin. He’d not taken a lover since Chris’s death, it had been many months before he’d felt any sexual stirrings at all and then he’d preferred to deal with it himself, lost in a haze of aching memories of Chris.
Their sex life had never been bad but there was no doubt that in their latter years they’d known each other so well that they’d tended to take the short-cut to the most satisfying outcome and had perhaps became a bit complacent about it all. Phil had forgotten what a rush a new sexual encounter could be, the aching surprise of the sudden flood of arousal ramped up by the uncertainty of how it would all play out. He was harder than he’d been in years, with an edge of desperation that he’d thought left behind in his distant youth.
“Yeah, I can feel how happy you are to meet me,” Christopher said, continuing to rub against him in utterly frustrating, tantalizing ways. “I’m taking it as a compliment that my sexual allure is so powerful that you pursue me across universes.”
“The smugness of your vast ego is doubtless vibrating at quantum level throughout the multiverse,” retorted Phil as he pushed his hands into Christopher hair, luxuriating in the long forgotten feel of the curls twisting around his fingers. Still, even his spiraling excitement couldn’t disguise the slowly building ache in his back. “We need to take this somewhere else, in any universe I’m too old to be doing this on the kitchen floor.”
Christopher leapt up onto his feet with an easy grace that Phil’s Chris would have bitterly envied, and extended a hand to pull Phil up after him. For a moment they both hesitated. Phil knew why, the master bedroom seemed too much to handle, he had little wish to be in bed with the ghost of the late Philip. “Family room,” said Phil, setting off that way and towing Christopher behind him. The couch there was as long and as wide as their one at home and had doubtless been used for much the same purposes. He pulled off his jacket and shoes and then pushed Christopher down onto the couch and fell on top of him, reveling in the feeling of the solid body pinned under him. He anchored one hand in Christopher’s wayward curls to remind himself that this was Christopher, not his Chris, and began to explore with the other.
In keeping with the kissing in the kitchen they moved slowly, too caught up in the impossible delight of being together to push towards any particular destination. Phil found himself on a dizzying see-saw between Chris and Christopher, much of what he touched and tasted and smelt was so very Chris, and yet in every action would be details that reminded him that this was someone new. As he ran his hand up Christopher’s back, under the t-shirt, he found scars that were in the wrong places. As he rubbed his face against Christopher’s cheek, he found a scent that wasn’t quite what he expected, a similar taste in cologne but a different brand.
He hadn’t realized the extent to which Chris and he had come to follow a well-trod path in their sexual encounters until Christopher kept surprising him by reacting rather differently. The teasing uncertainty was wildly arousing and finally the barriers of pants and shirts became completely unacceptable.
“Get this off,” Phil ordered, as he pulled his own shirt over his head.
“Pushy bastard, aren’t you?” said Christopher with a grin, as he stripped off his t-shirt and then without pausing, began to take down his pants. Phil’s heart rose as he realized that, yes, they were going all the way. At least for the moment Christopher’s grief and anger seemed to have faded, and his eyes were alight with anticipation as he watched Phil get out of the last of his uniform.
Phil felt oddly self-conscious, suddenly very aware that Christopher really was a stranger. Although he and Chris had had an open relationship - with their many separations it wasn’t really practical to do anything else - Phil had never taken much advantage of it, and there had been nobody else since Chris had started his Earthside posting some five years ago.
Christopher didn’t seem to be put off. “Fuck me, you’re ridiculously hot right across the multiverse. Come here!” He pulled Phil down on top of him, intertwining their legs and starting to rub against him in quite maddening ways.
“What do you want to do?” asked Phil tentatively, feeling a bit overwhelmed by a possible discussion about who had done what in their respective relationships.
“Just like this,” replied Christopher, who seemed to be trying to get as much skin-on-skin as he could manage while kissing Phil breathless.
“Lube?” asked Phil between kisses, when the frotting began to creep a little too close to chafing.
“Good idea, hang on.” Christopher rolled over and began to dig down the back of the couch. “I don’t now if there is still any down here, it’s been a hell of a long time.”
“Have you had any? Since, you know,” asked Phil curiously.
“Got it!” Christopher emerged from the depths of the couch clutching onto the crumpled form of a nearly empty tube of lube. “No, I damned well haven’t, longest dry spell of my adult life, that man’s got a lot to answer for.”
Christopher lounged back and started to showily apply the lube to his generous erection. He seemed as comfortable with his body, and as given to showing it off for Phil’s pleasure, as Chris had been. “Come on, give me a hand, you’ve come a long way for this.”
“I didn’t come all this way just for your dick,” grumbled Phil as he slid down next to Christopher and began to smear the lube from Christopher’s cock across to his own. “You’re not that good.”
“Hey, if some guy’s claiming to be me, that means he has to be damned good, it’s in the DNA!”
