Title: Girls' Night In
Author: TravelerOfTheWays
Rating: NC-17 (my first!)
Pairing: Beka/Rommie
Spoilers: Banks of the Lethe
Disclaimer: Nothing Andromeda is mine, and I ain't getting any money for this, simply the glow that comes of writing smut.
*~*~
A lot of things had changed in the past few years. The Commonwealth had evolved from a lunatic's dream to a fledging republic to a corrupted empire. Crewmates had come and gone. People had died. Dylan had emerged from the black hole a devastated fiancé and now couldn't say no to a woman to save his life.
But some things remained the same. Harper still hadn't been laid. Beka, Rommie, and Trance still gathered in the Maru for girls' night every so often. There wasn't a set schedule; sometimes a month or more went by, but the tradition never waned despite everything that rose and fell around them.
Something else was going to change tonight, and only Trance had a glimmering of what it might be.
On these occasions, Beka's cabin was converted into a candle-lit sanctuary, liberally covered with cushions, fruity drinks, and chocolate. Beka once told Rommie that she wished the android could enjoy the latter two, but Rommie had replied quietly that their company was pleasant enough on its own. Beka looked skeptical at this but dropped the subject.
Only Harper ever showed such simple, human concern for her. Dylan certainly never thought that she might like to try a mai-tai (virgin on girls' night) or a strawberry milkshake. He seemed to forget entirely that she had emotion at all from time to time.
Any psychologist would call her obsessive if he knew how often she used to replay that scene in her V.R. matrix.
Deck nineteen. Twenty three point three (repeating) meters from the starboard bulkhead. Eleven hundred hours. Exactly. What were the odds of that?
Dylan was looking more determined than usual. She usually admired that in him. He wasn't programmed with that perseverance. He didn't have an internal directive that kept him conveniently on track. But today, that determination would kill him. Instinct was a distinctly organic impulse, commonly thought to be the result of the unconscious brain picking up on a pattern invisible to the higher levels, yet Rommie couldn't help or explain a sense of foreboding that swept through her processors.
She had tried not to let it show. Looking back, she thought she had succeeded very well.
“This is not your best idea.” She couldn't let him see how much this was hurting her. It was hard enough that he was doing all this to return to Sara. It was even worse that he was willing to die to do so.
He was unaffected by her concern, as he had ignored the concerns of the rest of her crew. Why should she be any different after all?
“I know the odds. Fifty-fifty. I can live with that.”
“Can your crew live with that?” They had tried to dissuade him too, except for Tyr. “And what about your mission? You're the only hope for bringing the known worlds back from chaos. This is bigger than you, Dylan. You have to be objective.” If the anxiety of his crew wouldn't bring him out of this madness, perhaps his sense of duty would. It had been the only thing keeping him going since they had emerged from the three-hundred year darkness.
He stopped and turned. His fingers touched her face and then traced a path down her arms. Her eyes widened. He couldn't know what he did to her with so simple a gesture, she thought wildly.
She was right. “When I touch you, do you feel me? Or do you measure the pressure of my fingers against your skin?”
How could he ask that? How could a man normally so perceptive utter something so thoughtless? His fingers returned to her face. To her horror, she felt her tear ducts filling with fluid. Her eyes snapped shut. “When I speak, do you hear my voice, or do you interpret an acoustic wave? I can't be objective about this. I'm not a machine.”
Just a machine, he meant. He didn't say it, but she knew it was there nonetheless. He wasn't just a machine. He had feelings, after all. She was a warship, and she shot the bad guys, and she could count all the stars in the sky—including those beyond human sensory range—but despite all this, she didn't feel.
She knew that organics often saw A.I.s as inferior life forms or even false life, but this was the first time Dylan had given any sign that he shared in these sentiments.
After that, she had continued to try to dissuade him, but she knew that it was futile. Not even his sense of duty towards the Commonwealth would convince him to abandon this project.
“Sara is my Commonwealth,” he had said, looking beyond her for a moment. She was sure he could see her even as he spoke.
“Hello? Rommie? Anybody home? Are you pondering the nature of good and evil again? You know that freezes up your processors.”
It was Beka, regarding the android with raised eyebrows. Her tone held a note of concern, which disappeared when she saw Rommie return to the present. Her blue eyes were warm and sparkled like they would for any of her organic friends. Rommie would never be able to articulate how much that meant to her.
Trance was closed as ever, showing only a hint of knowing in her dark eyes. Rommie ended the simulation and returned the file to her memory banks. She hadn't recalled that one in a long time.
