Porcelain (The Ill-Fitting Tribute Remix)
Remix of Porcelain by Firecracker.
You come home and you're a hero.
Sure, right.
You come home and your lover is long gone; you can forgive him. Coming home your lover leaves and you're left alone. You can't blame him because you slept with his fiancˇ. But you lied because you are not alone; at least not really because she stuck around (or did you ask her, or did you have to) and she's beautiful so you haven't complained.
You come home and everything is quiet and all silent and you can hear each breath that you pretend to take. You can feel the air all dirty and dusty because you no longer live where the atmosphere is scrubbed. No ash in the air, but it smells lived in and so dirty because it's not home.
But home is in dry dock and you have two pips on your collar that tells you you've moved to a cushier place where a flux stabilizer won't stop the ground from shaking. You can cook yourself eggs, you can cook her bacon strips with potatoes and grits; you can but you don't. You both are always so tired in the morning and lately it's because you've been getting home late since 'work' was piling up and you lost the keys to the handcuffs.
Party invitations come in hourly; for scholarships and memorials and fundraisers. Barcley's behind most of them and sometimes you want to track him down and wrap your fingers around his throat. You don't of course but you wish you could sometimes. They always tell you to come in your old uniform, even though you're an admiral now and the style is all wrong and besides you've gained weight. Your arms are a bit heavier; your thighs touch sometimes when you walk. No one notices, or at least they don't say a damn thing even though the uniform is too damn tight and sometimes you can't breath when everyone is looking at you expecting a fucking speech about family and honor.
Seven doesn't say anything of course; she still kisses you hard (soft, barely touching) and still loves you against walls, in between sheet and even when you don't deserve it. You really don't deserve it lately and you know everyone else sees it, but they won't say anything. They won't say anything to you because you are forever Captain Janeway.
You are no longer a captain anymore, the two pips on your collar burn into your neck. You don't need to be reminded because you are still bitter. You can move on, you can, you just don't want to and you don't know what bothers you more.
Tonight's banquet is lush and overflowing with food and people that want to touch you. You want to tell them to mind their own business; their fascination with your life with your life is sad and pathetic. But you wish you were able to look back on your life the same way: with awe and respect and reverence. But you can't because even now you remember all the hard times and how you would have done things better. But you can't because you know if you could change one thing it would be never coming back.
You don't know why you came back; something to do with duty -you supposed- but who cares about that? All they care about are the polished decks and the imitation starfields that hint to what was once home. It's easier for them to remember than to relive.
Even for you.
You hate yourself because when you've shaken the hands and smiled for the cameras you can't shake the feeling that you are still being watched. It's always someone of course, and maybe this time it's Tom or Harry.
Chakotay has a drink in his hand and a smile for you, "Kathryn," he hugs you and you smell something sweet, "Enjoying the party?"
No, there's not enough alcohol in the quadrant for you to enjoy this goddamn party.
You talk over stupid shit but it feels good to be back in the pattern of give and take. He has a good handle on nostalgia and the old blueprints of your conversations from when you could tell him to do anything. You relish the moment because his girl (for now) will come by soon and remind you how little you have control over these days. He doesn't have to listen to you but you have to listen to him.
His girlfriend's name is Marisa and you check your nails to see if they are clean. She smiles at you and you can see yourself flit behind her eyes. Chakotay sees these but he doesn't say anything; out of respect of what you once were to him. Her name is Marisa and she's gorgeous: hair all reds and copper and all sorts of glinting light. She laughs at all the right times and asks all the right questions so that you have to lean in and whisper into her ear. She smiles against your cheek and Chakotay finds the inner rim of his glass of utmost fascination.
"Marisa? Kathryn? More drinks?"
Of course you both are parched, and you breathe in deeply as she steps away and tells you both, "Not for me, there's some people I should go see...leave you two to reminisce."
You are tired of reminiscing and after a few awkward smiles towards each other, you decide that this isn't worth it and you really don't want to remember what you two used to have.