“Less talk, more action,” demanded Phil, grabbing Christopher’s mouth in a greedy kiss while reveling in the slick hot slide of lubed skin. Eventually Christopher pulled away from him just enough to get his hand down between them, Phil slid his fingers between Christopher’s and together they spiraled towards orgasm, a rising rush of lust and love and, oh fuck, Christopher!
Phil lay in a boneless haze, limp with satisfaction, letting his mind wander aimlessly over all the strange events of the last few hours. Chris had been affectionate and happy to have sex as often as possible, but he’d always been restless too, easily bored and tending to reach for his padd after just a few minutes of afterglow. Christopher on the other hand seemed perfectly happy just to lie curled up tightly around Phil, running his fingers through his hair.
“Christopher, do you mind being an Admiral?” asked Phil eventually.
“Mind? It was what I chose,” replied Christopher.
Phil twisted round so he could see Christopher’s face. “You didn’t get bumped up against your will?”
“Hell no. Nero was the last fucking straw, I was a lot less taken with the black after that. Actually Talos was close to the last straw, I very nearly walked out on Starfleet afterwards, it took Philip to put me back together and keep me in the service. In retrospect, maybe that’s where it started to go wrong for us. Or not go wrong exactly, but go less right. I was pretty heavily invested in Philip after that, he was kind of my talisman in the black, and when he told me he was sick of being a CMO, sick of wiping snotty noses of ensigns when there was real medical work to be done elsewhere, I wasn’t happy. But he was always his own man and we never had a clinging relationship, so I didn’t try to stop him going. Were you CMO to your Chris?”
“Yeah, I was and eventually I requested a transfer too. We had an open relationship and Chris made full use of it, an endless string of diplomats and alien potentates and visiting brass, none of them meant anything to him, but still. I got pretty sick of it. I was hoping he’d ask me to stay on board but he didn’t.”
“Oh fuck, I wonder if we both misunderstood what was going on,” said Christopher.
“Who knows?” replied Phil resignedly. “As we’ve worked out, we’re not them, and it’s too damned late to ask them.”
“Yeah. Anyway, when HQ proposed four years Earthside supervising the fitting out of the Enterprise in return for getting to captain her I was more than happy to agree. I got to see more of Philip that way too. Of course I was intending to do another full tour, everyone was always telling me that being a deep space captain was my first, best destiny. But I enjoyed teaching the cadets and I was fascinated by being part of the overarching tactical planning for Starfleet. Then I took the Enterprise up on her maiden flight and got captured by Nero. And, yeah-- the less said about that the better.” Christopher’s face took on an unhappy pinched look, as if he was pushing away unwanted memories.
“They’d have let me keep the Enterprise once I was cleared for duty again but I was fucking done with deep space. I took her up for six months to train up Kirk, cocky little shit that he is, and then happily handed her over to him. I hoped Philip would settle on Earth with me but he was still committed to running off to the site of each new humanitarian catastrophe. I always told him it would kill him one day and I was right.”
“Sounds like you were lucky in some ways,” Phil replied, thinking sadly of all the ways in which Chris had suffered. “My Chris was desperate to get back into the black but he was badly injured by Nero, lost the Enterprise, was booted up to Admiral and hated it. When Kirk fucked up and got demoted, Chris jumped at the chance to be a captain again. Which allowed us to have a bitter fight about it hours before he got killed by Khan.”
“Huh. I’d have stayed on Earth with you,” said Christopher, speaking very softly, his mouth against Phil’s hair.
“I guess it’s hard to know how much you value something until you finally lose it,” mused Phil.
“Hell of a way to learn that lesson,” muttered Christopher.
Phil turned so that his face was buried against Christopher’s neck and finally admitted very quietly, “I said things to him that I never got to take back, awful hurtful things.”
“He knew you loved him,” Christopher replied with steady certainty. “Hell, I’ve barely met you and I can tell how much you loved him. He was a lucky man.”
Phil could feel the exhaustion of the day washing over him now - walking away from his world, jumping through universes, dealing with Christopher, facing up to the reality of all he’d lost and yet somehow finding he’d gained something extraordinary, even if he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He closed his eyes, letting the feel and the smell of Christopher fill his senses, surround with a sense of peace and safety that he hadn’t felt for many long months.
* * *
Phil slowly slid into awareness. It took a moment to realise that he hadn’t simply fallen asleep on the family room couch in exhausted misery and been plagued by a series of particularly bizarre dreams. He was in fact several universes over, with a cushion placed under his head and a soft throw tucked around his naked body. The warm solidity of Christopher had gone, though.
Pushing himself up on one elbow, he look around, blinking sleepily, and finally realised that Christopher had dressed again and was sitting on a chair across the room, watching him intently. Phil pulled himself up into a sitting position, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders while watching Christopher cautiously, unsure what mood the man was now in.
“I appreciate how far you’ve come and I’m very glad to have met you,” said Christopher calmly. “Nevertheless, you need to go home. This thing between us is madness, it’s not the right way to cope. We both need to come to terms with what we’ve lost and move on.”
