Fic: Tauron Scorpion
Title: Tauron Scorpion
Rating: MA
Word count: 4500
A/N: For the lovely fragrantwoods' birthday I thought I would write something referencing our shared astrological sign. :) Happy birthday! Thanks to nix for the beta. This follows Tauron Treat.
“Are you ready, Bill?” Laura called from the living room, where she’d been reviewing the twins’ schedule with Tsattie. “We need to go.”
“‘eady, ‘eady. Wed-dee,” babbled Phin as he grasped fistfuls of Laura’s hair. It was one of his favorite words. Laura swatted his hand away gently and tsked at him to stop pulling.
“Have a wonderful time on Scorpia,” Ruth said. “We’ll be just fine here, won’t we, darlings?”
Sephie grinned and curled up into her great-grandmother’s lap. Laura felt herself starting to tear up. “I’m going to miss them so much,” she admitted to Tsattie. “I haven’t been away from them overnight since they were born.” But they were finally weaned, and loved spending time with their Tsattie, who watched them frequently when both Laura and Bill needed to be at the university. With Bill’s first year of school finally behind them with a slate of top grades to his credit, and Laura having successfully defended her dissertation, the time had seemed fortuitous for a quick getaway.
“Hmm. You and Bill need some time alone,” Tsattie said with a wink. “A strong marriage is good for the children.”
“What’s good for the children?” Bill asked, appearing in the doorway. He looked ready for Scorpia in his tropical-print shirt, tan shorts, and wide-brimmed hat.
“The parents getting laid,” Tsattie said bluntly.
“So say we all,” Bill said, though he shot the only grandmother he’d ever known a disapproving look for saying it out loud. He lifted Phin from Laura’s lap and kissed his son’s dark hair. “You be good for Tsattie, buddy.” He placed Phin in his bouncy seat and held out a hand to help Laura up before taking Sephie from Tsattie and giving her a kiss as well. “Love you, muffin.”
“Mama,” Sephie said, reaching out for Laura. Bill kissed her one last time and patted her chubby belly before handing her over.
“Mama’s gonna miss you so much, sweetie,” Laura whispered fiercely, her voice cracking.
“Mama go bye-bye,” Sephie said, happily waving her little hand. Laura couldn’t help but laugh through her tears at her daughter’s indifference to their impending separation.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Bill said to Laura. “It’s just a few days.” He turned to Tsattie. “Thank you. For everything.”
She waved off his gratitude. “It’s nothing.” Tsattie stood up and took Sephie, surprisingly spry for a woman of her advanced years. “Go. Have a good time.” She looked Laura up and down. “Maybe bring back a little souvenir.”
Laura flushed, embarrassed, and Bill wrapped his arm around her waist. “Come on,” he whispered in her ear. “They’ll be fine.”
“I know,” she sniffed. She turned to Tsattie. “Thank you, Ruth. My sisters are just a phone call away whenever you need an extra set of hands to keep these two in line.”
* * *
Scorpia’s largely tropical climate was a popular vacation destination for travelers from more temperate worlds. Renowned primarily for its all-inclusive themed resorts lining the western coast of the Argentum Bay, Bill and Laura’s destination was a smaller, secluded community nestled between the coast and the rainforest.
“Haven’t been here in years,” Bill said, stepping out of the cab and holding the door open for Laura, “but the air feels exactly like I remember it.”
“Humid as Hades?” Laura asked, wrinkling her nose. “My hair frizzed up the second we stepped off the ship.”
“It’s the wet season. And anyway, you look beautiful. You’re glowing,” he insisted.
Laura hummed doubtfully at his glamorization of her sweaty visage. “Is that a nice way of saying I’m sweaty?”
He knew better than to argue semantics with his wife, and so he just smiled as he took their bags and they made their way up the path to the hotel lounge.
The accommodations they’d selected were small and rustic, tucked away aside a lagoon and accessible only by dirt road, muddy and treacherous from months’ worth of afternoon rains. Lush flowering trees and bushes surrounded the walkway, the abundance of flowers contrasting in Laura’s memory with arid, colorless Tauron.
Though it was only a few hours’ drive south from the sparkling resorts and neon-lit bars of Argentum Bay, it was worlds away in terms of the tone and activities offered. Bill had been there back when he was in the Fleet, waiting on a transfer at the Scorpian Shipyards and spending his shore leave in the pulsating clubs with their foam parties, body shots, and jello wrestling. He’d thought it best to avoid that type of atmosphere in bringing his wife to the planet for their real vacation together since their honeymoon, though Laura had teased him about his sordid past when he’d first suggested Scorpia as a destination.
The young man at the reception desk handed them their room keys. “Yours is the last hut on the left,” he said with a smile. “The bar’s open till three every night, food service ends at eleven-thirty.” He gestured to the open area behind the reception building, dotted with palm-leaf palapas and trees with colorful hammocks strung between.
Bill grasped Laura’s hand with the one that wasn’t pulling a small wheeled suitcase. “Let’s go get settled in,” he said.
Their hut was open and airy, though Laura wondered how wise that was, given the vast amounts of fine-gauge netting canopied over the bed. The hardwood floors were unfinished and rough under her feet when she kicked off her heeled sandals. She hung her purse on a hook in the wall and looked around.
Bill had busied himself getting their suitcases set up on a low bench, leaving both her wheeled one and his military-issue duffel bag closed. “You need anything out of here, honey?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yeah, my flip-flops. And I’d like my toiletries case so I can freshen up before we go back out,” she said. Bill rummaged around her bag briefly and retrieved the requested items, then shut the suitcase again.
“Why’d you close it?” she asked, bending down to take the case from him.
He pushed himself up and looked out the unscreened window. “Because we might end up with some serious creepy-crawlies in our clothes if we leave them open.”
