Gigi Sinclair

"I hate this, Jon." Jon didn't take his eyes off the rutted dirt road. It had been hard enough driving the primitive land vehicle on the pavement. Here, every few feet there was a pothole that wrenched the steering wheel out of his hands and jarred the passengers nearly out of their seats. Which gave Trip even more reason to complain.

"Know where we could be right now?" Trip paused to cough. "The goddamn Keys. 'Hey, Trip, I've got a great condo just outside Key West going empty. How 'bout you and that boyfriend of yours take a little vacation?' 'Gee, sounds great, Auntie Em. Oh wait, no, he wants to take off to fucking Australia where it's the middle of the goddamn fucking winter…'"

"Trip, enough." Jon overcompensated for a pothole and had to do some quick manoeuvring to keep them from going off the road.

"Did you know nine out of the ten most poisonous snakes in the world are Australian?"

"Trip."

"Not to mention bugs. You saw that thing that was in the shower back in Melbourne. You're damned lucky I didn't grab the next taxi to the airport. Believe me, I was this close…" He sneezed. It was winter, and, although that didn't mean the same thing here as it did even in California, the hotel in Melbourne had been without central heating. Which had led to some nice, necessary snuggling under the blankets, but Trip had still caught a head cold. Which hadn't improved his already less-than-ecstatic mood.

"I wonder what changed your mind," Jon tried not to snap. But did anyway. "Could it have had anything to do with that dark-haired desk clerk? Or his accent?"

"I happen to appreciate different cultures," was Trip's terse reply.

"Especially if they're represented by attractive men. If you ever meet a cute British guy who can do an Australian accent, I'm in trouble."

"Ha ha." Trip blew his nose loudly. "Why are we here again?"

"You need this certification if you want to get on the 'Enterprise.'"

"And I thought sleeping with the Captain would be enough." Jon put down his visor, and his sunglasses fell out.

"Damn." Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he felt around the floor in front of him, but the sunglasses seemed to have disappeared under his seat.

"Here, I'll do it. You'll just get us killed." Trip leaned over until his head was practically in Jon's lap. 'Practically in' turned to 'in' as they went over another bump and Trip's face ended up in Jon's crotch.

"Trip!"

"I'm getting your damn sunglasses." Trip smiled. "But it looks like I found something better."

"Don't even think about it…"

"Why?" Jon's dick was still at the stage where things could go either way. It made a definite decision, though, when Trip kissed it through the fabric of his shorts. At the same time, they hit another bump, a big one this time, and Jon lost control. In more ways than one. He could only wince as a spindly tree beside a ranger station got closer and closer, and ended up broken in half over the hood. The impact forced Trip further into Jon's lap, a position he was still in, moaning slightly, when a man in a hat appeared next to the car. Jon felt himself blushing as the man looked calmly between him, Trip and the broken tree, and finally said:

"You those American blokes, then?"

***

"We're going out on our own?" Winter or not, it was still scorching out here. A ceiling fan spun lazily, doing nothing more than move the hot air around and disturb the dozens of flies that were circling around the ceiling. Trip watched them nervously as Jon talked to the ranger. "We were told it would be with a group." The ranger, Ted, shrugged, apparently unconcerned.

"Others never showed up." Jon thought he heard Trip grumble about 'Fucking right idea', but ignored him. "You'll be apples, though. It's only a week." He said it, Jon thought, like they were going to Yosemite for the weekend. "And we won't tell anyone." Ted winked and looked over at Trip. "Hand me a burl, would ya, mate?" Trip blinked blankly.

"I'm sorry?"

"A burl. Over there by the bin." He made a vague motion with his hand. Trip stared back like the man was speaking Klingon.

"A Biro, mate," Ted added, like that was going to help.

"I'm sorry, I…" It was Jon who remembered their brief discussion about Australian slang in the Melbourne hotel bar. He passed a pen to Ted, smiling as he remembered Trip and his appreciation of the expression 'I'm pregnant' to signify having eaten your fill. He used it frequently, which was annoying but just as well. Jon couldn't think of any other situation in which the engineer would get to use those words.