It was an eminently sensible little speech, sane and considered, and something about its stilted quality made Phil suspect that Christopher had been carefully rehearsing it over and over again while he slept. He rubbed a hand across his face, trying to dispel the last wisps of sleep and pull his scattered thoughts together. While it might be true that the dream he’d been pursuing was impossible, that didn’t mean he was just going to let go of what he’d inadvertently found. He’d not come this far and risked this much to give up in the face of a little sanity. He quickly considered his options and then offered up a slightly modified version of the truth.
“You’re right, I understand that now, this was a terrible idea on my part. But Christopher, I’m not sure I can get back. I’ve been hopping through universes, dialing them up at random. Chris was the one who figured out this technology, I was just punching buttons. I don’t think I can find my way home.”
It wasn’t entirely true. He was fairly sure he could get back and he’d set it up so he’d have a window of time before Starfleet noticed he was missing. But if he’d got it wrong.... If they’d worked it out.... A Surgeon-General who went AWOL to hunt down versions of his dead lover across the multiverse was highly unlikely to pass a psych evaluation. He’d be lucky to get an honorable discharge, and might well lose his medical license. He was damned if he was going to have to manage without Chris and without being a doctor.
He paused in his explanation to see how Christopher was taking it. At least he had the man’s attention.
“Of course I could go on through more universes, but it’s damned risky. Plenty of them aren’t going to like an intruder from across the multiverse, they’re likely to fire first and ask questions afterwards.”
Christopher was frowning unhappily now, Phil was heartened to discover the idea of his dying - again - didn’t appeal to the other man. He continued carefully. “Let me stay in this universe. You said you’re short of doctors here, especially senior doctors familiar with Starfleet protocol. That’s a skill I can offer with confidence.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” protested Christopher. “You can’t think Starfleet is going to let you just waltz into our hospitals and start operating.”
“I understand that,” replied Phil calmly. “I’ll give myself up and take my chances. They can bump me down to ensign, put a tracking collar on me, make me operate under armed guard. One thing I’m certain of is that I can prove my skill as a surgeon. I’ve done a lot in the last half century as an adult, I’ve come to know a few things about myself. In the end two things have made me really happy. The one was having Chris in my life and the other was working as a surgeon. Nothing else I’ve ever done has left me as fulfilled. I shouldn’t have accepted the promotion to Surgeon-General, I let ambition get the way of honesty to myself. I’ve lost Chris and I have to accept that. Let me try to work here as a doctor. I promise I’ll leave you alone.”
Christopher was gnawing unhappily at his thumbnail as he listened. Phil’s heart twisted at the sight, some things stayed true across the multiverse. “Or maybe we can just be friends?” he added cautiously.
Christopher’s beautiful slate-blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Just be friends?” he queried.
The more time they spent together, the clearer it became to Phil that this was not his Chris. He might be a twin brought up in other circumstances, but Christopher was his own man. Still, some things stayed the same. Right now Christopher looked just like his Chris when he suspected Phil was lying to him, but he also suspected that it might be in his own best interests to play along.
Phil couldn’t help himself, he reacted as he would have done when Chris had challenged him in that way. He let his face become completely smooth, opened his eyes wide to show limpid blue pools of innocence and declared solemnly, “I swear on my mother’s grave, Christopher, we’ll just be friends.”
Generally Chris would have started laughing at this point and Phil would have known he was going to get his own way. Christopher didn’t laugh and his brow remained creased with suspicion but the corners of his lovely mouth started to twitch upwards helplessly. “I suppose we could try it,” conceded Christopher eventually, “Starfleet is in dire need of good doctors and I don’t like the thought of you adrift between universes.”
Phil wanted nothing more than to cross the room, set himself down in Christopher’s lap, and kiss away the lines of suspicion and grief until nothing was left but the laughter he could see hidden beneath. Still, if this was going to be worth all the effort, he had to take it slowly and not scare Christopher away. It was time to face up to what it would take to live in this world.
“Do you mind if I take a quick shower?” Phil asked. “Then we can beam over to headquarters?”
“What? Now?” Christopher looked disconcerted. “The number of people who are going to have to be informed that you’ve dropped in from another universe for a work experience gig are legion. None of them will appreciate being dragged back to the office on Sunday afternoon. We can do it in the morning.”
“Fair enough,” replied Phil, who was perfectly happy to lounge in the comfort of the Mojave ranch for as long as he could get away with it, simply basking in the joy of Christopher’s existence. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from offering a gentle tease, the urge to flirt with Christopher was terribly hard to resist. “Whatever shall we do until then?”
“Tell me about your Chris,” Christopher replied at last. “How you met, all that stuff.”
“I’m not sure I can manage to talk about him with you sitting over there,” admitted Phil after a moment. The grief of all he’d lost mixed in with the uncertainty of what he hoped he’d gained abruptly seemed too much.
