BSG Remix 2014: Giving Orders for scifishipper
Title: Giving Orders
Original Story: Taking Orders by scifishipper
Rating: Explicit/Mature
Characters: Lee Adama, Kendra Shaw, Kara Thrace
Pairing: Lee/Kendra
Summary: The power behind the order wasn't what he expected.
Warnings: Borderline non-con Sub/dom dynamic.
With so many thanks to lanalucy for her beta, and to scifishipper for the amazing source material.
The clang of the metal pole against the hatch wheel had once been so familiar, but it had worked its way out of his auditory vocabulary in the time he’d been in command of the Pegasus. Dee has dropped off his map despite her best efforts, and although he’s been casually frakking his XO-a fact that both thrills and appalls him-it’s been behind the marine-guarded doors of his quarters and the hatch has never been dogged. If he’d been in the habit of shared quarters, the number of pilots in the hall and the noise would have been the only necessary signals, but he’s a Commander now, and he twitches when the nearest loiterer points his chin towards the boots and says “Showboat.”
“Any idea where Starbuck is?”
“CAG’s Office.” Lee nods and maneuvers down the hall, the clanging echoing through his brain, summoning a feeling that is too recent, too familiar for his actual memories of the sound.
It’s only when he twists his head around the hatch to the CAG’s office that the feeling that it recalled-the pulse of his veins stutter-stepping in confusion and shame and lust-bubbles over, because it’s the purest form of Kara for him, but it’s also the way Kendra looks at him when he glances at her after she’s climbed off of him. The stub of Kara’s ponytail reminds him of the moment he twined his fingers through her hair, his palm against the warmth of her ass, her lips, her eyes and the desolation that came afterward.
It reminds him of being buried in a darker woman, her teeth locked around his shoulder and not looking at him, the efficiency with which she dons her duty blues after stopping in his personal head, and her glimpse in the mirror to adjust her pips before she salutes her way out the door.
For the next three hours, as he says the right things and asks the right questions, and looks at his father and leans near Kara and breathes her scent he can think of nothing but the women he’s slept with and the ones he wishes he had. And it’s frakked up-in a way-that so many of them have given him their bodies willingly, but not a single one of them has given him anything more.
Kara maybe it wasn’t fair to expect. Shevon it definitely hadn’t been. Dee praised him and said all the right words and gave him perpetual doe eyes but never seemed to say one true thing about herself. Kendra fraks him blind and hides everything else behind military efficiency. Gianne, who would have said yes if he’d asked her to marry him-who would have had his baby-was essentially perfect and even her tears as she’d skittered away from him seemed choreographed.
The Raptor door clangs shut behind him as he straps in, his teeth clenching, jaw tightening. He asks the pilot to call ahead and ask his XO to report to his office in 40 minutes, leans against the bulkhead, lets the ECO and pilot work, and closes his eyes, feeling the minute vibrations of the ship as it slides through its maneuvers.
***
He’s told the Marine at the door not to disturb their meeting, and when Kendra walks in, she’s all business. For about ten minutes, they discuss ship stocking and the three week FTL jump schedule he consulted with Galactica on that afternoon until the conversation dies and she smirks and shoves off of the table she’s leaning against, pushes him against the bulkhead. Her lips mash against his, her fingers working quickly on his belt and blues before her slim fingers dip inside. He holds himself a step away from losing control, focuses on pleasing her, as ever, and his enjoyment of the whole event is tempered by the fact that she never meets his eyes, that the only noises coming from her lips are grunts, instructions on where and when and how quickly he should be moving.
She breaks against him, her body slumping only momentarily before she pulls herself back and goes to work on him in earnest. He has to close his eyes, rock his head back, imagine her eyes hard on his and her mouth on his ear whispering encouraging endearments, and eventually the sensation of her touch and his imagination sync up and he is also gone.
Before he can even open his eyes again, she’s extracting herself, lifting a leg to slide him out of her, pulling her fingers away from him and moving into his head to clean herself up. They’re both still mostly dressed, and he only shoves himself back into his pants and zips and it’s as though nothing happened. She glances in the mirror, adjusts her pips, and turns towards him. “Anything else, sir?”
He suppresses a bubble in his chest that is either a laugh or cry and says, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“I had a late lunch.” She says, hands clasped behind her in parade rest.
“Well then, you’re dismissed.”
