Dylan Hunt reached over and grabbed Beka's hand; her fingers were as cold as icicles. She had been watching the performance on the stage too intensely to even to notice either the warmth or presence of his hand; but he could sense that she needed someone right now. Despite her past exposure to the rougher sides of life and a somewhat mysterious sexual history, Dylan was confident that she had never seen anything like the "show" Harry and Wren had put on for the crowd at the bar tonight. As a matter of fact, he wasn't sure he had ever seen anything quite like it -- sure he had seen things more violent and more perverse, but never had the bottom been so compliant or so naturally strong.

He adjusted his position taking her left hand in his and placing his right hand on her shoulder. She fit comfortably. She still did little to acknowledge his presence. They were so physically close, yet her mind was still obviously in the distance. A man could get used to having someone like Beka at his side.

"Is he all right?" she asked as Wren had removed Harry from the cross. Dylan wasn't sure. His body was limp, crushed. The lack of blood was a good sign, or was it. He tried to remember. There was a place deep inside him where he knew this memory existed, yet right now he couldn't find it. Perhaps his concern for Beka had something to do with his not finding it; at this time Beka's comfort meant more to him that finding the correct memories.

"I don't know, Beka, I honestly don't know."

"Why is he letting her do that to him? They can't still be playing the game."

"The game had to be over about three "toys" ago, one would think."

The captain looked over at Evan whose face had flushed red. The small man's blue eyes were lost in concentration. Dylan was sure Evan had had thoughts similar to his and was debating whether or not he should go to the aid of his friend, before Harry did something stupid, like die. Just as Dylan considered moving in to help Harry off the stage, Beka slipped her arm around his waist and held him tightly. He sensed her need to have him near her; it wasn't a bad thing.

Evan, however, was there for Harry. Exactly as Dylan remembered. Ever the hero, the librarian rushed to the stage and cradled the still breathing head in his arms, holding the much larger man so very gently. The flash was expected, but he was sure others would attribute it to special effects. Dylan smiled and knew that things would be OK, if not all right.

Beka looked at the captain with wide questioning eyes. She hadn't realized what happened. Even though Evan might have told her a bit, Dylan doubted if he had told her about Harry. He wondered what Tyr knew. More than that, he wondered what Tyr would be thinking right now. The fact that Tyr and D'Arc had left earlier, not stayed for the end, said a lot.

* * * * * *

Wren picked the purple dildo up from the floor, wiped it with a towel, and took another bow. She couldn't let on that she was as shocked as everyone else in the room that her bottom had exited in a flash of blue light. Maybe what some bottoms had said about the spiritual side of S/M was correct. Nah, that made no sense. She held the sexual apparatus over her head, bowed again and then took to the task of gathering her paraphernalia and packing them up for the night.

"I brought you a beer, Wren." Rommie handed her a long necked bottle. The leather girl took a huge slug, almost emptying the bottle and let out a noticeable "ah." The hit of beer did not change anything. She wished the A/I had brought her something stronger, but she wasn't sure they sold what she needed in this or any other bar on that drift.

"How'd you do that?" Rommie asked. "Make them disappear?"

"You don't know? I just assumed someone on your crew had beamed them somewhere. If that's not what happened. . . "

"Must have been." The A/I didn't seem real sure about her comment, but then she also didn't seem ready to discuss it any more. Rommie knew enough to take the credit to protect the mysteries of her friends.

Wren rubbed her hand down Rommie's back and rested her hand gently on her ass. It was amazing that a woman who had so recently been so violent could become so gentle.

"You're not going to hit me like that, are you?" Rommie asked. "I think I might break."

"Don't know why he didn't. I never have hit anyone so hard in my life. I don't know what got into me. And no, Rommie, I would never hit you like that. I might kiss you like this though." She leaned over and kissed the A/I as gently as she had beaten Harry hard. She was surprised when the A/I responded with her tongue.

