All Swings Around Us
Title: All Swings Around Us
Author: windfallswest
Fandom: Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Pairing: Dylan Hunt/Seamus Zelazny Harper
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: <----
Length: 5K
Summary: "We need you to be Dylan's boy-toy."
Notes: Also at AO3. Set sometime in season one. Beka has an idea. Further canon optional. Title is something Whitman.
We stand amid evil and good;
All swings around us-there is as much darkness as light;
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us,
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.
"Harper!"
"Heya, boss. What's up?"
Beka's arm went around his shoulders. She clapped it a couple of times. "We need you to be Dylan's boy-toy."
"What?!"
"C'mon, Seamus, don't tell me you haven't noticed the way all of our missions to re-form the Commonwealth somehow always end in slightly more, ah, temporary alliances."
"So, we thought, maybe, if Dylan had well, someone else to think about, he'd be...less distractible?" Trance trailed off a little towards the end. Her smile was also kind of weak.
"Look, someone needs to do it. Otherwise, he'll just keep getting turned around by every pair of tits that walks past."
"Gee, thanks."
"You like him, don't you?" Trance asked winsomely.
"Hey, that is not the point. I mean, I know he gets a lot of play, but he hasn't got us killed. Yet."
"He's a horndog!"
"Beka!" Trance, with more reproach than shock.
"Well, it's true! Look, Rev and Tyr are out."
"Really? I sense a little chemistry between him and Dylan. That whole alpha-dog thing."
"No way." Harper eyebrowed. "Already asked." Beka explained. "Besides, too messy. Never trust a Nietzschean."
Harper made a face. "True."
"So it has to be one of us."
"Great. I vote not-me!"
"Seamus."
"Do you really think this is gonna work?"
"Dylan is very loyal," said Trance. "He may feel, " pause, "a certain amount of freedom in the present circumstances, but we believe," another pause, "that once he's in a relationship, he'll, um, settle down."
"Okay, then, well, why are both of you looking at me? We've already observed that the cleavage gets his attention."
"But it doesn't seem to keep his attention. Besides, I need to maintain my authority."
Harper looked at Trance. Apologetic-but-not-really-sorry smile from Trance.
"And...Trance needs to maintain her air of mystery."
"So what you're saying is that I have no authority and no mystery. What am I supposed to get him with, anyway? Huh? Tell me that."
"You're persistent. You'll wear him down."
"Trance?" Forlornly.
Ingenuously. "We trust in the Harper." Trance pecked him on the cheek.
"Go get 'im." Beka slapped him on the ass and followed Trance out.
Harper of course did not take them seriously. At first.
"Harper. Beka said you were running into some problems down here."
Dammit, that was the third time today. Trance, walking by, gave him a silent yay and double thumbs-up. Ha, ha. Very funny.
"Uh, yeah. There was a bit of a glitch in the internal sensors, but I tracked it down. Nothing to worry you about." Harper gabbled, trying not to look at Dylan.
"Ookay then. Keep up the, uh, good work." He clapped Harper's back in a heartily platonic fashion.
Harper absolutely did not watch him walk away.
And that was the problem, now wasn't it? Because he couldn't deny he'd jump Dylan given half a chance. But there was no way Dylan was available for his jumping. Beka and Trance were right: Dylan was covered in gorgeous women. Who were they kidding here? Harper, that was who.
And, uh, and besides. Jump him was one thing. A long-term relationship was something else. Harper scrunched his face up and went back to work.
The final explosion knocked Harper, who had part of the wall open so he could keep the power going up here, across the floor. He fetched up against the pillar of Dylan's legs. Dylan barely stumbled.
"Mister Harper," Dylan said, offering him a hand.
"Uh, thanks boss." Harper said, taking it. Standing veeeery close now. "Hey, what're you looking at?"
"You are even more high-strung than usual today, little man."
"Yeah, yeah." Okay, not his finest work. Harper started to stomp out of command. He was totally justified. They'd just blown out the slipstream core, again. Honestly, he was going to have to take another look at the design on that thing.
"Well, at least we...won." Dylan did not sound happy either. "Harper?"
As if he didn't know. "Two words: not. fixable. We're gonna need a new exotic matter lens."
"Great, just...great. All right. I'll take the Maru and-"
"Uh, Dylan, maybe Beka had better go." Trance suggested.
"I am pretty familiar with this region of space, Dylan. Got some contacts on Beaux-bas Drift. I'll take Trance. We'll be back before you have a chance to miss us." Although the knowing glance she shot at Harper said anything but.
"I don't-"
"Remember the last time you went on a cargo run?" Andromeda interrupted. "Maybe I should remind you-" Dammit, Rommie was in on it, too? That hurt.
"That-won't be necessary." Dylan interrupted right back. "But take Tyr with you. I don't want any. problems. "
"Absolutely not." Beka said with her innocent face, the one that never fooled anyone. She fucking winked at him when she walked past. Tyr smiled, again, the bastard. Well, the sexual tension between the two of them was getting thick enough to smother. Maybe Harper'd use his down-time to formulate some distracting tactics.
"-don't wanna see your face no more," Harper sang at a series of fried circuits with great feeling.
"Mister Harper!" Dylan raised his voice over the music.
Harper looked up. Dylan was crawling towards him along the conduit, looking both a little predatory and rather less comfortable than Harper felt in the cramped space.
He cut the music. "Heya, boss. What's shaking?"
"Just wanted to see how you were doing. I patched the rupture on deck nineteen. You know, I haven't done this much honest work since I matriculated."
"Welcome to my world. Eh, things're going dandy over here. I should be done before too much longer. Except for the slipstream drive, of course."
"Of course. I was actually wondering if you wanted to take a break. Andromeda tells me you've been working for fourteen hours straight."
"Right, right. Uh, maybe later. I'll sack out in a couple more hours. I like me a little peace and quiet now and then."
Dylan paused a beat in lieu of calling him on that. "Is there something going on that I don't know about?"
"Uh, no boss. Nothing at all."
"Because Rev Bem was oddly eager to go with the supply mission. Rommie has been doing diagnostics all day, and you have been even more obsessive about repairs than usual."
"Couldn't say. Maybe you're just a little tired. You've been going at it," shutupshutup, "pretty hard lately."
Dylan finally got off his knees and plunked down next to Harper. Ironic eyebrow twitch to acknowledge his poor choice in words. Physical proximity. Nice intimidation technique. Harper tried to ignore him and focus on his nano-welds.
"I was looking for a little company, actually. You don't mind, do you?"
"Uh, no. Sure thing, boss. Here, hold this." Harper said in desperation and shoved something at him.
"Want me to check your welds?" He was really too close.
It took all of the morning with Dylan all professional-y and up in his personal space, silently radiating I know you know what's up for Harper to crack.
"Look, why do you think we're the only two people left on this ship? Other than her gorgeousness, who has been unusually quiet lately, huh? Look, boss-and I can't believe I'm saying this-but you'd save us both a hell of a lot of trouble if you'd just stop chasing after every space-bimbo who comes within three parsecs. I mean, getting laid is high on my to-do list at any given day but, uh, I think it's the constant mixing of business and pleasure that's getting people worried."