She glanced around the room warily. “What kind? Scorpions?” She figured the planet had gotten its name for a reason.
Bill nodded. “Mostly.”
“Aren’t those--” she tried stay calm and reminded herself that rustic seclusion, as opposed to commercial insulation, came at a cost of close encounters with the local fauna “--dangerous?”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I packed a couple doses of antidote, just in case.”
"That's reassuring.”
“Yeah.” He placed a gentle kiss to her lips and a pat to her bottom. “Go.”
When she returned from the bathroom a few minutes later, Bill was stretched out on the bed, arms folded behind his head. Laura crawled under the mosquito net and curled up next to him.
“This is nice,” she sighed.
“Told you it’d be good to get away on our own,” he said, stroking her hair. “Though I miss the little monsters already.”
“Mmmm. Don’t call them that,” she said half-heartedly. Laura was concerned to think about what havoc the twins might be wreaking on their elderly grandmother, but the lack of squawking and screaming was, for the moment at least, blessedly welcome. The two of them tended to egg each other on, escalating in volume until she or Bill took one of them into another room. She wondered idly how another child might fit into that dynamic.
Slim fingers slipped between the buttons of his shirt and, growing frustrated at the lack of access, unbuttoned several before returning to the expanse of his chest.
“Thought you wanted to go check out the place,” he said slowly, his voice deeper than usual.
She slipped a leg between his and leaned in closer to him so she could answer, her breath hot against his neck. “I’d rather check you out, then go find some food, I think.”
“You hungry?”
“No, not for food, at the moment.”
He grinned, then shifted onto his side next to her in the center of the bed. She unbuttoned the last few buttons that were keeping his shirt covering his chest, and slid the garment down his well-muscled arms. He leaned down for a slow, lingering kiss full of promise and want. Finally Laura breathlessly pushed at his chest, breaking the kiss. “Pants. Please.”
“I thought we’re not in any rush?” Still, he let her unfasten his fly and start to push down his shorts, but winced when he tried to shift his weight to his left leg to get them off. “Frak--”
“Oh, honey! Your knee?” Laura was concerned. “I’m sorry--”
“No, it’s fine,” he said, easing away from her so he could more easily divest himself of his shorts and boxers.
Laura used the opportunity to slip her pale blue sundress over her head, leaving on the pretty matching underwear she’d treated herself to when she found herself in need of a different bra size.
“Beautiful,” he said when he turned back to her, tracing the tattooed vines that crept from the tops of her breasts down her flanks. He rested his hands lightly at her hips, and brushed his thumb over the small cherry tattoo just inside the crease of her hip. She closed her eyes at the sensation of his touch, so close to her center, and whimpered when he drew her closer and buried his face between her breasts.
He pulled her onto his lap and she went willingly, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.
“Finally alone,” she whispered in his ear. “No distractions...”
“No baby monitors...no interruptions...” Bill nipped at her earlobe.
Laura ran her fingers through the hair that curled around his ear, lingering at the side of his neck and drawing her thumb across the ink there. She drew back slightly, admiring him.
“What?” Bill looked down at his chest, then lingered on hers before looking up at her face. “Something wrong?”
She smiled serenely and just shook her head, letting her hand trail down his chest to the interlocked rings decorating his hip. Taking stock of their journey together so far. Their tattoos weren’t the most traditional, but they marked the important things, in the way they wanted to. And she was feeling a strong urge to get something new.
“Laura?” He tipped her chin up with his fingertips. “What’re you thinking about?”
Thoughts that had been meandering like the vines across her chest came to a halt, and she blurted out a different, deeper, truth. “Another baby.”
Deep blue eyes widened. “Really?”
“Don’t you?”
“Think about it? Yeah, I do.” He gently shifted her off him and moved back to the head of the bed, tugging on her hand to lean against him as he leaned back against the wicker headboard, “Laura, I was off-world for the majority of your pregnancy and the first six months of the twins’ life. It would mean everything to me to get to go through all of that with you now.”
“I think--” she slid her hand reverently against the inside of his forearm, the canvas for their babies’ names “--that maybe it’s time.” Since she’d stopped breastfeeding she’d been drinking a particular tea that Tsattie picked up for her in Little Tauron, but she’d left it at home for this trip. Mostly, but not entirely, because it wouldn’t pass customs. “I packed some condoms if you disagree--”
“Gods, no.” He cupped her jaw and gave her a long, slow kiss. “Hey. It’s not like we haven’t talked about this before. The twins should have a sibling to torment.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know that, too.”
“We gotta pull the trigger sometime.”
“Might as well be now?” She looked around the room; the air had changed. The cross-breeze picked up, billowing the netting around them. The palms outside the windows were blustering violently in a precursor to the afternoon showerstorms. “Looks like we’ve got a while before it makes sense to go out.”
“Laura?” He wrapped an arm around her and dragged her closer.
She turned around to face him. “Yes, honey?”
“Enough talking.” He lowered his lips to hers once more and reached behind her to unfasten the clasp of her bra. He drew it down her arms slowly, tossed it aside, and placed sweet kisses to her cheekbones, eyelids, and the tip of her nose. She moaned as he lowered his head and wrapped his lips around her right nipple, circling with his tongue, suckling and biting gently, then switched sides while his fingers toyed with the one he’d just left. Laura’s eyes were closed, but her hand was steady as it sought out his hardened length. She gave him a few firm pumps, running her thumb over the drop of pre-cum that had formed at the tip, spreading it around and over the head. He groaned and moved to lay her down on the bed.
She resisted him, rising up on her knees and pushing him back before she straddled him triumphantly. "Nuh-uh. I'm on top," she said, trapping his arms over his head. "No claiming a sex-inflicted knee injury and pulling out of zip-lining tomorrow. I mean it."