To his surprise, Christopher crossed the room and slouched down next to him on the couch. “And if I’m sitting over here?” he asked.
Phil could feel the solid warmth of the other man’s body calling to him with aching familiarity. He had to clench his hands in the blanket to stop himself reaching out for Christopher. “If you’re sitting right here, I might get a bit confused about the whole just friends thing.”
Christopher chuckled and then slung an arm around Phil’s shoulders, pulling him down against his chest. “Yeah, well, that may be a lost cause. We’ll worry about it tomorrow.” He rubbed his cheek gently against Phil’s hair. “Tell me about him.”
“You just want to hear that I’m besotted with you right across the multiverse,” grumbled Phil as he settled down against Christopher’s broad chest, sliding a hand under his shirt to find the warm skin underneath. He began to tell him about the beautiful blond youth who had blazed into his life as a cocky young cadet all those years ago and held his heart ever since.
For the first time in eighteen months - in fact if he was honest with himself, for the first time since the emergency call from Vulcan nearly three years ago - he was looking forward to what tomorrow would bring.
THE END -
“Oh for fuck’s sake, please don’t do this.” Christopher had sat down next to him and he could feel the heat of the other man, they were so close together, but he no longer cared. Christopher was just another well-meaning stranger offering empty platitudes. He and Chris had had plenty of friends and he’d not been short of comforters after the disaster but none of them could reach in to the aching emptiness that lay in his heart. That burden was his to carry alone.
A hand reached out and began to stroke gently through his hair. “You have to know that this is not what your Chris would have wanted for you,” said Christopher at last. “I’m not stupid, I can work out that going universe-jumping was a Russian roulette gamble between finding an amenable version of me and getting yourself killed, with the odds stacked towards the latter.”
“Right,” snapped Phil, keeping his face buried against his knees, “and Philip would be impressed by you sunk in misery, drinking alone on the ranch after all this time? I’m sure he’d have told you all the trite stuff. Find a new partner, love again, move on with your life.”
“Yeah, well, he’s dead so he can fuck right off,” replied Christopher, his tense tone at odds with the gentle touch of his hand on Phil’s head.
Phil laughed humorlessly. “They both can. I’m sure that’s what I’d have said to Chris, but nothing prepares you for the truth of being left behind. Being dead is a damned cushy posting compared to this.”
“You know what I hate most about it all,” said Christopher eventually, his hand now curled tightly against the skin of Phil’s neck, just above his collar, his voice rough with an edge of tears. “That the only person in the world who could understand how lost I feel, how lonely and miserable, is Philip. The only person whose advice I want to ask about how the hell to cope with the rest of my life, is Philip. And he’s the reason---” Christopher’s voice cracked and he stopped abruptly. “Oh fuck it,” he continued, “come here.”
Christopher pulled him round so that Phil’s bent legs were across Christopher’s thighs and Phil’s side was set against Christopher’s chest. Phil twisted so he could bury his face in the crook of Christopher’s neck. “I know what you mean,” he admitted at last. “Everyone was so full of damned bright ideas about dealing with it all and the only person I wanted to talk to was Chris. And he was gone. I was so angry with him and so lost without him and all I wanted to do was ask him how he could do this to me and what the hell I was supposed to do next and I couldn’t... I couldn’t” His shoulders were shaking now as he hid wet eyes against Christopher’s neck.
“I know, I know.” Christopher was gently rocking them both. “God, I feel a tool for every set of empty platitudes I ever said to the families of my dead crewmen.”
“Died bravely in defense of the Federation? Yeah, I signed off my share of those too,” muttered Phil.
They sat in silence for a long while. Phil tentatively slid his arms around Christopher’s waist but there was no objection, and he pulled himself in tight against the reassuring bulk of the other man. The familiarity of it just made his heart ache more, he didn’t want to start out with someone new. He didn’t want the whole slow dance of finding someone who might be interesting, trying to get to know them, finding ways to compromise over all your differences, and then finally deciding that they weren’t worth the effort after all, and having to start over yet one more time. He really didn’t think he had the tenacity for it. He just wanted Chris back.
“It’s strange,” Phil said at last, “the idea that multiple versions of you exist right across the multiverse is enormously reassuring to me, it makes creation feel like a much safer place. The idea that there are multiple versions of me out there, people claiming to be me but doing it wrong? I hate the idea.” What he really hated was the idea that a version of himself had been foolish enough to abandon this lovely man to this kind of grief, in a clearly futile bid to offer aid to strangers.
Chris chuckled. “You always were impatient with people you didn’t think were up to the job.”
“Damn right,” Phil grumbled. “There ought to be minimum standards these men have to meet before they can claim to be me. And leaving you behind violates all those standards.”
Christopher ran a hand curiously over the insignia on the shoulder of Phil’s jacket. “I can’t believe you made Admiral, someone in your universe can’t have been thinking straight. You are so damn bloody-minded.”