"Turns you on, doesn't it?" The leather girl had been surprised by Rommie's reaction, both to the night and to her kiss.

"A little. I've never seen anyone with such power over another person. No one. I find power exciting."

"That's just it, Rom, usually the bottom has the power. He has the safe word. He can easily get me to stop." It dawned on her that Harry had never given her a safe word, never said a word to her after he agreed to play and just took his place on the cross. What if he had really wanted her to hurt him, or worse?

"I don't think I like that game, even when I play with Dylan and I would tease him into behaving, the game seems a little contrived. I am used to being honest. Processing data in equations and inequalities. I don't have room in my being for these games."

"Sorry, doll." She leaned over and kissed her again. "You want to go back to my place? I promise, after tonight, I won't raise a hand. I'll just do what ever you want. No games."

"We can sleep together in each other's arms."

"Definitely, I think I need that, possibly even more than you."

"Then you won't mind if I tell Dylan where I am going?"

"Sure, why not. You can trust me. I'm your friend."

* * * * * * *

"Harry is an interesting man, for a kluge." D'Arc said said, looking at Try with cold eyes.

"Do not refer to him that way. Don't ever call him that!"

Tyr had tried to divorce his mind from the actions of the evening. The things that happened on the stage did not physically involve him, so perhaps they did not really happen. He knew it was a lie, but the lie's logic felt comforting now.

"That's what he is, a human, a kluge, a homo sapiens sapiens sapiens. . . ." Her voice had a dancing, in control aspect. Something he didn't like at all.

"Did you notice, perchance, that no matter how hard she hit him he didn't bleed?"

"So?"

"Please, take a second and think about it. What would happen if someone, anyone, Nietzschean, human, magog, anyone hit you that hard?"

"I don't know? I never would let it happen. Would kill them first. No one should take that kind of punishment. No matter how much they deserved it."

"What did you just say, or imply?"

"That bastard, Harry, has deserved to have the shit beat out of him. I'm just glad he met someone who would finally do it."

"Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly, Joan D'Arc out of Portia by Canute?"

"Obviously he feels guilty, not just because of his sexual preferences, but for what he did to you. Or am I wrong to believe that you had never been sexually involved with a MAN before him? How do you think I felt when I realized that you were . . like that? I'm willing to cut some slack for you because you are the father of my child. The progenitor of my soon to be restored pride. But if I hadn't gotten pregnant after the stunt you played on our last visit with Evan and Harry, you'd be out on your black ass. I hadn't planned to spend the rest of my life with a fucking queer."

Tyr could not speak. The words she was saying were not processing any more than the actions he had observed that night. She knew. She was calling him on his relationship with Harry. He couldn't explain to her. Maybe she was right. Reality was slowly slipping away. What should an Alpha Nietzschean male do in this situation? He wondered what he had become, or what he actually was. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep in fear of what he might be capable of doing.

* * * * *

They had lain together on the bed for almost an hour, naked, slowly moving hands over each other's bodies without anyone doing anything that could be interpreted as other than comfort. Hands softly stroking, even when on breasts and buttocks, mouths softly kissing, and no conversation.

It was only when Beka softly touched his almost limp penis and rubbed it softly in her hands did any degree of sexuality slip between them. Her mouth could bring him comfort, as he had given it to her. She slowly moved her body down his chest, kissing as she went lower, knowing her goal. He made several moaning sounds and a movement that another night with another lover she might have taken as a rejection. Yet she knew that he wanted that for which he not could bring himself to ask. He was worn out from the comfort that had poured into her body. Perhaps he really longed for someone else, but Evan was not here tonight. She hoped she could give him what she knew he wanted from the man they had both called "lover."

At first she wondered if Evan had ever been this slow, this patient with Dylan; but her heart knew he must have been. He had been that way with her. Despite the talk of games between the two men, she knew there had to have been times when the love and comfort that flowed had been like this. One of them had might have been hurt. One of them had could have been drained. One of them had definitely needed to be loved. One of them had to be the lover, the comforter, or the friend. But tonight, those roles fell on her, Beka Valentine.