"Yes, sir," he grunted as she began to rock back and forth over him. Her panties were damp against him, the lace pleasantly rough. She needed more contact. His next words were muffled against her breasts. "No pulling out, got it."
“Better not, nugget,” she said. Why was she still wearing her damn underwear? She rolled off him for a moment so she could remove it. He waited patiently in the center of the bed, watching her through lust-hooded eyes as she stripped off the last barrier between them. “C’mere.”
Laura cleared her mind of everything but the sensation of Bill filling her as she guided him in. After months of occasional quick fraks between feedings and diaper changes, it was such a luxury just to be present in the moment, heightened senses aware only of his scent (aged paper and wood glue and baby wipes), the humidity-soaked breeze filtering in through the gauzy netting, the corded strength of muscles moving beneath her. Their bodies were in sync, moving gently, deliberately together. Moving with a purpose as they’d never really done before; the twins had been inadvertently conceived during a romp on the kitchen floor. She breathed deeply, committing the sensory moment to memory--this would be what she thought of when she remembered their trip to Scorpia--and oxygenating her bloodstream before bringing her mouth down to his for a ravenous kiss.
She devoured him, slowly and thoroughly, like the praying mantis he'd teasingly pointed out to her in the wildlife section of the guidebook they'd looked at on the flight over. It was the same biological imperative at work, but neither he nor his cock seemed to have any problem with that. He grasped her hips, pushing up into her as far as he could.
“Yeah, like that,” she said, tilting her hips so she could take him even deeper. She nipped at his lower lip, drawing it between her teeth and sucking lightly. She loved the sensual fullness of his lips, hers to explore for as long as she wanted as she languidly moved against him. Her tongue swept between his lips, probing gently before stroking his own tongue as her inner walls clenched around him, slowing down his thrusts, holding him in place, the friendliest battle of resistance and will. They took their time, softly murmuring endearments to one another between kisses.
He had one hand threaded through her hair, pushing it out of her face so he could look in her eyes as he filled her over and over, and the other on her ass, holding her close. “I love seeing you like this,” he said softly.
She didn’t answer, just pushed herself back for a new perspective. A moan escaped at the deeper angle and she began to roll her hips more urgently, but he refused to get on board with the change and stubbornly kept their pace slow and steady.
“We don’t have anywhere to be,” he reminded her. “Maybe we should just enjoy this.”
“I am,” she told him with a clench of her inner muscles. She pressed her hands to his chest and accepted his rhythm, but she frakked him hard, forcefully meeting each slow thrust. Her ears were filled with the sound of his breathing and a blank static sound that she eventually came to realize was not static at all, but the persistent background buzzing of heavy rain against the hut’s thatched roof. A gust of wind tore through the room, lifting Laura up as she bobbed along in the sea of passion, mussing her hair and cooling her sweaty skin.
She clutched at her life raft futilely. “Bill, I’m so close.”
He wasn’t going to make her beg. His eyes met hers and flashed with deepening intensity as a decision was made, and she was ready when he grasped her hips and tossed her overboard so that she was on her back. He re-sheathed himself quickly, braced his hands on either side of her head, and made love to her, any concerns about his knee injury relegated to the back of both parties’ minds as he finally let go of any pretense of restraint. She drew her legs up around his waist, heels urging him on.
“Yes! Yes!” she cried as the rain poured down around them. “Oh gods, Bill.”
“Yeah, let me hear you,” he growled. She giggled at this encouragement; usually he was shushing her or even clapping his hand over her mouth, fearful of waking or traumatizing the babies through their little house’s thin walls. She let go of the inhibition and vocally punctuated each of his steady strokes, commanding his efforts in rowing them both to shore: “Yes...yes...yes...”
“That’s it,” he crooned. “That’s it, sweetheart.”
She finally couldn’t take it anymore, floating away into still, dark waters with an arch of her back and a deep moan of release. She felt him grasp her hips again and pound into her once, twice, a third final time and then spill himself inside her.
He collapsed on top of her and she wrapped her arms around him, wanting him to float with her, neither one of them wanting to break the connection between them. They stayed like that for a few moments, taking their time in coming back to the present. Finally he shifted off of her slightly, taking his weight off her but still draping half his body over hers, keeping her anchored. She turned her head away from him and breathed deeply, realizing the air in the room was suddenly stagnant and the world outside quiet and calm. She squinted through the netting at the window, then turned back to him, nuzzling his ear and speaking softly. “Hey. It stopped raining.”
“Still wanna stay here for a while,” he said, his voice already thick with impending sleep.
She turned against him so he could spoon her and he curled around her accordingly, the nerve endings in her skin still buzzing at the contact. She scanned the floor of the room without bothering to move her head. She thought she might have seen something with a distinctive curved tail scuttle across the floorboards, but dismissed it without concern. She’d be just fine, wrapped up in Bill’s protective embrace in this canopied haven.
* * *
That first afternoon inspired their schedule for the days that followed. They would wake early, enjoy some excellent coffee and fruit out in the courtyard, then explore the waterfront or the rainforest for the remainder of the morning. Lunch was typically a casual affair in one of the little towns on the way back to the resort, then they’d return to the seclusion of their hut to make love for as long as the afternoon rains lasted. Once things dried out and they awoke, recharged, from a nap, they headed out to the courtyard again to sip Scorpian ambrosia cocktails and read the mystery novels they’d brought with them, swaying back and forth in a hammock wide enough for two until the need for food roused them from the pleasant languor of their open-knit cocoon.
Bill remained true to his promise not to bail out of zip-lining, and it had been an exhilarating experience. They saw not only more large bugs (to which Laura had finally become accustomed--the scorpions sharing their hut weren’t at all aggressive as long as one kept a respectful distance), but sloths and monkeys, too. There were some gorgeous flowers that Laura had casually mentioned might make for some nice ink, as she snapped photos of them for future reference, until Bill reminded her that Tauron lacked any flowers of its own and thus a flower tattoo wouldn’t be very traditional.
