A prayer before dying (part 3)
Part 1 here, part 2 here
"Do you want me to leave?"
"I want you to show me your tattoo."
"Just like that?"
"My bed, Admiral. My quarters. My rules."
"My ship."
"I'm still the president."
"Only because I didn't accept your resignation."
Laura snorted.
"Maybe we should start over," she suggested.
"All right. I will not have networked computers on this ship, not as long as I'm in command."
Laura turned her head to stare at him.
"You said to start over."
"I didn't mean quite that far back, Bill."
"So where exactly was your proposed starting point?"
"I think we can safely start over from the point where you and I are naked, in my bed, and yet for some reason we're still talking."
"Why are we?"
"Talking? Because that's what we do. We talk and talk and talk until everything's been said. And then we talk some more."
"Trying to reach consensus." Bill spat out the word, spat out the taste of back-room politics. "There's no consensus here. I'm in your rack because you wanted me here. Because you wanted me to see you. Because you know I'll take care of you."
Laura tried to protest.
"It's what I do," Bill reminded her. "I know it, you know it. You want it, or we wouldn't be here. But your wanting it scares the living shit out of you, so we're lying here talking."
"You don't scare me."
"I know I don't. But you -- you terrify yourself when you want something. And stop glaring at me over the top of your glasses. It doesn't work when you're not wearing them."
"What would work?"
"Nothing. I know you too well. I know what you want."
"Oh? What is it I want?"
"To see my ink."
Laura laughed. "How do you do that? Find the pithy statement to diffuse the tension? I'd almost think you knew a thing or two about politics."
"Try running a ship with dozens of hot shot young pilots. It's a necessary skill. Did it work?"
"You going to show me your tattoo?"
"You have a one track mind."
"I've never heard you complain before."
"I have a finely-honed sense of self-preservation." Bill moved his arm. "So if you'd like to look for my ink, go ahead."
"Any suggestions on how I approach the mission?"
"It never ends well when you appoint a military adviser."
Laura pushed Bill onto his back and moved down to the end of the bed, carefully leaving the blanket draped over his legs. She started with his feet, stroking the tops from toe to ankle while he watched the play of muscle along her arm, contemplated the profile of her breast. "All clear?" he asked.
"All clear." She moved on to his calves, right and then left, turning toward her task.
Bill reached out and trailed a hand along the bumps of her spine, letting each slip past his fingers like a prayer bead.
"You didn't let a little false modesty get in the way of a tattoo, did you?"
"It needed to be somewhere my crew wouldn't see. There are still stigmas about Taurons."
"Hiding your history, Admiral?"
"Being discrete."
"Frak discretion." Laura pushed the blanket up to the top of Bill's thighs. "Nothing interesting here."
"Just what a man wants to hear."
"Aww. Does someone need his ego stroked?"
Bill gritted his teeth. "Would you just get on with it?"
Laura ran her hands over his thighs, reaching slowly under the blanket. "I hope I don't have to ask you to turn over. As much as I like the view the few times you've walked ahead of me…"
Bill yanked the blanket off. "There. It's there, all right?" he said, pointing to the crease between hip and thigh.
He watched Laura raise her glance, skittering her eyes past anything not tattoo. "It's -- it looks like an omega. Is it symbolic?"
"All Tauron ink is symbolic."
She waited a moment for him to go on. "You going to explain it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You want someone to explain Taurons to you, ask your Quorum delegate."
"Should I say I want to know the meaning of the tattoo on the admiral's groin?" she teased.
"If that's how you want to put it," Bill answered, knowing an idle threat when he heard one.
"It does mean something, though, right?"
"Right."
"Something important?"
"Yes."
"Something personal?"
"Very."
Laura touched a fingertip to the right leg of the omega. "This isn't how an omega looks. Is it something Tauron?"
"No."
"Personal?"
"Yes."
"Am I allowed to ask about it?"
"Yes."
The sound Laura made was something between a disbelieving laugh and a frustrated sigh. "What is it?"
"A laurel leaf."
Laura sat back on her heels, her unfocused gaze on the wall above the rack. Bill thought he saw a trace of tears and extended a hand to stroke her thigh, calm her. "Hey."
She laced her fingers with his and looked down at him. "Hey."
"You okay?"
Laura nodded. Her fingers once again traced the tattoo and then she bent slowly, carefully, to place a soft kiss on the ink.
Bill gasped and tightened his grasp on Laura's thigh as her scalp made accidental contact with his cock.
