[Couples_therapy 27.3]
OOC: This is AU!Kara, and takes place in the AU!verse with Cylon_prophet, and mentions of Notmyfate. Contains adult content, including consensual breathplay.
Are you more comfortable when a relationship you're in progresses quickly or slowly?
Kara was in bed, asleep, when she heard her door open. Disoriented, she looked up, thinking for a moment she was back on Galactica, expecting the hard metal beneath her bunk and the odd metallic shine of the light on the floor. But no, this was Earth, and she was alone in her room (she made sure to have her own room; if she didn't have privacy, she was pretty sure this wasn't going to work), and the darkness was broken only by the shifting light of the moon through the window.
It took her a moment to figure out it was Leoben standing in her doorway. She sat up, reclining half on her elbows, blinking awake. "What is it?" she asked warily. She almost asked about Sam, if he was all right, but maybe that wasn't a good idea.
Frak me. Too many frakking rules.
Leoben didn't ask if he could come in. He simply did it, shutting the door behind him and sitting on the side of her bed. Kara stared at him, waiting for her eyes to adjust so she could see him. "What do you want? I was sleeping." Sometimes Kara didn't think she'd ever catch up on all the sleep she'd lost.
Especially not when someone keeps interrupting me.
Leoben leaned forward suddenly and grabbed her arms, forcing them up over her head. He could move fast enough that she couldn't follow him, which was infuriating the few times they actually sparred. He didn't fight fair, and sparring him didn't make Kara want to fuck him like it did with Sam. It usually just made her frustrated and annoyed.
Leoben had that affect on a lot of people, come to think of it. Her. Sam. The other Cylons. He shouldn't ever be surprised, should he?
Kara pulled against his grip but it was useless. He had inhuman strength, what the frak was she supposed to do? She glared at him, breathing fast--it was hard to see him in the darkness, and his eyes looked like black pools in his face. Kara sometimes forgot that Leoben wasn't human. She remembered it at times like this, when he looked strange and other and was pinning her down with more strength than a human man should possess. "Let me go, what the hell is the matter with you?"
Leoben leaned down and nuzzled at her neck. "Why are you angry?" he asked, his voice quiet, almost drowsy.
"Because it's the middle of the godsdamned night?" Kara said, trying to push on his shoulder. He didn't move. "Leoben."
"Mmm." His mouth traced up her neck, breathing out softly, something he did because it made her shudder--like now. Leoben had the strangest idea of foreplay of any guy Kara had ever been with; some guys went down on a girl; Leoben liked to choke her, liked to turn her over and breathe against the length of her spine. Things that scared her as much as aroused her.
He was also fond of restraining her, which he was doing right now. Sometimes (all right, more than sometimes) she liked that, but she'd been asleep. "Let's discuss how neither of you get to come in here and just wake me up for sex if I'm sleeping," Kara said angrily, pushing at him again. It was futile, but it made her feel better to try.
Leoben raised his head, and her eyes had adjusted now to make out the slight smile on his face. "Kara. You give Sam these rules, and you want him to follow them."
"Yes. I want you both to follow them, why would I--"
"You like it when I don't," he said simply, leaning down and kissing her. Kara remained stoic beneath him, but Leoben was good at kissing. He started touching her like this and she lost all sense of what she should do, which annoyed her, but it was also making her whimper and kiss him back.
Kara tried to get her knee in place to really suggest he move in a way that would be more effective, but Leoben--who made a habit of thinking ahead all the time--knew that trick of hers by now and moved easily to trap her beneath him. "Kara, do you want to fight me?" Leoben smiled at her again, pulling back slightly. His smile was serpentine, cold, a direct contrast to Sam's boyish, sunny grin. "Is that what you want?" he stroked her cheek gently, his other hand still shackling her wrists above her head. "You know I only want to make you happy."
Leoben had some way of saying things that should sound sweet and making them sound like a threat. Kara glared at him again, licking her lips. "Do you ever want to have sex without all the frakking mindgames first?"