She nods, salutes, and turns to leave. The door chimes on her exit, and he pokes his head out to ask the marine if he missed anyone.
He hadn’t.
***
Over the next two weeks, she fraks him five more times, each a time when he’s asked her to his quarters on business that she had no questions about, or that was routine, each time both passionate and skilled.
The first time, she’d stripped and bent over his bed, lifting her hips to urge him on. When she’d emerged to him folding her clothes, she’d taken them from him in such a matter-of-fact manner that he hadn’t noticed it was to put them back on until she was halfway out the door.
The fourth time, she’d shoved him against the wall and blown him, her hand buried in her pants. After he’d finished and she’d stood, throat still working, thumb swiping saliva off of her bottom lip, he’d cupped a hand around her neck to pull her into a kiss and she’d turned her head so his kiss had hit her jaw. He’d whispered, “Thank you.”
“No problem, sir.”
He’d looked at her, her clothes still properly arranged, the only difference between that moment and twenty minutes before a slight reddening of her lips. “You can go.”
She’d saluted, turned to his mirror to check her appearance, and went.
The fifth time, she’d begun by working his neck with her tongue, and he’d reached down to unbutton her blues and delve inside. Her fingers had halted his before he could touch her, shoved her blues and panties down, and she’d mounted him. She liked it standing. He’d stabilized her with his forearm under her thigh and when they’d both finished, she hadn’t been able to extract herself without his cooperation. His hand had caressed her hip briefly, slowly lowering her, eyes locked on her face, and she’d looked everywhere but at him.
***
He approves a fresh batch of nugget marines, signs the requisitions of their quarters, the schedule of their ersatz boot camp, and on the first day of their training observes as Kendra runs them through a series of drills.
It was a traditional hazing ritual, to issue ridiculous commands and wait for the questions, wait for nuggets to drop out of their postures or disobey, then to reprimand. The first lesson of the military: obey orders. The final lesson he learned in war college was to evaluate orders, to disobey illegal orders, to learn people and question superiors with a certain level of tact, to pick your battles, but in wartime those lessons are worthless, dangerous. He’d learned that staring at the bars of the Galactica brig.
It is Kendra’s gift, shaping civilians into soldiers, getting the crisp “Yes, sir,” out of an unwilling subject, bending strong wills in a way that made them feel like they’d kept their spines straight and egos intact. Cain had seen that in her nature and phrases to that effect had been littered across her evaluations like stars in the sky. If she’d had any weakness in her before, she’d annealed during the war. She needs to take very few commands, and always gives the impression that she is doing exactly what she would have done in the first place if given enough time.
***
Nights are spent in his quarters, alone, with a book or a file or a radio or-if he can lay his hands on them-civilian newsletters and pamphlets. Or time to think. Not enough sleep.
One Tuesday he finagles a few hours of leave with Kara and they drink and play Triad on Cloud Nine and he thinks about kissing her. He catalogues the differences between his XO and his former DCAG. He brushes a hand over her shoulder and she leans into it, softens. Kendra’s reaction would be stiffening, pulling away. Kendra takes orders like her own thoughts. When Kara takes an order her obeyance feels like a slap in the face. But they are both wickedly intelligent, both run hot, both throw themselves into danger and both of them make him feel like it would be possible to reach into his chest and tug his entire circulatory system out in a single piece.
So they drink and he doesn’t kiss her, and the next day when he meets with Kendra and she starts to linger, he dismisses her immediately.
***
In the end, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he could do. And over several sleepless nights, what he could do translated itself into a plan that made him hot and ill and nervous, not least because he was already violating regulations by frakking a direct subordinate without bringing orders into it. But then, his rank is brevetted, like every frakking thing he’s earned since the worlds ended it has been given temporarily and without concomitant benefits. The only thing he’d lose if he lost it would be responsibility and the grudging respect of men and women under him. Maybe not even that.
The hatch opens, his XO walks in. He’s reviewing flight evaluations from the nuggets on Pegasus, one of his more enjoyable responsibilities.
She stops in front of his desk. “Sir, you wanted to see me?”
He doesn’t look up. “Dog the hatch.” A snick of metal tells him when the hard seal is in place, “Take off your uniform.” There are small noises of cloth, skin, and his eyes are skimming sightlessly across the papers in front of him, moving one when he would have reached the bottom, certain she’s watching him not watching her. The movements stop and he continues to read for a moment before looking up. She’s in tanks and underwear, and a thrill of perversion rolls through him. “Take everything off.” He says, then looks down at the papers again.
