"Be Careful What You Ask For" - 1/1
Remarks: I've always been fascinated by Sinclair, particularly the subject of his transformation into Valen and the entire process by which an ordinary man becomes aware of -- and steps into -- his role as a savior. Delenn, as a witness and a facilitator, has her own issues to deal with in reconciling the man she knows as a human, and the messiah of her people he will become. I've spent a good amount of narrative exploring this, much of the material unfinished. But this story stands on its own. The ambiguous ending is intentional.
"Be Careful What You Ask For"
Characters: Sinclair/Morden
Rating: NC-17 (non-consensual in a dream)
Genre: Babylon 5 (Season 1)
Original material copyright © 1997 by A. Manley Haight
A Blast Furnace Production
ahaight@blastfurnace.org
This story is not in any way intended to infringe on copyrights held by J. Michael Straczynski, Babylonian Productions Inc., or Time Warner Productions. This story may be distributed only with prior permission of the author, and may not be posted to any archive, ftp site, or web page without the written permission of the author. This story is distributed for the individual personal entertainment of persons over 21, and is not subject to purchase or sale by anyone.
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"I had a very strange conversation with a very strange man today," Sinclair said idly as they walked. Delenn considered the brown dirt path before them. She savored their discussions, the time she could spend observing him. Today they were in the gardens, moving peacefully through the winding hedges.
"Oh?" Delenn mused, curious. "What did this 'strange man' want?"
"Oddly enough, that's what he asked me," Sinclair replied. Delenn's mouth opened for a moment in pure surprise, and then she composed herself.
"I beg your pardon?"
"He asked me, verbatim, 'what do you want?'" Sinclair shook his head. "Damndest thing. It's strange what a question like that makes you think."
"And what was your answer?"
"That I'd have to think about it and for him to come back later."
Delenn sighed, relieved. It was, like most Minbari body language, subtle at best. But Sinclair was not so unobservant. He glanced at her.
"Is something wrong?" he asked. "Do you know something about this man?"
She debated answering. Any explanation she could give would be premature, and possibly disastrous. But she knew, also, who Sinclair was and what his destiny entailed. A man like that permitted to go astray, perhaps into the hands of their enemies, would never rise to fulfill the Prophecies. But would it be more correct to simply allow him to make his own way, unaided? Where were her obligations?
She realized ultimately that she would not have been able to live with herself if something happened to Sinclair that she could have prevented by telling him something, warning him. Perhaps the universe operated similarly -- each thing according to its nature, each being according to his or her own conscience.
"This man," she said. "What was his name?"
"Morden. Mr. Morden. I couldn't find out anything about him except that he'd been out of Alliance space long enough to have to renew his identicard. That's not terribly unusual, but it means he doesn't have much of a trail."
Delenn digested the metaphor silently, then nodded.
"I know of him," she admitted after a moment. Sinclair did not look surprised or angry. He merely waited. She rewarded his patience. "I can only tell you that he is in the employ of some very dangerous people. Perhaps 'people' is a misleading term."
"You're saying he's an agent of another government," Sinclair said. "An operative." Delenn nodded.
"A government with which we do not want to have contact right now," she said. "And which we would rather did not exist at all." He looked her quizzically. She stopped to face him. "This is very important, Commander. If you give him an answer, be very cautious. He is looking for a certain kind of answer, one that tells him you can be used. We must not let them think that, not of you."
"Why me?" he wanted to know. He was not loud. Never that. But he was firm, and even quietly his voice could demand things and be obeyed.
"That I cannot say as yet, either," she replied. "But you are very important to the future of this station and it would be a disaster if something happened to you."
Sinclair was aware of the fact that his posting to Babylon 5 had come at the direct request of the Minbari government. What he didn't know, but suspected, was that Delenn was somehow connected to that decision.
"What answer should I give?" he asked.
"What answer were you planning to give?" she inquired. He shied away from even thinking his reply. He couldn't talk about that, not to her. Not to anyone. She must have seen the reaction; her eyes narrowed. "If you hesitate to tell me, that could bode ill," she said seriously. "Are you afraid to tell me what you might tell this man? Ashamed?"
"I...don't think we should be talking about this, Ambassador," he murmured, looking away.
"Jeffrey David Sinclair," she said, surprising herself by using his full name. She wondered distantly if it were insulting for her to do so. It got the desired response from him -- a startled, intent stare. "We have known each other for more than a year, and we are, dare I suggest it, friends. Minbari certainly understand and respect privacy, and believe me that I would endeavor to respect yours. But Mr. Morden is not a man to take lightly. Your answer to him could have extremely dire consequences. The answer to his question is necessarily very personal, just by the nature of the question. But if you can tell him what you cannot tell me, then perhaps I have misjudged our relationship."
It wounded him -- she saw it hit and sink deep. She felt his pain in her own soul for a moment, regretting dearly that she had to make her point so forcefully. Her regard for him was more than just respect for his place in history, the role he would come to occupy (and had occupied already).
She had come to love him for who he was, the man he was. Every day she spent with him illuminated some aspect of the Prophecies that had long mystified her (and countless others). She saw the personality that had written the revelations, heard the voice that had addressed so many followers, and began to grasp the sense of humor, the subtle wit, and just a hint of the mischievous carnality that was apparent in his writings. Scholars had debated for centuries whether or not those perceptions were correct. Surely he would not have been a vulgar man, they argued. Surely he would have been a serious and dedicated leader and not capable of base frolicking.
But in the past months of knowing him, the truth was beginning to sink in. She was not offended by it. On the contrary, she had been secretly pleased to learn that he was not the stuffy, perpetually somber man history painted him as being. She had always detested that quality in religious scholars herself, and was glad to learn it had not started with this man.
But he looked very somber now. And, oddly, when he spoke she heard that hint of carnality, but without the mischief.
"You're right," he said. "Although I'm not sure I would have had the nerve to tell him, either."
