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“Alright- Alright, okay, Harry, listen-”
“Tom-”
“Harry! Harry, listen, I just think-”
“Tom, I don’t w-”
“I just think objectively Klingon women are better in bed than Klingon men.” God, you’re so drunk.
“Tom,” whines your friend, equally drunk, seated beside you on the couch in his new, tiny home. He hasn’t even unpacked his boxes yet, and it isn’t like he has a lot to unpack, but your own home looks basically the same, at least in that respect. Voyager has been back in the alpha quadrant for a month, and you’re… adjusting. Between press tours and the discomfort of being back on Earth for the first time in seven years, you haven’t quite gotten around to unpacking, and apparently neither has he. “I really, really don’t need to know who you like to have sex with.”
“Someone has to know, I can’t just keep this to myself, I have-” you hiccup, “I have, so much, I have so much information, I know so much a-”
“Tom,” he whines, and you break into a fit of giggles.
“Harry,” you mimic, laugh so hard you start to wheeze when he swats you. “You need this- you need this knowledge- so much more than me, just so much more, it’d be- man, what kind of friend would I be if I-”
“A better one than you are!” he exclaims, and you just about keel over, you’re laughing so hard. He joins in too, and the stupid grin on his face when you look back at him just about blows you away. His face is red, his hair a bit of a mess, and your drunk brain thinks it would be a really good idea to kiss your best friend. This isn’t the first time you’ve thought about it and it won’t be the last, and you’re lucky you thought ahead, asked your wife if she’d be okay if anything ever happened between you and Harry. You don’t know if it will, don’t mind so much one way or the other, but you’re really fond of him and he seems to enjoy your company too.
You settle back against the couch, dopey smile on your face. “I’m the best friend you could ask for,” you tell him matter of factly, “don’t even pretend like I’m not.”
“Fine, fine, but I don’t need to hear about who you like to have sex with. I really, really don’t,” he tells you, amusement still in his voice. “And aren’t you married? Shouldn’t you just be having sex with you wife?”
You snort, “Just because I’m married doesn’t mean I can’t have other partners. She’s my favorite, obviously, she’s my wife, but I’m not the only person she sleeps with and she’s not the only person I sleep with. It works as long as we talk.”
“Oh,” he replies, seems to mull it over in his head for a second, “makes sense, I guess. I still don’t need to hear about it.”
“You do though-”
“No, I don’t!” he laughs, and you grin.
“Of course you do! My sole purpose in life is to let you live vicariously through me, to enrich your sexless existence with-”
“Just because I don’t tell you every little detail of my sex life doesn’t mean I don’t have one, Tom.”
“And when was the last time you slept with anyone? Holograms don’t count. Here,” you pat his knee, “I’ll get us another drink and let you figure that one out.”
“Now you’re just being mean,” he tells you, but you just laugh and get up from the couch, wander into the kitchen to where you know he keeps his real-and-not-synthehol beverages. You’re walking back in when he apparently gets an answer to your question.
“Four- no, five months ago, on that… what was it called, the planet with the green water and the massive fish things.”
You remember the planet, but not what it was called. Amused, you pass him his drink, plop back down on the couch. “Guy or girl?”
“They’re aliens, Tom. I don’t know if they even have a concept of gender like that. I didn’t ask, and we were only there a couple days.”
“So you just fucked and feld, huh,” you tease. “Man, what a jerk.”
“You did that- you did that, the whole way through the delta quadrant! Every time we stopped!”
“Not every t-”
“Every time,” he insists, and you just laugh. “Especially before you started dating B’Elanna.”
“Alright, fair. Sorry I doubted you, clearly your skills are slightly more refined than I thought.” He frowns at you, and you giggle.
You chat about nothing in particular for a while, finish your drinks, put the cups on the table. Harry picks at his hands, and you loll your head back against the wall.
“Have you gone to see your parents yet?” you ask him, eventually.
He freezes, briefly, before sighing. “No. They keep calling me and asking when I’m coming to visit, or when they can come visit me, and I keep telling them I’m busy, or I just need time to myself, or all these other excuses, and I know they’ve really missed me and everything, and it’s been seven years, but I’m still not used to the fact that we’re back.”