“Sir?”
Eyes still on the papers, he stills, wondering if already there is a chink in his plan. He doubles down. “Do I have to repeat myself, Major?”
“No, Sir.” The movements of cloth on skin repeat, this time softer, shier. Her thighs enter his periphery, smooth and taut.
He sets down his pen, shifts his chair and summons her closer. His jacket is open and he spreads it wide, unbuttons and unzips his fly. His eyes are riding over her, and when she stops two steps from him he says, “On your knees.”
And this is the reaction he wanted, a slight tremble in her hand, moving forward and away at the same time; his eyes lift to hers, evaluating, and the lock of his eyes on hers seems to do it. She drops to her knees, leans forward, reaches for his fly and takes him into her mouth. She looks up at him, expression slightly worried, and he does his best to give her nothing back.
It’s what she’s seemed to want every time before, and he’s giving it to her. And now she complies, taking him all the way, gagging and drooling, her nose brushing his pubic bone, eyes tearing up, hair falling forward and his hand involuntarily lifts to brush her hair back before he reels himself in. He’s too close already, steps from the very thing he doesn’t want to give her.
“That’s enough. Go into the bedroom.” She only barely complies and he only barely contains himself, presses his palm hard against his erection, eyes lock on flight evals, he reads several sentences of Starbuck’s scrawl and takes a few breaths. He tucks himself back into his boxers, zips his blues, and follows her.
She’s standing just inside the room, stunning, flushed, fingers trailing over her skin, and he orders her onto the bed. She sits down and then lies back, calves draped over the edge of the bed. “Touch yourself.” She smiles, feline, spreads her legs and dives into herself. He moves forward, watches her more closely; her pupils dilate, her fingers moving faster, breath harsher, and then suddenly slower. She’s controlling herself, and it makes him angry, that wasn’t the plan. “Turn over.” She does and she’s shivering.
He walks out and returns to his flight evaluations. It only takes her a few minutes before she emerges covered in goosebumps, nipples tight. “I didn’t give you permission to move, Major.” He says and looks up languidly, eyes locking on hers. Then back down. He can feel the rage radiating from her and it feels good. It feels like giving her a taste of her own medicine, and the satisfaction settles his arousal, soothes his stomach, and he finishes reviewing the flight evals, opens the hatch, asks the marine outside to notify Captain Case to come to his quarters at the end of her shift. It gives him a few hours, and he’s feeling calmer now, ready to touch her.
When he enters the bedroom, she is still lying on the bed, blue bedspread still taut, head propped on her hands. When his hands find her flesh, it’s electric, the ever-present temptation of her body tightening him into a bow, and she springs toward him as though experiencing the same. He touches her and wonders if she’s even aware that she’s giving him this thing she’s never given him before, or if she’s forgotten whatever rules she seems to follow. He eases up on touching her before she can respond. Leaves the room, door slightly ajar.
His attention has rarely been so focused, and he’s through approving supply requisitions and training schedules and incident reports and leave requests before an hour is out. He is drifting when the hatch chimes and Captain Case reports. He offers her a seat, and begins a discussion that lasts at least a half hour, reviewing each individual flight evaluation thoroughly, then eventually dismisses her.
He dogs the hatch himself this time.
This part of the plan was the part that made him most ill, and that risks the most repercussions both emotionally and practically, and he half expects her to be huddled in the head when he enters, but instead she is lying on the bed, still, body taut with anger and perhaps desire. He undresses, folding and preparing his clothes. In the time she’s been lying on the bed her shift has ended, and his ended moments ago. When he’s naked, she’s touching herself and he’s berating himself for not noticing, not ordering her to stop. But things are going off the rails now anyway; he never anticipated she’d still be here at this point, and the only thing he knows is that he’s not going to frak her unless she begs him for it.
He’s touching her, licking her, giving her exactly what she wants, and the moment her breathing hitches, changes in tempo, he pulls away. She reaches down, takes over where he left off, and that’s the exact frakking opposite of the point, “Hands off,” he barks out, and her fingers still, retreat.