“Just thinking,” she said lightly.
Beka drummed her fingers impatiently on her glass. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“You didn't answer the question. Trance answered… kinda.”
Trance smiled at this. “You wouldn't be able to pronounce it,” she said, a trace of her purple self surfacing.
“Uh-huh. And now it's your turn, Rommie.”
“Hmph. Why don't you answer it?”
“Because I asked it first.”
“That's not a reason. I asked second. What relevance does that have?” Organics needed someone to point out the flaws in their thought processes; it made Rommie wonder how they had survived for so long without A.I.s to point out their fallacies of logic. Plus, it meant Beka would have to answer first. Rommie was dreading this. She suddenly found herself wondering if Harper had programmed color to rise into her cheeks when she was affected by strong emotions and hoped not.
Beka sighed. “Fine. ‘Is there anything new in my love life?' The answer is a resounding no. ‘Is there anyone I've had my eye on lately?' Another resounding no.”
Rommie made a noise like a cough. Organics also lied through their teeth when they could.
“Well, okay, there's no one I'd consider starting a relationship with. But it's not my fault if Telemachus Rhade has the best ass I've seen in several months. I bet Gaheris looked good in those old High Guard khaki pants. You know, the tight ones.”
Rommie laughed. “I'm no judge of human/Nietzschean anatomical aesthetics, but I do know that First Officer Gaheris Rhade attracted a superfluity of admiring glances from most of the female crew and some of the male.”
“Superfluity?”
Rommie considered this. “Harper would say… up the wazoo.”
Beka giggled. It was a sound few people heard, and Rommie felt privileged to be one of those few. Space pirates, she knew, didn't giggle, except sometimes during girls' nights when they were drinking strawberry milkshakes. “Good to know I'm not alone.”
She drained the viscous, pink liquid from her glass. “So what about you? And don't tell me you don't have a love life. We all remember the crush you had on Dylan and your ill-fated romance with Gabriel.” It was long enough after that incident that she could speak of it without worrying about her friend's feelings.
Trance looked Rommie directly in the eye and gave her a faint smile. Rommie was sure the woman knew—impossible as it seemed—what she had just been remembering and was underlining the difference between Dylan and Beka.
“What if I told you I don't have time for a love life these days?”
“Pfft. You can bring up about two billion dirty jokes in less than thirty seconds.” That would be a reference to the girls' night before this one. “You must have a nanosecond here and there to daydream.”
At this point, Trance jumped as if she'd been stuck with a pin. “I just remembered! I have to go, um, check on my plants. Bye!” She fled without another word.
Beka called after her, but there was no reply. She shrugged and appropriated her milkshake. “Someone has to finish it.” She drank deeply, and when she was finished, ice cream coated her upper lip.
Rommie laughed behind her hand.
Beka glared. “What?”
Rommie rose to her knees and leaned forward. “You have a little…” She pointed to Beka's pink ice cream mustache. Rolling her eyes, Beka wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Rommie wasn't trying to hide her amusement anymore. Her words were punctuated by little gasps of laughter. “Beka… you didn't… get all of it. Still… right there.”
This time Beka flicked her tongue around the corners of her lips. She looked at Rommie in question, and the android shook her head. “Still a little…” She reached out and brushed Beka's upper lip with a finger. “Got it.”
Her giggles faded, and she realized how close she was to her First Officer. She saw the overhead lights dance in her blue eyes and glow softly on her full lips. She wondered if they would taste like a strawberry milkshake and suddenly was very curious to find out.
The expression in those eyes changed from amusement and mock annoyance to thoughtfulness. “You never answered the question.” Rommie didn't answer.
Rommie watched, mute, Beka as she brought the thumb she had used to wipe away the milkshake to her lips. She licked the ice cream away delicately and then sucked harder. Rommie's brown eyes widened, and a small noise escaped her lips.
“You should have said something.”
Rommie dropped her hand. “I couldn't. Not after… after everything. We've both been hurt before, and I didn't think you would be interested.” She forced a weak laugh. “I didn't think you even… even liked…”
“Girls?” Beka smiled. “I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity lover.” Her smile turned mischievous. “Harper could tell you stories. He tried to pick up a knock-out on Albuquerque who didn't want anything to do with him… and she ended up coming back with me. I don't think he slept that entire night.
“And she was nothing compared to you.” Beka lay one hand on Rommie's cheek. Her thumb traced tiny circles on the smooth, olive skin. “Can I ask you something?”