“Even your vines are pushing things,” he said, tracing a fingertip along the intertwined nascent foliage inked above the neckline of her low-cut blouse.
She smirked. “I think we’ve made it our own tradition at this point.”
“And I love you for it.”
* * *
Their flight back to Caprica departed at an ungodsly early hour, so they’d arranged to stay in a hotel closer to the commercial spaceport for the final evening of their trip. The city of Argentium predated the flash and fancy of the resort boom by thousands of years. It was also directly beneath the orbit of the Fleet’s largest shipyard, and so gritty industrialism mixed with tourism and history at every turn.
They decided to go out for dinner in the bustling city center, treating themselves to something a little more formal than the roadside stands they’d relied on over the past few days. “Just a little wine for me, please,” Laura had demurred when the waiter brought the bottle around, smiling at Bill. He stretched his leg under the table and rubbed her bare calf with his ankle, and Laura suddenly regretted not just holing themselves up in their hotel and relying on room service to sustain them through these last few hours alone.
Still, dinner was over quickly enough, and some of the urgency faded as they walked hand-in-hand down the busy street teeming with shops and restaurants. “Want some dessert?” he asked her, coming to a stop in front of an ice cream shop.
“Sure.” She looked through the glass-covered cases and finally decided on a hibiscus-flavored sorbet, while Bill went for chocolate chip. They walked just a block or so before stumbling upon an open, green park, and sat down on a bench facing a large, brightly-painted sculpture covered in graffiti tags and peace slogans.
“It’s a Viper,” Laura pointed out to him with a wave of her spoon.
“A Mark I.” Bill rose and inspected it more closely. “The rainbow paint makes it hard to recognize, but the aerodynamics were changed in the Mark II, the cockpit moved further back.”
She tossed her empty ice cream cup into a trash can and walked up behind him. “You miss it?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his midsection.
He turned in her arms and held her close. “Sure,” he admitted. “But not as much as I missed you when I was flying.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t want to go up to the shipyards while we’re here,” she said. “They have a museum, you know.”
“I’ve been, once,” he said. “Wasn’t overly impressed. It’s run by the Ministry of Education, not Defense.”
“Gods forbid,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Fine. Where to next, Captain?”
He started walking back whence they’d just come, tugging her along behind him, and smiled deviously. “I might have an idea.”
* * *
“We’re home!” Laura called out into the suspiciously quiet house. “Ruth?”
Tsattie came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a familiar Viper-print apron. Laura and Bill exchanged a grimace. “I was just finishing cleaning up. How was your trip?”
“We had a great time,” Bill said. “Where are the kids?”
Rather than answer, Tsattie led them into the living room, where Sephie and Phin lay asleep on their play mat, surrounded by wooden blocks, cardboard boxes, and picture books. It looked as if they had crashed in the middle of an intense building effort. Their heads were turned toward one another’s and Phin’s arm was draped over Sephie’s.
“How were they for you, Ruth?” Laura asked quietly, crouching down to smooth Sephie’s unruly red curls. Phin yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep when Laura reached over and rubbed his back.
“Perfect angels.” Tsattie’s eyes gleamed with pride. “They know better than to make things difficult for their Tsattie.”
“Huh.” Bill joined Laura on the mat. “You’ll have to explain to them that they ought to show the same respect to their parents.”
“Either that, or tell us your secrets,” Laura added.
Tsattie shook her head. "An enforcer never shares her methods." A shrill timer rang out and she went back into the kitchen, leaving the family to their reunion. Sephie’s head had jerked up at the sudden ringing sound, and her eyes opened wide when she saw Laura sitting next to her.
“Hi, baby,” Laura whispered.
Sephie pushed herself up and banged her fist against Phin’s back. “Ma-ma-ma!”
Phin started to cry, but stopped when Bill picked him up and placed him on his lap. Laura stretched out her legs in the space on the mat Phin had been occupying and smiled, happy to be home.
Sephie crawled over Laura’s legs toward Bill, but stopped when something caught her attention. “Ahhh!” she shrieked.
“What is it, muffin? Use your words,” Bill said.
“Ooze werd,” Phin added, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Sephie refused. “Ahhhh,” she wailed again.
“Persephone Jane Roslin-Adama. What in the worlds is the matter with you?” Laura said sternly.
The little girl jabbed her chubby finger accusingly at Laura’s ankle and stopped crying momentarily. “Sca-wee,” she whimpered.
“Oh!” Laura picked up Sephie and hugged her. “Sorry, sweetie. It’s just like Mommy’s other tattoos.” She pointed out markings on her chest and arm and had Sephie touch them, then looked over at Bill, who was smirking. “Don’t even...”
“Told you!” he said gleefully. “Should have gone for the Scorpian flag, like me.” Bill shifted Phin on his lap so he could stretch out his own leg. “Look, Sephie. Dad got one too.”
Sephie scooted down to inspect, and was decidedly untraumatized. “See, muffin? Not scary.”
Phin wriggled off Bill’s lap and joined his sister between their parents’ outstretched legs. He looked at Laura’s new tattoo, then over at Bill’s, then back at Laura’s. “Bug,” he said disdainfully at Laura.
Laura looked helplessly at Bill, then noticed Tsattie laughing silently from the doorway. “Okay, okay, you were right. So I’ll just have to wear pants for a while until they get used to the fact that their mother now has a scorpion on her ankle.”
Bill shrugged. “Hey, you were determined. I’m sure they’ll understand, when they’re, say, six.”
Tsattie walked over and took a look for herself. “Very nice,” she said knowingly. “Come on into the kitchen. We’ll have some cherry cake to celebrate your little Scorpio or Scorpia.”