Leoben kept kissing her without answering, which Kara took to mean as a no. He became rougher as he kept at it, slowly losing his focus, his control. Kara bucked against him and moaned, biting her lip, tossing her head on the bed. She pulled against his grip on her wrists and put her legs around his waist. She wasn't precisely uninterested in sex, but he was fond of making things more complicated than they needed to be.
"Fine, frak me, then," Kara said, sounding huffy even to her own ears. "Then I can get some sleep when you're done."
"Kara," Leoben said, sounding amused. "That's not exactly an enticement."
"What happened to I only want to make you happy?" Kara mocked, her voice sliding up an octave to a tone that Leoben wasn't even capable of matching.
"That's what I'm doing. You don't like to admit what you want from me. But I know." Leoben pulled back from her neck and then grabbed her throat, squeezing his fingers. "I know what you want, Kara. It's all right."
Kara did struggle--this wasn't like sparring Sam, which she did with jabs and kicks and taunts. This was something else, and there was always that sharp-edge of fear with Leoben, that he could break her neck so easily if he wanted. That maybe this was all a ruse, and he was waiting until she finally loved him to punish her for killing him over and over again on New Caprica, until it hurt as much as much as it possibly could--
Leoben let her breathe. Kara sucked in a deep breath, her entire body suffused with heat and fear. She hated this, hated it. She went to Leoben for sex when her mind was so loud she couldn't think. She couldn't recall a single time he'd ever approached her, not since she'd gone to him that first time on Galactica.
Make my mind shut up.
All right. Come here.
Considering she'd managed to actually fall asleep, her mind was as quiet as it ever was. That made this all his idea, and she would be lying if she said that didn't arouse her. Kara could feel herself breathing too fast, too shallow, waiting for him to choke her again. Leoben grabbed her throat once more, but he didn't squeeze. He simply met her eyes and waited.
"Stop," Kara said, shaking her head. She wasn't sure what she meant by that.
Leoben tightened his hand. Kara tilted her head up, trying to draw in air through her nose. He held on and she felt the prickling edge of darkness around her vision, heard that tell-tale roar and tasted her heartbeat in her throat. He let her go, and then leaned down and kissed her before she could draw as deep a breath as she needed to fill her lungs.
He released her hands, finally. Kara put them on his shoulders, alternately pushing him away and pulling him closer--symbolic of their entire relationship, which she would have noticed at any other time. When he finally tore his mouth away, she was gasping for breath. "I'm not going to kill you. You think that, sometimes. I know." He traced his fingers down her chest, over the swell of her breasts. She didn't even remember when he'd taken off the tank she'd fallen asleep in. "I like the way you look when you're afraid of me." Leoben sighed, and leaned down to kiss her on the valley between her breasts, the touch as sweet as his words were disturbing.
"I'm not frakking afraid of you," Kara snapped, and he looked up at laughed again, settling between her splayed thighs.
"Yes, you are," he said, and pushed his hips against her. "Don't you believe me that I love you? I've always loved you."
Kara dug her nails in his back--she'd not noticed he was shirtless, wearing only cotton pajama bottoms--and raked him, hard. "Frak you."
"When I'm ready," Leoben said, smirking a little. Kara raked his back harder, and he put his head back and groaned at the pain. "You love me, Kara."
It wasn't a question, but she answered it like it was. "Yes," she hissed, panting, shoving her hips at him. This was always what happened, always, the son of a bitch. He frakked with her head and then she wanted him to frak her, and it never made any sense. Even in New Caprica, that last moment when she'd kissed him--she'd felt something, some heat in her stomach even as she'd put a knife in his, and she could never forgive him for that.
"And you like to hurt me."
Kara took one hand and slapped him across the face, hard. He flinched, touching the edge of his tongue to his lip where she'd cut him with her nails. Kara didn't think she needed to bother to say anything after that.
"And I like to scare you." Leoben grabbed her wrists, holding her down with her arms at her sides. "You like to fight for control and have me take it away. You like our games, Kara. You don't have to pretend."
She was panting. "Shut. The. Frak. Up."