“Hey, they know quality when they see it, where I come from. If you’re a mere Rear Admiral, then I outrank you,” retorted Phil.
“My universe, my rules,” replied Christopher with a grin.
“Your rules, hmmm?” replied Phil, quirking up an eyebrow. He couldn’t help himself, flirting with all versions of Chris seemed to be built into his DNA. He was pretty certain he had a type and his type was Christopher Pike.
Christopher smiled back at him, lowering his voice in recognition of the innuendo. “Oh yeah, my rules are the fun ones.”
“I’ll bet they are.” Phil felt rather giddy, he could sense the frisson of sexual interest in the air. It was achingly familiar, a long lost friend who had unexpectedly walked back through the door. But it was also strange, this man wasn’t his Chris and this held all the edge of a new encounter, when you weren’t sure how far you’d go or how well it would end, but had building hopes of great outcomes.
“Do you think you flirt with me right through the multiverse?” he asked, partly to check that that was what they were now doing.
“Assuming I have two good eyes and decent taste, I’m sure I do,” replied Christopher, his blue eyes alight with interest, focusing on Phil with the kind of intensity that had always left him breathless. Christopher’s eyes were increasingly flickering down to his mouth. Phil licked at his suddenly dry lips and watched Christopher’s eyes narrow. There was a static charge building deep in his belly and leaking out into the air between them. He tilted up his face, moving close enough that Christopher’s face was going out of focus, and waited.
He was rewarded by a soft brush of lips across his own. They had never been tentative with each other, not after he’d had to endure three years of pretty boy Chris Pike cock-teasing him as a cadet. They’d come together in a wild conflagration within hours of Chris’s graduation and kept it hot and heavy ever since. This cautious exploration was new to him, achingly sweet and deliciously teasing. For the first time it really did feel like he might be moving towards something new rather than just trying to re-find what he’d lost.
He teased softly at the corner of Christopher’s mouth with the tip of his tongue, exploring the rougher skin just beyond the slick lips. His Chris had always been properly clean-shaven but Christopher seemed a little more relaxed about his appearance and was sporting some very attractive stubble. Phil ran his cheek across it, letting the roughness send a shiver of arousal down his spine. Christopher chased down his mouth, catching Phil’s bottom lip between his teeth and pulling at it gently, before sliding his tongue into Phil’s mouth.
They were making out like teenagers, kissing for the sake of it, taking the time to delight in each new sensation. Phil was in no hurry to push towards orgasm, aware that this might be the only chance he would get with Christopher. Eventually, Christopher pushed him down onto the floor and began to unbutton his jacket, pulling it open and running his hand up under Phil’s undershirt. Phil was briefly self-conscious, suspecting that he wasn’t as well honed as the action doctor Philip that Christopher was used to, but the other man didn’t seem to notice. He simply continued his slow, curious exploration of the swell of Phil’s stomach and the rough curls on his chest.
Phil relaxed under the familiar weight of Christopher’s body and obligingly turned his neck when Christopher began to nibble up the side of it, shivering at the rasp of Christopher’s stubble across the sensitive skin. “Oh god, so good Chris.” Phil realized his mistake the moment he opened his mouth, even before he felt Christopher pull away from him.
“My name’s Christopher,” he said tersely, the horrible edge of tension back in his voice. Phil could sympathize, he didn’t want to know if Christopher was thinking about the late - and his opinion entirely unlamented - Philip.
Phil kept his voice light and looked straight up into Christopher’s face, deep into his eyes. “Hello, Christopher, I’m Phil, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He relaxed as he got a reluctant smile in return. Then with a wicked smirk, Christopher shifted on top of him, pushing a firm thigh between his legs and grinding down with it in ways that sent blood spiraling down into Phil’s groin. He’d not taken a lover since Chris’s death, it had been many months before he’d felt any sexual stirrings at all and then he’d preferred to deal with it himself, lost in a haze of aching memories of Chris.
Their sex life had never been bad but there was no doubt that in their latter years they’d known each other so well that they’d tended to take the short-cut to the most satisfying outcome and had perhaps became a bit complacent about it all. Phil had forgotten what a rush a new sexual encounter could be, the aching surprise of the sudden flood of arousal ramped up by the uncertainty of how it would all play out. He was harder than he’d been in years, with an edge of desperation that he’d thought left behind in his distant youth.
“Yeah, I can feel how happy you are to meet me,” Christopher said, continuing to rub against him in utterly frustrating, tantalizing ways. “I’m taking it as a compliment that my sexual allure is so powerful that you pursue me across universes.”
“The smugness of your vast ego is doubtless vibrating at quantum level throughout the multiverse,” retorted Phil as he pushed his hands into Christopher hair, luxuriating in the long forgotten feel of the curls twisting around his fingers. Still, even his spiraling excitement couldn’t disguise the slowly building ache in his back. “We need to take this somewhere else, in any universe I’m too old to be doing this on the kitchen floor.”