She raised her head slightly and watched him as she repeated the motion. "Tell me what the omega means."
"No."
"Yes." Her tongue snaked out and traced the lines of the tattoo.
"Play fair."
Laura sat back on her heels. "Fair is something that existed yesterday. Fair might exist tomorrow. But right here, right now, there's no such thing as fair."
Bill abruptly pulled her forward and up onto his chest, hoping to startle her out of her strange lassitude, hoping he didn't hurt her, hoping to knock some sense into the both of them or at least feel more of her skin against his.
"Is this what it's about?" she asked. "Years of running for our lives, fighting for our people, and this is what it comes down to? A man and a woman?"
He laughed. "You're a little full of ourselves, aren’t you?"
Laura squirmed against him. "Not yet."
He gripped her waist to stop her. "You talk to Cottle about this?"
"I know a thing or two about cancer, Bill. It's fine."
His hand ran down her side to her thigh and started to pull her leg over his body. "Okay."
"Years I'm chasing you and that's it? Okay?"
Bill touched his lips to hers and rolled her onto her back. "Okay," he repeated.
"I should have airlocked you when I had the chance."
"But then you wouldn't have had this." He shoved his weight onto one elbow and ran a hand along the side of her breast.
Laura tugged on his arm, trying to pull him down on top of her. "You won't break me. It's a good day, remember?"
"I don’t want to hurt you."
"You won't."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I know you."
It wasn't the hand that skimmed along his side or the hips that were trying to make contact with his erection that made him give in. But how could he disappoint her eyes, the steady level gaze of love and trust?
He entwined his legs with hers, resting halfway on top of her with his weight on his forearms. Their hips beat a cadence of attack and retreat and his lips kissed her scalp, her ear, her eyes and cheeks. He started to speak but she hushed him. "Don't. If it's important, I know it. If it's not, why bother?"
He widened the space between her legs and saw her wince.
"Sorry. My muscles are a little stiff. Haven't had reason to move them like this in a while."
"So that's why you were stretching this morning."
"You wish."
He crawled out from between her legs and nudged her onto her side, her back to his chest. "It'll be better this way."
Her body stiffened, and then she gave a slow nod. "I'm not much to look at now."
He put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back so she could see him. "Don't talk like that. I'm just trying to make this easier for you."
She rolled over and pushed a knee between his thighs. "I told you to stop doing that. I'm not dead yet."
"I don’t want you to be -- ever."
She pushed on his shoulders, forcing him to his back, and rolled on top of him. "It's not a choice you get."
"You believe in the gods, Laura, so tell me why they're so cruel. My whole life I never had what I wanted, and now I find it just in time to lose you."
"Maybe the gods are kind. We could have gone our whole lives without ever finding this." She brushed her lips against his.
"I don't want it to end."
"If it never ends, it can't begin again."
"I wish I had your faith, Laura."
"You just believe in me, Bill. I'll carry you along."
She rocked her hips against him, trying to capture his body in hers, but the angle was awkward. He reached one hand between them to hold himself steady and with his other guided her hips back and onto him. She inched her way down and he could feel her flesh parting, expanding barely enough to allow him in.
"Gods, Laura. So good. So tight."
"Yeah. That would be the diloxin."
He stilled beneath her. "Anyone ever tell you you're too damn rational?"
Laura laughed. "At least a quorum or two."
"What do I have to do to make you lose your cool?" He started to thrust, trying to keep things slow for his own sake as well as hers.
"You're making a good start."
"If it's only a start for you, we may be in trouble."
"Don't worry about it. Chances are, this is as much as I'll get out of it. Between the cancer and the treatments--"
He pulled away from her, pushing deep into the mattress, trying to retreat. He was using her; she was letting him. He disgusted himself.
She followed him down to the mattress, gripping him tightly everywhere they touched. "Don't do this, Bill. Don't deny me this."
"But if you can't-- if you won't --"
"Don't let me die without knowing how I can make you feel."
He pulled her down onto him, chest to chest, hips to hips, his hands stroking against shoulders, back, ass, anything and everything in an attempt to let her feel. He didn’t know if the tears he lapped from her cheeks came from him or from her. It didn't really matter.
She pushed against his shoulders, out of his embrace, struggling to sit up while he tried to pull her back down. "Stop it. I want to watch you. Help me sit." She grabbed for his hands, guided them to her hips.