Her hands stroked his long, lean, muscular thighs. They were covered with blond hair, almost as soft as down, which softly slid between his skin and her hand. He placed his hands softly on her head and urged her to continue. He didn't have to worry; she was not going to stop.

Strangely enough she thought of Trance, not the golden woman who was now safely bunked back on the Andromeda with Harper, but the scared little purple girl she had taught the joys of female/female sex. She remembered how she had held her to her and softly licked her private body parts, discerning how the responses differed, and taking each move into her mind to remember. She did the same with Dylan. Relying not on what she knew, but what she was now discovering. It was almost like the first time she had been introduced to this sexual act, as a teenager on her father's ship, except that that guy had been old. She laughed. Dylan was 250 plus years older than that "old guy" on her father's ship had been. Time had its own way of distorting things.

He came softly, not with urgency but release. She knew he would fall asleep and moved back up to his arms. She rolled on her side and he crawled on her back, holding his arms around her; they both slipped off to sleep.

* * * * *

They had lain together on the bed for almost an hour, naked, slowly moving hands over each other's bodies without anyone doing anything that could be interpreted as other than comfort. Hands softly stroking, even when on breasts and buttocks, mouths softly kissing, and no conversation.

Rommie was afraid to ask, but she needed to know. She didn't want to spoil the evening. She certainly didn't want Wren to turn on her. To do those awful things that she now knew the woman was totally capable of doing.

"Why did you do that?"

"I told you, it's a show. It's what I do. Some people like it. I give them what they want. I get money, new sex toys and free beer."

"But Harry? What made you think he wanted that?"

"Dylan told me. Dylan told me a lot of things, I'm not sure which of them were true, but he told me Harry could take it. He told me Harry needed it."

"Nobody needs that, Wren, even Harry."

"What do you know about Harry?"

"What I know, and what I am free to tell you are two different things." The look on Rommie's face made it clear that she was not about to share her secrets, no matter how much they mattered to Wren. "I wouldn't tell anyone, Wren. Not even Dylan. Not even Tyr."

* * * * * * *

Beka considered using the cold feet on the back approach with Dylan wondering if there was an "Evan" or "whatever name Dylan called the small blonde librarian"
game. She wasn't sure she was ready to play that, or any other game, now. What she wanted was information. She had to get this cleared up, preferably before a new day dawned.

"You awake, Captain Hunt?" she asked softly, kissing as she whispered. He moved slightly and mumbled something she couldn't understand. "Wake up, Dylan, we have to talk."

"Now? It's . . . "

"The middle of the night, I know, but I have waited a long time to ask you this. I'm going to turn the light on, so I can see your face. Close your eyes."

She touched on the lamp adjusting the angle and intensity of the light so that they could discern each other's emotions in the dimness. She couldn't decide if this was a chair conversation or a bed conversation, and finally pulled the blanket off the bed using it to cover her naked body while she sat in the chair. Dylan pulled on his turtleneck, boxer briefs and pants. It was definitely not going to be a naked conversation.

Strange old thoughts were echoing through her mind. The first day they had come in contact with the Andromeda Ascendant, the first time Harper had laid eyes on Dylan, he had commented, "he's huge, like a Greek god." Those words now hovered at the edge of her consciousness and she wondered if the engineer had been prophetic.

"There are too many things that have to be explained. Things that I have lived with and ignored for too long of a time. What are you Dylan Hunt? Who is Evan? Who or what in the hell is Harry?"

"Too many questions at one time, Captain Valentine. I can't answer them all in one breath."

"You bet your sweet ass you can't, that's why I woke you up. You are going to stay up talking to me until I have this all explained to me, all figured out."

"The explaining will take a while, Beka, the figuring out . . . I'm not sure even I can help on that one."