"Thank you, Mister Harper," Dylan said after a moment, his tone abnormally impossible to read. No, people, huh? or, what are you implying, Mister Harper? or even, that's none. of your business. He didn't sound pissy. Thoughtful? Surprised? He was giving Harper a weirdly considering look.
"Why is everybody looking at me like that?" Harper asked plaintively that-well, afternoon; his circaidians were all over the map again-when he was once again safely alone in machine shop 17.
"It's not that surprising, actually," Rommie-the-hologram said, popping into existence. "There was a period, fairly early on in the development of the integrated AI, when relationships between a ship's AI and captain were actually encouraged. That's why Dylan, as a product of the later Commonwealth, feels so strongly about it. "
"Did they all, uh, go a little Pax?" Harper winced at this failure in delicacy.
"What happened to the Pax has happened before. Theoretically, it's quite an efficient solution, and a ship's AI usually becomes quite attached to her captain without much encouragement. It was really the captains' fault, I suppose, although being chance-assembled organics instead of carefully designed products of precision science, they can't really be blamed for their imperfections."
"Got a little touchy-feely, did they?"
"Most organics require quite a lot of openly displayed affection. But a ship's AI, especially a warship's, must maintain a certain amount of detachment. We're designed to be soldiers, not lovers, and a soldier has to obey orders, even ones that might lead to his death. The balance between personal attachment and professional loyalty is very delicate. Some AIs altered their programs in an attempt to modify their own emotionality. It caused...disruptions."
"Oh, no. There are some things you just don't want to mess with. An AI is an incredibly finely tuned piece of programming. Those guys were artists! And, ah, besides. Do you have any idea how many psychological tests they put AIs through before letting them get within ten light-years of a ship?"
"Yes, Harper. I remember." Rommie sounded slightly amused. "As you can imagine, the results were less than ideal. Not every ship had problems, but the percentage was high enough for the High Guard to reexamine its policies."
Harper snorted. "I bet."
"My point is that the idea of a ship-board lover isn't a new one. Considerations of rank in the old Commonwealth complicated matters, but this crew is different and much more closely knit."
"You're on their side!"
"I want to see all of you safe. And, if possible, happy. You're not just my crew, you're my friends. "
"Thanks, Rom-doll." Harper said a little sheepishly. "But why's Dylan looking at me like that all of a sudden?"
"Did he know you were bisexual before?"
"I don't know! And how do you know, anyway?"
"Harper, if I can detect dishonesty in an organic, I can certainly detect attraction. Anyway, he has already approached and been rejected by Beka. Trance presents too many unknown variables, Tyr is a Nietzschean, and Rev Bem is a magog. Is there a reason you haven't advertised your availability?"
"Is there a big thing about being a little fruity or anything nowadays? No. But you learn to be careful about hitting on guys who might blow your head off in the wrong way if you threaten their masculinity. Besides, the Nietzscheans kind of kept us kludges around because we were self-replicating slave labour. They could get a little abrupt if you gave them the impression you weren't going to replicate." Sigh. "All right. So maybe I wasn't sending out those signals before. But it's not like I'm Dylan's type anyway."
"We'll see." Rommie vanished, but not before Harper saw the smile on her face. It occurred to him that if an AI was cut off from fraternising with the crew, a vicarious thrill was the next best thing.
Harper woke up five hours later from a dream that involved Dylan, naked, chewing on various parts of Harper's anatomy through his clothes. He probably gave Rommie an eyeful on his way to the shower. Perversely, he turned the water down to to ball-freezing and chattered his way through it.
"I must be crazy. Completely fucking crazy."
He drank coffee, not cola, to warm up and jumpstart his brain. It skipped a few times before he got it to catch on the list of repairs he still had to finish. If he got it all done before morning, he could night-shift himself until Beka and the others gave up and came back, thus avoiding as much awkward Dylan-time as possible.
This plan lasted for about ten hours, which was good mileage for a Harper-plan. He was feeling pretty good about himself generally when he all but smacked into Dylan on deck forty-two. Very sweaty Dylan. Breathing hard. Harper's nostrils flared.
Laps. It was morning again (sort of) and Dylan was doing laps. That was just not fair. He was too tired to exercise will-power.
"Hey, boss, uh, boss, uh, Dylan," Harper babbled into Dylan's sweaty chest, so tired he was kind of hypnotised by it.
"Mister Harper." Dylan said.
He didn't, like, step back or anything. Was that his High Guard stiff-upper-lip thing, or his own personal macho-let's-play-chicken thing? Or was he maybe, just possibly, sending a signal here? Harper glanced down at his crotch for a clue and heard Dylan draw in his breath.
"Harper," he said again. Oh, yeah. There was something in there all right. Harper's smirk was involuntary. It took a lot more effort to look up and meet Dylan's eyes.
"Just what exactly are we doing here?" Harper's mouth said, against his better judgement.
Dylan spoke slowly when he replied. "I was thinking that there might be something to this conspiracy of yours."
"Hey, not my conspiracy, big guy. I am as pawn-like as you in this."
"Is that so?"
"Well, I might have some slight ulterior interest. Y'know."
"I'm no one's pawn."
"And I'm nobody's patsy." Harper shot back.
Dylan might have bristled, but instead he smiled a small, crooked, genuine smile, and his eyes went a little darker.
"You are a very complicated man, Seamus Harper."
Any number of witty replies Harper might have made were stopped by Dylan's lips. It was a gentle kiss, soft and brief, but it led into another, and then another as Harper's hand bent Dylan's head down.
"Sure you don't need to rest?" Harper asked after a while, despite the fact that about a minute and a half ago he'd been in desperate need of either coffee or sleep.
"I'll manage," Dylan said confidently, and punctuated his assertion with another kiss. Woah, daddy. Tell me more.
"You plan on managing out here in the corridor?" Harper asked. He simultaneously used his leverage on the buttress-like solidity of Dylan's upper body to press himself closer, which probably wasn't very fair. The noises Dylan was making certainly seemed to indicate something along those lines, anyway.
"I didn't quite catch that, sweetcheeks."
"That's sweetcheeks, sir. Why, oh why is my bed forty decks away on a ship with no elevators?"
"You just had to have a warship, didn't you? Your mother and I warned you, but-"
"Oh, shut up." There was always his AG harness, of course, which could do up as well as down, but Dylan was slightly hesitant about laying his love-life at the mercy of the Andromeda's sense of humour. "And start climbing."
It was a long, uncomfortable forty floors. Ever try climbing ladders with a hard on? Yeah. The thought of Dylan below him, staring at his ass the whole way, didn't help matters. Sped him up, though, definitely. But that last stretch of corridor got very interrupted.
Dylan was good at this. Dylan was very, very good at this. Harper didn't even notice it was finally the door to Dylan's quarters he was backed up against and not more bulkhead until it opened behind him and they spilled through.
Ooh. And Harper had thought Dylan was being friendly before. Suddenly, his hand was inside Harper's pants and his teeth were scraping he side of his neck, just below the dataport.
