Before the Watchful Stars
by Setcheti
Date: Posted to EntSTSlash
Rating: PG
Summary: The
Warnings: non-graphic slash content, MULTIPLE DEATHFIC
Author's notes: This was a wild
hare in response to blackgoddess’ Deathfic
Challenge. Don't know where exactly it
came from, but I woke up this morning with it in my head and after that...well,
fic happens, I guess.
“Can I die now?”
Malcolm Reed-Tucker pushed himself up on one elbow to look down at his husband, forcing a stern frown. “I shall be highly offended if you do, Charles Tucker-Reed.”
Trip laughed. “I’d think it would be a compliment,” he teased, pulling the armory officer down for another kiss. “I mean, what a reputation that would give you.”
“Mmm, just want I’ve always wanted,” Malcolm murmured against his lips. “A posthumous reputation as a man-killer, I’m sure my father would be beside himself with pride.”
“Aw, I’m sure the Reed family reputation could use a little spicin’ up,” the engineer teased. “And anyway, you’re a Tucker now, remember?”
“Yet another thing I’ll no doubt have to answer for someday – making you a Reed,” Malcolm responded, letting himself sprawl comfortably over Trip’s broad chest, the soft hairs there tickling his cheek reassuringly. He yawned. “We’re still agreed, then?”
“Yep, sure are.” Trip’s fingers combed through his hair soothingly, possessively. “Much as I’d like to let go just like we are right now, we’ve got a duty to the ship and the cap’n and this ain’t it.”
Malcolm snuggled closer. “I love you, Charles Tucker-Reed.”
“I love you too, Malcolm Reed-Tucker.”
They lay together for several more endless, comforting moments before they pried themselves apart and out of the bed with matching groans and began to stumble through the familiar routine of becoming clean and presentable. Dress uniforms went on, decorations were carefully and precisely applied, faint stubble was removed and mussed hair was brushed back into order. And then they checked the waiting, oh-so-carefully composed messages one last time, looked once more around the shared quarters…and headed for the bridge.
To die.
It had only been ten hours previous that the ship’s sensors had picked up the anomaly, a cloudlike mass drifting through space unlike anything they’d ever seen before. The sensors hadn’t been able to tell them much about it, only that it was huge and strangely beautiful and that it was there. And so in the spirit of all intrepid explorers they’d moved closer, careful but curious, to see what it was.
And what it was…was deadly. The
cloud had all but leaped on them, pouncing like a hunting lion and rushing
through the ship with invisible claws extended and a silently triumphant
roar. Reed had aimed a rapidly-altered
torpedo into the heart of the cloud before it could get away and had blown it
apart, never to hunt again, but its demise came too late for the crew of the
Jonathan Archer was a fighter, as stubborn as they come, but he knew
when to give in gracefully. He’d gotten
on the shipwide intercom and made a speech, informing
his crew calmly that there was nothing Phlox could do for any of them and that
they were all to secure their stations and then consider themselves off duty
for the remainder of the time they had left – an estimated seven hours, at that
point. Death would come softly and
painlessly; they would all simply fall asleep as the radiation overcame
them. He’d told them he was proud of
them, that history would remember them, and that any messages they wanted sent
back to Earth or elsewhere would be retrieved along with the ship’s logs when
Starfleet finally did get someone out to the
Tucker and Reed had made the most of the time left to them, the
bittersweet knowledge that it was their honeymoon as well as their last time
together adding a poignant intensity to their lovemaking that could never,
would never be recaptured. But neither
man had forgotten his duty to the
As expected, Archer was sitting in his command chair with Porthos on his lap; the beagle raised its head when the two men came out of the turbolift and then lowered it back to his master’s knee. “Permission to join you, Cap’n?” Trip requested.
The captain waved the hand that wasn’t petting Porthos, the gesture encompassing the whole bridge and the starfield beyond. “Be my guest.” He looked up at them, taking in the dress uniforms and the extra pips on Malcolm’s collar with pride; he was in his dress uniform as well, every medal and ribbon polished and in place. “The seating isn’t great, but the view is fabulous.”
Trip grinned and pulled his husband down with him to sit on the floor, their backs against the weapons console. “Seats look okay to me.”
“Undignified, but sufficient,” Malcolm added. “Have we heard…”
“No. But I know they’ll come, eventually,” Archer told him. “They’ll retrieve our logs, everybody’s messages, and then they’ll...”
“Fire torpedoes,” Reed finished for him with a smile. “Wish I could see that, it should be beautiful.”
“I’ll stick around if you do,” Tucker told him affectionately, smiling himself as he wrapped his arm more tightly around the smaller man. “But we just might have better things to do, so I’m not makin’ any promises.”
“You already made the one that counts most in my book, luv,” Reed said, giving him a small, chaste kiss before settling into the engineer’s hold with a sigh. “So I suppose we’ll just enjoy the view and see how it turns out, shall we?”
“We shall.” Tucker shifted a little to get comfortable and then looked over his husband’s head to Archer. “Got a lot of brass showin’ there, Jonny.”
“More of it than I remembered having.” Archer snorted softly. “At least I won’t have to polish it again. And I seem to recall you having quite a bit yourself, Trip.”
“Got enough, I guess – prob’ly more than I deserve.”
“You deserve them all and then some,” Reed assured him. “After all, blind stupid luck does have to count for something.”
Warm, honest laughter followed the remark, the pleasant reassurance of comradeship and bravely shared fate. “I think we’ve all had our share of that,” was Archer’s response, and then companionable silence fell and remained unbroken for quite some time.
Finally the captain stirred himself from his thoughts and glanced over at Tucker and Reed…and saw with sorrow that his oldest friend had already succumbed. Malcolm had his cheek pressed against the dark blond head that rested on his shoulder, and silent tears were streaking his face. “It wasn’t nearly enough, was it?” Archer observed quietly, apologetically. “Only two years…”
“Fifty years wouldn’t have been,” was the armory officer’s quiet, even reply. Gray eyes shifted from the forward screen to lock with Archer’s hazel ones, but the captain saw no regret there, no condemnation. “But…this is a good way for it to end, a much better one than I had ever envisioned for us.” He turned back to his husband and kissed his forehead. “At the very least, we get to shuffle off together. And we’ll leave no unfinished business behind us, we had time for…” his voice cracked slightly, dropping to a near whisper, “for everything.”
“I suppose that’s the most we can expect from the universe,” Archer agreed. “It’s been a pleasure serving with you, Lieutenant Commander Reed.”
“It’s been an honor serving with you…Jonathan Archer,” was the quiet reply. “Perhaps we can try it again sometime.”
Archer chuckled softly. “I’ll see if I can arrange it.”
Silence fell over the bridge again – over the whole ship, Archer assumed – but even with his blurring vision fixed on the endless, pitiless starfield spread out in front of them he still knew the exact moment Malcolm joined Trip in oblivion. He continued to stroke Porthos’ soft, smooth, still coat, feeling privileged to have shared their last few moments with the two men and somehow not feeling at all alone. “Captain’s log, final entry,” he said quietly, almost reverently. “We did what we came out here to do…we explored, we discovered, we went where no man had gone before. It was worth it, it meant something. I know there will be another Enterprise and another after that, and on into the future the same way she’s sailed forward from the past, and I hope that the captains of each and every one of those ships will have the chance to feel as honored, as privileged as I do right now to be a link in that timeless chain.”
And then silence fell a final time. And the stars continued to watch.