Leoben nuzzled her neck again. "Kara, Kara," he murmured. He leaned down and sucked hard on her nipple, and she bucked against him again, feeling his cock and trying to rub herself against it.
He didn't let her, of course not. He moved sinuously over her flushed body like a serpent, subtly applying pressure to keep her from moving in any way that might bring her pleasure. Kara settled back against the bed and stopped trying, let him suck on her nipples and bite her, let him leave a reddened mark that would bruise on the side of her breast. He was murmuring to her, words that would have been a comfort from anyone else, and her senses were so heightened that the slightest touch was making her writhe.
"You do scare me," Kara said, finding her voice, which was low, husky with arousal. "And I do love you. Just like you wanted. Like you always said I would." She watched him with narrowed eyes, pleased when he tensed and bit her just a little harder. "Does that make you happy, you frakking psycho?"
Kara's version of lovewords weren't much nicer with Sam. Frak me, come on, are you a man or not? Besides, she knew Leoben liked to hear it, liked to hear that she gave him to him in her mind as well as her body. She could play this game, too.
Leoben looked up at her again. "Yes." He waited, patient, watching her. Kara closed her eyes briefly. She knew what he wanted next, and it was late and she wanted him inside her, and she didn't think she wanted to play games anymore.
"Please," she choked out. It was always hard for her to say, always.
"Open your eyes, Kara."
Furiously, she complied. "Please," she said succinctly, eyes open, gaze fixed on his. "Leoben!" she bit out, losing her patience.
He reached down and pushed his pants down, and then, thank the Gods, he was thrusting into her, hard enough to make her feel it, hard enough to make her moan and bite her lip and push up against his hold on her hands. Not to escape, not now.
Leoben let her hands free and she grabbed his hair, his back, whimpering. He put his mouth near her ear and she could hear him breathing, quiet at last. She was able to put her legs around his waist and move with him, finally, and it didn't take her long at all before she clenched around him, her head thrown back and her eyes closed as she came. She bit his shoulder, sinking her teeth in to his skin. She hoped it would leave a mark, since the rest of her marks on him had all vanished every time he'd been reborn.
When she was finished, she opened her eyes and saw the soft, red glow on his back which meant he was close, too. She ran her hand down his spine in response, as fascinated by the sight as she had been the first time. In those moments, Kara didn't care what he was--human or Cylon, man or something else. He was Leoben, and he was hers, and that was all that mattered.
The gesture made him catch his breath, and she felt him thrust hard one last time, circling his hips as he came inside of her. Kara kept her hands on his back, and he rested against her as he caught his breath. She drew her hands down his back, watching as the glow faded in his spine and the room fell back into shadow.
Leoben finally moved off of her to lie next to her on the bed. Kara rolled to face him, wincing a bit. He was every bit as rough a lover, in his own way, as Sam. She propped herself up on her elbow, and then, very hesitantly, reached a hand out and lightly rested it on his chest.
She and Leoben were not yet comfortable with the gestures of casual intimacy, and she could feel him tense slightly as she drew her fingers lightly down his chest. "Is this bothering you?" she asked him, surprising herself by asking. Her normal defenses were down and she felt relaxed, which was unusual for her.
"No." Leoben put his hand on hers, curling his fingers around her own. It was a pleasant touch--not sexual or frightening, as their touches tended to be, and she was surprised that she liked it.
Kara studied him in the darkness. His body was lightly covered with sweat, his hair standing up in spikes from where she'd mussed it. The cut on his mouth wasn't bad, there was probably only a smear of blood, if that. His eyes were closed. He looked very relaxed, the lines of his face smooth and settled.
"Why are you staring at me?"
"What was that about?" Kara asked him, curious. She wasn't surprised he could tell she was staring; Leoben's intuition was odd but usually correct.
"Are you asking me why I want to have sex with you?" He opened his eyes. "I love you, Kara. Isn't that answer enough?"
Leoben never had any trouble saying I love you, which Kara admittedly did, and yet she often thought his equivalent was his inability to clearly answer questions without convoluted similes, or, as in this case, another question.