"I wouldn't lick that if I were you," Harper gasped.
"Duly noted," Dylan murmured against damp skin.
Harper found it was his job to keep them going towards the bed, which was really unfair seeing as how one, Harper had never been in here before; and two, Dylan was doing all manner of wonderfully distracting things to his cock. Fleetingly, he wondered whether Dylan was uncut; the man sure knew what to do with a foreskin. Then it occurred to him that he'd be finding out shortly.
As soon as he could get Dylan's pants off. Right. Step one: bed. Step two: nakedness. Step three: get fucked out of his freaking mind.
Bed was a long, long topple down, as though being attached to Dylan made him like, taller by proxy. Harper ended up on top. This, was a position he could work with.
Dylan's cock was digging into his ass, so he ground down onto it. That line of thought should be encouraged, oh yes. Harper made a grab for Dylan's shirt while the distraction was still fresh.
He had to scrape over Dylan's nipples, peaking them through sweat-damp cloth, in order to keep him down. Determined: Harper liked that. Liked the sounds he made when Harper's hot mouth came down on his chest. Liked Dylan's hands in his hair, on his back as he slid down, nipping and licking and overall enjoying Dylan's fantastically defined abs.
Harper's hands crept lower, encountering and overcoming the obstacle of Dylan's no-doubt High Guard Approved workout pants and underwear. His mouth didn't hesitate; it kept right on going up the substantial landmark of Dylan's erection. Dylan was swearing now. That was nice.
"Hold on tight, boss," Harper said, and set to work on that for real.
Having made it all the way to the top, Harper went down again. He hollowed his cheeks and sank as far as he could, The rest, he took in hand.
Up and down, a swirl of tongue, a probing pressure. Brush of fingers on the back and side of his neck when he bobbed up, so light it almost made him shiver.
Dylan trying not to grab, he realised. Ever the gentleman. Harper leaned his head into one half-cupped palm on the next upstroke, humming encouragement. Dylan's hand in his hair might put a wrench in some of Harper's half-formed plans, but the thought of Dylan holding him there and fucking his face was lots compelling all by its lonesome. (So authority got him hot; so what else was new?)
The grip in his hair, pulling on his scalp was perfect, the reason he kept his hair just a little long. But Dylan was still taut with control under him. Well, he'd take care of that soon enough.
Harper slid over and worked on Dylan's balls for a while, wet mouth and heavy breath. Quivers in that long, firm body ran out into strong fingers buried in his hair. Press one knuckle into the sensitive skin behind, and Harper was being yanked up to face-level again. Looked like Dylan had some other plans, too.
"God, Harper," Dylan panted as he did so, before Harper was quite in kissing range again. His voice was sounding kinda ragged.
"What, you didn't think I'd be good at this?" Harper teased around Dylan's lower lip. It slipped from his possession only with great reluctance, although Dylan lost no time in replacing it with his tongue.
Their hips were rocking together now, dicks sliding against each other. If Harper wanted to involve higher-level planning, it was now or next orgasm.
"Fuck me," Harper invited a little breathlessly, rolling over onto his back and indicating that Dylan should follow with a grip on a convenient hand-hold.
Dylan quite obligingly obliged. He rubbed his nakedness up against Harper's still mostly clothed body. It was his turn to buck up enthusiastically. There was lots more rubbing as Dylan stretched to fetch lube from a bedside table. Actual lube, even. Leave it to Dylan.
Big hands pushed his pants and shorts further down. The lube was still cold when Dylan's finger went in, but there was more than one reason why he shivered.
Dylan leaned over him, face intent, lips parted, just a little too far away to kiss. Another finger wriggled in; they scissored, stretched. Harper moaned.
The curve of Dylan's smile was echoed by the crooking of his fingers. Right on the sweet spot. Harper moaned again, felt his eyes start to roll back in his head.
"Oh, fuck Dylan. Fuck, now, now, now."
Dylan's fingers disappeared, but the kissing started again and Harper sort of lost track of things in a wash of general excellence until suddenly there was Dylan's cock pushing into him.
"Faster," Harper urged impatiently. The slowness of Dylan's cockhead broaching him made him gasp.
"Tell me," Dylan said, his voice low and dark.
"Aagh!" Harper vented in frustration. The glacial slide was killing him. His hands twisted in the silky sheets above his head. "God, just fuck me, Dylan! Fast. Hard. Let me have it. Let me have it all. Just fucking do it now!"
A shudder ran through Dylan, released in a moan he almost swallowed. He pushed one of Harper's legs up higher and bore down.
The burn was stupendous; it felt like Dylan's cock was splitting him up the middle. Harper pushed up into it.
Dylan was there, then gone again, an overwhelming fullness followed by what seemed like vacuum strong enough to pull him inside out. And again, again. Dylan was taking him at his word.
And taking him pretty damn well, too. Harper had no complaints. Harper was digging grooves into Dylan's back with blunt fingernails even before Dylan's fishing around found his prostate. His brain sparked like an overloaded circuit.
The new angle brought Dylan's head down close to his, sweaty chest almost touching Harper's-and what the hell was it still doing on?-tee-shirt. Harper's leg, slung over Dylan's hip, bent with him, spreading him wider.
"Seamus," Dylan breathed-gasped?-in his ear, watched him react.
That hot mouth bent to bite a nipple through his shirt, an echo of yesterday's dream, but then came up to swallow Harper's moans, tongue working him in tandem with that battering-ram cock. Soon, the kisses trailed off into predatory bites (Dylan) and then to pants of humid breath, cheeks knocking as their pace sped, stuttered.
Dylan was making his eyes roll up again, driving hard and fast. A little more, just a little more.
A hand, a large hand, calloused, warm, a little slick, closed around Harper's erection. He jerked into it once, twice with the pounding thrusts, then came like the breaking of a dam.
Dylan was still moving in him as he shivered through his climax. He buried himself in Harper with one last, desperate thrust and lost himself.
His gallant efforts not to squash Harper were hampered by the fact that they were both somehow tangled up in Harper's pants. I am seriously overdressed, Harper thought; but it was too much effort to remember how his jaw worked in order to say so.
A few recuperative minutes and a considerable amount of thrashing later, and Harper found himself at last pleasantly naked and sprawled on Dylan's-seriously-black silk sheets.
Harper sighed and stretched.
"I never figured you for a sybarite," he said. "Hedonist, maybe," he added after a thoughtful moment.
"You recover far, far too quickly," Dylan groaned into his pillow.
"Ha! get to know me better and you'll be impressed I ever stopped talking."
"You don't talk in your sleep, do you?" Dylan's voice even sounded vaguely alarmed, in addition to slurred and muffled by a pillow.
"No. And I don't sleepwalk at all anymore," Harper yawned, "either, since I set up on that hammock on the Maru. I always used to need someone to hold onto me." Harper made a tired attempt at a leer. "It was, uh, pretty easy to manage back on Earth: hard enough to find a bed, let alone one per person."
Dylan was watching him now through heavy eyes. Harper yawned again before he figured out how to react back.