"I believe your people have a phrase for occasions like this," she said. "'Spit it out.'" Sinclair laughed suddenly, a glorious sound. That was something else she felt in his writings -- that intense, joyful mirth that could come out abruptly like a flash of sun through the clouds. They had never been sure -- not entirely sure -- that Sinclair actually was Valen. But they had strongly suspected. She had come to the station armed with their suspicion (and her own certainty). The more she knew him, the more she saw and heard and felt his intensity, his warmth, and his powerful spirit consuming a room when he entered, the more painfully she felt her own guilt at how they had first met.
At this moment she had no doubt at all. Not anymore. The realization struck her, all the more shocking because she understood also in that instant that she had held back a reservation about his identity. But the doubt transformed to knowledge had a strange weight. He was grinning at her, amber eyes glimmering. It was an expression of such life and strength that she wondered if she was going to have enough strength of her own to deal with him through the coming months as he began to fulfill his destiny.
"You do have a way with words, Delenn," he said. "More than I expected from someone so unfamiliar with our idioms." He sobered, painfully, which wrenched her, and indicated a nearby bench. "I'll try to tell you," he said. "But I don't want to be pacing around while I do. I won't make sense."
One of Valen's analects popped into her head unbidden: 'A man who paces while trying to make a decision seeks only escape. Only in stillness will answers come, and only in quiet will the true questioner find himself.'
They sat down together, Sinclair sitting in a curiously human way; legs apart, leaning forward with his arms straight, hands on his knees and his shoulders hunched slightly. She'd seen other humans sit like this, sometimes while pensive, sometimes while arrogant. He looked the former, and his profile seemed suddenly prophet-like...eyes serious and dark, brow furrowed, frowning slightly. A very troubled messiah. Valen had often seemed so to her.
"I don't know how much you know about human sexuality," he said, still not looking at her. "I think I was dreading being one of the people you asked about it." He bowed his head for a moment, a wry look passing across his face for just a moment. "I didn't think it would be this personal when you did."
"I have studied the sexual behavior of your people to as great an extent as I can," Delenn said plainly. "As an Ambassador to your world, it behooves me to do so. I confess to a very limited comprehension of many sexual customs, since they are not like Minbari customs. But I am aware of many of them since I did not wish to violate a taboo while among you." Sinclair grunted, absorbing this.
"Then you're aware that the strength of the sexual drive varies from human to human," he said. "Sometimes influenced by childhood incidents and foundational psychological decisions made at an extremely early age." She nodded.
"It is the same among Minbari," she said.
"I couldn't tell you with any certainty what those influences were for me personally," he continued. His head was bowed now, his eyes on the ground. He had lowered his voice a little to a soft rumble. "But I've become an adult with very strong sexual appetites that are not easily sated. I tend to be very rough when I have sex with people. It's difficult to live with it, especially alone. I learned very early that I could divert that energy into other efforts. It's one of the reasons I joined Earthforce. I wanted to serve and protect Earth...but I also needed some way to vent strong feelings. Sometimes I found other people who were like me...who enjoyed my intensity. That was wonderful...but it never lasted. I think they couldn't really handle it after a while. Maybe I'm a little too much."
He paused, possibly with the intention of looking at her, but he didn't. Instead he sighed quietly.
"You are not offending me, if that is what you are thinking," Delenn said. His mouth tightened, the muscles in his jaw working for a moment. Some part of her had wondered if their relationship would ever progress to the point that he would feel comfortable discussing something personal with her. What did humans call it? A confessor? A confessor to Valen. She shivered a little.
"It's like a fire in my body," he said after a moment, softly. "In my soul. Sometimes I go for weeks without feeling it, usually when there's some other job to be done. But the past few days...it's been too quiet around here lately. I can start to hear my own heartbeat at night. I woke up this morning out of violent, sexual dreams." He dropped his head to rub both hands through his hair and around the back of his neck. He didn't think he really needed to give her the gory details of his masturbation habits that morning. "I...dealt with it...the way I usually do. Something about Morden...when he came into my office. He asked me what I wanted...and the first thing that came into my head was that I wanted to get up, slam him down on my desk and fuck him brutally. I don't know him; never met him before today. But he was extremely attractive...exactly my type. And his eyes. Something in his eyes made me want to violate him. I've had rough sex with people before, but it was always consensual. I never made anyone do anything they didn't want."
Sinclair looked at her suddenly and she was struck by the intensity in his expression, his golden eyes gleaming. "But I wanted to rape him. I wanted to make him lose control. But I'm not sure if I wanted him to lose control with pleasure...or screaming at me to stop."
He closed his eyes with a tense sigh, letting his head drop again. In another breath he was on his feet, taking several steps away from the bench. Pacing. He froze suddenly and Delenn could see him understanding in that moment the truth of his own maxim. His hands clenched, but he didn't move for long seconds. He was breathing deeply, she could see from the way his broad shoulders rose and fell. He turned around and she gasped softly. Another facet of Valen was exposed for her witness -- the warlord. The man capable of leading the Minbari through the last Shadow War, able to kill unflinchingly when it was necessary...and able in some way to enjoy it, even if very, very briefly. "I can't make that want go away, Delenn," he said roughly. "It scares me that I want it. It scares me that I can't stop thinking about it. Why? Why him? Why this? I've never wanted to do anything like this before." He looked truly tormented, the inner rage giving way momentarily to fear. "I've had dreams sometimes...fantasized occasionally about taking someone by force." He gestured sharply, stiffly, with his open hand. "But I never met anyone I actually wanted to hurt."
"You are...sensitive...to the truth of people and situations," Delenn said carefully. "I have observed this in you. I have already told you that Mr. Morden is an agent of people who will do us harm at any chance they get. The Minbari have had contact with them before. You would not be wrong to suggest that Mr. Morden himself is an evil man. I think you are aware of the truth of this on a deep level. You intuitively know what he is, and that he is dangerous to you and to others."
"And I want to punish him," Sinclair said quietly. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? I recognize his evil and want to inflict harm on him for the harm he does to other people."