"Laura--"
"Would you stop being so damn selfish?" She punctuated each word with a grinding of her hips. "You think I don't know that's what it is? You give and give because the one thing Adama won't give is letting someone know what he needs. Yeah, I recognize it. Because I used to take. I took and I took, everything I could get, because I didn't want to know anyone well enough to give. But tonight you're going to take and I'm going to give, and you're going like it. Clear? Because you deserve it and I deserve it, and we sure as hell deserve something together." She steadied her hands against his chest as her hips pounded out her fury and desperation. "Please, Bill? Let me? For once in my life, let me?"
He could hear the sob in her voice, feel it in her body, and he chased the emptiness out with a thrust of his hips. He let her give and he made her take, with hands, mouth, fingers, breath, touching and stroking and probing and thrusting wherever he could reach. He ignored his fears. He pretended not to notice the way she winced when he thrust hard or touched her breast, only to shake her head and push down onto him harder.
When her muscles clamped around him and she let out a surprised gasp, he could no longer pretend. "Did you --"
"I..." She cleared her throat. "I suppose I did."
"Suppose?"
"It's different. My body's different now. Strange to me. Sometimes I don't know what I feel."
"You thought you wouldn't feel anything. But you did." Bill smiled, inordinately pleased with himself, and his laugh got tangled up in hers.
"I think we've found something that alleviates the side effects of diloxin." She started moving again, this time with more assurance and more purpose. "Hey. Pay attention."
"I'm right here."
"Your mind wasn't."
"I was just wondering." He let his hands wander to her breasts. "I'd have taken you for a screamer."
Laura smiled. "I was, back in the day."
"I think you still could be." He rolled them over, careful to cushion her descent. "You sure you won't break?"
She pressed a kiss to his arm and he trembled with the effort of bracing himself above her. "I know what you want. I want to give it to you." She flexed her hips up toward him and he was lost.
Conscious thought was just a memory as instinct took over. Blood flowed through a body he'd tried to silence with pills and booze, biology following its imperative to push him closer, deeper, go softer, harder, fall in to her, always her. He was vaguely aware of his voice saying these things aloud, of her voice echoing his.
In the end, she screamed. Or he did. When he saw the satisfied smile she wore, whose voice it was no longer mattered.
tbc
"Do you want me to leave?"
"I want you to show me your tattoo."
"Just like that?"
"My bed, Admiral. My quarters. My rules."
"My ship."
"I'm still the president."
"Only because I didn't accept your resignation."
Laura snorted.
"Maybe we should start over," she suggested.
"All right. I will not have networked computers on this ship, not as long as I'm in command."
Laura turned her head to stare at him.
"You said to start over."
"I didn't mean quite that far back, Bill."
"So where exactly was your proposed starting point?"
"I think we can safely start over from the point where you and I are naked, in my bed, and yet for some reason we're still talking."
"Why are we?"
"Talking? Because that's what we do. We talk and talk and talk until everything's been said. And then we talk some more."
"Trying to reach consensus." Bill spat out the word, spat out the taste of back-room politics. "There's no consensus here. I'm in your rack because you wanted me here. Because you wanted me to see you. Because you know I'll take care of you."
Laura tried to protest.
"It's what I do," Bill reminded her. "I know it, you know it. You want it, or we wouldn't be here. But your wanting it scares the living shit out of you, so we're lying here talking."
"You don't scare me."
"I know I don't. But you -- you terrify yourself when you want something. And stop glaring at me over the top of your glasses. It doesn't work when you're not wearing them."
"What would work?"
"Nothing. I know you too well. I know what you want."
"Oh? What is it I want?"
"To see my ink."
Laura laughed. "How do you do that? Find the pithy statement to diffuse the tension? I'd almost think you knew a thing or two about politics."
"Try running a ship with dozens of hot shot young pilots. It's a necessary skill. Did it work?"
"You going to show me your tattoo?"
"You have a one track mind."
"I've never heard you complain before."
"I have a finely-honed sense of self-preservation." Bill moved his arm. "So if you'd like to look for my ink, go ahead."
"Any suggestions on how I approach the mission?"
"It never ends well when you appoint a military adviser."
Laura pushed Bill onto his back and moved down to the end of the bed, carefully leaving the blanket draped over his legs. She started with his feet, stroking the tops from toe to ankle while he watched the play of muscle along her arm, contemplated the profile of her breast. "All clear?" he asked.
