FIC: The Next Dance (4/14)
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Galen Tyrol was surprisingly light on his feet. When Laura complimented him, he said, “All that temple dancing as a kid. I can Molitius Prance with the best bell ringers.” His grin was infectious.
“I dare not try,” Laura said. “Particularly tonight with a few drinks.”
He looked as sly as his big, honest face could manage. “Ah, you passed on the folk dancing after the groundbreaking too. Too much that night as well?” Then Tyrol blushed at his daring, the red stain meeting his blackened jaw-- Laura remembered Adama’s brutal right hook laying him out and winced.
She said, “I seem to remember us all being a bit tipsy.”
“I need to sit down,” Bill had said.
“There’re chairs back there,” Laura had said, flapping her hand at the rollicking dance area, bright in the dark night.
“Someplace quiet. Private,” he said.
“Oh,” she replied. Private. She gulped. Even though--Oh, who the hell was she kidding?
They wandered though the shadows, not sure what they were looking for. Like a child finding candy, she said, “Look! Here we go!”
“Where?” he said fuzzily, taking another hit from the rolled smoke.
She said, “They put some tents out, just in case it rains.” She took the joint from him without asking, inhaling deeply, licking at the slight moisture of his saliva. “It rains a lot here.”
“Baltar seems to have ordered up clear skies for the day,” he said, perching on the folded canvas. She tried to sit beside him, but lost her balance, pulling them both over together.
“Oh, this is nice,” she said, rolling onto her back, somehow finding herself tucked in his armpit, their heads resting on sandbags. She decided that his strong shoulder made a better pillow.
“I realized this afternoon that I’ve never seen you in sunlight,” he said as though there’d been no interruption in their conversation. “Even Kobol’s surface was nothing but rain and fog.”
She stared up at the stars, heaving a sigh.
“You’re really pretty with the sun in your hair,” he said simply.
Gravely, Laura said, “So are you,” and collapsed in giggles. Bill had joined her, his deep chuckles reverberating through her bones.
“Ma’am?” said Sam, and Laura moved into his arms before he could even ask.
“Didn’t think this would be your sort of thing,” she said to him. He danced like the athlete he was, strong movements with no grace. Bill moved like a boxer, dancing light.
“I’m married to an officer,” he said stiffly.
With a kind tone, she said, “But you didn’t come with her tonight?”
“No, Tory invited me,” he replied, glancing at his wife dancing with Gaeta across the floor, the two of them mutely sniping at each other like quarreling birds.
Laura stroked his arm as though he was a large dog she could soothe with a pet.
Sam said, “But she’ll probably take me back to her rack tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Sam,” said Laura.
“Don’t be,” he said sincerely.
“I hope you feel that you can come to me if you’re having trouble adapting in the Fleet. I understand that the problems you and Kara are having can make these ships seem unwelcoming--“
Sam smiled at her. “Thank you, Ma’am. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Laura met Kara’s challenging gaze over his shoulder. “There was so much promise for you young people on New Caprica.”
“Who wants to leave?” Laura had asked, tugging what was left of the joint from Bill’s fingertips.
“The Chief and Cally.”
“A new baby for New Caprica.”
He said, “It was supposed to be Galactica’s first baby.”
“Battlestars shouldn’t have babies,” she pointed out. “Not on a war ship.”
“What war?” he grumbled.
“Anyone else?” she asked. “I was surprised to see Kara down here.”
“She doesn’t see the point of staying on board if there’s nothing but routine patrols up top,” he said.
“We hardly have front line action down here.”
He held what was left of the smoke in his fingertips. “Sam’s here. He’s a good match for her. Two dogs in the same pack.”
“And Lee’s not,” she pointed out, then thought, did I say that out loud?
“She doesn’t seem to have fun fighting with him anymore,” he said, and her brow crinkled, perplexed.
Tentatively, she said, “And he’s got Dee too.”
He inhaled deeply from the last twist of leaves. “You think something’s going on there?” he choked out.
“Uh, yeah!” she said, rolling onto his chest to try and stare at him.