"You may have a warrior's nature," Delenn mused, "but it is a fundamentally protective one. I think it is in your nature to fight evil, to know it on sight."
She wondered if that were revealing too much about him, about what she had come to know was true of him not just in the past year, but in her lifetime of studying his life and his writings as Valen. He was silent for a long time, looking at her, hands still clenched. She realized he was trembling.
"There's a difference between justice and revenge," Sinclair said, finally looking away again. Now he was angry. "It's an old lesson for my people, and for yours, too, I'm sure. One we have to keep relearning as individuals and as a species." He closed his eyes, head raised, and more scripture came back to Delenn.
"And they came to the hill, and saw Valen's tears at the slain. And he lifted his head up, the sun making him close his eyes and weep more for the living kin of the dead. He asked for drinking water, and instead of easing his own parched throat, he gave it to a weeping man whose home had been destroyed by the Invaders, and said, 'don't weep, friend.' The man said, 'we have water enough from the lake. You and your people need it more than I.' And Valen replied, 'but the lake is an hour's travel, and you are thirsty. We must all help each other now. The only thing worse than dying, is dying unmourned.'"
"Yes," Delenn said finally. "One restores order, the other destroys it. Is this lesson one you find yourself learning again?"
"I have to know where one stops and the other begins. How can I bring him to justice?"
"I do not think you can," Delenn said sadly. "It may not be your place to do so. His justice may be dealt by larger forces than you alone."
"Which leaves me with revenge," Sinclair said quietly. "Revenge for wrongs I have never seen, toward a man I have never heard of until today."
"'The true enemy is the darkness of a soul that has lost its way,'" Delenn said. "The Narn say this, and I believe it is true. Your enemy is not Morden, but yourself. You can rule this desire, or be ruled by it. You know all the reasons why acting on this urge would be destructive and wrong. Yet you still desire it and it will not leave your thoughts. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you would wish to harm yourself in this way."
Sinclair stared at her.
"You're a walking basket case, Sinclair." It was his flightmate, Gerald. "What are you trying to do, get yourself killed? The war's over. Better get out of the fighter jock business before you make a mess you can't fix."
He sighed and closed his eyes again. He hadn't been the same since the end of the war. Nothing had been the same. Something had happened to him and he couldn't remember.
"I wish we had never fought that damn war," he murmured.
"So do I," she said quietly.
She did not have to guess at why he had self-destructive tendencies. It had been she who had selected his Starfury -- purely at random -- to be taken aboard their warcruiser so they could learn more about the humans who had killed Dukhat and defended their world so bravely.
He had told them nothing willingly except his name, rank and a number which they had supposed was meant to identify him uniquely. They had tortured him for so long...she could still see him naked, his body crossed by his own blood and marks from the tailed whip that had been used on him, defiant, confused, in such pain that even now she could still see it in him.
She had been summoned after the fourth hour of his torture. They had given up on the more physical methods and resorted to telepathic probing. She had resisted that idea. But the warrior Satai were adamant and she had reluctantly agreed. The telepaths had sent for her, as the most revered of the religious Satai, to tell her what they had discovered.
"Why have you stopped?" she asked one in a low voice as she entered the chamber. The human was on his knees on the floor under a bright spotlight, silent, head bowed. His shoulders shook in the chill of the room. The telepath ducked his head deferentially.
"We could not continue, Satai," he said uneasily. There was an undertone of shock in his whispering voice. "Not after what we learned."
"And what is that?" she demanded.
"Satai...he is Minbari. He has a Minbari soul. We cannot harm him like this. Not if he is...not if he is Minbari..." The telepath trailed off in a whisper. She knew what he was thinking. It was what she was thinking right then.
"A Minbari not born of Minbari, defender of a world untouched by Minbari, of all castes and of none..."
She sank to her knees with her eyes on the human prisoner, feeling an entire life of worship, ritual and humility come undone as she knew, she knew deep inside, who it was they had captured and tortured aboard their warship.
"In Valen's name," she whispered, anguished, putting her hands over her mouth. He rested on his knees on the cold floor, wrists bound between his muscular thighs, his shoulders hunched with pain, shadows from the harsh spotlight overhead hiding his face and chest and groin. His blood was red...so oddly red...staining the floor under him. What had they done?
"I don't know what to do, Delenn," Sinclair said, jerking her back to the present. "If I refuse to answer him...refuse to do what I want to do...I don't know if I can stand a repeated temptation. He's a free man. He can come and go on this station as he wishes, and if he is who you say he is, I'll be seeing more of him in the future. How long can I hold back an urge like that? It's so strong I'm afraid to even see him again, much less speak to him or have to deal with him."
"And yet you do not even have to address the consequences of acting on your desire," Delenn pointed out, "because they are so obviously unacceptable."
The look Sinclair gave her then made a chill crawl up her back. "The knowing may not be enough to stop me," he said plainly.
"You have said that you have experience controlling and redirecting feelings similar to this," she said.
"Similar," he repeated. "Not the same." He still had that haunting expression, the look of someone sharing a body with a demon. "And is this really just a question of justice versus revenge? Or is it something else?"
The words hung in the air for a long moment.
"I fear that only you can answer that," Delenn said quietly.
****
Sinclair went to bed that night with his mind unresolved, his heart weary, his groin burning. He was afraid to relieve the need, refusing to touch himself. Morden was going to return for an answer, but when, Sinclair didn't know. Would he be ready? What would come out of his mouth when he opened it?
He stripped naked, hating his clothes with a passion he normally reserved for nights when he wasn't alone, and climbed into bed to cocoon himself in the blankets, hiding from the existence that forced this decision from him.
He dreamed again.
His mind returned him to the hedge maze, mixing it with a broad, grassy field under the station's artificial 'sky'. The hedge walls were spaced far apart, eerily spacious passageways giving an air of labyrinthine privacy even though there was no guarantee of being alone.