"Sleep?" It was half a question. Dylan reached out one arm to gently draw him down.
Harper did not resist. He stretched again a little and settled in next to Dylan, under the topsheet. He didn't need the strong arms that settled around him to hold him there, but they felt good all the same. Half familiar.
Harper woke up from a vague dream that something was on fire. He blinked an unfamiliar wall into focus. The dream-heat stayed with him, and it was another minute before Harper registered it was from the body behind him.
Practically wrapped around him, actually. Dylan was, surprise, a snuggler. Harper would have found it cuter if he wasn't about to roast to death. What, was he half heavy-gravity worlder, half furnace?
Harper started sliding his way out of Dylan's grasp. They were a weird combination of sticky and sweaty, and Harper kept rubbing up against distractingly interesting parts of Dylan, and vice-versa.
That had happened. That had really happened. He had slept with Dylan. It had been good. Fabulous. Really hard not to think about, surrounded by naked Dylan as he continued to be.
But, um, possibly not his brightest idea ever. Sleeping with the boss. Even though he had said things yesterday, brain-curdling things. Things which indicated that just maybe this wasn't, y'know, another notch on Dylan's bedpost. Not-bedpost, there were no bedposts. Whatever. But it was still probably a bad idea. Most of Harper's people-related ideas were bad ideas.
Harper succeeded in disentangling himself from Dylan, although it was sort of like peeling off a vine. If he hadn't woken up hard, he would have been now, though.
Dylan stirred a little, but didn't come all awake. Harper stood, naked, and glanced around. He wondered what the space-bimbos thought of that picture of Dylan and Sarah. What did he think of it? Never mind. Not there yet.
There was some stuff on the walls, not a lot. It was surprisingly pretty stuff, not as hotel-y as he'd expected. Mostly cityscapes, which was surprising. Harper realised he'd never really thought about where Dylan grew up. Dylan wasn't the sort of person you imagined as having a childhood.
"Bethel Tarn." Mini-Rommie appeared out of nowhere, speaking quietly. "Dylan's home."
Tarn Vedra. If those canvasses were Vedran, they'd be worth a fortune. He wondered if Dylan missed it. Well, Harper knew he missed it; but did he, like, miss being there? Dylan was as much a natural mudfoot as Beka was. Dylan might have been born there, but he was more at home on Andromeda's bridge than anywhere else Harper had seen him.
"Morning," Dylan said, rubbing his face sleepily.
"Uh, hey boss! You're awake."
Dylan shambled over, impressively naked. (Harper was still naked too, of course; but it was hardly the same effect.) "I thought I heard Rommie."
Anyone else might have had a flash of jealousy, but this was Harper here. His level of devotion to the Andromeda, like Dylan's, probably didn't stop short of the insane.
"We were just-" Harper floundered in an entirely different vein of awkwardness.
"I just received a message from Beka and the others letting us know they'll be a few days late returning. If I read between the lines correctly, she's persuaded Trance into another casino."
Dylan snorted. "All right; pipe it through."
Harper declined to listen to Beka being smug and slyly suggestive. In other circumstances, he might have wished he were with them. Trance had weirdly a lot of moral reservations for a thief sometimes, and Beka must have done a lot of fast talking to bring her round.
As it was, he yawned his way into Dylan's shower. Damn. It wasn't like sleeping with Dylan was a chore anyway, but Harper could see why the space-bimbos would lie back and think of England just for a shot at this baby. The ones in the crew quarters were impressive enough, if rather cramped. This was barely short of a spa.
Still, if he was gonna be honest about it, pretty damn slagged, Harper went for the biggest, most obvious touch-dial on the panel and cranked it up. Simplest solution was, thank god, easiest. Harper sighed under the warm water (his port didn't short out; it just tasted really, really bad by all accounts) and wondered wistfully if he could just pass out on Dylan's bed, after.
Dylan entered with a hiss and a puff of cold air just as Harper was bending over to pick up the soap again. Of course. Dylan vented a very un-Captain Boyscout-ly snort.
"I'm sorry; is my ass funny, boss?"
"No, no. It's just-" Dylan had a very strange expression (repressed expression) on his face, half like he wanted to laugh and half like he wanted to hit his head on the wall and mostly like he didn't want anybody to know what he'd been thinking because it was horribly inappropriate.
"You just had a dirty thought about communal soap, didn't you?" Harper, triumphantly, with the bar of soap in hand. "You've watched jail-porn! I should tell Beka."
Dylan moved closer. Water started beading on his chest. "What would I have to do to persuade you...not to?" He took the soap from Harper's unresisting fingers.
"I'd be open to a proposition."
"What kind of proposition?" Teasing touches with the soap. Chest. Belly. Back. Harper hissed when it grazed his cock.
Dylan kissed him. It was a warm kiss, and it brought them closer together. Their wet skin slipped and caught and hello big boy, there was Dylan's cock again. Very perky and clearly ready to greet the day. It rubbed his stomach where Dylan had him pinned against the wall.
Harper breathed in steam and didn't remember breathing out. Dylan was between him and the water, pounding a bit harder than Harper preferred. He felt warm and, improbably, wanted.
Harper kissed him back until both their brains blew out through their dicks and a while after. Dylan leaned against the wall and Harper leaned against Dylan. He muffled a yawn into the slightly furry expanse of Dylan's chest.
Dylan chuckled and turned the water off. "How about I make us some breakfast?"
Breakfast eaten, Harper fell back over the miraculously still unmade sheets, preparing to enter a coma state.
"This means you're going to be up all night, doesn't it?"
"Hey, you want me to sleep tonight, you're going to have to come up with something to keep me awake."
A heavy heat settled over him. "Oh, I think I can manage."
FIVE WEEKS LATER
"Sonuvabitch," Harper said again, rifling through the closet.
He'd been repairing some battle damage on the bridge when an entire circuit panel overloaded and burned a large, messy hole through his shirt. He'd liked that shirt. Anyway, Dylan's quarters were closer, so he'd gone there to change.
Except Dylan kept putting his clothes away, so Harper had to dig through about four dozen types of uniform to find them. Which meant that when the door chimed, he was still half naked.
"I'm sorry, I must have the wrong quarters," said the Narrain ambassador's military attaché. "I was looking for Captain Hunt."
Of course she was. Reflexively, Harper looked her up and down.
"Ah, no, you've got the right place. I think Dylan's down in cargo bay four."
"Oh. and you're-"
Harper lounged deliberately against the doorframe, enjoying her obvious discomfort.
"Just grabbing a fresh shirt."
"I, I see. Thank you. I'll just, um." Out of the corner of his eye, Harper saw Beka start to round the corner, then jump back, muffling a fit of giggles with one hand. That was it; he was gonna have to dish out some payback, and soon.
"Um," the bimbo stuttered again. "Go find him?" And dashed off.
Harper refrained from his victory dance only because Beka was still watching. He made a face at her and went back inside. Harper: one; space-bimbos: zero. (Well, really, space-bimbos: about seven; but he was going to more than catch them up.) Shirt finally located, Harper went back to work, whistling.