“She’s a really nice girl,” he said, content.
“But I don’t know if he cares about her as much as she cares about him,” said Laura, trying to get a point across.
“I can remember when Billy had a crush on her,” he said. “These kids and their musical love lives.”
She fell flat-faced, muttering, “Ouch,” when her nose was nipped by a button on his uniform.
“Lee and Dee came down today,” he said. “I hope they don’t get any ideas. I’d hate to have to move Saul over to the Pegasus.”
“I’ve seen Ellen down here a lot, saying she wants to make it permanent.”
Bill groaned. “I try not to listen to that woman.”
“To your detriment,” she warned. “She’ll talk him into it.”
He went quiet, his hands smoothing her back. She hummed in appreciation, but let him brood.
He surprised her by asking, “What should I do, Laura? I need my Chief. The Galactica does.”
“And your XO,” Laura said. “Your best friend.”
“Yes,” he said, tensing.
“But maybe they’ve earned it,” she said, brushing his hair back from his furrowed brow. “Maybe you’ve earned it.”
She went still, waiting for his response, and one didn’t come.
“So I should let them go?” he said.
“And the captain goes down with his ship.”
Now the silence stretched into minutes of time.
She focused on the stars. “Which one is Galactica, Bill?”
“Why?”
“I want to know which one to wish on at night,” Laura had said.
The stars above the dance floor sparkled in her tear-filled eyes.
“I’m here too, Madam President,” Sam said, stumbling slightly over the long title. “If you want someone to hang out with.”
That cleared her eyes. Laura laughed at the joy of being in the arms of a man who lived just in the moment.
“Oh, Sam, you’ve made me feel better already,” she said and he grinned with happiness.
“Glad I could make one woman happy tonight,” he said.
She leaned into his strong arms, and watched the flickering lights again. She was thinking too much.
It had been easy to start kissing. A man, a woman, the nebula stretching over them like a blanket in the night sky, their mouths close enough to feel their breaths. And being drunk and stoned didn’t hurt.
“Hmmm?” Laura had asked when Bill tipped her chin up.
The back of his fingers stroked her cheek. “You’re still warm from the sun.” Before she could point out that she’d probably gotten a bit sunburned, he leaned in, murmuring, “Nothing tastes better than a peach right off the tree on a sunny day--“
She parted her lips to meet his, to find that warmth as soon as possible--take the biggest bite.
Bill surprised her by being a slow kisser with even slower hands. No direct military attack, but the sweet moves of a teenage boy with his first girlfriend, trying to map her mouth, tongue, lips. It was all very high school, that feeling that he wasn’t going to take things any further than some making out and copping a feel or two...she arched her back, trying to get at least one of his caressing hands to move around to the front of her body.
He spit out the mouthful of hair that he’d inhaled while trying to get at her neck. “You got quarters?”
“Quarters?” she mumbled. “Oh, yeah.” She rolled slightly, so that his hand finally stumbled onto her breast. His thick fingers flexed slightly and she gasped. “I’ve got...uh...” Where did she live? “A tent, I’ve got a tent.”
“Got a roommate?”
She’d been wrong. It wasn’t high school, it was college. Bribing your dorm mate to study late at the library--“Yeah, but she’s out there dancing tonight. I’m sure she won’t be back until late--“
He nipped at her collarbone revealed by the dress’s deep scoop neck, causing her to grip his hair painfully tight. He’d rolled her onto her back, and she was being very pleasantly crushed by his weight. Gods, he was solid--
He rasped, “Any chance she’ll end up in someone else’s tent for tonight? It’s pretty late right now.”
Laura considered lying. But he’d know the moment Hester walked in on them twined together on her narrow cot, and he saw her roommate’s thick glasses, untidy gray bun, and ferret mouth, that she’d been untruthful. Besides, Hester’s heart probably couldn’t take that strain. She’d nearly passed out when she’d caught Laura separating the weed’s leaves from stems and seeds on their table.
“Damn,” she mumbled. Then, “What do we need a tent for?” as she fumbled at his belt buckle.
His big hands covered hers. “Nooo...” he said. “No clothes off.”