His mind gave him a quarry, and gave him permission. Morden was there, around a corner. Sinclair came up behind him, blood singing in his heart, a snarl on his face that only his dreams allowed him to have, and he took Morden from behind, closing a big hand around the prey's mouth, another around his chest.
Sinclair dragged him back into the labyrinth, inflamed by his struggling growls of rage and surprise. It was a delight to use his strength, to really use the body he had been born with and spent his entire life controlling and easing into the grace and power that were his.
"Quiet," Sinclair growled harshly into his ear. "I know what you are. Now I'm going to show you what I am."
Morden hit the ground with a grunt that drove the breath from him. The grass under him was yielding, the earth infinitely softer than the face of the man who had abducted him.
Sinclair didn't need clothes in the dream -- they had never been on him, his own nudity hardly raw enough for the cruelty that drove him like a sun in his thoughts. He dropped to his knees with a snarl and began taking Morden's clothes from him. It was supremely important; that theft of dignity, of facade. He would strip this man to his core, and then eventually deny him even that.
He found a fellow predator in his mark suddenly, Morden's face twisting into a teeth-baring yell of fury. It was so beautiful, making Sinclair's need sear him from within. He wasn't going to allow defiance, not at any cost. Morden kicked at him and he punished it with a savage, bruising grip around the man's ankle, evoking a gasp of pain.
"Go ahead," Sinclair rasped, taking the belt buckle free and dragging trousers down Morden's legs. "Fight back. You'll only make me want it more."
"I don't intend to let you take it," Morden replied in a hiss. He had a viciously handsome kind of rage, lithe body sprawled with the fine clothes halfway off of him, neatly slicked hair tousled and gleaming in the daylight. Sinclair jerked the trousers and underwear off and narrowly avoided another kick from the now-free legs.
"Oho," Sinclair exclaimed, grabbing the leg again, this time around the calf, fingers gouging deep into muscle to make Morden cry out. "It doesn't look to me like you're hating it so much." Morden's cock was fully erect, a traitorous, trembling hardness in the midst of Morden's panting, angry expression.
"Fuck you," Morden growled, that sensuous, sandfile voice filled with malice and ice.
"Oh, don't force me to come up with the cliche that insult begs for," Sinclair grinned wickedly, and reached down to tear Morden's shirt open, spreading it and the jacket wide to bare a ripplingly muscled, dark-haired chest and belly. Sinclair was kneeling between his legs, keeping them spread. "You wanted to know so badly what I want? It's this."
His cock found Morden's hole, nudging for just a breath. He used his own spit to make the way a little smoother for himself. He was big. He knew it, relished the fact about himself, loved being able to fill his own large hands when he played with himself. Morden became aware of it when he lunged, driving his cock home inside the man's body and feeling Morden's scream rip up his spine with a rush of pure ecstasy.
He heard some pleasure in it. That was the really wild thing about it. Morden yelled as he sheathed himself completely, grabbing onto Sinclair's arms tightly, legs trying to wrap around Sinclair's back as he endured the impalement with his head thrown back and his mouth gaping.
Sinclair wasn't going to waste any time with gentleness or even simple respect. He withdrew his length with a hard breath and slammed back into Morden with a roar of his own. Morden's howl this time was sheer violation and suffering, his beautiful body contracting in a display of heaving strength as he tried to arch away from Sinclair's power.
The fuck began with another hard sheathing, Morden screaming as if it actually were a blade that found a home in his body, and Sinclair couldn't hold back the hunger that made him start to buck. Violent, desperate thrusts, wildness rising in the back of his throat like laughter, quick and panting.
Something slick began to make the way between them easier. Blood. Morden's hands on Sinclair's arms began to clench, the pain starting to leave the voice and become groaning need. Sinclair did laugh this time, understanding.
"You need this, too," he said hoarsely. "You need to be hurt. You love this."
"Please," Morden howled, his nails digging into Sinclair's flesh until blood was drawn there, too. "Please don't...please don't stop...fuck...fuck you..."
Sinclair took one hand away from the grass by Morden's shoulder and closed it slowly, crushingly, around Morden's throat.
"You need it? Hm?" He loved his strength, loved the way Morden quivered at the sound of his voice. "You want to go right up to the edge, don't you? How badly do you want this? Enough to die?"
He awoke with a hard gasp, struggling to breathe with his heart hammering achingly in his chest. He twisted wildly in the bed, searching for something familiar to ground him. His own bedroom, on Babylon 5. He was the Commander of Babylon 5.
The sheets were soaked in sweat. He could feel them damp around his legs and chest and groin. Oh, God, did he come? He wanted to...
This was a safe place, no one to bother him, no one to hurt, no one to see. He rolled onto his belly and rose up on his hands and knees, reaching down between his legs to grasp himself and coax forward the orgasm that wanted to burst from him so urgently. His thighs quivered at the sudden promise, his heart still pounding, adrenaline flooding him as he let the images, the remembrance, of taking his pleasure with Morden. He whispered to himself softly, not really hearing the words, speaking of his own brutality, hot and raw, and when he brought back the memory of Morden begging him, he lost control and covered his hand and the bed with his semen, bellowing with fury and laughter.
****
It was a familiar scent that made the hackles on his neck rise, and caused Sinclair to look up from his desk later that day. How could he have remembered that scent so clearly? Like musk and smoke...
"Hello, Commander," Morden said, smiling faintly. It was a controlled expression, a controlled stillness and grace that marked the man's body and finely cut clothes. His hair was perfectly in place, and Sinclair had a flash of the sight of it against the grass, disheveled, Morden's eyes like a trapped panther. "I hope you've had some time to think about my question yesterday." He stood in front of Sinclair's desk, quietly confident, oddly supplicant.
"Yes. Yes I have."
"Well? What's your answer?" That smile again. "What do you want?"
A pause.