"Talk."

"Let's start with Evan. For some reason I am clearest as to him. Evan is a very old friend and an old lover. We were very, very close a long time ago. And I mean a long time ago. Not three hundred years ago, at the time of the Commonwealth. . I'm not sure that it isn't more than three thousand years ago. Don't ask. I don't know. I recognized this, but not clearly, the first night he came on the ship. I remembered because he is the kindest, most gentle, most loyal, most loving man I have ever met. So what did I do? I raped him."

Beka's face dropped. She couldn't believe Dylan had STARTED the story there. Where was it going to go if rape was the comfortable starting point?

"Maybe it wasn't rape. It wasn't violent. But it certainly wasn't consensual. I didn't ask. I didn't know how to ask. I just did. The crazy guy thought it was just too funny. Hell, he could have tried to kill me. You see, I think in a previous time, maybe a previous life, he and I were -- what do they call it -- soulmates. The strange thing is that we're not exactly that way now. We're friends. We love each other. We have fun together in and out of bed, but we are not completely linked. Maybe the link goes deeper. I really can't tell. Does this make any sense to you, Beka?"

He waited for her to nod her head; she just sort of smiled. "Please, continue."

"He's really torn, because he wants to join our crew, but what he does on Libra X, and I don't really have the slightest idea what that is besides buying books for the collection, is extremely important to him. He seems to have the feeling that he is safeguarding the universe's intelligence, without him there would be just chaos."

"Damn noble of him," Beka replied.

"That's Iolaus for you, always been like that."

"So that's his name, Iolaus. I don't know that name from history, must not have been too important."

"Beka, he may have been the most important man who ever lived, certainly the greatest hero." His face went blank, and then lit up. "Beka, he's an immortal. He may be a god."

"Don't think so, Dylan. There aren't gods. Are there?"

"Harry's one."

"What the ….!"

"I know for a fact that Harry Wagner, Tyr's fuck buddy who got the living shit beat out of him last night is actually Ares, the Greek god of War. I've known that since I met him. Not really sure how, but the first time I ever laid eyes on him I knew who he was, never have been sure what he wanted, and after last night I'm not entirely sure he knows."

"God of War. Why do we need a god of war? War seems to be something that all species have had no problem doing on their own."

"Honestly, I don't think Harry is much in the war business any more. Although he does love the weapons. Ever notice how he can't take his hands off the walls of the ship?"

"Being a god explains the blue flash thing though. That really threw me for a loop."

There was silence while she tried to process the information Dylan had just given to her. It explained some of the things she had been thinking about over the past few months. Tyr's fascination with Harry, considering that he knew about his true identity, made his previously improbably relationship understandable. A disenfranchised Alpha Nietzschean male might be willing to give up his genetic heritage, at least temporarily, for someone who claimed to be the god of war.

"Glad he's given up war. I don't think the Dragons or the Magogs need any more help. Glad he's on our side."

"You never can tell with Ares, sometimes he's on all sides."

"And I thought Tyr was a pragmatist."

* * * * * * *

"I'm not going back to the ship with you, Tyr."

The Nietzschean had been blindsided for the second time in less than twelve hours. He wanted to say, 'What makes you think I would want you to return to the ship with me?' but held his tongue. Careful consideration had lead him to believe that treating the events between them last night as the result of pregnant female hormones coupled with too much alcohol was the most prudent course of action. He had no thoughts as to the cause or treatment of the events regarding Harry.

"I'm going to stay here, I've always heard pregnancy is easier on land than in space, but primarily because I want to do some research as to where we might settle. Where the Kodiak pride can take the remains of Drago Museveni and reestablish itself. Someplace nice, someplace safe."

"I sincerely doubt if that exists, Joan D'Arc out of Portia by Kanute."

"I gal can look, can't she?"

"Perhaps Evan Hopewell can help with your research. His resources are unlimited. He may know of uncharted places unknown to others." Tyr mentioned causally.