Author: windfallswest
Fandom: Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Pairing: Dylan Hunt/Seamus Zelazny Harper
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: <----
Length: 5K
Summary: "We need you to be Dylan's boy-toy."
Notes: Also at AO3. Set sometime in season one. Beka has an idea. Further canon optional. Title is something Whitman.
We stand amid evil and good;
All swings around us-there is as much darkness as light;
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us,
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.
"Harper!"
"Heya, boss. What's up?"
Beka's arm went around his shoulders. She clapped it a couple of times. "We need you to be Dylan's boy-toy."
"What?!"
"C'mon, Seamus, don't tell me you haven't noticed the way all of our missions to re-form the Commonwealth somehow always end in slightly more, ah, temporary alliances."
"So, we thought, maybe, if Dylan had well, someone else to think about, he'd be...less distractible?" Trance trailed off a little towards the end. Her smile was also kind of weak.
"Look, someone needs to do it. Otherwise, he'll just keep getting turned around by every pair of tits that walks past."
"Gee, thanks."
"You like him, don't you?" Trance asked winsomely.
"Hey, that is not the point. I mean, I know he gets a lot of play, but he hasn't got us killed. Yet."
"He's a horndog!"
"Beka!" Trance, with more reproach than shock.
"Well, it's true! Look, Rev and Tyr are out."
"Really? I sense a little chemistry between him and Dylan. That whole alpha-dog thing."
"No way." Harper eyebrowed. "Already asked." Beka explained. "Besides, too messy. Never trust a Nietzschean."
Harper made a face. "True."
"So it has to be one of us."
"Great. I vote not-me!"
"Seamus."
"Do you really think this is gonna work?"
"Dylan is very loyal," said Trance. "He may feel, " pause, "a certain amount of freedom in the present circumstances, but we believe," another pause, "that once he's in a relationship, he'll, um, settle down."
"Okay, then, well, why are both of you looking at me? We've already observed that the cleavage gets his attention."
"But it doesn't seem to keep his attention. Besides, I need to maintain my authority."
Harper looked at Trance. Apologetic-but-not-really-sorry smile from Trance.
"And...Trance needs to maintain her air of mystery."
"So what you're saying is that I have no authority and no mystery. What am I supposed to get him with, anyway? Huh? Tell me that."
"You're persistent. You'll wear him down."
"Trance?" Forlornly.
Ingenuously. "We trust in the Harper." Trance pecked him on the cheek.
"Go get 'im." Beka slapped him on the ass and followed Trance out.
Harper of course did not take them seriously. At first.
"Harper. Beka said you were running into some problems down here."
Dammit, that was the third time today. Trance, walking by, gave him a silent yay and double thumbs-up. Ha, ha. Very funny.
"Uh, yeah. There was a bit of a glitch in the internal sensors, but I tracked it down. Nothing to worry you about." Harper gabbled, trying not to look at Dylan.
"Ookay then. Keep up the, uh, good work." He clapped Harper's back in a heartily platonic fashion.
Harper absolutely did not watch him walk away.
And that was the problem, now wasn't it? Because he couldn't deny he'd jump Dylan given half a chance. But there was no way Dylan was available for his jumping. Beka and Trance were right: Dylan was covered in gorgeous women. Who were they kidding here? Harper, that was who.
And, uh, and besides. Jump him was one thing. A long-term relationship was something else. Harper scrunched his face up and went back to work.
The final explosion knocked Harper, who had part of the wall open so he could keep the power going up here, across the floor. He fetched up against the pillar of Dylan's legs. Dylan barely stumbled.
"Mister Harper," Dylan said, offering him a hand.
"Uh, thanks boss." Harper said, taking it. Standing veeeery close now. "Hey, what're you looking at?"
"You are even more high-strung than usual today, little man."
"Yeah, yeah." Okay, not his finest work. Harper started to stomp out of command. He was totally justified. They'd just blown out the slipstream core, again. Honestly, he was going to have to take another look at the design on that thing.
"Well, at least we...won." Dylan did not sound happy either. "Harper?"
As if he didn't know. "Two words: not. fixable. We're gonna need a new exotic matter lens."
"Great, just...great. All right. I'll take the Maru and-"
"Uh, Dylan, maybe Beka had better go." Trance suggested.
"I am pretty familiar with this region of space, Dylan. Got some contacts on Beaux-bas Drift. I'll take Trance. We'll be back before you have a chance to miss us." Although the knowing glance she shot at Harper said anything but.
"I don't-"
"Remember the last time you went on a cargo run?" Andromeda interrupted. "Maybe I should remind you-" Dammit, Rommie was in on it, too? That hurt.
"That-won't be necessary." Dylan interrupted right back. "But take Tyr with you. I don't want any. problems. "
"Absolutely not." Beka said with her innocent face, the one that never fooled anyone. She fucking winked at him when she walked past. Tyr smiled, again, the bastard. Well, the sexual tension between the two of them was getting thick enough to smother. Maybe Harper'd use his down-time to formulate some distracting tactics.
"-don't wanna see your face no more," Harper sang at a series of fried circuits with great feeling.
"Mister Harper!" Dylan raised his voice over the music.
Harper looked up. Dylan was crawling towards him along the conduit, looking both a little predatory and rather less comfortable than Harper felt in the cramped space.
He cut the music. "Heya, boss. What's shaking?"
"Just wanted to see how you were doing. I patched the rupture on deck nineteen. You know, I haven't done this much honest work since I matriculated."
"Welcome to my world. Eh, things're going dandy over here. I should be done before too much longer. Except for the slipstream drive, of course."
"Of course. I was actually wondering if you wanted to take a break. Andromeda tells me you've been working for fourteen hours straight."
"Right, right. Uh, maybe later. I'll sack out in a couple more hours. I like me a little peace and quiet now and then."
Dylan paused a beat in lieu of calling him on that. "Is there something going on that I don't know about?"
"Uh, no boss. Nothing at all."
"Because Rev Bem was oddly eager to go with the supply mission. Rommie has been doing diagnostics all day, and you have been even more obsessive about repairs than usual."
"Couldn't say. Maybe you're just a little tired. You've been going at it," shutupshutup, "pretty hard lately."
Dylan finally got off his knees and plunked down next to Harper. Ironic eyebrow twitch to acknowledge his poor choice in words. Physical proximity. Nice intimidation technique. Harper tried to ignore him and focus on his nano-welds.
"I was looking for a little company, actually. You don't mind, do you?"
"Uh, no. Sure thing, boss. Here, hold this." Harper said in desperation and shoved something at him.
"Want me to check your welds?" He was really too close.
It took all of the morning with Dylan all professional-y and up in his personal space, silently radiating I know you know what's up for Harper to crack.
"Look, why do you think we're the only two people left on this ship? Other than her gorgeousness, who has been unusually quiet lately, huh? Look, boss-and I can't believe I'm saying this-but you'd save us both a hell of a lot of trouble if you'd just stop chasing after every space-bimbo who comes within three parsecs. I mean, getting laid is high on my to-do list at any given day but, uh, I think it's the constant mixing of business and pleasure that's getting people worried."