She is nearly vibrating with desire, and he wants to give her one last opportunity to do whatever it is he needs her to do. If he’s honest, he doesn’t even know what it will look like if she does, just that it won’t look like being a soldier, and it won’t just look like frakking. He opens the hatch to the head, and when she doesn’t move, he realizes how little an idea he had about the action and reaction behind giving and receiving these kinds of orders. She’s responding like a nugget in basic, not acting until ordered. She’s locked him into this role like the one before, and this whole frakking thing is worthless and when she walks out the door, it will be over, he will be a professional, a stone, he decides. He will stop looking for whatever it is he’s been looking for and command a Battlestar and play whatever role he’s given until he can’t anymore.
In the shower, though, he follows it through, orders her to wash him, her eyes reach his, hard and empty, and she strokes and teases him and he’s hard and he’s ready and he’s done. He turns the temperature down to dampen his desire, rinses and leaves her. When it’s clear she needs an order before she’ll exit the head, he gives one; he’s readying for bed and she only stares. An order to leave his quarters flies off his lips as he dresses and for the first time in hours she shoots back at him: “So that’s it?”
She stands there as he lies down, and now he’s just tired. He’s done with orders. “Do what you want, Kendra.” He turns out the light.
She hums frustratedly, the sounds of her feet shifting hit him and echo through his temples, his eye sockets, the hollows of his bones.
“Is this a test, sir?” She asks, and he knows she won’t leave until he says something.
He needs to say something that might in some way explain what this was, because the whole reason behind it is slipping away from him and in the dark his unease about what just happened is bubbling in him like sickness. The only thing he can think to say is the sort of thing he always seems to say as she’s leaving or about to leave, “You can stay if you want.”
His eyes are closed, and he hears her feet moving and thinks she’s leaving, because that has been the nail in the coffin before, the offer, the kindness, and what in Hades did he even think he was doing with this charade? It wasn’t him. It never has been before, and it likely won’t be again and then there’s a dip in the bed, and her hands are slipping over him and they’re icy on his ribcage and she’s over him and kissing him. Her eyes are open and on him and she’s as tender with him as any lover has ever been, and it’s good, and when it’s over she stays.
In the morning, when he ducks into the head, she follows, brushes a hand over his shoulder before stepping into the shower. He offers her a muffin when she emerges and she sits with him and eats it.
Original Story: Taking Orders by scifishipper
Rating: Explicit/Mature
Characters: Lee Adama, Kendra Shaw, Kara Thrace
Pairing: Lee/Kendra
Summary: The power behind the order wasn't what he expected.
Warnings: Borderline non-con Sub/dom dynamic.
With so many thanks to lanalucy for her beta, and to scifishipper for the amazing source material.
The clang of the metal pole against the hatch wheel had once been so familiar, but it had worked its way out of his auditory vocabulary in the time he’d been in command of the Pegasus. Dee has dropped off his map despite her best efforts, and although he’s been casually frakking his XO-a fact that both thrills and appalls him-it’s been behind the marine-guarded doors of his quarters and the hatch has never been dogged. If he’d been in the habit of shared quarters, the number of pilots in the hall and the noise would have been the only necessary signals, but he’s a Commander now, and he twitches when the nearest loiterer points his chin towards the boots and says “Showboat.”
“Any idea where Starbuck is?”
“CAG’s Office.” Lee nods and maneuvers down the hall, the clanging echoing through his brain, summoning a feeling that is too recent, too familiar for his actual memories of the sound.
It’s only when he twists his head around the hatch to the CAG’s office that the feeling that it recalled-the pulse of his veins stutter-stepping in confusion and shame and lust-bubbles over, because it’s the purest form of Kara for him, but it’s also the way Kendra looks at him when he glances at her after she’s climbed off of him. The stub of Kara’s ponytail reminds him of the moment he twined his fingers through her hair, his palm against the warmth of her ass, her lips, her eyes and the desolation that came afterward.
It reminds him of being buried in a darker woman, her teeth locked around his shoulder and not looking at him, the efficiency with which she dons her duty blues after stopping in his personal head, and her glimpse in the mirror to adjust her pips before she salutes her way out the door.
For the next three hours, as he says the right things and asks the right questions, and looks at his father and leans near Kara and breathes her scent he can think of nothing but the women he’s slept with and the ones he wishes he had. And it’s frakked up-in a way-that so many of them have given him their bodies willingly, but not a single one of them has given him anything more.