"What made you come into my room in the middle of the night, Leoben? Couldn't you sleep?" Kara moved hesitantly closer, in increments, still uncertain about intimacy between them that wasn't sexual. They'd never done this before, she realized. She'd never stayed with him after sex before. When Sam was with them, on Galactica, they'd all dozed sometimes but Kara hadn't really been able to sleep.
"I was asleep," he said, and traced the curve of her shoulder. His touch was as hesitant as hers. "I was dreaming." Leoben let go of her hand and stretched, his body tensing and relaxing on the bed next to her. Kara, her hand now free, drew light circles on his chest as an experiment and found she liked his body, liked watching it move and shift on the sheets. Sometimes she forgot she found him attractive, physically as well as mentally, which made her feel slightly guilty.
"What were you dreaming about?"
"Kara." Leoben looked over at her--she could see his eyebrow raised in the darkness.
"Oh." Kara looked away, then back at him curiously. "Really? I didn't know you'd dream about something as mundane as sex, Leoben. I thought it was all patterns and stars and streams crossing into rivers of universes or whatever--"
"I dream of many things, Kara," Leoben interrupted. "The shape of things that are to come, the patterns of those things that have been and will be." He paused. "And sometimes, I dream about pushing you against the counter with my hand around your throat." He patted her on the hand again. "I will go back to my room, now," he said, and made to leave the bed. "So that you can go back to sleep."
Kara shook her head and said quietly, "It's all right. You don't--you don't have to go. Unless you want to," she said hurriedly, her old defensiveness rising to the front. If you don't want to stay with me, you don't frakking have to humor me. It was a sign of her fairly relaxed state that she didn't say that out loud. "I know we don't usually--"
"I will stay here, if you don't mind." He rolled over, showing her his back. Kara stared at it and then ran her fingers down his spine, which looked perfectly normal, perfectly human. "Good night, Leoben," she said softly. She didn't move closer, didn't curl up against him as she might if it were Sam, but she kept his hand on his back for a long moment.
"Good night, Kara."
Kara closed her eyes. Sleep came easy, for once, and when she woke up, he was already gone.
Are you more comfortable when a relationship you're in progresses quickly or slowly?
Kara was in bed, asleep, when she heard her door open. Disoriented, she looked up, thinking for a moment she was back on Galactica, expecting the hard metal beneath her bunk and the odd metallic shine of the light on the floor. But no, this was Earth, and she was alone in her room (she made sure to have her own room; if she didn't have privacy, she was pretty sure this wasn't going to work), and the darkness was broken only by the shifting light of the moon through the window.
It took her a moment to figure out it was Leoben standing in her doorway. She sat up, reclining half on her elbows, blinking awake. "What is it?" she asked warily. She almost asked about Sam, if he was all right, but maybe that wasn't a good idea.
Frak me. Too many frakking rules.
Leoben didn't ask if he could come in. He simply did it, shutting the door behind him and sitting on the side of her bed. Kara stared at him, waiting for her eyes to adjust so she could see him. "What do you want? I was sleeping." Sometimes Kara didn't think she'd ever catch up on all the sleep she'd lost.
Especially not when someone keeps interrupting me.
Leoben leaned forward suddenly and grabbed her arms, forcing them up over her head. He could move fast enough that she couldn't follow him, which was infuriating the few times they actually sparred. He didn't fight fair, and sparring him didn't make Kara want to fuck him like it did with Sam. It usually just made her frustrated and annoyed.
Leoben had that affect on a lot of people, come to think of it. Her. Sam. The other Cylons. He shouldn't ever be surprised, should he?
Kara pulled against his grip but it was useless. He had inhuman strength, what the frak was she supposed to do? She glared at him, breathing fast--it was hard to see him in the darkness, and his eyes looked like black pools in his face. Kara sometimes forgot that Leoben wasn't human. She remembered it at times like this, when he looked strange and other and was pinning her down with more strength than a human man should possess. "Let me go, what the hell is the matter with you?"