"Thank you, Mister Harper," Dylan said after a moment, his tone abnormally impossible to read. No, people, huh? or, what are you implying, Mister Harper? or even, that's none. of your business. He didn't sound pissy. Thoughtful? Surprised? He was giving Harper a weirdly considering look.
"Why is everybody looking at me like that?" Harper asked plaintively that-well, afternoon; his circaidians were all over the map again-when he was once again safely alone in machine shop 17.
"It's not that surprising, actually," Rommie-the-hologram said, popping into existence. "There was a period, fairly early on in the development of the integrated AI, when relationships between a ship's AI and captain were actually encouraged. That's why Dylan, as a product of the later Commonwealth, feels so strongly about it. "
"Did they all, uh, go a little Pax?" Harper winced at this failure in delicacy.
"What happened to the Pax has happened before. Theoretically, it's quite an efficient solution, and a ship's AI usually becomes quite attached to her captain without much encouragement. It was really the captains' fault, I suppose, although being chance-assembled organics instead of carefully designed products of precision science, they can't really be blamed for their imperfections."
"Got a little touchy-feely, did they?"
"Most organics require quite a lot of openly displayed affection. But a ship's AI, especially a warship's, must maintain a certain amount of detachment. We're designed to be soldiers, not lovers, and a soldier has to obey orders, even ones that might lead to his death. The balance between personal attachment and professional loyalty is very delicate. Some AIs altered their programs in an attempt to modify their own emotionality. It caused...disruptions."
"Oh, no. There are some things you just don't want to mess with. An AI is an incredibly finely tuned piece of programming. Those guys were artists! And, ah, besides. Do you have any idea how many psychological tests they put AIs through before letting them get within ten light-years of a ship?"
"Yes, Harper. I remember." Rommie sounded slightly amused. "As you can imagine, the results were less than ideal. Not every ship had problems, but the percentage was high enough for the High Guard to reexamine its policies."
Harper snorted. "I bet."
"My point is that the idea of a ship-board lover isn't a new one. Considerations of rank in the old Commonwealth complicated matters, but this crew is different and much more closely knit."
"You're on their side!"
"I want to see all of you safe. And, if possible, happy. You're not just my crew, you're my friends. "
"Thanks, Rom-doll." Harper said a little sheepishly. "But why's Dylan looking at me like that all of a sudden?"
"Did he know you were bisexual before?"
"I don't know! And how do you know, anyway?"
"Harper, if I can detect dishonesty in an organic, I can certainly detect attraction. Anyway, he has already approached and been rejected by Beka. Trance presents too many unknown variables, Tyr is a Nietzschean, and Rev Bem is a magog. Is there a reason you haven't advertised your availability?"
"Is there a big thing about being a little fruity or anything nowadays? No. But you learn to be careful about hitting on guys who might blow your head off in the wrong way if you threaten their masculinity. Besides, the Nietzscheans kind of kept us kludges around because we were self-replicating slave labour. They could get a little abrupt if you gave them the impression you weren't going to replicate." Sigh. "All right. So maybe I wasn't sending out those signals before. But it's not like I'm Dylan's type anyway."
"We'll see." Rommie vanished, but not before Harper saw the smile on her face. It occurred to him that if an AI was cut off from fraternising with the crew, a vicarious thrill was the next best thing.
Harper woke up five hours later from a dream that involved Dylan, naked, chewing on various parts of Harper's anatomy through his clothes. He probably gave Rommie an eyeful on his way to the shower. Perversely, he turned the water down to to ball-freezing and chattered his way through it.
"I must be crazy. Completely fucking crazy."
He drank coffee, not cola, to warm up and jumpstart his brain. It skipped a few times before he got it to catch on the list of repairs he still had to finish. If he got it all done before morning, he could night-shift himself until Beka and the others gave up and came back, thus avoiding as much awkward Dylan-time as possible.
This plan lasted for about ten hours, which was good mileage for a Harper-plan. He was feeling pretty good about himself generally when he all but smacked into Dylan on deck forty-two. Very sweaty Dylan. Breathing hard. Harper's nostrils flared.
Laps. It was morning again (sort of) and Dylan was doing laps. That was just not fair. He was too tired to exercise will-power.
"Hey, boss, uh, boss, uh, Dylan," Harper babbled into Dylan's sweaty chest, so tired he was kind of hypnotised by it.
"Mister Harper." Dylan said.
He didn't, like, step back or anything. Was that his High Guard stiff-upper-lip thing, or his own personal macho-let's-play-chicken thing? Or was he maybe, just possibly, sending a signal here? Harper glanced down at his crotch for a clue and heard Dylan draw in his breath.
"Harper," he said again. Oh, yeah. There was something in there all right. Harper's smirk was involuntary. It took a lot more effort to look up and meet Dylan's eyes.
"Just what exactly are we doing here?" Harper's mouth said, against his better judgement.
Dylan spoke slowly when he replied. "I was thinking that there might be something to this conspiracy of yours."
"Hey, not my conspiracy, big guy. I am as pawn-like as you in this."
"Is that so?"
"Well, I might have some slight ulterior interest. Y'know."
"I'm no one's pawn."
"And I'm nobody's patsy." Harper shot back.
Dylan might have bristled, but instead he smiled a small, crooked, genuine smile, and his eyes went a little darker.
"You are a very complicated man, Seamus Harper."
Any number of witty replies Harper might have made were stopped by Dylan's lips. It was a gentle kiss, soft and brief, but it led into another, and then another as Harper's hand bent Dylan's head down.
"Sure you don't need to rest?" Harper asked after a while, despite the fact that about a minute and a half ago he'd been in desperate need of either coffee or sleep.
"I'll manage," Dylan said confidently, and punctuated his assertion with another kiss. Woah, daddy. Tell me more.
"You plan on managing out here in the corridor?" Harper asked. He simultaneously used his leverage on the buttress-like solidity of Dylan's upper body to press himself closer, which probably wasn't very fair. The noises Dylan was making certainly seemed to indicate something along those lines, anyway.
"I didn't quite catch that, sweetcheeks."
"That's sweetcheeks, sir. Why, oh why is my bed forty decks away on a ship with no elevators?"
"You just had to have a warship, didn't you? Your mother and I warned you, but-"
"Oh, shut up." There was always his AG harness, of course, which could do up as well as down, but Dylan was slightly hesitant about laying his love-life at the mercy of the Andromeda's sense of humour. "And start climbing."
It was a long, uncomfortable forty floors. Ever try climbing ladders with a hard on? Yeah. The thought of Dylan below him, staring at his ass the whole way, didn't help matters. Sped him up, though, definitely. But that last stretch of corridor got very interrupted.
Dylan was good at this. Dylan was very, very good at this. Harper didn't even notice it was finally the door to Dylan's quarters he was backed up against and not more bulkhead until it opened behind him and they spilled through.
Ooh. And Harper had thought Dylan was being friendly before. Suddenly, his hand was inside Harper's pants and his teeth were scraping he side of his neck, just below the dataport.