Kara maybe it wasn’t fair to expect. Shevon it definitely hadn’t been. Dee praised him and said all the right words and gave him perpetual doe eyes but never seemed to say one true thing about herself. Kendra fraks him blind and hides everything else behind military efficiency. Gianne, who would have said yes if he’d asked her to marry him-who would have had his baby-was essentially perfect and even her tears as she’d skittered away from him seemed choreographed.
The Raptor door clangs shut behind him as he straps in, his teeth clenching, jaw tightening. He asks the pilot to call ahead and ask his XO to report to his office in 40 minutes, leans against the bulkhead, lets the ECO and pilot work, and closes his eyes, feeling the minute vibrations of the ship as it slides through its maneuvers.
***
He’s told the Marine at the door not to disturb their meeting, and when Kendra walks in, she’s all business. For about ten minutes, they discuss ship stocking and the three week FTL jump schedule he consulted with Galactica on that afternoon until the conversation dies and she smirks and shoves off of the table she’s leaning against, pushes him against the bulkhead. Her lips mash against his, her fingers working quickly on his belt and blues before her slim fingers dip inside. He holds himself a step away from losing control, focuses on pleasing her, as ever, and his enjoyment of the whole event is tempered by the fact that she never meets his eyes, that the only noises coming from her lips are grunts, instructions on where and when and how quickly he should be moving.
She breaks against him, her body slumping only momentarily before she pulls herself back and goes to work on him in earnest. He has to close his eyes, rock his head back, imagine her eyes hard on his and her mouth on his ear whispering encouraging endearments, and eventually the sensation of her touch and his imagination sync up and he is also gone.
Before he can even open his eyes again, she’s extracting herself, lifting a leg to slide him out of her, pulling her fingers away from him and moving into his head to clean herself up. They’re both still mostly dressed, and he only shoves himself back into his pants and zips and it’s as though nothing happened. She glances in the mirror, adjusts her pips, and turns towards him. “Anything else, sir?”
He suppresses a bubble in his chest that is either a laugh or cry and says, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“I had a late lunch.” She says, hands clasped behind her in parade rest.
“Well then, you’re dismissed.”
She nods, salutes, and turns to leave. The door chimes on her exit, and he pokes his head out to ask the marine if he missed anyone.
He hadn’t.
***
Over the next two weeks, she fraks him five more times, each a time when he’s asked her to his quarters on business that she had no questions about, or that was routine, each time both passionate and skilled.
The first time, she’d stripped and bent over his bed, lifting her hips to urge him on. When she’d emerged to him folding her clothes, she’d taken them from him in such a matter-of-fact manner that he hadn’t noticed it was to put them back on until she was halfway out the door.
The fourth time, she’d shoved him against the wall and blown him, her hand buried in her pants. After he’d finished and she’d stood, throat still working, thumb swiping saliva off of her bottom lip, he’d cupped a hand around her neck to pull her into a kiss and she’d turned her head so his kiss had hit her jaw. He’d whispered, “Thank you.”
“No problem, sir.”
He’d looked at her, her clothes still properly arranged, the only difference between that moment and twenty minutes before a slight reddening of her lips. “You can go.”
She’d saluted, turned to his mirror to check her appearance, and went.
The fifth time, she’d begun by working his neck with her tongue, and he’d reached down to unbutton her blues and delve inside. Her fingers had halted his before he could touch her, shoved her blues and panties down, and she’d mounted him. She liked it standing. He’d stabilized her with his forearm under her thigh and when they’d both finished, she hadn’t been able to extract herself without his cooperation. His hand had caressed her hip briefly, slowly lowering her, eyes locked on her face, and she’d looked everywhere but at him.
***
He approves a fresh batch of nugget marines, signs the requisitions of their quarters, the schedule of their ersatz boot camp, and on the first day of their training observes as Kendra runs them through a series of drills.
It was a traditional hazing ritual, to issue ridiculous commands and wait for the questions, wait for nuggets to drop out of their postures or disobey, then to reprimand. The first lesson of the military: obey orders. The final lesson he learned in war college was to evaluate orders, to disobey illegal orders, to learn people and question superiors with a certain level of tact, to pick your battles, but in wartime those lessons are worthless, dangerous. He’d learned that staring at the bars of the Galactica brig.
