50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
Summary: Kathryn Janeway can’t help breaking hearts, but at least she never does it the same way twice.
Characters: Janeway, Janeway
Codes: Janeway/Janeway
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount. I'm just having a little twisted fun with them.
Notes: When I posted A Long Journey on tumblr, @caladeniablue asked 'Fic to go with this?' and it got me thinking. This is the result. (If you have a request for a lover Kathryn could leave, email me!)
Rated M
four | Kathryn Janeway
Requested by @curator-on-ao3. There were several ways I could have gone with this request, but this one felt the most likely.
~*~
She never could handle her gin, and age, it seems, hasn’t improved her tolerance for it. The admiral’s cheeks are flushed and she has long since loosened her collar. But then, Kathryn shed her own jacket and boots hours ago, and her head feels light and echoey.
The room tilts when she closes her eyes. When she opens them, the admiral is watching her.
“What?”
The admiral shakes her head once. “It’s nothing.”
“Don’t do that.”
“All right,” drawls the admiral. “I was thinking about the last person you fucked.”
Kathryn chokes on a sip of gin. “I beg your pardon?”
“You can’t possibly have forgotten,” the admiral smirks. “From your perspective it happened quite recently.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, come on. Indulge an old woman.”
“Seems to me you’re indulged quite a bit.”
The admiral laughs.
“Besides, this is hardly fair – you know too much about me.” Kathryn leans in to refill both glasses with a less-than-steady hand. “Tell me about the last person you fucked.”
The admiral’s smirk disappears.
“Cat got your tongue?” Kathryn mocks.
Her older self crosses one still-lean thigh over the other and lasers those penetrating grey eyes into hers. Kathryn feels heat rising from her collar. She’s sorely tempted to look away, but if anyone is going to get the better of her in a game of emotional chicken it won’t be her own damn self.
Still, she finds herself shifting in her seat.
“That’s not outside the realm of possibility, you know,” the admiral says, her voice unexpectedly creamy.
“What?” Kathryn frowns.
The admiral leans in to place her glass on the coffee table with a soft click. When she straightens up, she’s much closer than she was before. Or maybe it’s just Kathryn’s tipsy imagination that conjures up the scent of her, the feel of warm breath against her cheek.
“You,” the admiral says deliberately, holding her gaze, “could be the last person I fuck.”
Kathryn is quite literally speechless.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. You’ve been thinking about it since you saw the way he looked at me. At us. Whether you admit it to yourself or not.”
The admiral is back in control, and Kathryn cannot understand how she did this. How she’s doing this.
Long fingers – slender, familiar, more gnarled than she’s used to – stroke her jaw, feather under her hair. Sweet-sour breath puffs against her lips. The hum in her ears expands, tingling in her fingertips, hardening her nipples into points. The admiral’s tongue slides over hers. This is exactly how she likes to be kissed. How she likes to be touched.
And if this is the only time, the last time, then she’ll be damned if she leaves now.
Hours later, though still hours before their final mission in the Delta quadrant, Kathryn Janeway fastens her uniform and tiptoes through darkened quarters, leaving her other self to the sleep of the damned.