Sinclair pushed his chair back quietly and stood up, allowing Morden to watch him take possession of his full height. Morden's smile faded a little more with each foot. Or perhaps it was the still, smoldering expression on Sinclair's face. An expression that Sinclair had brought with him away from the Minbari warcruiser ten years ago and never known it.
Sinclair opened his mouth, and gave his answer.
The End
"Be Careful What You Ask For"
Characters: Sinclair/Morden
Rating: NC-17 (non-consensual in a dream)
Genre: Babylon 5 (Season 1)
Original material copyright © 1997 by A. Manley Haight
A Blast Furnace Production
ahaight@blastfurnace.org
This story is not in any way intended to infringe on copyrights held by J. Michael Straczynski, Babylonian Productions Inc., or Time Warner Productions. This story may be distributed only with prior permission of the author, and may not be posted to any archive, ftp site, or web page without the written permission of the author. This story is distributed for the individual personal entertainment of persons over 21, and is not subject to purchase or sale by anyone.
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"I had a very strange conversation with a very strange man today," Sinclair said idly as they walked. Delenn considered the brown dirt path before them. She savored their discussions, the time she could spend observing him. Today they were in the gardens, moving peacefully through the winding hedges.
"Oh?" Delenn mused, curious. "What did this 'strange man' want?"
"Oddly enough, that's what he asked me," Sinclair replied. Delenn's mouth opened for a moment in pure surprise, and then she composed herself.
"I beg your pardon?"
"He asked me, verbatim, 'what do you want?'" Sinclair shook his head. "Damndest thing. It's strange what a question like that makes you think."
"And what was your answer?"
"That I'd have to think about it and for him to come back later."
Delenn sighed, relieved. It was, like most Minbari body language, subtle at best. But Sinclair was not so unobservant. He glanced at her.
"Is something wrong?" he asked. "Do you know something about this man?"
She debated answering. Any explanation she could give would be premature, and possibly disastrous. But she knew, also, who Sinclair was and what his destiny entailed. A man like that permitted to go astray, perhaps into the hands of their enemies, would never rise to fulfill the Prophecies. But would it be more correct to simply allow him to make his own way, unaided? Where were her obligations?
She realized ultimately that she would not have been able to live with herself if something happened to Sinclair that she could have prevented by telling him something, warning him. Perhaps the universe operated similarly -- each thing according to its nature, each being according to his or her own conscience.
"This man," she said. "What was his name?"
"Morden. Mr. Morden. I couldn't find out anything about him except that he'd been out of Alliance space long enough to have to renew his identicard. That's not terribly unusual, but it means he doesn't have much of a trail."
Delenn digested the metaphor silently, then nodded.
"I know of him," she admitted after a moment. Sinclair did not look surprised or angry. He merely waited. She rewarded his patience. "I can only tell you that he is in the employ of some very dangerous people. Perhaps 'people' is a misleading term."
"You're saying he's an agent of another government," Sinclair said. "An operative." Delenn nodded.
"A government with which we do not want to have contact right now," she said. "And which we would rather did not exist at all." He looked her quizzically. She stopped to face him. "This is very important, Commander. If you give him an answer, be very cautious. He is looking for a certain kind of answer, one that tells him you can be used. We must not let them think that, not of you."
"Why me?" he wanted to know. He was not loud. Never that. But he was firm, and even quietly his voice could demand things and be obeyed.
"That I cannot say as yet, either," she replied. "But you are very important to the future of this station and it would be a disaster if something happened to you."
Sinclair was aware of the fact that his posting to Babylon 5 had come at the direct request of the Minbari government. What he didn't know, but suspected, was that Delenn was somehow connected to that decision.
"What answer should I give?" he asked.
"What answer were you planning to give?" she inquired. He shied away from even thinking his reply. He couldn't talk about that, not to her. Not to anyone. She must have seen the reaction; her eyes narrowed. "If you hesitate to tell me, that could bode ill," she said seriously. "Are you afraid to tell me what you might tell this man? Ashamed?"
"I...don't think we should be talking about this, Ambassador," he murmured, looking away.
"Jeffrey David Sinclair," she said, surprising herself by using his full name. She wondered distantly if it were insulting for her to do so. It got the desired response from him -- a startled, intent stare. "We have known each other for more than a year, and we are, dare I suggest it, friends. Minbari certainly understand and respect privacy, and believe me that I would endeavor to respect yours. But Mr. Morden is not a man to take lightly. Your answer to him could have extremely dire consequences. The answer to his question is necessarily very personal, just by the nature of the question. But if you can tell him what you cannot tell me, then perhaps I have misjudged our relationship."
It wounded him -- she saw it hit and sink deep. She felt his pain in her own soul for a moment, regretting dearly that she had to make her point so forcefully. Her regard for him was more than just respect for his place in history, the role he would come to occupy (and had occupied already).
She had come to love him for who he was, the man he was. Every day she spent with him illuminated some aspect of the Prophecies that had long mystified her (and countless others). She saw the personality that had written the revelations, heard the voice that had addressed so many followers, and began to grasp the sense of humor, the subtle wit, and just a hint of the mischievous carnality that was apparent in his writings. Scholars had debated for centuries whether or not those perceptions were correct. Surely he would not have been a vulgar man, they argued. Surely he would have been a serious and dedicated leader and not capable of base frolicking.
But in the past months of knowing him, the truth was beginning to sink in. She was not offended by it. On the contrary, she had been secretly pleased to learn that he was not the stuffy, perpetually somber man history painted him as being. She had always detested that quality in religious scholars herself, and was glad to learn it had not started with this man.
But he looked very somber now. And, oddly, when he spoke she heard that hint of carnality, but without the mischief.
"You're right," he said. "Although I'm not sure I would have had the nerve to tell him, either."
"I believe your people have a phrase for occasions like this," she said. "'Spit it out.'" Sinclair laughed suddenly, a glorious sound. That was something else she felt in his writings -- that intense, joyful mirth that could come out abruptly like a flash of sun through the clouds. They had never been sure -- not entirely sure -- that Sinclair actually was Valen. But they had strongly suspected. She had come to the station armed with their suspicion (and her own certainty). The more she knew him, the more she saw and heard and felt his intensity, his warmth, and his powerful spirit consuming a room when he entered, the more painfully she felt her own guilt at how they had first met.