It is Kendra’s gift, shaping civilians into soldiers, getting the crisp “Yes, sir,” out of an unwilling subject, bending strong wills in a way that made them feel like they’d kept their spines straight and egos intact. Cain had seen that in her nature and phrases to that effect had been littered across her evaluations like stars in the sky. If she’d had any weakness in her before, she’d annealed during the war. She needs to take very few commands, and always gives the impression that she is doing exactly what she would have done in the first place if given enough time.
***
Nights are spent in his quarters, alone, with a book or a file or a radio or-if he can lay his hands on them-civilian newsletters and pamphlets. Or time to think. Not enough sleep.
One Tuesday he finagles a few hours of leave with Kara and they drink and play Triad on Cloud Nine and he thinks about kissing her. He catalogues the differences between his XO and his former DCAG. He brushes a hand over her shoulder and she leans into it, softens. Kendra’s reaction would be stiffening, pulling away. Kendra takes orders like her own thoughts. When Kara takes an order her obeyance feels like a slap in the face. But they are both wickedly intelligent, both run hot, both throw themselves into danger and both of them make him feel like it would be possible to reach into his chest and tug his entire circulatory system out in a single piece.
So they drink and he doesn’t kiss her, and the next day when he meets with Kendra and she starts to linger, he dismisses her immediately.
***
In the end, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he could do. And over several sleepless nights, what he could do translated itself into a plan that made him hot and ill and nervous, not least because he was already violating regulations by frakking a direct subordinate without bringing orders into it. But then, his rank is brevetted, like every frakking thing he’s earned since the worlds ended it has been given temporarily and without concomitant benefits. The only thing he’d lose if he lost it would be responsibility and the grudging respect of men and women under him. Maybe not even that.
The hatch opens, his XO walks in. He’s reviewing flight evaluations from the nuggets on Pegasus, one of his more enjoyable responsibilities.
She stops in front of his desk. “Sir, you wanted to see me?”
He doesn’t look up. “Dog the hatch.” A snick of metal tells him when the hard seal is in place, “Take off your uniform.” There are small noises of cloth, skin, and his eyes are skimming sightlessly across the papers in front of him, moving one when he would have reached the bottom, certain she’s watching him not watching her. The movements stop and he continues to read for a moment before looking up. She’s in tanks and underwear, and a thrill of perversion rolls through him. “Take everything off.” He says, then looks down at the papers again.
“Sir?”
Eyes still on the papers, he stills, wondering if already there is a chink in his plan. He doubles down. “Do I have to repeat myself, Major?”
“No, Sir.” The movements of cloth on skin repeat, this time softer, shier. Her thighs enter his periphery, smooth and taut.
He sets down his pen, shifts his chair and summons her closer. His jacket is open and he spreads it wide, unbuttons and unzips his fly. His eyes are riding over her, and when she stops two steps from him he says, “On your knees.”
And this is the reaction he wanted, a slight tremble in her hand, moving forward and away at the same time; his eyes lift to hers, evaluating, and the lock of his eyes on hers seems to do it. She drops to her knees, leans forward, reaches for his fly and takes him into her mouth. She looks up at him, expression slightly worried, and he does his best to give her nothing back.
It’s what she’s seemed to want every time before, and he’s giving it to her. And now she complies, taking him all the way, gagging and drooling, her nose brushing his pubic bone, eyes tearing up, hair falling forward and his hand involuntarily lifts to brush her hair back before he reels himself in. He’s too close already, steps from the very thing he doesn’t want to give her.
“That’s enough. Go into the bedroom.” She only barely complies and he only barely contains himself, presses his palm hard against his erection, eyes lock on flight evals, he reads several sentences of Starbuck’s scrawl and takes a few breaths. He tucks himself back into his boxers, zips his blues, and follows her.
She’s standing just inside the room, stunning, flushed, fingers trailing over her skin, and he orders her onto the bed. She sits down and then lies back, calves draped over the edge of the bed. “Touch yourself.” She smiles, feline, spreads her legs and dives into herself. He moves forward, watches her more closely; her pupils dilate, her fingers moving faster, breath harsher, and then suddenly slower. She’s controlling herself, and it makes him angry, that wasn’t the plan. “Turn over.” She does and she’s shivering.
