Work Text:
She can’t stop dreaming.
She lies down for bed, stressed and wound up over the day’s turmoil–a typical rough day heightened and compounded by all the events spanning the last year. Hell, spanning the entire voyage. She falls into her dream without realizing she fell asleep, her thoughts still on high alert and her eyes turned toward the ceiling. He slips into the bed without a sound, crawling beneath the covers and into her mind.
She knows who it is without looking. She’s had this dream before.
They’ve done this so many times, connecting and reconnecting across the quadrant.
He spoons her, his naked chest flush against her back, his body warm and smooth and solid like he might be a real man sharing her bed. One hand reaches beneath her and pulls her close, long fingers stroking her stomach and then her breasts. His other hand slips between her legs.
She’s already wet and wanting with expectation, but he takes his time to caress and explore her as if she’s a part of the universe he’s not yet discovered.
She arches into the touch and murmurs something she won’t remember; she thinks it’s his name.
He’s mouthing hotly at her ear now, breathless and wanting. “Kathy.”
He gently rolls her onto her stomach, spreading her legs open with his knees and keeping one hand casually against her clit. She expects him to enter her then but he doesn’t. He’s pressing deep, long kisses against her neck. And then he’s kissing down her spine at the same time, all at once, his mouth and hands running over her back and breasts and clit–his touches soft and warm and the only thing which exists in the darkness.
This can only happen because it’s him. He’s not a real man, not a real lover. She understands this.
This can only happen because it’s a dream.
He rocks against her and she feels herself around him now, feels him hard inside her as other parts of him jump into her mind. He’s both above her and underneath her, outside and inside, all encompassing and everywhere at once yet somehow still anchored to the moment. To her.
She comes endlessly and falls down into her bed, down into the ship, and down into the universe.
***
Sometimes in her dreams she’s on the bridge, shouting orders and reviewing reports like she would on a normal day. And then he appears, wearing the regulation uniform he didn’t earn and doesn’t deserve, sliding into the commander’s chair like Chakotay doesn’t exist and never did. He crosses his legs and leans toward her with his chin propped on his palm. He waits without saying a word.
She should be alarmed he’s here but she isn’t. She ignores his presence in the corner of her eye for as long as she wants.
Eventually, with the tilt of her head, she beckons him.
He rises from the chair and sinks down onto his knees like he might be about to pray. With ease, he slides off her boots and her trousers and her underwear. She watches him, intrigued.
If she wants to be seen, his gaze sweeps up and remains fixed on her, his dark eyes observing every movement and shift of expression. If she doesn’t want to be seen, he keeps his eyes closed. Either way, he always pulls her legs over his shoulders and buries his face in between her thighs.
She’s reassured this must be a dream because no one on the bridge responds to her expletives, or her whines, or the fact she’s getting eaten right in her captain’s chair.
His lips and tongue feel like something else, like nothing she’s ever had before, hot and wet as they slide over and into her. She grips his hair and desperately tries to pull him deeper toward where she needs him. He can’t breathe, but she has no concern for him. He’s not a real man; he doesn’t need to breathe. He laps further into her with fervor, responding to her body, pressing her open with his tongue. He’s sucking and nipping at every inch of her he finds, his arms sliding underneath her legs and around her hips so he can pull her further into his face.
She comes easily, and then she comes again. She comes however many times she wants to. She falls nowhere this time and instead remains infinitely fixed in her chair until she’s raw and fading.
He pushes himself up to look into her eyes and grins wickedly, his face slick with her. When they kiss, she enjoys tasting herself on him.
***
Sometimes she dreams without sex. She’s back in bed, restless and unable to silence her swelling thoughts and emotions. She cries, mostly from fatigue but also from the things she refuses to talk about. Her mind is completely and utterly awake when he appears, sliding beneath the covers like he’s been called.
He wraps his arms around her and pulls her into his chest, his nose and mouth buried in her hair, breathing her in. She relaxes into his touch, grateful but unwilling to express it. She turns so she can wipe her tears against his uniform and wrap her own arms around him.
He cups her chin and tilts her head up, but in the darkness she’s unable to look at him.
He kisses her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. She lets him.
She must slip out of the dream eventually, but in the morning these nights are so blurry. She never remembers sliding into a dreamless sleep, but she wakes to the ping of her alarm and an empty bed.
When she sees him–the real him in the real world–during his frequent visits, when they’re both fully awake and fully clothed, she searches for a sign. Anything. She studies his face and watches his movements, waiting for that smile or that wink or that gesture to signal a shared secret. She braces herself, but the sign never comes. He flirts and touches her often, but nothing lingers like it does when she’s asleep.
She nearly asks. At the very least he must know about the dreams, must have pried into her mind by now and watched them like the voyeur she knows him to be. She doesn’t ask. She hopes she never knows.