At this moment she had no doubt at all. Not anymore. The realization struck her, all the more shocking because she understood also in that instant that she had held back a reservation about his identity. But the doubt transformed to knowledge had a strange weight. He was grinning at her, amber eyes glimmering. It was an expression of such life and strength that she wondered if she was going to have enough strength of her own to deal with him through the coming months as he began to fulfill his destiny.
"You do have a way with words, Delenn," he said. "More than I expected from someone so unfamiliar with our idioms." He sobered, painfully, which wrenched her, and indicated a nearby bench. "I'll try to tell you," he said. "But I don't want to be pacing around while I do. I won't make sense."
One of Valen's analects popped into her head unbidden: 'A man who paces while trying to make a decision seeks only escape. Only in stillness will answers come, and only in quiet will the true questioner find himself.'
They sat down together, Sinclair sitting in a curiously human way; legs apart, leaning forward with his arms straight, hands on his knees and his shoulders hunched slightly. She'd seen other humans sit like this, sometimes while pensive, sometimes while arrogant. He looked the former, and his profile seemed suddenly prophet-like...eyes serious and dark, brow furrowed, frowning slightly. A very troubled messiah. Valen had often seemed so to her.
"I don't know how much you know about human sexuality," he said, still not looking at her. "I think I was dreading being one of the people you asked about it." He bowed his head for a moment, a wry look passing across his face for just a moment. "I didn't think it would be this personal when you did."
"I have studied the sexual behavior of your people to as great an extent as I can," Delenn said plainly. "As an Ambassador to your world, it behooves me to do so. I confess to a very limited comprehension of many sexual customs, since they are not like Minbari customs. But I am aware of many of them since I did not wish to violate a taboo while among you." Sinclair grunted, absorbing this.
"Then you're aware that the strength of the sexual drive varies from human to human," he said. "Sometimes influenced by childhood incidents and foundational psychological decisions made at an extremely early age." She nodded.
"It is the same among Minbari," she said.
"I couldn't tell you with any certainty what those influences were for me personally," he continued. His head was bowed now, his eyes on the ground. He had lowered his voice a little to a soft rumble. "But I've become an adult with very strong sexual appetites that are not easily sated. I tend to be very rough when I have sex with people. It's difficult to live with it, especially alone. I learned very early that I could divert that energy into other efforts. It's one of the reasons I joined Earthforce. I wanted to serve and protect Earth...but I also needed some way to vent strong feelings. Sometimes I found other people who were like me...who enjoyed my intensity. That was wonderful...but it never lasted. I think they couldn't really handle it after a while. Maybe I'm a little too much."
He paused, possibly with the intention of looking at her, but he didn't. Instead he sighed quietly.
"You are not offending me, if that is what you are thinking," Delenn said. His mouth tightened, the muscles in his jaw working for a moment. Some part of her had wondered if their relationship would ever progress to the point that he would feel comfortable discussing something personal with her. What did humans call it? A confessor? A confessor to Valen. She shivered a little.
"It's like a fire in my body," he said after a moment, softly. "In my soul. Sometimes I go for weeks without feeling it, usually when there's some other job to be done. But the past few days...it's been too quiet around here lately. I can start to hear my own heartbeat at night. I woke up this morning out of violent, sexual dreams." He dropped his head to rub both hands through his hair and around the back of his neck. He didn't think he really needed to give her the gory details of his masturbation habits that morning. "I...dealt with it...the way I usually do. Something about Morden...when he came into my office. He asked me what I wanted...and the first thing that came into my head was that I wanted to get up, slam him down on my desk and fuck him brutally. I don't know him; never met him before today. But he was extremely attractive...exactly my type. And his eyes. Something in his eyes made me want to violate him. I've had rough sex with people before, but it was always consensual. I never made anyone do anything they didn't want."
Sinclair looked at her suddenly and she was struck by the intensity in his expression, his golden eyes gleaming. "But I wanted to rape him. I wanted to make him lose control. But I'm not sure if I wanted him to lose control with pleasure...or screaming at me to stop."
He closed his eyes with a tense sigh, letting his head drop again. In another breath he was on his feet, taking several steps away from the bench. Pacing. He froze suddenly and Delenn could see him understanding in that moment the truth of his own maxim. His hands clenched, but he didn't move for long seconds. He was breathing deeply, she could see from the way his broad shoulders rose and fell. He turned around and she gasped softly. Another facet of Valen was exposed for her witness -- the warlord. The man capable of leading the Minbari through the last Shadow War, able to kill unflinchingly when it was necessary...and able in some way to enjoy it, even if very, very briefly. "I can't make that want go away, Delenn," he said roughly. "It scares me that I want it. It scares me that I can't stop thinking about it. Why? Why him? Why this? I've never wanted to do anything like this before." He looked truly tormented, the inner rage giving way momentarily to fear. "I've had dreams sometimes...fantasized occasionally about taking someone by force." He gestured sharply, stiffly, with his open hand. "But I never met anyone I actually wanted to hurt."
"You are...sensitive...to the truth of people and situations," Delenn said carefully. "I have observed this in you. I have already told you that Mr. Morden is an agent of people who will do us harm at any chance they get. The Minbari have had contact with them before. You would not be wrong to suggest that Mr. Morden himself is an evil man. I think you are aware of the truth of this on a deep level. You intuitively know what he is, and that he is dangerous to you and to others."
"And I want to punish him," Sinclair said quietly. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? I recognize his evil and want to inflict harm on him for the harm he does to other people."
"You may have a warrior's nature," Delenn mused, "but it is a fundamentally protective one. I think it is in your nature to fight evil, to know it on sight."
