Title: Secrets and Silence
Fandom: Star Trek Enterprise
Rating: R
Length: 200
Content notes: Reference to sexual activity
Author notes: This is set sometime during mid-Season 2, prior to the beginning of a relationship between Jonathan Archer and Malcolm Reed. It is a double drabble, the first part being Jonathan's voice and the second from Malcolm's point of view.
Summary: One day I'll tell him.



I try not to let it show… not to let him see it. But when he looks up from his console and meets my eyes, I sometimes catch a fleeting quirk of his lips that might be a smile.

Alone in the night, I keep no secrets. Darkness permits the fantasy that the hands touching me are not my own. Behind closed eyelids, I see his storm-grey eyes intense with passion. The name I breathe when I come is his. But no strong arms hold me close in afterglow.

Waking, I don silence with the uniform. For today, at least.

__________________________________

Men have sometimes shown an interest… some explicitly, some under various pretences. None in such eloquent silence. I don’t know whether he’s protecting me or deluding himself by pretending there’s nothing between us, or could never be.

At night in the darkness, he fills my dreams… a vivid presence, conveying as much love as passion, leaving me shaken and bereft when I wake alone, spent.

Every morning I resolve again to respect the distance between us. But I know my eyes betray me.

One day I will breach the silence… risk a touch, or a single word. His name, perhaps.