Christopher leapt up onto his feet with an easy grace that Phil’s Chris would have bitterly envied, and extended a hand to pull Phil up after him. For a moment they both hesitated. Phil knew why, the master bedroom seemed too much to handle, he had little wish to be in bed with the ghost of the late Philip. “Family room,” said Phil, setting off that way and towing Christopher behind him. The couch there was as long and as wide as their one at home and had doubtless been used for much the same purposes. He pulled off his jacket and shoes and then pushed Christopher down onto the couch and fell on top of him, reveling in the feeling of the solid body pinned under him. He anchored one hand in Christopher’s wayward curls to remind himself that this was Christopher, not his Chris, and began to explore with the other.
In keeping with the kissing in the kitchen they moved slowly, too caught up in the impossible delight of being together to push towards any particular destination. Phil found himself on a dizzying see-saw between Chris and Christopher, much of what he touched and tasted and smelt was so very Chris, and yet in every action would be details that reminded him that this was someone new. As he ran his hand up Christopher’s back, under the t-shirt, he found scars that were in the wrong places. As he rubbed his face against Christopher’s cheek, he found a scent that wasn’t quite what he expected, a similar taste in cologne but a different brand.
He hadn’t realized the extent to which Chris and he had come to follow a well-trod path in their sexual encounters until Christopher kept surprising him by reacting rather differently. The teasing uncertainty was wildly arousing and finally the barriers of pants and shirts became completely unacceptable.
“Get this off,” Phil ordered, as he pulled his own shirt over his head.
“Pushy bastard, aren’t you?” said Christopher with a grin, as he stripped off his t-shirt and then without pausing, began to take down his pants. Phil’s heart rose as he realized that, yes, they were going all the way. At least for the moment Christopher’s grief and anger seemed to have faded, and his eyes were alight with anticipation as he watched Phil get out of the last of his uniform.
Phil felt oddly self-conscious, suddenly very aware that Christopher really was a stranger. Although he and Chris had had an open relationship - with their many separations it wasn’t really practical to do anything else - Phil had never taken much advantage of it, and there had been nobody else since Chris had started his Earthside posting some five years ago.
Christopher didn’t seem to be put off. “Fuck me, you’re ridiculously hot right across the multiverse. Come here!” He pulled Phil down on top of him, intertwining their legs and starting to rub against him in quite maddening ways.
“What do you want to do?” asked Phil tentatively, feeling a bit overwhelmed by a possible discussion about who had done what in their respective relationships.
“Just like this,” replied Christopher, who seemed to be trying to get as much skin-on-skin as he could manage while kissing Phil breathless.
“Lube?” asked Phil between kisses, when the frotting began to creep a little too close to chafing.
“Good idea, hang on.” Christopher rolled over and began to dig down the back of the couch. “I don’t now if there is still any down here, it’s been a hell of a long time.”
“Have you had any? Since, you know,” asked Phil curiously.
“Got it!” Christopher emerged from the depths of the couch clutching onto the crumpled form of a nearly empty tube of lube. “No, I damned well haven’t, longest dry spell of my adult life, that man’s got a lot to answer for.”
Christopher lounged back and started to showily apply the lube to his generous erection. He seemed as comfortable with his body, and as given to showing it off for Phil’s pleasure, as Chris had been. “Come on, give me a hand, you’ve come a long way for this.”
“I didn’t come all this way just for your dick,” grumbled Phil as he slid down next to Christopher and began to smear the lube from Christopher’s cock across to his own. “You’re not that good.”
“Hey, if some guy’s claiming to be me, that means he has to be damned good, it’s in the DNA!”
“Less talk, more action,” demanded Phil, grabbing Christopher’s mouth in a greedy kiss while reveling in the slick hot slide of lubed skin. Eventually Christopher pulled away from him just enough to get his hand down between them, Phil slid his fingers between Christopher’s and together they spiraled towards orgasm, a rising rush of lust and love and, oh fuck, Christopher!
Phil lay in a boneless haze, limp with satisfaction, letting his mind wander aimlessly over all the strange events of the last few hours. Chris had been affectionate and happy to have sex as often as possible, but he’d always been restless too, easily bored and tending to reach for his padd after just a few minutes of afterglow. Christopher on the other hand seemed perfectly happy just to lie curled up tightly around Phil, running his fingers through his hair.
“Christopher, do you mind being an Admiral?” asked Phil eventually.
“Mind? It was what I chose,” replied Christopher.
Phil twisted round so he could see Christopher’s face. “You didn’t get bumped up against your will?”