She wondered if that were revealing too much about him, about what she had come to know was true of him not just in the past year, but in her lifetime of studying his life and his writings as Valen. He was silent for a long time, looking at her, hands still clenched. She realized he was trembling.
"There's a difference between justice and revenge," Sinclair said, finally looking away again. Now he was angry. "It's an old lesson for my people, and for yours, too, I'm sure. One we have to keep relearning as individuals and as a species." He closed his eyes, head raised, and more scripture came back to Delenn.
"And they came to the hill, and saw Valen's tears at the slain. And he lifted his head up, the sun making him close his eyes and weep more for the living kin of the dead. He asked for drinking water, and instead of easing his own parched throat, he gave it to a weeping man whose home had been destroyed by the Invaders, and said, 'don't weep, friend.' The man said, 'we have water enough from the lake. You and your people need it more than I.' And Valen replied, 'but the lake is an hour's travel, and you are thirsty. We must all help each other now. The only thing worse than dying, is dying unmourned.'"
"Yes," Delenn said finally. "One restores order, the other destroys it. Is this lesson one you find yourself learning again?"
"I have to know where one stops and the other begins. How can I bring him to justice?"
"I do not think you can," Delenn said sadly. "It may not be your place to do so. His justice may be dealt by larger forces than you alone."
"Which leaves me with revenge," Sinclair said quietly. "Revenge for wrongs I have never seen, toward a man I have never heard of until today."
"'The true enemy is the darkness of a soul that has lost its way,'" Delenn said. "The Narn say this, and I believe it is true. Your enemy is not Morden, but yourself. You can rule this desire, or be ruled by it. You know all the reasons why acting on this urge would be destructive and wrong. Yet you still desire it and it will not leave your thoughts. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you would wish to harm yourself in this way."
Sinclair stared at her.
"You're a walking basket case, Sinclair." It was his flightmate, Gerald. "What are you trying to do, get yourself killed? The war's over. Better get out of the fighter jock business before you make a mess you can't fix."
He sighed and closed his eyes again. He hadn't been the same since the end of the war. Nothing had been the same. Something had happened to him and he couldn't remember.
"I wish we had never fought that damn war," he murmured.
"So do I," she said quietly.
She did not have to guess at why he had self-destructive tendencies. It had been she who had selected his Starfury -- purely at random -- to be taken aboard their warcruiser so they could learn more about the humans who had killed Dukhat and defended their world so bravely.
He had told them nothing willingly except his name, rank and a number which they had supposed was meant to identify him uniquely. They had tortured him for so long...she could still see him naked, his body crossed by his own blood and marks from the tailed whip that had been used on him, defiant, confused, in such pain that even now she could still see it in him.
She had been summoned after the fourth hour of his torture. They had given up on the more physical methods and resorted to telepathic probing. She had resisted that idea. But the warrior Satai were adamant and she had reluctantly agreed. The telepaths had sent for her, as the most revered of the religious Satai, to tell her what they had discovered.
"Why have you stopped?" she asked one in a low voice as she entered the chamber. The human was on his knees on the floor under a bright spotlight, silent, head bowed. His shoulders shook in the chill of the room. The telepath ducked his head deferentially.
"We could not continue, Satai," he said uneasily. There was an undertone of shock in his whispering voice. "Not after what we learned."
"And what is that?" she demanded.
"Satai...he is Minbari. He has a Minbari soul. We cannot harm him like this. Not if he is...not if he is Minbari..." The telepath trailed off in a whisper. She knew what he was thinking. It was what she was thinking right then.
"A Minbari not born of Minbari, defender of a world untouched by Minbari, of all castes and of none..."
She sank to her knees with her eyes on the human prisoner, feeling an entire life of worship, ritual and humility come undone as she knew, she knew deep inside, who it was they had captured and tortured aboard their warship.
"In Valen's name," she whispered, anguished, putting her hands over her mouth. He rested on his knees on the cold floor, wrists bound between his muscular thighs, his shoulders hunched with pain, shadows from the harsh spotlight overhead hiding his face and chest and groin. His blood was red...so oddly red...staining the floor under him. What had they done?
"I don't know what to do, Delenn," Sinclair said, jerking her back to the present. "If I refuse to answer him...refuse to do what I want to do...I don't know if I can stand a repeated temptation. He's a free man. He can come and go on this station as he wishes, and if he is who you say he is, I'll be seeing more of him in the future. How long can I hold back an urge like that? It's so strong I'm afraid to even see him again, much less speak to him or have to deal with him."
"And yet you do not even have to address the consequences of acting on your desire," Delenn pointed out, "because they are so obviously unacceptable."
The look Sinclair gave her then made a chill crawl up her back. "The knowing may not be enough to stop me," he said plainly.
"You have said that you have experience controlling and redirecting feelings similar to this," she said.
"Similar," he repeated. "Not the same." He still had that haunting expression, the look of someone sharing a body with a demon. "And is this really just a question of justice versus revenge? Or is it something else?"
The words hung in the air for a long moment.
"I fear that only you can answer that," Delenn said quietly.
****
Sinclair went to bed that night with his mind unresolved, his heart weary, his groin burning. He was afraid to relieve the need, refusing to touch himself. Morden was going to return for an answer, but when, Sinclair didn't know. Would he be ready? What would come out of his mouth when he opened it?
He stripped naked, hating his clothes with a passion he normally reserved for nights when he wasn't alone, and climbed into bed to cocoon himself in the blankets, hiding from the existence that forced this decision from him.
He dreamed again.
His mind returned him to the hedge maze, mixing it with a broad, grassy field under the station's artificial 'sky'. The hedge walls were spaced far apart, eerily spacious passageways giving an air of labyrinthine privacy even though there was no guarantee of being alone.
His mind gave him a quarry, and gave him permission. Morden was there, around a corner. Sinclair came up behind him, blood singing in his heart, a snarl on his face that only his dreams allowed him to have, and he took Morden from behind, closing a big hand around the prey's mouth, another around his chest.