“Yeah, it’s weird,” you agree, “I keep waking up thinking I’m still on the ship and it’s still going to be seventy years or something ridiculous before we get home if we even make it back at all. And I’m so used to seeing everyone every day that, you know, not being able to wake up and bother Tuvok, or talk to the Captain or Chakotay, it’s really weird. You know? We’re probably never going to see Neelix again, I don’t where Seven is, I’m pretty sure Tuvok just… resigned and went home, last I heard from Chakotay he was planning a trip to some barely inhabited planet just to get away from everything… I don’t know, Harry, it’s weird.”
“I forget where I am sometimes,” he tells you, “mostly when I wake up, but sometimes when I’m just doing things, I’ll forget I’m home and think I’m still on Voyager, and it’s like I get whiplash for a second, it’s really strange. I’m happy we’re home and I’d rather be home, but sometimes I just want to go back.”
“I know,” you sigh, “it’s just… really, really weird to be back. I’d kind of convinced myself I’d never see the alpha quadrant again, let alone Earth. I thought we were going to die out there, I was okay with that.”
You can feel when he looks at you, but you don’t meet his gaze. You think you might have worried him, a little. “Glad to know our pilot has a death wish,” he attempts to joke. You snort.
“Hey, I got us home, give me some credit.”
“Alright, alright.” He sighs and draws his feet up onto the couch, crosses his legs, picks at his hands again. It’s silent, for a few seconds.
“Have you talked to your dad?” he asks.
“Hah. No,” you’re pretty sure you sound bitter. “He’s only ‘proud’ of me because I’m semi-famous. He’s still the same jerk he was when we left. You’d think he didn’t almost lose his only kid.”
“Yikes,” Harry says. You agree.
“He hasn’t even met my daughter. He didn’t want to, I offered, you know, that first day just after we got back. He didn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure it’s something about her being part Klingon. He heard who her mom was and kind of just changed his mind after that.”
“Yikes,” he repeats.
“Yeah,” you agree.
“How is she, by the way?” he asks, and you glance at him.
“Miral?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. She’s getting big. Babies are kind of terrible, but I’m coping,” you joke. Harry laughs a little. “Come see her sometime, or just, you know, come over so you can get out of your house, and then happen to see my baby because she also lives there.”
“I’ll definitely try,” he says. You know he’s not really doing anything right now, besides sleeping and staying home. You completely understand. “I’m glad she’s doing well, though.”
“The Captain stops by sometimes just to see her, actually,” you tell him, “I’m worried about her too. I’m worried about everyone, though.”
He sighs, “yeah. It’s tough.”
“Definitely is that.”
You lapse into silence again. Harry picks at his hands, you let your head rest against the wall, close your eyes. It isn’t a comfortable silence, but you can’t think of anything to talk about. Harry, eventually, breaks it.
“Do you think I could come stay with you for a couple days?” he asks, and you’re not surprised at all.
“Yeah, of course. I’d have to ask B’Elanna, but I don’t think she’d say no,” you respond, tip your head to the side and open your eyes to look at him. He looks tense, brow creased, shoulders stiff and tight.
“I’m just not used to living alone, I guess, it’s uncomfortable,” he admits, and you completely understand.
“Yeah, I get it. I’m sure it’ll be fine, honestly, I’m so sure, you can just… pack your shit and come with me when I go home, I’ll call her on the way.”
Harry nods, sighs a little, and lets some of his tension go. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” You shoot him a tired smile. “Hope you don’t mind screaming baby.”
He laughs. “Screaming baby’ll be better than this, trust me.” He worries you too, sometimes.
You stay at Harry’s for a few more hours, try to sober up a little before you head home. He packs some clothes and a few other things in a bag shortly before you leave, thanks you repeatedly for letting him stay with you. Adjusting is tough, for you, for him, for everyone who made it back with you. B’Elanna, when you call her, is alright with your plan just like you knew she’d be. You bring him home with you, spend a few hours in one of the empty rooms in your home fucking around with a replicator to make him a bed, and he continues to thank you. Home isn’t really home anymore, but you make do because you have to.