Rommie's mechanical breath caught in the wires that served as her throat. She should be bringing up High Guard protocols about A.I./organic crew romantic involvement. Specifically, the ones that strongly recommended against it. But all she could think of now was the softness on her cheek. “Anything.”
“What does this feel like for you?” Those tear ducts were filling again at the tenderness and genuine curiosity she detected in Beka's voice. The words were so similar to Dylan's but the intention so different.
“Like…” she hesitated. She could describe it to her sisters, but organic language was so limited. How could she relay everything to Beka without keeping her up half the night talking? “Like poetry.”
Beka looked stricken. Rommie wondered if she had said something wrong, but then Beka found her voice. “No one's ever described me that way.” She sounded wondering and a little sad. But then she smiled and chased the shadows from her face. She tilted her head and kissed the wetness beneath Rommie's dark eyes. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she giggled. “Your tears… they're sweet.”
Beka's quiet laugh broke the spell that had fallen over Rommie, and now the android gathered her courage. She cupped a hand around Beka's and lifted her face to kiss her. To her delight, she could taste something cold and sweet lingering on Beka's lips. So that was strawberry milkshake. She paused for a moment, wondering how her crewmate would react. Wondered if she would refuse.
She didn't, and Rommie deepened the kiss. Their tongues darted across each other and explored the dark recesses newly opened to them. Rommie felt Beka's free hand stroke her hair and then fall to her shoulder, to her back. She was pulling her closer. The hand moved inward, caressing the curve of her breast under her shirt. She inhaled sharply when Beka's hand found her nipple and kneaded it between her thumb and forefinger. Harper had programmed this body very thoroughly.
Beka pulled back. “Is this…?”
Rommie didn't answer but unzipped her uniform top and let it slide down her arms. The First Officer's eyes were lit with a fire Rommie had never seen directed at her. She felt softness tickling the hollow between her throat and collarbones and caresses on her breasts. Sometimes when she tried on silk it felt like this. The strokes alternated from wide circles to light squeezes that made her gasp. She tried to dim her connection with her main AI, but her processors were overwhelmed with these new sensations.
Rommie, what is going on there? You know the Commonwealth regulations about…Beka trailed kisses from her lips to her neck to her nipples, grazing their sensitive surface with her tongue. Andromeda's protests to her android body faltered.
Rommie moaned as she felt her nipples hardening. There was a soft but insistent throbbing between her legs. The heat of Beka's hand slowly traveled down her midriff and hovered there, stroking and softly sliding her nails over her belly. It felt wonderful, but it was torture. The throbbing was filling her attention, and Beka was so close to it.
She felt echoes of her desire reflected through her mainframe and returned to her tenfold. She saw flickers of her holographic self, nude and arching under the touch of a shadowy lover. She felt heat building up inside her body and rippling along her A.I. For once, Rommie's attention wasn't scattered around a thousand tasks. All she could think of now was the warmth of Beka's hands and mouth on her.
With an agonizing slowness, Beka slid a hand under Rommie's panties. Heat and dampness met her probing touch. She raised her lips back to Rommie's and kissed her hard as her hand stroked the folds and found the center of electrical nerves that served as her clit. Rommie felt tiny, involuntary contractions under her skin. It was a little frightening to lose control like this, but she wouldn't stop Beka now for anything.
She gasped when Beka slipped a finger inside her and her smooth muscles contracted around her.
Rational thought fled completely when Beka returned her mouth to Rommie's neck and sucked hard. Another finger entered her, and Beka was doing something incredible with her tongue, and Rommie lost it. Flames seemed to engulf her A.I., and holographic Andromeda shattered into a million pieces with a cry of ecstasy. Rommie collapsed against the cushions, now moist from their exertions.
She opened her eyes, and Beka was licking her fingers. She grinned when she saw her lover's eyes open. “You're sweet there, too.”
Rommie tried to form words and failed. Beka drew her near. “Don't say anything.” She twisted and yanked the sheets from her bed. “Now you enjoy the afterglow, and then we go to sleep…” She broke off, puzzled. “Or at least, I do.”
Rommie's lips curved. “This has been a little overwhelming for my systems. I think I should put this body into low-power mode for a few hours.”
Beka stripped off her own clothes and then settled the blankets around them. “Now we match,” she explained. Rommie felt more exhausted than she could ever remember and snuggled into Beka's arms and turned down her power. Beka lay one last kiss on her shoulder and then fell into her own kind of sleep.