“Whaah?” she said fuzzily.
“I’m still the Admiral and you’ll be the President again someday--“ She grunted in disagreement. “Can’t be discovered naked in the bushes, like some rook pilot with a boner and a hooker.”
Boner. Admiral William Adama had said boner to his Pres--former President. She started giggling, struggling against his grip, her thigh coming up between his legs and discovering that the Admiral had a boner himself. She surged up against him. “Does that make me the hooker?” she gasped.
“Dammit, Laura,” he ground out, rolling off of her.
She flopped onto his chest. “Gotcha,” she said, then whined, “All clothes stay on?” They were back to high school, negotiating on hot summer nights at the lake. Only instead of her telling Harold Simmings that he couldn’t see her bare breasts, but could have a feel through her shirt and bra, now she was trying to get her boy to let her take her top off. Was it true what they said about post-menopausal women in the now tattered issues of Aphrodite in Colonial One’s bathroom? She sure as hell hoped so.
“Yeah,” he said, as his mouth descended onto hers, pushing her back down on the tarp. His hand moved up under her skirt, causing her closed eyes to snap open. He whispered in her ear, as though they were in a crowd, “I can make you happy with your clothes on, Laura.” She blinked like a traffic light. “Let me make you happy.” His hand was between the thighs now, moving very close to someplace warm and yearning.
His fingers were chilly, causing her to shiver with both the cold and trepidation. She squeezed his hand with her thighs, stopping its progress. “What about you?” she sighed in his ear.
“I’m okay,” Bill assured her. “I’ll just watch--“
She cackled like a crazy oracle, feeling pretty insane at this moment, with her skirt bunched up, lying on a stinky old tent, stoned out of her gourd, with the Admiral of the Fleet’s fingertips stroking her panties--
“No, you don’t,” Laura said firmly, grabbing his wrist and pulling his hand free with regret. “No fair.” She kissed him to soothe the sting. When she freed his mouth, she looked into his bedazzled eyes. “I like to watch too,” she murmured, making him a promise.
Next>>>
Galen Tyrol was surprisingly light on his feet. When Laura complimented him, he said, “All that temple dancing as a kid. I can Molitius Prance with the best bell ringers.” His grin was infectious.
“I dare not try,” Laura said. “Particularly tonight with a few drinks.”
He looked as sly as his big, honest face could manage. “Ah, you passed on the folk dancing after the groundbreaking too. Too much that night as well?” Then Tyrol blushed at his daring, the red stain meeting his blackened jaw-- Laura remembered Adama’s brutal right hook laying him out and winced.
She said, “I seem to remember us all being a bit tipsy.”
“I need to sit down,” Bill had said.
“There’re chairs back there,” Laura had said, flapping her hand at the rollicking dance area, bright in the dark night.
“Someplace quiet. Private,” he said.
“Oh,” she replied. Private. She gulped. Even though--Oh, who the hell was she kidding?
They wandered though the shadows, not sure what they were looking for. Like a child finding candy, she said, “Look! Here we go!”
“Where?” he said fuzzily, taking another hit from the rolled smoke.
She said, “They put some tents out, just in case it rains.” She took the joint from him without asking, inhaling deeply, licking at the slight moisture of his saliva. “It rains a lot here.”
“Baltar seems to have ordered up clear skies for the day,” he said, perching on the folded canvas. She tried to sit beside him, but lost her balance, pulling them both over together.
“Oh, this is nice,” she said, rolling onto her back, somehow finding herself tucked in his armpit, their heads resting on sandbags. She decided that his strong shoulder made a better pillow.
“I realized this afternoon that I’ve never seen you in sunlight,” he said as though there’d been no interruption in their conversation. “Even Kobol’s surface was nothing but rain and fog.”
She stared up at the stars, heaving a sigh.
“You’re really pretty with the sun in your hair,” he said simply.
Gravely, Laura said, “So are you,” and collapsed in giggles. Bill had joined her, his deep chuckles reverberating through her bones.
“Ma’am?” said Sam, and Laura moved into his arms before he could even ask.