"All clear." She moved on to his calves, right and then left, turning toward her task.
Bill reached out and trailed a hand along the bumps of her spine, letting each slip past his fingers like a prayer bead.
"You didn't let a little false modesty get in the way of a tattoo, did you?"
"It needed to be somewhere my crew wouldn't see. There are still stigmas about Taurons."
"Hiding your history, Admiral?"
"Being discrete."
"Frak discretion." Laura pushed the blanket up to the top of Bill's thighs. "Nothing interesting here."
"Just what a man wants to hear."
"Aww. Does someone need his ego stroked?"
Bill gritted his teeth. "Would you just get on with it?"
Laura ran her hands over his thighs, reaching slowly under the blanket. "I hope I don't have to ask you to turn over. As much as I like the view the few times you've walked ahead of me…"
Bill yanked the blanket off. "There. It's there, all right?" he said, pointing to the crease between hip and thigh.
He watched Laura raise her glance, skittering her eyes past anything not tattoo. "It's -- it looks like an omega. Is it symbolic?"
"All Tauron ink is symbolic."
She waited a moment for him to go on. "You going to explain it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You want someone to explain Taurons to you, ask your Quorum delegate."
"Should I say I want to know the meaning of the tattoo on the admiral's groin?" she teased.
"If that's how you want to put it," Bill answered, knowing an idle threat when he heard one.
"It does mean something, though, right?"
"Right."
"Something important?"
"Yes."
"Something personal?"
"Very."
Laura touched a fingertip to the right leg of the omega. "This isn't how an omega looks. Is it something Tauron?"
"No."
"Personal?"
"Yes."
"Am I allowed to ask about it?"
"Yes."
The sound Laura made was something between a disbelieving laugh and a frustrated sigh. "What is it?"
"A laurel leaf."
Laura sat back on her heels, her unfocused gaze on the wall above the rack. Bill thought he saw a trace of tears and extended a hand to stroke her thigh, calm her. "Hey."
She laced her fingers with his and looked down at him. "Hey."
"You okay?"
Laura nodded. Her fingers once again traced the tattoo and then she bent slowly, carefully, to place a soft kiss on the ink.
Bill gasped and tightened his grasp on Laura's thigh as her scalp made accidental contact with his cock.
She raised her head slightly and watched him as she repeated the motion. "Tell me what the omega means."
"No."
"Yes." Her tongue snaked out and traced the lines of the tattoo.
"Play fair."
Laura sat back on her heels. "Fair is something that existed yesterday. Fair might exist tomorrow. But right here, right now, there's no such thing as fair."
Bill abruptly pulled her forward and up onto his chest, hoping to startle her out of her strange lassitude, hoping he didn't hurt her, hoping to knock some sense into the both of them or at least feel more of her skin against his.
"Is this what it's about?" she asked. "Years of running for our lives, fighting for our people, and this is what it comes down to? A man and a woman?"
He laughed. "You're a little full of ourselves, aren’t you?"
Laura squirmed against him. "Not yet."
He gripped her waist to stop her. "You talk to Cottle about this?"
"I know a thing or two about cancer, Bill. It's fine."
His hand ran down her side to her thigh and started to pull her leg over his body. "Okay."
"Years I'm chasing you and that's it? Okay?"
Bill touched his lips to hers and rolled her onto her back. "Okay," he repeated.
"I should have airlocked you when I had the chance."
"But then you wouldn't have had this." He shoved his weight onto one elbow and ran a hand along the side of her breast.
Laura tugged on his arm, trying to pull him down on top of her. "You won't break me. It's a good day, remember?"
"I don’t want to hurt you."
"You won't."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I know you."
It wasn't the hand that skimmed along his side or the hips that were trying to make contact with his erection that made him give in. But how could he disappoint her eyes, the steady level gaze of love and trust?
He entwined his legs with hers, resting halfway on top of her with his weight on his forearms. Their hips beat a cadence of attack and retreat and his lips kissed her scalp, her ear, her eyes and cheeks. He started to speak but she hushed him. "Don't. If it's important, I know it. If it's not, why bother?"
He widened the space between her legs and saw her wince.
"Sorry. My muscles are a little stiff. Haven't had reason to move them like this in a while."
"So that's why you were stretching this morning."
"You wish."
He crawled out from between her legs and nudged her onto her side, her back to his chest. "It'll be better this way."
Her body stiffened, and then she gave a slow nod. "I'm not much to look at now."