Leoben leaned down and nuzzled at her neck. "Why are you angry?" he asked, his voice quiet, almost drowsy.
"Because it's the middle of the godsdamned night?" Kara said, trying to push on his shoulder. He didn't move. "Leoben."
"Mmm." His mouth traced up her neck, breathing out softly, something he did because it made her shudder--like now. Leoben had the strangest idea of foreplay of any guy Kara had ever been with; some guys went down on a girl; Leoben liked to choke her, liked to turn her over and breathe against the length of her spine. Things that scared her as much as aroused her.
He was also fond of restraining her, which he was doing right now. Sometimes (all right, more than sometimes) she liked that, but she'd been asleep. "Let's discuss how neither of you get to come in here and just wake me up for sex if I'm sleeping," Kara said angrily, pushing at him again. It was futile, but it made her feel better to try.
Leoben raised his head, and her eyes had adjusted now to make out the slight smile on his face. "Kara. You give Sam these rules, and you want him to follow them."
"Yes. I want you both to follow them, why would I--"
"You like it when I don't," he said simply, leaning down and kissing her. Kara remained stoic beneath him, but Leoben was good at kissing. He started touching her like this and she lost all sense of what she should do, which annoyed her, but it was also making her whimper and kiss him back.
Kara tried to get her knee in place to really suggest he move in a way that would be more effective, but Leoben--who made a habit of thinking ahead all the time--knew that trick of hers by now and moved easily to trap her beneath him. "Kara, do you want to fight me?" Leoben smiled at her again, pulling back slightly. His smile was serpentine, cold, a direct contrast to Sam's boyish, sunny grin. "Is that what you want?" he stroked her cheek gently, his other hand still shackling her wrists above her head. "You know I only want to make you happy."
Leoben had some way of saying things that should sound sweet and making them sound like a threat. Kara glared at him again, licking her lips. "Do you ever want to have sex without all the frakking mindgames first?"
Leoben kept kissing her without answering, which Kara took to mean as a no. He became rougher as he kept at it, slowly losing his focus, his control. Kara bucked against him and moaned, biting her lip, tossing her head on the bed. She pulled against his grip on her wrists and put her legs around his waist. She wasn't precisely uninterested in sex, but he was fond of making things more complicated than they needed to be.
"Fine, frak me, then," Kara said, sounding huffy even to her own ears. "Then I can get some sleep when you're done."
"Kara," Leoben said, sounding amused. "That's not exactly an enticement."
"What happened to I only want to make you happy?" Kara mocked, her voice sliding up an octave to a tone that Leoben wasn't even capable of matching.
"That's what I'm doing. You don't like to admit what you want from me. But I know." Leoben pulled back from her neck and then grabbed her throat, squeezing his fingers. "I know what you want, Kara. It's all right."
Kara did struggle--this wasn't like sparring Sam, which she did with jabs and kicks and taunts. This was something else, and there was always that sharp-edge of fear with Leoben, that he could break her neck so easily if he wanted. That maybe this was all a ruse, and he was waiting until she finally loved him to punish her for killing him over and over again on New Caprica, until it hurt as much as much as it possibly could--
Leoben let her breathe. Kara sucked in a deep breath, her entire body suffused with heat and fear. She hated this, hated it. She went to Leoben for sex when her mind was so loud she couldn't think. She couldn't recall a single time he'd ever approached her, not since she'd gone to him that first time on Galactica.
Make my mind shut up.
All right. Come here.
Considering she'd managed to actually fall asleep, her mind was as quiet as it ever was. That made this all his idea, and she would be lying if she said that didn't arouse her. Kara could feel herself breathing too fast, too shallow, waiting for him to choke her again. Leoben grabbed her throat once more, but he didn't squeeze. He simply met her eyes and waited.
"Stop," Kara said, shaking her head. She wasn't sure what she meant by that.
Leoben tightened his hand. Kara tilted her head up, trying to draw in air through her nose. He held on and she felt the prickling edge of darkness around her vision, heard that tell-tale roar and tasted her heartbeat in her throat. He let her go, and then leaned down and kissed her before she could draw as deep a breath as she needed to fill her lungs.