“Didn’t think this would be your sort of thing,” she said to him. He danced like the athlete he was, strong movements with no grace. Bill moved like a boxer, dancing light.
“I’m married to an officer,” he said stiffly.
With a kind tone, she said, “But you didn’t come with her tonight?”
“No, Tory invited me,” he replied, glancing at his wife dancing with Gaeta across the floor, the two of them mutely sniping at each other like quarreling birds.
Laura stroked his arm as though he was a large dog she could soothe with a pet.
Sam said, “But she’ll probably take me back to her rack tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Sam,” said Laura.
“Don’t be,” he said sincerely.
“I hope you feel that you can come to me if you’re having trouble adapting in the Fleet. I understand that the problems you and Kara are having can make these ships seem unwelcoming--“
Sam smiled at her. “Thank you, Ma’am. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Laura met Kara’s challenging gaze over his shoulder. “There was so much promise for you young people on New Caprica.”
“Who wants to leave?” Laura had asked, tugging what was left of the joint from Bill’s fingertips.
“The Chief and Cally.”
“A new baby for New Caprica.”
He said, “It was supposed to be Galactica’s first baby.”
“Battlestars shouldn’t have babies,” she pointed out. “Not on a war ship.”
“What war?” he grumbled.
“Anyone else?” she asked. “I was surprised to see Kara down here.”
“She doesn’t see the point of staying on board if there’s nothing but routine patrols up top,” he said.
“We hardly have front line action down here.”
He held what was left of the smoke in his fingertips. “Sam’s here. He’s a good match for her. Two dogs in the same pack.”
“And Lee’s not,” she pointed out, then thought, did I say that out loud?
“She doesn’t seem to have fun fighting with him anymore,” he said, and her brow crinkled, perplexed.
Tentatively, she said, “And he’s got Dee too.”
He inhaled deeply from the last twist of leaves. “You think something’s going on there?” he choked out.
“Uh, yeah!” she said, rolling onto his chest to try and stare at him.
“She’s a really nice girl,” he said, content.
“But I don’t know if he cares about her as much as she cares about him,” said Laura, trying to get a point across.
“I can remember when Billy had a crush on her,” he said. “These kids and their musical love lives.”
She fell flat-faced, muttering, “Ouch,” when her nose was nipped by a button on his uniform.
“Lee and Dee came down today,” he said. “I hope they don’t get any ideas. I’d hate to have to move Saul over to the Pegasus.”
“I’ve seen Ellen down here a lot, saying she wants to make it permanent.”
Bill groaned. “I try not to listen to that woman.”
“To your detriment,” she warned. “She’ll talk him into it.”
He went quiet, his hands smoothing her back. She hummed in appreciation, but let him brood.
He surprised her by asking, “What should I do, Laura? I need my Chief. The Galactica does.”
“And your XO,” Laura said. “Your best friend.”
“Yes,” he said, tensing.
“But maybe they’ve earned it,” she said, brushing his hair back from his furrowed brow. “Maybe you’ve earned it.”
She went still, waiting for his response, and one didn’t come.
“So I should let them go?” he said.
“And the captain goes down with his ship.”
Now the silence stretched into minutes of time.
She focused on the stars. “Which one is Galactica, Bill?”
“Why?”
“I want to know which one to wish on at night,” Laura had said.
The stars above the dance floor sparkled in her tear-filled eyes.
“I’m here too, Madam President,” Sam said, stumbling slightly over the long title. “If you want someone to hang out with.”
That cleared her eyes. Laura laughed at the joy of being in the arms of a man who lived just in the moment.
“Oh, Sam, you’ve made me feel better already,” she said and he grinned with happiness.
“Glad I could make one woman happy tonight,” he said.
She leaned into his strong arms, and watched the flickering lights again. She was thinking too much.
It had been easy to start kissing. A man, a woman, the nebula stretching over them like a blanket in the night sky, their mouths close enough to feel their breaths. And being drunk and stoned didn’t hurt.
“Hmmm?” Laura had asked when Bill tipped her chin up.