"I don't believe I will be contacting him. Evan Hopewell is exactly who got me into this situation in the first place." The accompanying thought she kept to herself. "I'm not going to believe anything he tells me after the song and dance he gave me on my scroll."

"I was not aware you ever finalized a deal with him on that."

"We did, on our last visit. To his satisfaction, if not mine. I don't believe a word of what he told me, but the money he gave me will allow me to stay here until the baby is born."

"What did he say… about Ares?"

"Why do you care?"

"I don't. Just thought it would be fun to know. Check out what kind of lies the little librarian is relying on now."

"Oh, I forgot, you still look at him as a friend. That is one of your weakest points, Tyr Anasazi, your friendships with kludges. Evan is just like Dylan Hunt and your precious Harry, not to be relied on or trusted."

Tyr turned his back and walked away. Was it better to rely on a species that trusted no one and thrived on treachery? How was that good for Tyr? How was that going to protect his precious genes? Still he really would have liked to know what Evan had said about the scrolls and why he had paid so much money to Joan for them. He would learn, someday.

* * * * *

"What about you Dylan Hunt? How do you fit into this crazy story you are telling me about ancient immortals and damn Greek gods."

"I'm Hercules." He said it matter-of-factly with that that cute little Dylan smile on his face that she had seen so many times in the past. She knew he thought he was telling the truth, Dylan's lying smile was different. She had learned to differentiate.

"You're Hercules. Son of Zeus, Hercules. Strength of ten men, Hercules." She laughed. It was a good story, one which he seemed to believe, but one which she found a little hard to fathom. "How in the hell did Hercules get to be a member of the Commonwealth High Guard?"

"That part, Beka, I have to say, I don't understand. Unlike Evan who claims he has lived on Libra X for over 500 years without benefit of black holes or special charms, or even Harry who just jumps around through time and space, I seem to have a concrete childhood, parents, family, training. . . hell, I even seem to age a bit." He ran his fingers through the graying highlights in his hair. "But there is a part of me that KNOWS that as sure as you are sitting there shivering, that I really am Hercules. Believe me, I've tried to get Iolaus, Evan, to help me with it, but he seems more content to . . ."

"Play silly games. I'm sorry, I've sort of egged him on with those. Forgive me."

"Forgiven, Captain Valentine."

He walked over and stood behind her, putting his hand on her shoulder, under the blanket.

"Does that mean Harry is your brother?"

"I believe it does, Beka, I believe it does."

She rose and began to push him back toward the bed. Her hands helped him remove the same clothing he had so carefully donned before.

"I'm not sure we can go back to being just crewmembers, Beka. I think we've moved past that. I'm willing to give moving forward a try. I'm willing to try to forget Sarah. I'm willing to . . . ."

"I think I have told you before, I don't care about Sarah. I do care about you. I'm willing to give that moving forward a try. And as far as Evan goes, I would love to see him spank you sometime, Hercules."

"Same here. I mean, I'd love to see him spank you, Beka."

"Whatever are you suggesting, Captain Hunt?"

They both laughed, until the laughter was overcome by kisses and other fucking sounds.

* * * * * * * *

Beka and Dylan returned to the ship later that morning, recorded and sent a message to Harry via Evan. It was their way of telling both of them the changed status of their relationship. A silent Tyr returned to the ship a few hours later, more sullen than either Captain had ever seen him before. The delay in departure for the next planet on their schedule had was primarily due to the even later return of the ships avatar who also looked with some disdain at the two senior staff members standing beside each other at closer than proper military distance. Things had changed on the Andromeda over that stop, even Harper and Trance, who had spent the entire weekend exploring each other's bodies in bed, in the garden, in the anti-gravity spaces, and almost everywhere else, sensed the change and wondered what was about to happen next. Lovers, friends and the universe all had their own mysteries.

McJude
 

March, 2002

Back to Fanfic