“Hell no. Nero was the last fucking straw, I was a lot less taken with the black after that. Actually Talos was close to the last straw, I very nearly walked out on Starfleet afterwards, it took Philip to put me back together and keep me in the service. In retrospect, maybe that’s where it started to go wrong for us. Or not go wrong exactly, but go less right. I was pretty heavily invested in Philip after that, he was kind of my talisman in the black, and when he told me he was sick of being a CMO, sick of wiping snotty noses of ensigns when there was real medical work to be done elsewhere, I wasn’t happy. But he was always his own man and we never had a clinging relationship, so I didn’t try to stop him going. Were you CMO to your Chris?”
“Yeah, I was and eventually I requested a transfer too. We had an open relationship and Chris made full use of it, an endless string of diplomats and alien potentates and visiting brass, none of them meant anything to him, but still. I got pretty sick of it. I was hoping he’d ask me to stay on board but he didn’t.”
“Oh fuck, I wonder if we both misunderstood what was going on,” said Christopher.
“Who knows?” replied Phil resignedly. “As we’ve worked out, we’re not them, and it’s too damned late to ask them.”
“Yeah. Anyway, when HQ proposed four years Earthside supervising the fitting out of the Enterprise in return for getting to captain her I was more than happy to agree. I got to see more of Philip that way too. Of course I was intending to do another full tour, everyone was always telling me that being a deep space captain was my first, best destiny. But I enjoyed teaching the cadets and I was fascinated by being part of the overarching tactical planning for Starfleet. Then I took the Enterprise up on her maiden flight and got captured by Nero. And, yeah-- the less said about that the better.” Christopher’s face took on an unhappy pinched look, as if he was pushing away unwanted memories.
“They’d have let me keep the Enterprise once I was cleared for duty again but I was fucking done with deep space. I took her up for six months to train up Kirk, cocky little shit that he is, and then happily handed her over to him. I hoped Philip would settle on Earth with me but he was still committed to running off to the site of each new humanitarian catastrophe. I always told him it would kill him one day and I was right.”
“Sounds like you were lucky in some ways,” Phil replied, thinking sadly of all the ways in which Chris had suffered. “My Chris was desperate to get back into the black but he was badly injured by Nero, lost the Enterprise, was booted up to Admiral and hated it. When Kirk fucked up and got demoted, Chris jumped at the chance to be a captain again. Which allowed us to have a bitter fight about it hours before he got killed by Khan.”
“Huh. I’d have stayed on Earth with you,” said Christopher, speaking very softly, his mouth against Phil’s hair.
“I guess it’s hard to know how much you value something until you finally lose it,” mused Phil.
“Hell of a way to learn that lesson,” muttered Christopher.
Phil turned so that his face was buried against Christopher’s neck and finally admitted very quietly, “I said things to him that I never got to take back, awful hurtful things.”
“He knew you loved him,” Christopher replied with steady certainty. “Hell, I’ve barely met you and I can tell how much you loved him. He was a lucky man.”
Phil could feel the exhaustion of the day washing over him now - walking away from his world, jumping through universes, dealing with Christopher, facing up to the reality of all he’d lost and yet somehow finding he’d gained something extraordinary, even if he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He closed his eyes, letting the feel and the smell of Christopher fill his senses, surround with a sense of peace and safety that he hadn’t felt for many long months.
* * *
Phil slowly slid into awareness. It took a moment to realise that he hadn’t simply fallen asleep on the family room couch in exhausted misery and been plagued by a series of particularly bizarre dreams. He was in fact several universes over, with a cushion placed under his head and a soft throw tucked around his naked body. The warm solidity of Christopher had gone, though.
Pushing himself up on one elbow, he look around, blinking sleepily, and finally realised that Christopher had dressed again and was sitting on a chair across the room, watching him intently. Phil pulled himself up into a sitting position, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders while watching Christopher cautiously, unsure what mood the man was now in.
“I appreciate how far you’ve come and I’m very glad to have met you,” said Christopher calmly. “Nevertheless, you need to go home. This thing between us is madness, it’s not the right way to cope. We both need to come to terms with what we’ve lost and move on.”
It was an eminently sensible little speech, sane and considered, and something about its stilted quality made Phil suspect that Christopher had been carefully rehearsing it over and over again while he slept. He rubbed a hand across his face, trying to dispel the last wisps of sleep and pull his scattered thoughts together. While it might be true that the dream he’d been pursuing was impossible, that didn’t mean he was just going to let go of what he’d inadvertently found. He’d not come this far and risked this much to give up in the face of a little sanity. He quickly considered his options and then offered up a slightly modified version of the truth.
“You’re right, I understand that now, this was a terrible idea on my part. But Christopher, I’m not sure I can get back. I’ve been hopping through universes, dialing them up at random. Chris was the one who figured out this technology, I was just punching buttons. I don’t think I can find my way home.”
It wasn’t entirely true. He was fairly sure he could get back and he’d set it up so he’d have a window of time before Starfleet noticed he was missing. But if he’d got it wrong.... If they’d worked it out.... A Surgeon-General who went AWOL to hunt down versions of his dead lover across the multiverse was highly unlikely to pass a psych evaluation. He’d be lucky to get an honorable discharge, and might well lose his medical license. He was damned if he was going to have to manage without Chris and without being a doctor.