The back of his fingers stroked her cheek. “You’re still warm from the sun.” Before she could point out that she’d probably gotten a bit sunburned, he leaned in, murmuring, “Nothing tastes better than a peach right off the tree on a sunny day--“
She parted her lips to meet his, to find that warmth as soon as possible--take the biggest bite.
Bill surprised her by being a slow kisser with even slower hands. No direct military attack, but the sweet moves of a teenage boy with his first girlfriend, trying to map her mouth, tongue, lips. It was all very high school, that feeling that he wasn’t going to take things any further than some making out and copping a feel or two...she arched her back, trying to get at least one of his caressing hands to move around to the front of her body.
He spit out the mouthful of hair that he’d inhaled while trying to get at her neck. “You got quarters?”
“Quarters?” she mumbled. “Oh, yeah.” She rolled slightly, so that his hand finally stumbled onto her breast. His thick fingers flexed slightly and she gasped. “I’ve got...uh...” Where did she live? “A tent, I’ve got a tent.”
“Got a roommate?”
She’d been wrong. It wasn’t high school, it was college. Bribing your dorm mate to study late at the library--“Yeah, but she’s out there dancing tonight. I’m sure she won’t be back until late--“
He nipped at her collarbone revealed by the dress’s deep scoop neck, causing her to grip his hair painfully tight. He’d rolled her onto her back, and she was being very pleasantly crushed by his weight. Gods, he was solid--
He rasped, “Any chance she’ll end up in someone else’s tent for tonight? It’s pretty late right now.”
Laura considered lying. But he’d know the moment Hester walked in on them twined together on her narrow cot, and he saw her roommate’s thick glasses, untidy gray bun, and ferret mouth, that she’d been untruthful. Besides, Hester’s heart probably couldn’t take that strain. She’d nearly passed out when she’d caught Laura separating the weed’s leaves from stems and seeds on their table.
“Damn,” she mumbled. Then, “What do we need a tent for?” as she fumbled at his belt buckle.
His big hands covered hers. “Nooo...” he said. “No clothes off.”
“Whaah?” she said fuzzily.
“I’m still the Admiral and you’ll be the President again someday--“ She grunted in disagreement. “Can’t be discovered naked in the bushes, like some rook pilot with a boner and a hooker.”
Boner. Admiral William Adama had said boner to his Pres--former President. She started giggling, struggling against his grip, her thigh coming up between his legs and discovering that the Admiral had a boner himself. She surged up against him. “Does that make me the hooker?” she gasped.
“Dammit, Laura,” he ground out, rolling off of her.
She flopped onto his chest. “Gotcha,” she said, then whined, “All clothes stay on?” They were back to high school, negotiating on hot summer nights at the lake. Only instead of her telling Harold Simmings that he couldn’t see her bare breasts, but could have a feel through her shirt and bra, now she was trying to get her boy to let her take her top off. Was it true what they said about post-menopausal women in the now tattered issues of Aphrodite in Colonial One’s bathroom? She sure as hell hoped so.
“Yeah,” he said, as his mouth descended onto hers, pushing her back down on the tarp. His hand moved up under her skirt, causing her closed eyes to snap open. He whispered in her ear, as though they were in a crowd, “I can make you happy with your clothes on, Laura.” She blinked like a traffic light. “Let me make you happy.” His hand was between the thighs now, moving very close to someplace warm and yearning.
His fingers were chilly, causing her to shiver with both the cold and trepidation. She squeezed his hand with her thighs, stopping its progress. “What about you?” she sighed in his ear.
“I’m okay,” Bill assured her. “I’ll just watch--“
She cackled like a crazy oracle, feeling pretty insane at this moment, with her skirt bunched up, lying on a stinky old tent, stoned out of her gourd, with the Admiral of the Fleet’s fingertips stroking her panties--
“No, you don’t,” Laura said firmly, grabbing his wrist and pulling his hand free with regret. “No fair.” She kissed him to soothe the sting. When she freed his mouth, she looked into his bedazzled eyes. “I like to watch too,” she murmured, making him a promise.
Next>>>