#ALL this....while Tom Harry and B'Elanna are bowling in holodeck 4

[bumblingbabooshka]

Chakotay/Janeway/Tuvok relationship is about uncrossable lines and things not said out loud (because they don’t have to be? because you don’t want them to be? because it’d make it real?)

It’s about loving someone who you know is looking past you at someone else. A relationship that’s haunted by people that’re still alive somewhere. It’s about knowing that someone you’ve never met has a hold on this person you love and that you’ll never compare - how can you measure up to memory? It’s about drowning in guilt, about asking forgiveness from someone who can’t grant it to you (because even if they said those words “I forgive you” they’re not the person you need to hear it from, it wouldn’t make a difference). It’s about whispering the wrong name as you let yourself lean into them (just this once) and being met with a silence heavy with acceptance. A hand on the back of your head. Steady breathing in a dark room. It’s about trusting someone you’d never in your life trust, let alone love, under any other circumstances but because of some terrible miraculous trick the universe pulled on all of you (because of the deliberate actions of that hand, the hand that doomed you, that pulled you away from all that you knew, now threading its fingers gently through your hair) - you do. You trust this person with your life and it’s only in this specific circumstance that that could ever be possible. Should you be grateful for this? Would you trade it, to have your old life and loves back? It’s about gazing across the room at two people who look like they’ve known each other forever, talking softly, eyes fixed on one another, and feeling a panic you’ve never known before. Because who do you have besides them? What are your other options? It’s about loving people who you know could and would die at any moment. Out of duty, out of necessity, out of a love for something greater - there’s always something greater pressing down on all of you.  It’s about feeling very small under it. And very silly. This doesn’t matter, none of it does. Sometimes it doesn’t matter in the best way and you chase that feeling until it eventually runs out. And then, even when you’re drowning in wherever that leaves you, at least it’s better than being alone. Seventy years is a terrifyingly long time.

#everyday I think of these bastards #Chakotay/Janeway/Tuvok #and everyday I think 'I should write a fic' and then what? crickets. #-listens to first im sorry and thinks so hard about these three my brain starts smoking- #you are not my shelf / to hold up my old self (i'm sorry) #Interesting also to me that there can always be an 'exclusion' in the relationship #Janeway and Tuvok have known each other for years...they actually know Mark and T'Pel while Chakotay doesn't #Tuvok and Chakotay were in the Maquis together while Janeway wasn't #Janeway and Chakotay idk how to describe this but they can have a will-they-won't-they romance thing which Tuvok can't #He can't flirt with someone over breakfast #picturing Janeway who's unable to let herself be physically intimate with Chakotay (too far) and Chakotay comes to Tuvok to ask him about it #(since Tuvok knows her better than anyone -rueful tone-) and as they're talking the conversation gets more and more intimate...Tuvok is #speaking as Janeway - saying what he imagines she thinks - what her reasons are and Chakotay kisses him #and its only one kiss and then they break away but Tuvok tells Janeway anyway and she's like...can you...show me? and they mind meld #and they can both hear his thoughts in the moment and the ONLY thought in his head as he kissed Tuvok was a name. 'Kathryn'. #ALL this....while Tom Harry and B'Elanna are bowling in holodeck 4 #st voyager #also although Janeway could technically be excluded from the Maquis thing...it's ultimately the weakest exclusion. She's like...an anchor #and the catalyst #t his is all my interpretation of couuurse~ #my writing #I suppose