Next story: Tauron Testimony
Rating: MA
Word count: 4500
A/N: For the lovely fragrantwoods' birthday I thought I would write something referencing our shared astrological sign. :) Happy birthday! Thanks to nix for the beta. This follows Tauron Treat.
“Are you ready, Bill?” Laura called from the living room, where she’d been reviewing the twins’ schedule with Tsattie. “We need to go.”
“‘eady, ‘eady. Wed-dee,” babbled Phin as he grasped fistfuls of Laura’s hair. It was one of his favorite words. Laura swatted his hand away gently and tsked at him to stop pulling.
“Have a wonderful time on Scorpia,” Ruth said. “We’ll be just fine here, won’t we, darlings?”
Sephie grinned and curled up into her great-grandmother’s lap. Laura felt herself starting to tear up. “I’m going to miss them so much,” she admitted to Tsattie. “I haven’t been away from them overnight since they were born.” But they were finally weaned, and loved spending time with their Tsattie, who watched them frequently when both Laura and Bill needed to be at the university. With Bill’s first year of school finally behind them with a slate of top grades to his credit, and Laura having successfully defended her dissertation, the time had seemed fortuitous for a quick getaway.
“Hmm. You and Bill need some time alone,” Tsattie said with a wink. “A strong marriage is good for the children.”
“What’s good for the children?” Bill asked, appearing in the doorway. He looked ready for Scorpia in his tropical-print shirt, tan shorts, and wide-brimmed hat.
“The parents getting laid,” Tsattie said bluntly.
“So say we all,” Bill said, though he shot the only grandmother he’d ever known a disapproving look for saying it out loud. He lifted Phin from Laura’s lap and kissed his son’s dark hair. “You be good for Tsattie, buddy.” He placed Phin in his bouncy seat and held out a hand to help Laura up before taking Sephie from Tsattie and giving her a kiss as well. “Love you, muffin.”
“Mama,” Sephie said, reaching out for Laura. Bill kissed her one last time and patted her chubby belly before handing her over.
“Mama’s gonna miss you so much, sweetie,” Laura whispered fiercely, her voice cracking.
“Mama go bye-bye,” Sephie said, happily waving her little hand. Laura couldn’t help but laugh through her tears at her daughter’s indifference to their impending separation.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Bill said to Laura. “It’s just a few days.” He turned to Tsattie. “Thank you. For everything.”
She waved off his gratitude. “It’s nothing.” Tsattie stood up and took Sephie, surprisingly spry for a woman of her advanced years. “Go. Have a good time.” She looked Laura up and down. “Maybe bring back a little souvenir.”
Laura flushed, embarrassed, and Bill wrapped his arm around her waist. “Come on,” he whispered in her ear. “They’ll be fine.”
“I know,” she sniffed. She turned to Tsattie. “Thank you, Ruth. My sisters are just a phone call away whenever you need an extra set of hands to keep these two in line.”
* * *
Scorpia’s largely tropical climate was a popular vacation destination for travelers from more temperate worlds. Renowned primarily for its all-inclusive themed resorts lining the western coast of the Argentum Bay, Bill and Laura’s destination was a smaller, secluded community nestled between the coast and the rainforest.
“Haven’t been here in years,” Bill said, stepping out of the cab and holding the door open for Laura, “but the air feels exactly like I remember it.”
“Humid as Hades?” Laura asked, wrinkling her nose. “My hair frizzed up the second we stepped off the ship.”
“It’s the wet season. And anyway, you look beautiful. You’re glowing,” he insisted.
Laura hummed doubtfully at his glamorization of her sweaty visage. “Is that a nice way of saying I’m sweaty?”
He knew better than to argue semantics with his wife, and so he just smiled as he took their bags and they made their way up the path to the hotel lounge.
The accommodations they’d selected were small and rustic, tucked away aside a lagoon and accessible only by dirt road, muddy and treacherous from months’ worth of afternoon rains. Lush flowering trees and bushes surrounded the walkway, the abundance of flowers contrasting in Laura’s memory with arid, colorless Tauron.
Though it was only a few hours’ drive south from the sparkling resorts and neon-lit bars of Argentum Bay, it was worlds away in terms of the tone and activities offered. Bill had been there back when he was in the Fleet, waiting on a transfer at the Scorpian Shipyards and spending his shore leave in the pulsating clubs with their foam parties, body shots, and jello wrestling. He’d thought it best to avoid that type of atmosphere in bringing his wife to the planet for their real vacation together since their honeymoon, though Laura had teased him about his sordid past when he’d first suggested Scorpia as a destination.
The young man at the reception desk handed them their room keys. “Yours is the last hut on the left,” he said with a smile. “The bar’s open till three every night, food service ends at eleven-thirty.” He gestured to the open area behind the reception building, dotted with palm-leaf palapas and trees with colorful hammocks strung between.
Bill grasped Laura’s hand with the one that wasn’t pulling a small wheeled suitcase. “Let’s go get settled in,” he said.
Their hut was open and airy, though Laura wondered how wise that was, given the vast amounts of fine-gauge netting canopied over the bed. The hardwood floors were unfinished and rough under her feet when she kicked off her heeled sandals. She hung her purse on a hook in the wall and looked around.
Bill had busied himself getting their suitcases set up on a low bench, leaving both her wheeled one and his military-issue duffel bag closed. “You need anything out of here, honey?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yeah, my flip-flops. And I’d like my toiletries case so I can freshen up before we go back out,” she said. Bill rummaged around her bag briefly and retrieved the requested items, then shut the suitcase again.
“Why’d you close it?” she asked, bending down to take the case from him.
He pushed himself up and looked out the unscreened window. “Because we might end up with some serious creepy-crawlies in our clothes if we leave them open.”
She glanced around the room warily. “What kind? Scorpions?” She figured the planet had gotten its name for a reason.