"That drink sounded like a good idea... and I should go and catch up with Tom and B'Elanna. I'll see you later on." You tell him this and he pretends like it doesn't hurt; but it does because that's how you calculated it to be. You want it to hurt but you try not to notice his disappointment anyway.
You are self destructive, you know this; you smile at Seven across the room even as you make your way to Mark. He's looking outside a window when you slip beside him clutching your cup and hoping no one else notices the desperation in your stride.
He looks nothing like his picture.
That's a lie.
The picture sat on your desk, with the dog and the backyard to the perfect house that you both put a down payment on and still languishes in Central California. You both are too scared to sell it, afraid of what that would mean and you hold half of the lease and get half of the rent. You don't need the money because you are rich from all the talks you do and the credits that are wired to you and your crew monthly from hundreds of memorial institutions. Money that's tagged for your kids so they can go to a good college; scholarships for offspring you will never have.
You are rich and you still get half of the rent.
Mark smiles at you and you pretend to listen when he talks. His mouth and lips move and you remember them against your neck and down your stomach. A low thrum comes from his throat and you think of atmosphere scrubbers and the rattling of warp engines. He smiles once and you snap out of it to smile back; when he doesn't look your face is blank and you check out Seven's ass. He probably knows this because his voice is patronizing and he looks down at you because you're short (and still a lost, stupid woman).
You ask him to dance --"for old times' sake". You both shuffle for a few seconds, pretending to make small talk, but his fingers are pressing painfully low on your back and you can feel his erection against your hip.
There are doors and you both slam them shut before he slams you against the outside wall and pushes your dress up around your waist. A hiss of breath and he's in you and you smile as he slams in harder and harder and harder still. You fucking love this and you bite his shoulder when he comes inside.
You fucking love this and when your necklace breaks so do you because he's hit your clit right there and it feels more real then the past few years.
He straightens his tie and smiles; he looks like he's beaten you in a chess game because he's got the look on his face that tells her: Stupid girl.
You love that look and you don't know why.
The necklace isn't going to pick itself up and you bend down to grab it with your fingers. Your thighs are wet and you walk gingerly back inside, metal indenting your palm.
Seven doesn't look at you until she absolutely has to, until you've got your hand on her thigh and your lips against her ear, "I've been waiting to do this all night."
"I find that doubtful," She looks at you, eyes hooded, right eyebrow barely twitching.
You smile and run a hand down to her waist. She grabs your wrist and she's painfully cold. She's heard, then, about you and Mark and she tells you as such. Everyone is talking about you, and not just about how much of a hero you are and how strong and courageous you were by yourself out there alone. The ensigns that shook when they took your hand also whispered about what a slut you are. You are so strong, but love the cock just like any other woman.
"You humiliated yourself, and you humiliated me." Seven tries to push past you but you don't let her because your hand is still on her waist and it tightens almost imperceptibly.
Seven says something about self-respect and pride and you bite back a laugh; your tongue is bitter and you are barely able to swallow. You don't care, and you tell her this, you shout it laughing, but she knows and more importantly you know how stupid you've been about all of this.
"-I am merely an object for you to vent your sexual urges on when you can find nobody more convenient." She's so bitter and so angry and so cold and when she says it like that, you catch a hint of vulnerability that almost makes you wet. You like watching her break and that disturbs (excites) you.
"How dare you say that? You know fucking well how I feel about you. Do you think you'd be safe in a cozy Fleet research job if it weren't for me? No I can tell you you'd be the research subject, lying in restraints in some secret lab being injected with their latest anti- Borg pathogen." This is you pulling rank, even though she's just a researcher, and you are an admiral and you've got the fucking pips burning into your neck to prove it. This is you pulling rank because now you only have one person to order around and even she doesn't take it most of the time.
She says she doesn't recognize you, "I cannot recognize anything in you of the Captain Janeway I met." She says as if that's your fault; as if you had any control over what happened after you all got home and everything began to go wrong.