He released her hands, finally. Kara put them on his shoulders, alternately pushing him away and pulling him closer--symbolic of their entire relationship, which she would have noticed at any other time. When he finally tore his mouth away, she was gasping for breath. "I'm not going to kill you. You think that, sometimes. I know." He traced his fingers down her chest, over the swell of her breasts. She didn't even remember when he'd taken off the tank she'd fallen asleep in. "I like the way you look when you're afraid of me." Leoben sighed, and leaned down to kiss her on the valley between her breasts, the touch as sweet as his words were disturbing.
"I'm not frakking afraid of you," Kara snapped, and he looked up at laughed again, settling between her splayed thighs.
"Yes, you are," he said, and pushed his hips against her. "Don't you believe me that I love you? I've always loved you."
Kara dug her nails in his back--she'd not noticed he was shirtless, wearing only cotton pajama bottoms--and raked him, hard. "Frak you."
"When I'm ready," Leoben said, smirking a little. Kara raked his back harder, and he put his head back and groaned at the pain. "You love me, Kara."
It wasn't a question, but she answered it like it was. "Yes," she hissed, panting, shoving her hips at him. This was always what happened, always, the son of a bitch. He frakked with her head and then she wanted him to frak her, and it never made any sense. Even in New Caprica, that last moment when she'd kissed him--she'd felt something, some heat in her stomach even as she'd put a knife in his, and she could never forgive him for that.
"And you like to hurt me."
Kara took one hand and slapped him across the face, hard. He flinched, touching the edge of his tongue to his lip where she'd cut him with her nails. Kara didn't think she needed to bother to say anything after that.
"And I like to scare you." Leoben grabbed her wrists, holding her down with her arms at her sides. "You like to fight for control and have me take it away. You like our games, Kara. You don't have to pretend."
She was panting. "Shut. The. Frak. Up."
Leoben nuzzled her neck again. "Kara, Kara," he murmured. He leaned down and sucked hard on her nipple, and she bucked against him again, feeling his cock and trying to rub herself against it.
He didn't let her, of course not. He moved sinuously over her flushed body like a serpent, subtly applying pressure to keep her from moving in any way that might bring her pleasure. Kara settled back against the bed and stopped trying, let him suck on her nipples and bite her, let him leave a reddened mark that would bruise on the side of her breast. He was murmuring to her, words that would have been a comfort from anyone else, and her senses were so heightened that the slightest touch was making her writhe.
"You do scare me," Kara said, finding her voice, which was low, husky with arousal. "And I do love you. Just like you wanted. Like you always said I would." She watched him with narrowed eyes, pleased when he tensed and bit her just a little harder. "Does that make you happy, you frakking psycho?"
Kara's version of lovewords weren't much nicer with Sam. Frak me, come on, are you a man or not? Besides, she knew Leoben liked to hear it, liked to hear that she gave him to him in her mind as well as her body. She could play this game, too.
Leoben looked up at her again. "Yes." He waited, patient, watching her. Kara closed her eyes briefly. She knew what he wanted next, and it was late and she wanted him inside her, and she didn't think she wanted to play games anymore.
"Please," she choked out. It was always hard for her to say, always.
"Open your eyes, Kara."
Furiously, she complied. "Please," she said succinctly, eyes open, gaze fixed on his. "Leoben!" she bit out, losing her patience.
He reached down and pushed his pants down, and then, thank the Gods, he was thrusting into her, hard enough to make her feel it, hard enough to make her moan and bite her lip and push up against his hold on her hands. Not to escape, not now.
Leoben let her hands free and she grabbed his hair, his back, whimpering. He put his mouth near her ear and she could hear him breathing, quiet at last. She was able to put her legs around his waist and move with him, finally, and it didn't take her long at all before she clenched around him, her head thrown back and her eyes closed as she came. She bit his shoulder, sinking her teeth in to his skin. She hoped it would leave a mark, since the rest of her marks on him had all vanished every time he'd been reborn.