"I wouldn't lick that if I were you," Harper gasped.
"Duly noted," Dylan murmured against damp skin.
Harper found it was his job to keep them going towards the bed, which was really unfair seeing as how one, Harper had never been in here before; and two, Dylan was doing all manner of wonderfully distracting things to his cock. Fleetingly, he wondered whether Dylan was uncut; the man sure knew what to do with a foreskin. Then it occurred to him that he'd be finding out shortly.
As soon as he could get Dylan's pants off. Right. Step one: bed. Step two: nakedness. Step three: get fucked out of his freaking mind.
Bed was a long, long topple down, as though being attached to Dylan made him like, taller by proxy. Harper ended up on top. This, was a position he could work with.
Dylan's cock was digging into his ass, so he ground down onto it. That line of thought should be encouraged, oh yes. Harper made a grab for Dylan's shirt while the distraction was still fresh.
He had to scrape over Dylan's nipples, peaking them through sweat-damp cloth, in order to keep him down. Determined: Harper liked that. Liked the sounds he made when Harper's hot mouth came down on his chest. Liked Dylan's hands in his hair, on his back as he slid down, nipping and licking and overall enjoying Dylan's fantastically defined abs.
Harper's hands crept lower, encountering and overcoming the obstacle of Dylan's no-doubt High Guard Approved workout pants and underwear. His mouth didn't hesitate; it kept right on going up the substantial landmark of Dylan's erection. Dylan was swearing now. That was nice.
"Hold on tight, boss," Harper said, and set to work on that for real.
Having made it all the way to the top, Harper went down again. He hollowed his cheeks and sank as far as he could, The rest, he took in hand.
Up and down, a swirl of tongue, a probing pressure. Brush of fingers on the back and side of his neck when he bobbed up, so light it almost made him shiver.
Dylan trying not to grab, he realised. Ever the gentleman. Harper leaned his head into one half-cupped palm on the next upstroke, humming encouragement. Dylan's hand in his hair might put a wrench in some of Harper's half-formed plans, but the thought of Dylan holding him there and fucking his face was lots compelling all by its lonesome. (So authority got him hot; so what else was new?)
The grip in his hair, pulling on his scalp was perfect, the reason he kept his hair just a little long. But Dylan was still taut with control under him. Well, he'd take care of that soon enough.
Harper slid over and worked on Dylan's balls for a while, wet mouth and heavy breath. Quivers in that long, firm body ran out into strong fingers buried in his hair. Press one knuckle into the sensitive skin behind, and Harper was being yanked up to face-level again. Looked like Dylan had some other plans, too.
"God, Harper," Dylan panted as he did so, before Harper was quite in kissing range again. His voice was sounding kinda ragged.
"What, you didn't think I'd be good at this?" Harper teased around Dylan's lower lip. It slipped from his possession only with great reluctance, although Dylan lost no time in replacing it with his tongue.
Their hips were rocking together now, dicks sliding against each other. If Harper wanted to involve higher-level planning, it was now or next orgasm.
"Fuck me," Harper invited a little breathlessly, rolling over onto his back and indicating that Dylan should follow with a grip on a convenient hand-hold.
Dylan quite obligingly obliged. He rubbed his nakedness up against Harper's still mostly clothed body. It was his turn to buck up enthusiastically. There was lots more rubbing as Dylan stretched to fetch lube from a bedside table. Actual lube, even. Leave it to Dylan.
Big hands pushed his pants and shorts further down. The lube was still cold when Dylan's finger went in, but there was more than one reason why he shivered.
Dylan leaned over him, face intent, lips parted, just a little too far away to kiss. Another finger wriggled in; they scissored, stretched. Harper moaned.
The curve of Dylan's smile was echoed by the crooking of his fingers. Right on the sweet spot. Harper moaned again, felt his eyes start to roll back in his head.
"Oh, fuck Dylan. Fuck, now, now, now."
Dylan's fingers disappeared, but the kissing started again and Harper sort of lost track of things in a wash of general excellence until suddenly there was Dylan's cock pushing into him.
"Faster," Harper urged impatiently. The slowness of Dylan's cockhead broaching him made him gasp.
"Tell me," Dylan said, his voice low and dark.
"Aagh!" Harper vented in frustration. The glacial slide was killing him. His hands twisted in the silky sheets above his head. "God, just fuck me, Dylan! Fast. Hard. Let me have it. Let me have it all. Just fucking do it now!"
A shudder ran through Dylan, released in a moan he almost swallowed. He pushed one of Harper's legs up higher and bore down.
The burn was stupendous; it felt like Dylan's cock was splitting him up the middle. Harper pushed up into it.
Dylan was there, then gone again, an overwhelming fullness followed by what seemed like vacuum strong enough to pull him inside out. And again, again. Dylan was taking him at his word.
And taking him pretty damn well, too. Harper had no complaints. Harper was digging grooves into Dylan's back with blunt fingernails even before Dylan's fishing around found his prostate. His brain sparked like an overloaded circuit.
The new angle brought Dylan's head down close to his, sweaty chest almost touching Harper's-and what the hell was it still doing on?-tee-shirt. Harper's leg, slung over Dylan's hip, bent with him, spreading him wider.
"Seamus," Dylan breathed-gasped?-in his ear, watched him react.
That hot mouth bent to bite a nipple through his shirt, an echo of yesterday's dream, but then came up to swallow Harper's moans, tongue working him in tandem with that battering-ram cock. Soon, the kisses trailed off into predatory bites (Dylan) and then to pants of humid breath, cheeks knocking as their pace sped, stuttered.
Dylan was making his eyes roll up again, driving hard and fast. A little more, just a little more.
A hand, a large hand, calloused, warm, a little slick, closed around Harper's erection. He jerked into it once, twice with the pounding thrusts, then came like the breaking of a dam.
Dylan was still moving in him as he shivered through his climax. He buried himself in Harper with one last, desperate thrust and lost himself.
His gallant efforts not to squash Harper were hampered by the fact that they were both somehow tangled up in Harper's pants. I am seriously overdressed, Harper thought; but it was too much effort to remember how his jaw worked in order to say so.
A few recuperative minutes and a considerable amount of thrashing later, and Harper found himself at last pleasantly naked and sprawled on Dylan's-seriously-black silk sheets.
Harper sighed and stretched.
"I never figured you for a sybarite," he said. "Hedonist, maybe," he added after a thoughtful moment.
"You recover far, far too quickly," Dylan groaned into his pillow.
"Ha! get to know me better and you'll be impressed I ever stopped talking."
"You don't talk in your sleep, do you?" Dylan's voice even sounded vaguely alarmed, in addition to slurred and muffled by a pillow.
"No. And I don't sleepwalk at all anymore," Harper yawned, "either, since I set up on that hammock on the Maru. I always used to need someone to hold onto me." Harper made a tired attempt at a leer. "It was, uh, pretty easy to manage back on Earth: hard enough to find a bed, let alone one per person."
Dylan was watching him now through heavy eyes. Harper yawned again before he figured out how to react back.