He put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back so she could see him. "Don't talk like that. I'm just trying to make this easier for you."
She rolled over and pushed a knee between his thighs. "I told you to stop doing that. I'm not dead yet."
"I don’t want you to be -- ever."
She pushed on his shoulders, forcing him to his back, and rolled on top of him. "It's not a choice you get."
"You believe in the gods, Laura, so tell me why they're so cruel. My whole life I never had what I wanted, and now I find it just in time to lose you."
"Maybe the gods are kind. We could have gone our whole lives without ever finding this." She brushed her lips against his.
"I don't want it to end."
"If it never ends, it can't begin again."
"I wish I had your faith, Laura."
"You just believe in me, Bill. I'll carry you along."
She rocked her hips against him, trying to capture his body in hers, but the angle was awkward. He reached one hand between them to hold himself steady and with his other guided her hips back and onto him. She inched her way down and he could feel her flesh parting, expanding barely enough to allow him in.
"Gods, Laura. So good. So tight."
"Yeah. That would be the diloxin."
He stilled beneath her. "Anyone ever tell you you're too damn rational?"
Laura laughed. "At least a quorum or two."
"What do I have to do to make you lose your cool?" He started to thrust, trying to keep things slow for his own sake as well as hers.
"You're making a good start."
"If it's only a start for you, we may be in trouble."
"Don't worry about it. Chances are, this is as much as I'll get out of it. Between the cancer and the treatments--"
He pulled away from her, pushing deep into the mattress, trying to retreat. He was using her; she was letting him. He disgusted himself.
She followed him down to the mattress, gripping him tightly everywhere they touched. "Don't do this, Bill. Don't deny me this."
"But if you can't-- if you won't --"
"Don't let me die without knowing how I can make you feel."
He pulled her down onto him, chest to chest, hips to hips, his hands stroking against shoulders, back, ass, anything and everything in an attempt to let her feel. He didn’t know if the tears he lapped from her cheeks came from him or from her. It didn't really matter.
She pushed against his shoulders, out of his embrace, struggling to sit up while he tried to pull her back down. "Stop it. I want to watch you. Help me sit." She grabbed for his hands, guided them to her hips.
"Laura--"
"Would you stop being so damn selfish?" She punctuated each word with a grinding of her hips. "You think I don't know that's what it is? You give and give because the one thing Adama won't give is letting someone know what he needs. Yeah, I recognize it. Because I used to take. I took and I took, everything I could get, because I didn't want to know anyone well enough to give. But tonight you're going to take and I'm going to give, and you're going like it. Clear? Because you deserve it and I deserve it, and we sure as hell deserve something together." She steadied her hands against his chest as her hips pounded out her fury and desperation. "Please, Bill? Let me? For once in my life, let me?"
He could hear the sob in her voice, feel it in her body, and he chased the emptiness out with a thrust of his hips. He let her give and he made her take, with hands, mouth, fingers, breath, touching and stroking and probing and thrusting wherever he could reach. He ignored his fears. He pretended not to notice the way she winced when he thrust hard or touched her breast, only to shake her head and push down onto him harder.
When her muscles clamped around him and she let out a surprised gasp, he could no longer pretend. "Did you --"
"I..." She cleared her throat. "I suppose I did."
"Suppose?"
"It's different. My body's different now. Strange to me. Sometimes I don't know what I feel."
"You thought you wouldn't feel anything. But you did." Bill smiled, inordinately pleased with himself, and his laugh got tangled up in hers.
"I think we've found something that alleviates the side effects of diloxin." She started moving again, this time with more assurance and more purpose. "Hey. Pay attention."
"I'm right here."
"Your mind wasn't."
"I was just wondering." He let his hands wander to her breasts. "I'd have taken you for a screamer."
Laura smiled. "I was, back in the day."
"I think you still could be." He rolled them over, careful to cushion her descent. "You sure you won't break?"
She pressed a kiss to his arm and he trembled with the effort of bracing himself above her. "I know what you want. I want to give it to you." She flexed her hips up toward him and he was lost.
Conscious thought was just a memory as instinct took over. Blood flowed through a body he'd tried to silence with pills and booze, biology following its imperative to push him closer, deeper, go softer, harder, fall in to her, always her. He was vaguely aware of his voice saying these things aloud, of her voice echoing his.
In the end, she screamed. Or he did. When he saw the satisfied smile she wore, whose voice it was no longer mattered.
tbc