When she was finished, she opened her eyes and saw the soft, red glow on his back which meant he was close, too. She ran her hand down his spine in response, as fascinated by the sight as she had been the first time. In those moments, Kara didn't care what he was--human or Cylon, man or something else. He was Leoben, and he was hers, and that was all that mattered.
The gesture made him catch his breath, and she felt him thrust hard one last time, circling his hips as he came inside of her. Kara kept her hands on his back, and he rested against her as he caught his breath. She drew her hands down his back, watching as the glow faded in his spine and the room fell back into shadow.
Leoben finally moved off of her to lie next to her on the bed. Kara rolled to face him, wincing a bit. He was every bit as rough a lover, in his own way, as Sam. She propped herself up on her elbow, and then, very hesitantly, reached a hand out and lightly rested it on his chest.
She and Leoben were not yet comfortable with the gestures of casual intimacy, and she could feel him tense slightly as she drew her fingers lightly down his chest. "Is this bothering you?" she asked him, surprising herself by asking. Her normal defenses were down and she felt relaxed, which was unusual for her.
"No." Leoben put his hand on hers, curling his fingers around her own. It was a pleasant touch--not sexual or frightening, as their touches tended to be, and she was surprised that she liked it.
Kara studied him in the darkness. His body was lightly covered with sweat, his hair standing up in spikes from where she'd mussed it. The cut on his mouth wasn't bad, there was probably only a smear of blood, if that. His eyes were closed. He looked very relaxed, the lines of his face smooth and settled.
"Why are you staring at me?"
"What was that about?" Kara asked him, curious. She wasn't surprised he could tell she was staring; Leoben's intuition was odd but usually correct.
"Are you asking me why I want to have sex with you?" He opened his eyes. "I love you, Kara. Isn't that answer enough?"
Leoben never had any trouble saying I love you, which Kara admittedly did, and yet she often thought his equivalent was his inability to clearly answer questions without convoluted similes, or, as in this case, another question.
"What made you come into my room in the middle of the night, Leoben? Couldn't you sleep?" Kara moved hesitantly closer, in increments, still uncertain about intimacy between them that wasn't sexual. They'd never done this before, she realized. She'd never stayed with him after sex before. When Sam was with them, on Galactica, they'd all dozed sometimes but Kara hadn't really been able to sleep.
"I was asleep," he said, and traced the curve of her shoulder. His touch was as hesitant as hers. "I was dreaming." Leoben let go of her hand and stretched, his body tensing and relaxing on the bed next to her. Kara, her hand now free, drew light circles on his chest as an experiment and found she liked his body, liked watching it move and shift on the sheets. Sometimes she forgot she found him attractive, physically as well as mentally, which made her feel slightly guilty.
"What were you dreaming about?"
"Kara." Leoben looked over at her--she could see his eyebrow raised in the darkness.
"Oh." Kara looked away, then back at him curiously. "Really? I didn't know you'd dream about something as mundane as sex, Leoben. I thought it was all patterns and stars and streams crossing into rivers of universes or whatever--"
"I dream of many things, Kara," Leoben interrupted. "The shape of things that are to come, the patterns of those things that have been and will be." He paused. "And sometimes, I dream about pushing you against the counter with my hand around your throat." He patted her on the hand again. "I will go back to my room, now," he said, and made to leave the bed. "So that you can go back to sleep."
Kara shook her head and said quietly, "It's all right. You don't--you don't have to go. Unless you want to," she said hurriedly, her old defensiveness rising to the front. If you don't want to stay with me, you don't frakking have to humor me. It was a sign of her fairly relaxed state that she didn't say that out loud. "I know we don't usually--"
"I will stay here, if you don't mind." He rolled over, showing her his back. Kara stared at it and then ran her fingers down his spine, which looked perfectly normal, perfectly human. "Good night, Leoben," she said softly. She didn't move closer, didn't curl up against him as she might if it were Sam, but she kept his hand on his back for a long moment.
"Good night, Kara."
Kara closed her eyes. Sleep came easy, for once, and when she woke up, he was already gone.