"Well, I'm not Captain Janeway any more, am I? But I'm still the same person. People don't change."
Her eyebrow rises slightly and some of that superiority in Mark reflects back at her through Seven. She compares you to the Borg and you tell her to shut the fuck up. The words should be foreign on your tongue but it just gets you hot and you know Seven is getting wet anyway. Her catsuit rolls off your fingers and you're knuckles deep in two seconds flat.
Seven threatens to leave and you ignore her. Maybe you want her to leave you to yourself and your fucking pips and your framed pictures of what you once where. Maybe you want this. That way she doesn't have to remind you of when you had something real.
Mark has horrible taste in hotels. He chooses the worst places to fuck you and but you almost like it because this way you know you aren't making pretenses. You are not a respected admiral when he's got his fingers dug deep into your thighs; you are not a survivor when you've got your lips wrapped hard around his dick and finger so deep inside of him that he hisses as he pulls your hair. This is a mockery of what you two once were and you relish the taste.
He never fails to remind you about what you have at home; sometimes he tells you in detail, about the curve of Seven's breast and the way she would look sucking his cock. He tells you this as you've got your knees on either side of him and you're moving up and down. He tells you this when he bites your shoulder and licks your ear and you fucking like it.
Seven was going to be everything to you and you almost wish it were still true.
Home is turning into a museum and when they come to interview you they ask you to wear the uniform. You've lost weight now, and it's disgusting to see yourself in the mirror, all loose and ill fitting.
A mockery.
Seven sits with you to watch the little programmes about what they did and who they were. Ensigns you barely remember and some you've never seen before talk about how strong and dynamic you were; about your boundless devotion to your crew; about how amazing you had been.
Emphasis on the 'had been'.
Maybe you are imagining the enunciation but you doubt it. Everyone talks and you can see the veiled implications in everything they say. "Family" they call you and you have to stifle the urge to laugh; out there they hated the decisions you had to make, and now that they know you were right they love you unconditionally.
Memory is funny that way, and you wish you could remember like that.
"You know, they talk about you," Marisa whispers into your ear, "... desperate, faded, crazy, slut," Marisa feels good against your skin and even though she continues to talk, she's tied to the bed, so you can shut her up anytime you damn well please.
When your tongue circles her clit, she shuts up good enough; Chakotay has a lecture series down in New Mexico and you fuck her for a few more days. She calls you admiral and sometimes you just want to hit her.
When Chakotay will get back, he'll find the sheets rumpled and Marisa smelling of coffee beans and caffeine; he won't be bitter because he understands you more than you will care to admit.
You're office is in the worst place, because you don't see much of anyone from Voyager, so when you do it's painfully awkward because you've changed for the worse, and they don't have the heart to ask you what is wrong. They smile, briefly, with the same mouths that called you a hero and said you were brave to the world. Those same mouths say they'll call you about dinner, but they never do and strangely you are not disappointed.
You know you can't live up to what they thought you once were.
You want to tell them that you were never like that, that they are fucking wrong and why can't they get over that and grow up. And then you catch glimpse of yourself in the mirror with those fucking pips and how they bother you so goddamn much -you tell yourself maybe you should grow up first.
Seven has stopped asking about why you smell like cologne sometimes, stopped asking about the bruises that dot your hips and about impressions of stubble against your inner thigh. She sits with you on the balcony and watches the stars; her fingers impossibly tangled with your own.
It's those times that you think you can be normal, that you think you have a chance.
But the next day, when you get dressed and your outfit looks wrong in the mirror, and the brewed coffee tastes wrong, and the chair at the office doesn't mold right --you'll never get over it and that scares the shit out of you. Fifty years old and a few white hairs and you can no longer change.
Minus two pips and you can be who were again. Minus the desk and the PADDS and the endless invitations and you can be back out there. Minus Seven in your bed and Mark between your legs and Marisa with her impossibly thick lips and you can be in control again.
Once you knew who were.
Once you had a crew.
Once you had a ship.
Once you were a starship captain.