He paused in his explanation to see how Christopher was taking it. At least he had the man’s attention.
“Of course I could go on through more universes, but it’s damned risky. Plenty of them aren’t going to like an intruder from across the multiverse, they’re likely to fire first and ask questions afterwards.”
Christopher was frowning unhappily now, Phil was heartened to discover the idea of his dying - again - didn’t appeal to the other man. He continued carefully. “Let me stay in this universe. You said you’re short of doctors here, especially senior doctors familiar with Starfleet protocol. That’s a skill I can offer with confidence.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” protested Christopher. “You can’t think Starfleet is going to let you just waltz into our hospitals and start operating.”
“I understand that,” replied Phil calmly. “I’ll give myself up and take my chances. They can bump me down to ensign, put a tracking collar on me, make me operate under armed guard. One thing I’m certain of is that I can prove my skill as a surgeon. I’ve done a lot in the last half century as an adult, I’ve come to know a few things about myself. In the end two things have made me really happy. The one was having Chris in my life and the other was working as a surgeon. Nothing else I’ve ever done has left me as fulfilled. I shouldn’t have accepted the promotion to Surgeon-General, I let ambition get the way of honesty to myself. I’ve lost Chris and I have to accept that. Let me try to work here as a doctor. I promise I’ll leave you alone.”
Christopher was gnawing unhappily at his thumbnail as he listened. Phil’s heart twisted at the sight, some things stayed true across the multiverse. “Or maybe we can just be friends?” he added cautiously.
Christopher’s beautiful slate-blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Just be friends?” he queried.
The more time they spent together, the clearer it became to Phil that this was not his Chris. He might be a twin brought up in other circumstances, but Christopher was his own man. Still, some things stayed the same. Right now Christopher looked just like his Chris when he suspected Phil was lying to him, but he also suspected that it might be in his own best interests to play along.
Phil couldn’t help himself, he reacted as he would have done when Chris had challenged him in that way. He let his face become completely smooth, opened his eyes wide to show limpid blue pools of innocence and declared solemnly, “I swear on my mother’s grave, Christopher, we’ll just be friends.”
Generally Chris would have started laughing at this point and Phil would have known he was going to get his own way. Christopher didn’t laugh and his brow remained creased with suspicion but the corners of his lovely mouth started to twitch upwards helplessly. “I suppose we could try it,” conceded Christopher eventually, “Starfleet is in dire need of good doctors and I don’t like the thought of you adrift between universes.”
Phil wanted nothing more than to cross the room, set himself down in Christopher’s lap, and kiss away the lines of suspicion and grief until nothing was left but the laughter he could see hidden beneath. Still, if this was going to be worth all the effort, he had to take it slowly and not scare Christopher away. It was time to face up to what it would take to live in this world.
“Do you mind if I take a quick shower?” Phil asked. “Then we can beam over to headquarters?”
“What? Now?” Christopher looked disconcerted. “The number of people who are going to have to be informed that you’ve dropped in from another universe for a work experience gig are legion. None of them will appreciate being dragged back to the office on Sunday afternoon. We can do it in the morning.”
“Fair enough,” replied Phil, who was perfectly happy to lounge in the comfort of the Mojave ranch for as long as he could get away with it, simply basking in the joy of Christopher’s existence. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from offering a gentle tease, the urge to flirt with Christopher was terribly hard to resist. “Whatever shall we do until then?”
“Tell me about your Chris,” Christopher replied at last. “How you met, all that stuff.”
“I’m not sure I can manage to talk about him with you sitting over there,” admitted Phil after a moment. The grief of all he’d lost mixed in with the uncertainty of what he hoped he’d gained abruptly seemed too much.
To his surprise, Christopher crossed the room and slouched down next to him on the couch. “And if I’m sitting over here?” he asked.
Phil could feel the solid warmth of the other man’s body calling to him with aching familiarity. He had to clench his hands in the blanket to stop himself reaching out for Christopher. “If you’re sitting right here, I might get a bit confused about the whole just friends thing.”
Christopher chuckled and then slung an arm around Phil’s shoulders, pulling him down against his chest. “Yeah, well, that may be a lost cause. We’ll worry about it tomorrow.” He rubbed his cheek gently against Phil’s hair. “Tell me about him.”
“You just want to hear that I’m besotted with you right across the multiverse,” grumbled Phil as he settled down against Christopher’s broad chest, sliding a hand under his shirt to find the warm skin underneath. He began to tell him about the beautiful blond youth who had blazed into his life as a cocky young cadet all those years ago and held his heart ever since.
For the first time in eighteen months - in fact if he was honest with himself, for the first time since the emergency call from Vulcan nearly three years ago - he was looking forward to what tomorrow would bring.
THE END -