Sinclair dragged him back into the labyrinth, inflamed by his struggling growls of rage and surprise. It was a delight to use his strength, to really use the body he had been born with and spent his entire life controlling and easing into the grace and power that were his.
"Quiet," Sinclair growled harshly into his ear. "I know what you are. Now I'm going to show you what I am."
Morden hit the ground with a grunt that drove the breath from him. The grass under him was yielding, the earth infinitely softer than the face of the man who had abducted him.
Sinclair didn't need clothes in the dream -- they had never been on him, his own nudity hardly raw enough for the cruelty that drove him like a sun in his thoughts. He dropped to his knees with a snarl and began taking Morden's clothes from him. It was supremely important; that theft of dignity, of facade. He would strip this man to his core, and then eventually deny him even that.
He found a fellow predator in his mark suddenly, Morden's face twisting into a teeth-baring yell of fury. It was so beautiful, making Sinclair's need sear him from within. He wasn't going to allow defiance, not at any cost. Morden kicked at him and he punished it with a savage, bruising grip around the man's ankle, evoking a gasp of pain.
"Go ahead," Sinclair rasped, taking the belt buckle free and dragging trousers down Morden's legs. "Fight back. You'll only make me want it more."
"I don't intend to let you take it," Morden replied in a hiss. He had a viciously handsome kind of rage, lithe body sprawled with the fine clothes halfway off of him, neatly slicked hair tousled and gleaming in the daylight. Sinclair jerked the trousers and underwear off and narrowly avoided another kick from the now-free legs.
"Oho," Sinclair exclaimed, grabbing the leg again, this time around the calf, fingers gouging deep into muscle to make Morden cry out. "It doesn't look to me like you're hating it so much." Morden's cock was fully erect, a traitorous, trembling hardness in the midst of Morden's panting, angry expression.
"Fuck you," Morden growled, that sensuous, sandfile voice filled with malice and ice.
"Oh, don't force me to come up with the cliche that insult begs for," Sinclair grinned wickedly, and reached down to tear Morden's shirt open, spreading it and the jacket wide to bare a ripplingly muscled, dark-haired chest and belly. Sinclair was kneeling between his legs, keeping them spread. "You wanted to know so badly what I want? It's this."
His cock found Morden's hole, nudging for just a breath. He used his own spit to make the way a little smoother for himself. He was big. He knew it, relished the fact about himself, loved being able to fill his own large hands when he played with himself. Morden became aware of it when he lunged, driving his cock home inside the man's body and feeling Morden's scream rip up his spine with a rush of pure ecstasy.
He heard some pleasure in it. That was the really wild thing about it. Morden yelled as he sheathed himself completely, grabbing onto Sinclair's arms tightly, legs trying to wrap around Sinclair's back as he endured the impalement with his head thrown back and his mouth gaping.
Sinclair wasn't going to waste any time with gentleness or even simple respect. He withdrew his length with a hard breath and slammed back into Morden with a roar of his own. Morden's howl this time was sheer violation and suffering, his beautiful body contracting in a display of heaving strength as he tried to arch away from Sinclair's power.
The fuck began with another hard sheathing, Morden screaming as if it actually were a blade that found a home in his body, and Sinclair couldn't hold back the hunger that made him start to buck. Violent, desperate thrusts, wildness rising in the back of his throat like laughter, quick and panting.
Something slick began to make the way between them easier. Blood. Morden's hands on Sinclair's arms began to clench, the pain starting to leave the voice and become groaning need. Sinclair did laugh this time, understanding.
"You need this, too," he said hoarsely. "You need to be hurt. You love this."
"Please," Morden howled, his nails digging into Sinclair's flesh until blood was drawn there, too. "Please don't...please don't stop...fuck...fuck you..."
Sinclair took one hand away from the grass by Morden's shoulder and closed it slowly, crushingly, around Morden's throat.
"You need it? Hm?" He loved his strength, loved the way Morden quivered at the sound of his voice. "You want to go right up to the edge, don't you? How badly do you want this? Enough to die?"
He awoke with a hard gasp, struggling to breathe with his heart hammering achingly in his chest. He twisted wildly in the bed, searching for something familiar to ground him. His own bedroom, on Babylon 5. He was the Commander of Babylon 5.
The sheets were soaked in sweat. He could feel them damp around his legs and chest and groin. Oh, God, did he come? He wanted to...
This was a safe place, no one to bother him, no one to hurt, no one to see. He rolled onto his belly and rose up on his hands and knees, reaching down between his legs to grasp himself and coax forward the orgasm that wanted to burst from him so urgently. His thighs quivered at the sudden promise, his heart still pounding, adrenaline flooding him as he let the images, the remembrance, of taking his pleasure with Morden. He whispered to himself softly, not really hearing the words, speaking of his own brutality, hot and raw, and when he brought back the memory of Morden begging him, he lost control and covered his hand and the bed with his semen, bellowing with fury and laughter.
****
It was a familiar scent that made the hackles on his neck rise, and caused Sinclair to look up from his desk later that day. How could he have remembered that scent so clearly? Like musk and smoke...
"Hello, Commander," Morden said, smiling faintly. It was a controlled expression, a controlled stillness and grace that marked the man's body and finely cut clothes. His hair was perfectly in place, and Sinclair had a flash of the sight of it against the grass, disheveled, Morden's eyes like a trapped panther. "I hope you've had some time to think about my question yesterday." He stood in front of Sinclair's desk, quietly confident, oddly supplicant.
"Yes. Yes I have."
"Well? What's your answer?" That smile again. "What do you want?"
A pause.
Sinclair pushed his chair back quietly and stood up, allowing Morden to watch him take possession of his full height. Morden's smile faded a little more with each foot. Or perhaps it was the still, smoldering expression on Sinclair's face. An expression that Sinclair had brought with him away from the Minbari warcruiser ten years ago and never known it.
Sinclair opened his mouth, and gave his answer.
The End