"Thanks." Clearly believing that Trip was insane or stupid, or possibly both, Ted scratched something on a yellowed pad. It had been so long since Jon had seen actual pen and paper, he stared at it in fascination, until Ted interrupted him with:

"You've had the survival course."

"Twice," Trip replied. He'd failed the first time, Jon recalled, because he'd been too busy flirting with his 'victim' to learn any CPR.

"And you know all about bushtucker."

"Yes." It was an expression that had led to a lot of giggling with the woman next to Trip and not a lot of studying on his behalf. Jon, however, had committed the entire manual to memory. "We're all set."

"Then I'll get your gear and you can get going."

***

Three hours later, fully kitted out with packs, a tent and an emergency communicator, Ted dropped them off in what was, according to Jon's sophisticated GPS monitor, the middle of nowhere.

"Should take you five days or so to walk back, if you keep a steady pace."

"How long if we find a taxi?" Trip asked. Laughing, Jon thought, like a man who expected to be driving out in a couple of days to rescue the city-dwellers from the outback, Ted left them, and Jon took in his surroundings.

This was exactly what he'd been looking for. The lizards scuttling across the ground, the baobab trees, the blazing sun. It was like an unexplored planet. Which was exactly what he was going to be seeing in two years' time, if all went well. Looking at Trip, who was trying to pull on his overloaded backpack, Jon was suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. The two things he'd always wanted out of life were the chance to explore space and someone to share the experience with. Now he had both. 'Enterprise' and Trip, he sighed. The two most important aspects of his life, and the fact that he was going to have them both at the same time was just icing on the cake.

"Trip…" Jon looked, unsure of how to express what he was feeling, how important this moment was to him. How much he loved Trip and how grateful he was to whatever force had brought the two of them and 'Enterprise' together. Before he could say anything, Trip pulled his hat down over his eyes and snapped:

"Think there's a Holiday Inn around here somewhere?"

They walked in silence for two and a half hours. Or as close to silence as Trip ever got, which meant he bitched more or less constantly for the first hour and a half, then descended into sulking. As it began to get dark, they arrived at a clearing and Jon threw down his pack.

"We'll set up camp here."

"Aye, aye, sir," there was a distinct sarcastic tone to Trip's voice. "I'll get dinner. What do you want? Beans or beans?" Jon ground his teeth and replied, as civilly as possible (which wasn't very):

"We should save our rations. There's plenty of food around here."

"Dream on." Trip began rifling through his backpack for the can opener. "You can eat scorpions or koala bears or whatever the hell you want, but I'm having a real meal."

"The koala isn't a bear," Jon replied, coldly, as he stalked off into the bush. "It's a marsupial."

When he arrived back, about forty-five minutes later, he had a smorgasbord of berries, roots and edible plants with him. Trip was finishing off his beans. Jon noticed another plastic plate and cup balanced on a stump beside him. Jon sat on the log next to him, placing the bushtucker on the plate.

"Are you mad at me?" Trip asked, as soon as Jon sat down.

"Why would I be?"

"That's what I'm asking you." Jon played with his berries.

"You never take anything seriously. Sometimes I don't even know if you want to do this."

"I don't. I want to be in Key West."

"You know what I mean. This," he waved his hand, trying to encompass everything, their relationship, their Starfleet careers, 'Enterprise', into it.

Trip understood. And was less than pleased.

"So you're saying that just cause I'm not some gung-ho Eagle Scout you think I can't do the job?"

"I didn't say that." Jon knew it was a sensitive area for Trip, but that didn't make it any less true. Or any less important.

"It's what you meant. Jesus, Jon, if that's how you feel, I'm surprised you've suffered me this long." He stalked off into the tent which, since he had put it up himself, collapsed as soon as he touched it. Jon watched as Trip fought his way out of the folds, then, scowling, reattached the poles.

"Don't laugh."