"Sleep?" It was half a question. Dylan reached out one arm to gently draw him down.
Harper did not resist. He stretched again a little and settled in next to Dylan, under the topsheet. He didn't need the strong arms that settled around him to hold him there, but they felt good all the same. Half familiar.
Harper woke up from a vague dream that something was on fire. He blinked an unfamiliar wall into focus. The dream-heat stayed with him, and it was another minute before Harper registered it was from the body behind him.
Practically wrapped around him, actually. Dylan was, surprise, a snuggler. Harper would have found it cuter if he wasn't about to roast to death. What, was he half heavy-gravity worlder, half furnace?
Harper started sliding his way out of Dylan's grasp. They were a weird combination of sticky and sweaty, and Harper kept rubbing up against distractingly interesting parts of Dylan, and vice-versa.
That had happened. That had really happened. He had slept with Dylan. It had been good. Fabulous. Really hard not to think about, surrounded by naked Dylan as he continued to be.
But, um, possibly not his brightest idea ever. Sleeping with the boss. Even though he had said things yesterday, brain-curdling things. Things which indicated that just maybe this wasn't, y'know, another notch on Dylan's bedpost. Not-bedpost, there were no bedposts. Whatever. But it was still probably a bad idea. Most of Harper's people-related ideas were bad ideas.
Harper succeeded in disentangling himself from Dylan, although it was sort of like peeling off a vine. If he hadn't woken up hard, he would have been now, though.
Dylan stirred a little, but didn't come all awake. Harper stood, naked, and glanced around. He wondered what the space-bimbos thought of that picture of Dylan and Sarah. What did he think of it? Never mind. Not there yet.
There was some stuff on the walls, not a lot. It was surprisingly pretty stuff, not as hotel-y as he'd expected. Mostly cityscapes, which was surprising. Harper realised he'd never really thought about where Dylan grew up. Dylan wasn't the sort of person you imagined as having a childhood.
"Bethel Tarn." Mini-Rommie appeared out of nowhere, speaking quietly. "Dylan's home."
Tarn Vedra. If those canvasses were Vedran, they'd be worth a fortune. He wondered if Dylan missed it. Well, Harper knew he missed it; but did he, like, miss being there? Dylan was as much a natural mudfoot as Beka was. Dylan might have been born there, but he was more at home on Andromeda's bridge than anywhere else Harper had seen him.
"Morning," Dylan said, rubbing his face sleepily.
"Uh, hey boss! You're awake."
Dylan shambled over, impressively naked. (Harper was still naked too, of course; but it was hardly the same effect.) "I thought I heard Rommie."
Anyone else might have had a flash of jealousy, but this was Harper here. His level of devotion to the Andromeda, like Dylan's, probably didn't stop short of the insane.
"We were just-" Harper floundered in an entirely different vein of awkwardness.
"I just received a message from Beka and the others letting us know they'll be a few days late returning. If I read between the lines correctly, she's persuaded Trance into another casino."
Dylan snorted. "All right; pipe it through."
Harper declined to listen to Beka being smug and slyly suggestive. In other circumstances, he might have wished he were with them. Trance had weirdly a lot of moral reservations for a thief sometimes, and Beka must have done a lot of fast talking to bring her round.
As it was, he yawned his way into Dylan's shower. Damn. It wasn't like sleeping with Dylan was a chore anyway, but Harper could see why the space-bimbos would lie back and think of England just for a shot at this baby. The ones in the crew quarters were impressive enough, if rather cramped. This was barely short of a spa.
Still, if he was gonna be honest about it, pretty damn slagged, Harper went for the biggest, most obvious touch-dial on the panel and cranked it up. Simplest solution was, thank god, easiest. Harper sighed under the warm water (his port didn't short out; it just tasted really, really bad by all accounts) and wondered wistfully if he could just pass out on Dylan's bed, after.
Dylan entered with a hiss and a puff of cold air just as Harper was bending over to pick up the soap again. Of course. Dylan vented a very un-Captain Boyscout-ly snort.
"I'm sorry; is my ass funny, boss?"
"No, no. It's just-" Dylan had a very strange expression (repressed expression) on his face, half like he wanted to laugh and half like he wanted to hit his head on the wall and mostly like he didn't want anybody to know what he'd been thinking because it was horribly inappropriate.
"You just had a dirty thought about communal soap, didn't you?" Harper, triumphantly, with the bar of soap in hand. "You've watched jail-porn! I should tell Beka."
Dylan moved closer. Water started beading on his chest. "What would I have to do to persuade you...not to?" He took the soap from Harper's unresisting fingers.
"I'd be open to a proposition."
"What kind of proposition?" Teasing touches with the soap. Chest. Belly. Back. Harper hissed when it grazed his cock.
Dylan kissed him. It was a warm kiss, and it brought them closer together. Their wet skin slipped and caught and hello big boy, there was Dylan's cock again. Very perky and clearly ready to greet the day. It rubbed his stomach where Dylan had him pinned against the wall.
Harper breathed in steam and didn't remember breathing out. Dylan was between him and the water, pounding a bit harder than Harper preferred. He felt warm and, improbably, wanted.
Harper kissed him back until both their brains blew out through their dicks and a while after. Dylan leaned against the wall and Harper leaned against Dylan. He muffled a yawn into the slightly furry expanse of Dylan's chest.
Dylan chuckled and turned the water off. "How about I make us some breakfast?"
Breakfast eaten, Harper fell back over the miraculously still unmade sheets, preparing to enter a coma state.
"This means you're going to be up all night, doesn't it?"
"Hey, you want me to sleep tonight, you're going to have to come up with something to keep me awake."
A heavy heat settled over him. "Oh, I think I can manage."
FIVE WEEKS LATER
"Sonuvabitch," Harper said again, rifling through the closet.
He'd been repairing some battle damage on the bridge when an entire circuit panel overloaded and burned a large, messy hole through his shirt. He'd liked that shirt. Anyway, Dylan's quarters were closer, so he'd gone there to change.
Except Dylan kept putting his clothes away, so Harper had to dig through about four dozen types of uniform to find them. Which meant that when the door chimed, he was still half naked.
"I'm sorry, I must have the wrong quarters," said the Narrain ambassador's military attaché. "I was looking for Captain Hunt."
Of course she was. Reflexively, Harper looked her up and down.
"Ah, no, you've got the right place. I think Dylan's down in cargo bay four."
"Oh. and you're-"
Harper lounged deliberately against the doorframe, enjoying her obvious discomfort.
"Just grabbing a fresh shirt."
"I, I see. Thank you. I'll just, um." Out of the corner of his eye, Harper saw Beka start to round the corner, then jump back, muffling a fit of giggles with one hand. That was it; he was gonna have to dish out some payback, and soon.
"Um," the bimbo stuttered again. "Go find him?" And dashed off.
Harper refrained from his victory dance only because Beka was still watching. He made a face at her and went back inside. Harper: one; space-bimbos: zero. (Well, really, space-bimbos: about seven; but he was going to more than catch them up.) Shirt finally located, Harper went back to work, whistling.