Bill nodded. “Mostly.”
“Aren’t those--” she tried stay calm and reminded herself that rustic seclusion, as opposed to commercial insulation, came at a cost of close encounters with the local fauna “--dangerous?”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I packed a couple doses of antidote, just in case.”
"That's reassuring.”
“Yeah.” He placed a gentle kiss to her lips and a pat to her bottom. “Go.”
When she returned from the bathroom a few minutes later, Bill was stretched out on the bed, arms folded behind his head. Laura crawled under the mosquito net and curled up next to him.
“This is nice,” she sighed.
“Told you it’d be good to get away on our own,” he said, stroking her hair. “Though I miss the little monsters already.”
“Mmmm. Don’t call them that,” she said half-heartedly. Laura was concerned to think about what havoc the twins might be wreaking on their elderly grandmother, but the lack of squawking and screaming was, for the moment at least, blessedly welcome. The two of them tended to egg each other on, escalating in volume until she or Bill took one of them into another room. She wondered idly how another child might fit into that dynamic.
Slim fingers slipped between the buttons of his shirt and, growing frustrated at the lack of access, unbuttoned several before returning to the expanse of his chest.
“Thought you wanted to go check out the place,” he said slowly, his voice deeper than usual.
She slipped a leg between his and leaned in closer to him so she could answer, her breath hot against his neck. “I’d rather check you out, then go find some food, I think.”
“You hungry?”
“No, not for food, at the moment.”
He grinned, then shifted onto his side next to her in the center of the bed. She unbuttoned the last few buttons that were keeping his shirt covering his chest, and slid the garment down his well-muscled arms. He leaned down for a slow, lingering kiss full of promise and want. Finally Laura breathlessly pushed at his chest, breaking the kiss. “Pants. Please.”
“I thought we’re not in any rush?” Still, he let her unfasten his fly and start to push down his shorts, but winced when he tried to shift his weight to his left leg to get them off. “Frak--”
“Oh, honey! Your knee?” Laura was concerned. “I’m sorry--”
“No, it’s fine,” he said, easing away from her so he could more easily divest himself of his shorts and boxers.
Laura used the opportunity to slip her pale blue sundress over her head, leaving on the pretty matching underwear she’d treated herself to when she found herself in need of a different bra size.
“Beautiful,” he said when he turned back to her, tracing the tattooed vines that crept from the tops of her breasts down her flanks. He rested his hands lightly at her hips, and brushed his thumb over the small cherry tattoo just inside the crease of her hip. She closed her eyes at the sensation of his touch, so close to her center, and whimpered when he drew her closer and buried his face between her breasts.
He pulled her onto his lap and she went willingly, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.
“Finally alone,” she whispered in his ear. “No distractions...”
“No baby monitors...no interruptions...” Bill nipped at her earlobe.
Laura ran her fingers through the hair that curled around his ear, lingering at the side of his neck and drawing her thumb across the ink there. She drew back slightly, admiring him.
“What?” Bill looked down at his chest, then lingered on hers before looking up at her face. “Something wrong?”
She smiled serenely and just shook her head, letting her hand trail down his chest to the interlocked rings decorating his hip. Taking stock of their journey together so far. Their tattoos weren’t the most traditional, but they marked the important things, in the way they wanted to. And she was feeling a strong urge to get something new.
“Laura?” He tipped her chin up with his fingertips. “What’re you thinking about?”
Thoughts that had been meandering like the vines across her chest came to a halt, and she blurted out a different, deeper, truth. “Another baby.”
Deep blue eyes widened. “Really?”
“Don’t you?”
“Think about it? Yeah, I do.” He gently shifted her off him and moved back to the head of the bed, tugging on her hand to lean against him as he leaned back against the wicker headboard, “Laura, I was off-world for the majority of your pregnancy and the first six months of the twins’ life. It would mean everything to me to get to go through all of that with you now.”
“I think--” she slid her hand reverently against the inside of his forearm, the canvas for their babies’ names “--that maybe it’s time.” Since she’d stopped breastfeeding she’d been drinking a particular tea that Tsattie picked up for her in Little Tauron, but she’d left it at home for this trip. Mostly, but not entirely, because it wouldn’t pass customs. “I packed some condoms if you disagree--”
“Gods, no.” He cupped her jaw and gave her a long, slow kiss. “Hey. It’s not like we haven’t talked about this before. The twins should have a sibling to torment.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know that, too.”
“We gotta pull the trigger sometime.”
“Might as well be now?” She looked around the room; the air had changed. The cross-breeze picked up, billowing the netting around them. The palms outside the windows were blustering violently in a precursor to the afternoon showerstorms. “Looks like we’ve got a while before it makes sense to go out.”
“Laura?” He wrapped an arm around her and dragged her closer.
She turned around to face him. “Yes, honey?”
“Enough talking.” He lowered his lips to hers once more and reached behind her to unfasten the clasp of her bra. He drew it down her arms slowly, tossed it aside, and placed sweet kisses to her cheekbones, eyelids, and the tip of her nose. She moaned as he lowered his head and wrapped his lips around her right nipple, circling with his tongue, suckling and biting gently, then switched sides while his fingers toyed with the one he’d just left. Laura’s eyes were closed, but her hand was steady as it sought out his hardened length. She gave him a few firm pumps, running her thumb over the drop of pre-cum that had formed at the tip, spreading it around and over the head. He groaned and moved to lay her down on the bed.
She resisted him, rising up on her knees and pushing him back before she straddled him triumphantly. "Nuh-uh. I'm on top," she said, trapping his arms over his head. "No claiming a sex-inflicted knee injury and pulling out of zip-lining tomorrow. I mean it."