"I'm not." Jon was, in fact, trying very hard not to gag on the root, which had to be the vilest thing he'd ever tasted, and thinking that it was going to be a really great five days.

Once it was finally up and stable, Trip disappeared into the tent, leaving Jon to sit out by the campfire. And think. Trip was a fantastic engineer, the best in Starfleet. Jon didn't doubt that for a moment. If it had been any other mission, Trip would have been the ideal candidate, case closed. But this wasn't any other mission. Every member of the 'Enterprise' crew was going to be an ambassador for Earth, so they needed an engineer who was equal parts scientist, diplomat and peacekeeper. Trip wasn't.

The crewmembers on 'Enterprise' had to have common sense, or at the very least some kind of survival instinct, and Trip had neither. Jon could easily imagine him getting into stupid predicaments on a regular basis, which would be very bad for the ship and even worse for Jon's personal morale. He had sworn up and down, to Admiral Forrest and the entire Starfleet command, that Trip was the only man for the job, but maybe, Jon thought, that was because Trip was the only man for him. And maybe his judgement had been compromised by that.

He looked up when the log shifted. Trip, wearing one of Jon's sweaters, sat down beside him and, looking into the fire, began:

"Ever think what it might be like for me, heading off on a ship where every other guy's some kind of SAS Navy Seal with merit badges comin' out of his ass?"

"Trip,"

"No, Jon." He looked at him. "I don't wanna be a wuss. I just can't help it. That doesn't mean I don't belong on 'Enterprise.'"

"I never said…"

"It's supposed to be a cross-section of human society, right?" Trip continued. "Well, the way I figure it, in human society, you've got your hard-core survivalists," he pointed at Jon, "And you've got your people who prefer the Key West Holiday Inn."

"I know, Trip, it's just that…" Trip wasn't finished.

"You think I don't take anything seriously? Well, I took it real damn seriously when you were off on Jupiter Station and I was back on Earth. It nearly killed me, and that was only three months. If you take off for five years, I don't know what I'll do. I'm a damn good engineer, I'm a pretty fair lover, if I do say so, and I go nuts if we're separated for even a minute. That's why you need to take me with you, Jon."

Trip smiled, and Jon felt like a nervous professor all over again, counting the days until the end of the term when he could ask Trip out without risking his career. Although his emotional wellbeing was still going to be in jeopardy. "Even if I couldn't survive for twenty years in the outback with nothing but a toothpick and six inches of fishing line."

"Trip." Jon couldn't think of anything else to say. So he decided to use non-verbal communication instead.

Trip responded very readily, thrusting his tongue into Jon's mouth and running his hands over his back. Jon was doing the same, and it didn't take a warp physicist to determine that two men making out on a log wasn't going to last. They overbalanced and landed in the dirt, Jon on top of Trip.

"We should get in the tent." Jon gasped, during one of the brief moments when his mouth was free.

"Why?" Trip murmured back, licking Jon's neck. "There's no one for miles." He bit Jon's collarbone, earning a groan in return. "And we've never done it under the stars…"

"Sounds great," Jon panted, kissing his lover's earlobe, not mentioning that late night in a stellar cartography lab at Starfleet Academy. "But there are poisonous spiders around here." Trip was up and in the tent so fast, Jon nearly got friction burns from his sweater.

"We really should be saving our energy," Jon attempted, as he unzipped the sleeping bags to make a double sleeper. A classic trick when two people needed to share body heat, or another bodily secretion. It was a half-hearted protest, and he quickly forgot it when Trip pulled him into the sleeping bag, ripping off his own shirt as he did so.

"Forget it." Trip's hands and mouth were everywhere, and Jon was very close to losing it. "There's one kind of little wiggly creature I don't mind swallowing." Jon groaned, only half from desire, and Trip grinned.

"Was that sexy? Or even appropriate?"

"Both," Jon confessed, as Trip slid downwards. "Just like you." And if anyone disagreed, Jon thought, before he lost all capacity for conscious thought, they'd have to take it up with him.