He walks out and returns to his flight evaluations. It only takes her a few minutes before she emerges covered in goosebumps, nipples tight. “I didn’t give you permission to move, Major.” He says and looks up languidly, eyes locking on hers. Then back down. He can feel the rage radiating from her and it feels good. It feels like giving her a taste of her own medicine, and the satisfaction settles his arousal, soothes his stomach, and he finishes reviewing the flight evals, opens the hatch, asks the marine outside to notify Captain Case to come to his quarters at the end of her shift. It gives him a few hours, and he’s feeling calmer now, ready to touch her.
When he enters the bedroom, she is still lying on the bed, blue bedspread still taut, head propped on her hands. When his hands find her flesh, it’s electric, the ever-present temptation of her body tightening him into a bow, and she springs toward him as though experiencing the same. He touches her and wonders if she’s even aware that she’s giving him this thing she’s never given him before, or if she’s forgotten whatever rules she seems to follow. He eases up on touching her before she can respond. Leaves the room, door slightly ajar.
His attention has rarely been so focused, and he’s through approving supply requisitions and training schedules and incident reports and leave requests before an hour is out. He is drifting when the hatch chimes and Captain Case reports. He offers her a seat, and begins a discussion that lasts at least a half hour, reviewing each individual flight evaluation thoroughly, then eventually dismisses her.
He dogs the hatch himself this time.
This part of the plan was the part that made him most ill, and that risks the most repercussions both emotionally and practically, and he half expects her to be huddled in the head when he enters, but instead she is lying on the bed, still, body taut with anger and perhaps desire. He undresses, folding and preparing his clothes. In the time she’s been lying on the bed her shift has ended, and his ended moments ago. When he’s naked, she’s touching herself and he’s berating himself for not noticing, not ordering her to stop. But things are going off the rails now anyway; he never anticipated she’d still be here at this point, and the only thing he knows is that he’s not going to frak her unless she begs him for it.
He’s touching her, licking her, giving her exactly what she wants, and the moment her breathing hitches, changes in tempo, he pulls away. She reaches down, takes over where he left off, and that’s the exact frakking opposite of the point, “Hands off,” he barks out, and her fingers still, retreat.
She is nearly vibrating with desire, and he wants to give her one last opportunity to do whatever it is he needs her to do. If he’s honest, he doesn’t even know what it will look like if she does, just that it won’t look like being a soldier, and it won’t just look like frakking. He opens the hatch to the head, and when she doesn’t move, he realizes how little an idea he had about the action and reaction behind giving and receiving these kinds of orders. She’s responding like a nugget in basic, not acting until ordered. She’s locked him into this role like the one before, and this whole frakking thing is worthless and when she walks out the door, it will be over, he will be a professional, a stone, he decides. He will stop looking for whatever it is he’s been looking for and command a Battlestar and play whatever role he’s given until he can’t anymore.
In the shower, though, he follows it through, orders her to wash him, her eyes reach his, hard and empty, and she strokes and teases him and he’s hard and he’s ready and he’s done. He turns the temperature down to dampen his desire, rinses and leaves her. When it’s clear she needs an order before she’ll exit the head, he gives one; he’s readying for bed and she only stares. An order to leave his quarters flies off his lips as he dresses and for the first time in hours she shoots back at him: “So that’s it?”
She stands there as he lies down, and now he’s just tired. He’s done with orders. “Do what you want, Kendra.” He turns out the light.
She hums frustratedly, the sounds of her feet shifting hit him and echo through his temples, his eye sockets, the hollows of his bones.
“Is this a test, sir?” She asks, and he knows she won’t leave until he says something.
He needs to say something that might in some way explain what this was, because the whole reason behind it is slipping away from him and in the dark his unease about what just happened is bubbling in him like sickness. The only thing he can think to say is the sort of thing he always seems to say as she’s leaving or about to leave, “You can stay if you want.”
His eyes are closed, and he hears her feet moving and thinks she’s leaving, because that has been the nail in the coffin before, the offer, the kindness, and what in Hades did he even think he was doing with this charade? It wasn’t him. It never has been before, and it likely won’t be again and then there’s a dip in the bed, and her hands are slipping over him and they’re icy on his ribcage and she’s over him and kissing him. Her eyes are open and on him and she’s as tender with him as any lover has ever been, and it’s good, and when it’s over she stays.
In the morning, when he ducks into the head, she follows, brushes a hand over his shoulder before stepping into the shower. He offers her a muffin when she emerges and she sits with him and eats it.