"Yes, sir," he grunted as she began to rock back and forth over him. Her panties were damp against him, the lace pleasantly rough. She needed more contact. His next words were muffled against her breasts. "No pulling out, got it."
“Better not, nugget,” she said. Why was she still wearing her damn underwear? She rolled off him for a moment so she could remove it. He waited patiently in the center of the bed, watching her through lust-hooded eyes as she stripped off the last barrier between them. “C’mere.”
Laura cleared her mind of everything but the sensation of Bill filling her as she guided him in. After months of occasional quick fraks between feedings and diaper changes, it was such a luxury just to be present in the moment, heightened senses aware only of his scent (aged paper and wood glue and baby wipes), the humidity-soaked breeze filtering in through the gauzy netting, the corded strength of muscles moving beneath her. Their bodies were in sync, moving gently, deliberately together. Moving with a purpose as they’d never really done before; the twins had been inadvertently conceived during a romp on the kitchen floor. She breathed deeply, committing the sensory moment to memory--this would be what she thought of when she remembered their trip to Scorpia--and oxygenating her bloodstream before bringing her mouth down to his for a ravenous kiss.
She devoured him, slowly and thoroughly, like the praying mantis he'd teasingly pointed out to her in the wildlife section of the guidebook they'd looked at on the flight over. It was the same biological imperative at work, but neither he nor his cock seemed to have any problem with that. He grasped her hips, pushing up into her as far as he could.
“Yeah, like that,” she said, tilting her hips so she could take him even deeper. She nipped at his lower lip, drawing it between her teeth and sucking lightly. She loved the sensual fullness of his lips, hers to explore for as long as she wanted as she languidly moved against him. Her tongue swept between his lips, probing gently before stroking his own tongue as her inner walls clenched around him, slowing down his thrusts, holding him in place, the friendliest battle of resistance and will. They took their time, softly murmuring endearments to one another between kisses.
He had one hand threaded through her hair, pushing it out of her face so he could look in her eyes as he filled her over and over, and the other on her ass, holding her close. “I love seeing you like this,” he said softly.
She didn’t answer, just pushed herself back for a new perspective. A moan escaped at the deeper angle and she began to roll her hips more urgently, but he refused to get on board with the change and stubbornly kept their pace slow and steady.
“We don’t have anywhere to be,” he reminded her. “Maybe we should just enjoy this.”
“I am,” she told him with a clench of her inner muscles. She pressed her hands to his chest and accepted his rhythm, but she frakked him hard, forcefully meeting each slow thrust. Her ears were filled with the sound of his breathing and a blank static sound that she eventually came to realize was not static at all, but the persistent background buzzing of heavy rain against the hut’s thatched roof. A gust of wind tore through the room, lifting Laura up as she bobbed along in the sea of passion, mussing her hair and cooling her sweaty skin.
She clutched at her life raft futilely. “Bill, I’m so close.”
He wasn’t going to make her beg. His eyes met hers and flashed with deepening intensity as a decision was made, and she was ready when he grasped her hips and tossed her overboard so that she was on her back. He re-sheathed himself quickly, braced his hands on either side of her head, and made love to her, any concerns about his knee injury relegated to the back of both parties’ minds as he finally let go of any pretense of restraint. She drew her legs up around his waist, heels urging him on.
“Yes! Yes!” she cried as the rain poured down around them. “Oh gods, Bill.”
“Yeah, let me hear you,” he growled. She giggled at this encouragement; usually he was shushing her or even clapping his hand over her mouth, fearful of waking or traumatizing the babies through their little house’s thin walls. She let go of the inhibition and vocally punctuated each of his steady strokes, commanding his efforts in rowing them both to shore: “Yes...yes...yes...”
“That’s it,” he crooned. “That’s it, sweetheart.”
She finally couldn’t take it anymore, floating away into still, dark waters with an arch of her back and a deep moan of release. She felt him grasp her hips again and pound into her once, twice, a third final time and then spill himself inside her.
He collapsed on top of her and she wrapped her arms around him, wanting him to float with her, neither one of them wanting to break the connection between them. They stayed like that for a few moments, taking their time in coming back to the present. Finally he shifted off of her slightly, taking his weight off her but still draping half his body over hers, keeping her anchored. She turned her head away from him and breathed deeply, realizing the air in the room was suddenly stagnant and the world outside quiet and calm. She squinted through the netting at the window, then turned back to him, nuzzling his ear and speaking softly. “Hey. It stopped raining.”
“Still wanna stay here for a while,” he said, his voice already thick with impending sleep.
She turned against him so he could spoon her and he curled around her accordingly, the nerve endings in her skin still buzzing at the contact. She scanned the floor of the room without bothering to move her head. She thought she might have seen something with a distinctive curved tail scuttle across the floorboards, but dismissed it without concern. She’d be just fine, wrapped up in Bill’s protective embrace in this canopied haven.
* * *
That first afternoon inspired their schedule for the days that followed. They would wake early, enjoy some excellent coffee and fruit out in the courtyard, then explore the waterfront or the rainforest for the remainder of the morning. Lunch was typically a casual affair in one of the little towns on the way back to the resort, then they’d return to the seclusion of their hut to make love for as long as the afternoon rains lasted. Once things dried out and they awoke, recharged, from a nap, they headed out to the courtyard again to sip Scorpian ambrosia cocktails and read the mystery novels they’d brought with them, swaying back and forth in a hammock wide enough for two until the need for food roused them from the pleasant languor of their open-knit cocoon.
Bill remained true to his promise not to bail out of zip-lining, and it had been an exhilarating experience. They saw not only more large bugs (to which Laura had finally become accustomed--the scorpions sharing their hut weren’t at all aggressive as long as one kept a respectful distance), but sloths and monkeys, too. There were some gorgeous flowers that Laura had casually mentioned might make for some nice ink, as she snapped photos of them for future reference, until Bill reminded her that Tauron lacked any flowers of its own and thus a flower tattoo wouldn’t be very traditional.
“Even your vines are pushing things,” he said, tracing a fingertip along the intertwined nascent foliage inked above the neckline of her low-cut blouse.
She smirked. “I think we’ve made it our own tradition at this point.”
“And I love you for it.”
* * *
Their flight back to Caprica departed at an ungodsly early hour, so they’d arranged to stay in a hotel closer to the commercial spaceport for the final evening of their trip. The city of Argentium predated the flash and fancy of the resort boom by thousands of years. It was also directly beneath the orbit of the Fleet’s largest shipyard, and so gritty industrialism mixed with tourism and history at every turn.
They decided to go out for dinner in the bustling city center, treating themselves to something a little more formal than the roadside stands they’d relied on over the past few days. “Just a little wine for me, please,” Laura had demurred when the waiter brought the bottle around, smiling at Bill. He stretched his leg under the table and rubbed her bare calf with his ankle, and Laura suddenly regretted not just holing themselves up in their hotel and relying on room service to sustain them through these last few hours alone.
Still, dinner was over quickly enough, and some of the urgency faded as they walked hand-in-hand down the busy street teeming with shops and restaurants. “Want some dessert?” he asked her, coming to a stop in front of an ice cream shop.
“Sure.” She looked through the glass-covered cases and finally decided on a hibiscus-flavored sorbet, while Bill went for chocolate chip. They walked just a block or so before stumbling upon an open, green park, and sat down on a bench facing a large, brightly-painted sculpture covered in graffiti tags and peace slogans.
“It’s a Viper,” Laura pointed out to him with a wave of her spoon.
“A Mark I.” Bill rose and inspected it more closely. “The rainbow paint makes it hard to recognize, but the aerodynamics were changed in the Mark II, the cockpit moved further back.”
She tossed her empty ice cream cup into a trash can and walked up behind him. “You miss it?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his midsection.
He turned in her arms and held her close. “Sure,” he admitted. “But not as much as I missed you when I was flying.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t want to go up to the shipyards while we’re here,” she said. “They have a museum, you know.”
“I’ve been, once,” he said. “Wasn’t overly impressed. It’s run by the Ministry of Education, not Defense.”
“Gods forbid,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Fine. Where to next, Captain?”
He started walking back whence they’d just come, tugging her along behind him, and smiled deviously. “I might have an idea.”
* * *
“We’re home!” Laura called out into the suspiciously quiet house. “Ruth?”
Tsattie came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a familiar Viper-print apron. Laura and Bill exchanged a grimace. “I was just finishing cleaning up. How was your trip?”
“We had a great time,” Bill said. “Where are the kids?”
Rather than answer, Tsattie led them into the living room, where Sephie and Phin lay asleep on their play mat, surrounded by wooden blocks, cardboard boxes, and picture books. It looked as if they had crashed in the middle of an intense building effort. Their heads were turned toward one another’s and Phin’s arm was draped over Sephie’s.
“How were they for you, Ruth?” Laura asked quietly, crouching down to smooth Sephie’s unruly red curls. Phin yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep when Laura reached over and rubbed his back.
“Perfect angels.” Tsattie’s eyes gleamed with pride. “They know better than to make things difficult for their Tsattie.”
“Huh.” Bill joined Laura on the mat. “You’ll have to explain to them that they ought to show the same respect to their parents.”
“Either that, or tell us your secrets,” Laura added.
Tsattie shook her head. "An enforcer never shares her methods." A shrill timer rang out and she went back into the kitchen, leaving the family to their reunion. Sephie’s head had jerked up at the sudden ringing sound, and her eyes opened wide when she saw Laura sitting next to her.
“Hi, baby,” Laura whispered.
Sephie pushed herself up and banged her fist against Phin’s back. “Ma-ma-ma!”
Phin started to cry, but stopped when Bill picked him up and placed him on his lap. Laura stretched out her legs in the space on the mat Phin had been occupying and smiled, happy to be home.
Sephie crawled over Laura’s legs toward Bill, but stopped when something caught her attention. “Ahhh!” she shrieked.
“What is it, muffin? Use your words,” Bill said.
“Ooze werd,” Phin added, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Sephie refused. “Ahhhh,” she wailed again.
“Persephone Jane Roslin-Adama. What in the worlds is the matter with you?” Laura said sternly.
The little girl jabbed her chubby finger accusingly at Laura’s ankle and stopped crying momentarily. “Sca-wee,” she whimpered.
“Oh!” Laura picked up Sephie and hugged her. “Sorry, sweetie. It’s just like Mommy’s other tattoos.” She pointed out markings on her chest and arm and had Sephie touch them, then looked over at Bill, who was smirking. “Don’t even...”
“Told you!” he said gleefully. “Should have gone for the Scorpian flag, like me.” Bill shifted Phin on his lap so he could stretch out his own leg. “Look, Sephie. Dad got one too.”
Sephie scooted down to inspect, and was decidedly untraumatized. “See, muffin? Not scary.”
Phin wriggled off Bill’s lap and joined his sister between their parents’ outstretched legs. He looked at Laura’s new tattoo, then over at Bill’s, then back at Laura’s. “Bug,” he said disdainfully at Laura.
Laura looked helplessly at Bill, then noticed Tsattie laughing silently from the doorway. “Okay, okay, you were right. So I’ll just have to wear pants for a while until they get used to the fact that their mother now has a scorpion on her ankle.”
Bill shrugged. “Hey, you were determined. I’m sure they’ll understand, when they’re, say, six.”
Tsattie walked over and took a look for herself. “Very nice,” she said knowingly. “Come on into the kitchen. We’ll have some cherry cake to celebrate your little Scorpio or Scorpia.”
Next story: Tauron Testimony