Chiaroscuru, for Lizardbeth J
Editor's Note Author and beta information have been removed to preserve anonymity. They will be added back once the exchange ends.
Title: Chiaroscuro
Characters/Pairings: Kara / Sam
Current Word Count: ~ 6,500
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A painted portrait of Sam and Kara’s first year of marriage.
Spoilers: Generalized spoilers for BSG, taking place during the off-screen year between Lay Down your Burdens and Occupation.
Part 1: In the Dark
Sam wakes around midnight to the feel of Kara climbing into bed with him. Her long hair brushes over his face for a second as she puts one arm over and then a leg, leaning herself across, careful (she thinks) not to wake him. He smiles into the darkness, the smell of turpentine and linseed oil wafting from her clothes wrapping around him like some dark perfume. The bed shifts just slightly as she tips over and he feels her move to her side of the bed, the absence of her presence a breath of wind across his skin.
Kara’s been painting again tonight. (It’s where she is when she’s nowhere to be found). Out in the dark somewhere, carrying her pigments and palette and whatever brushes she’s scrounged on the gods-forsaken hole of a planet, finding a quiet spot and then painting until she’s near to collapse. She goes out alone - sometimes to high mountain climes, and sometimes to the forest - her hands moving to a rhythm only she can hear.
Sam doesn’t follow.
In the tent, he feels Kara fumbling for the edge of the covers,. She’s kicked off her boots, but hasn’t bothered to take off her pants or jacket as she slides underneath. There are never enough blankets in the biting winter cold. (The disappointing grimness of New Caprica’s weak summer is only surpassed by its winter glooom.) Sam can hear Kara blowing on her fingers, trying, again, not to wake him. The thought makes his throat tight for some reason. Her care for him, even in these small things. He thinks how the last months of marriage have softened her, somehow, against all odds. Given her a modicum of peace at long last.
If anyone deserves that, it’s her.
Kara turns to her paints more than to the bottle these days. Sam knows it wasn’t always like that. Knows too, that the change won’t likely last forever. (Or even for the rest of this winter, for that matter). But for now, he’s happy for whatever truce they’ve established, side by side in their tent. Their small piece of the worlds, separate from the rest of the universe. The two of them now bound together, the way the priestess had bound their hands that day next to the river.
For a moment, Sam is pulled back into another memory, the morning after Founders’ Day.
That day last summer, he’d awoken to Kara leaning over him, the silhouette of her head against the sun a corona of gold; the shadow of her face blocking him from the sunlight. She’d shaken his shoulder once, and then a second time, her expression pinched and anxious, lips narrowed.
“Tired,” Sam had grumbled, closing his eyes again. The dream of moments earlier had been fading, but the sense of flying had remained tantalizingly close.
“Get up, Sam,” she had insisted, shifting him sideways, and wheedling her fingers underneath his chest, tugging roughly.
With a heavy groan, Sam had pushed himself up to sitting, staggering. His head had been pounding in time to his heartbeat, his left arm numbed from where he’d been sleeping awkwardly on the sand.
“What’s going on?” he’d muttered.
The world around him had been shifting, trying to resettle into the balance of his inner ear. The dregs of alcohol still pulsing through his bloodstream. ‘Too much ambrosia,’ his mind had argued.
“C’mon,” she’d growled, reaching out and pulling at him. “I want you to come with me.”
Sam had glanced up at the sound of her words; the tone confusing him. Kara had been crouching in front of him, chewing her lower lip. Every line of her body had been tensed for action, her impatience with him growing by the second. Seeing it, Sam had moved again, making it up to his knees this time and reaching out so that he could rest a hand on her shoulder, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth, fighting down waves of nausea.
There was something else going on this morning, but he hadn’t quite figured out what.
“Why?” he’d asked.
Kara had given him a grim smile. He would remember that later... (remembers it now, actually, as he lays in the darkness beside her)... that her smile had been more determined than excited.
“I think we should get married.”
: : : : : : : : : :
Tonight, Kara pulls the blankets higher, tucking them up around her neck and curling herself, cat-like, into a ball on the bed. Feeling her shivering, Sam turns onto his side, feigning sleep, drifting toward her, until he reaches the cool spot in the mattress where she lies huddled. He keeps his eyes closed, sighing and shifting and inching forward until he’s all but leaning up against her. A moment later Kara (as he knew she would) turns her body into him, her arms sliding up to rest against the wall of his chest, the chill of her fingers seeping through Sam’s threadbare tank and down to his skin.
He knows if he ‘awakens’ and comments on how cold she is (or worse yet, offers to help), then she’ll be defensive and annoyed, the truce between them fading as it so often did in the first days of their marriage. Kara Thrace isn’t compelled by anyone, but day by day Sam is learning what things do move her into action.
The first key to her, he’s discovered, is that Kara prefers to react, rather than choose. Throwing a punch one moment and slamming into his mouth with a kiss so hard he ends up tasting blood the next. Drinking hard and frakking harder. Sam smiles, remembering how she’d been hesitant to live with him one day and yet had insisted on marrying him the next. Dragging him along with her before the sun had reached its apex.
Twenty minutes after he’d awoken that long-ago morning after Founders’ Day, they’d been standing on the banks of the river. The two of them had waited hand in hand while a priestess of Artemis - a woman with a young face, and old voice - had stood before them, the sun over the mountains, leaving her eyes in shadows. She’d reached out to each of them, taking their hands in hers and binding the two of them together with a thin leather cord. It had been the same length of leather that Sam had used to keep Kara’s tag when she’d left with the arrow from Caprica, and had only been pulled from his neck moments earlier.
“Seems fitting,” Sam had said with a happy smile, and Kara had nodded, white-faced and silent.
“In the presence of the gods I bind you as one,” the priestess had said, her singsong voice echoing in the morning air with the ancient rites of binding. “I entreat you not to leave one another... to stay together in all things...”
As she’d spoken, Sam had stared down at the woman in front of him: messy blonde hair, full lips, wide cheekbones. If he hadn’t already been in love with her, he’d known then he would have fallen for her that day. (Knows that even more tonight as she lies tucked against him in their bed). The sight of her, hair sleep-mussed and unkempt, had been so at odds to the aching seriousness with which Kara had uttered her vows, it had left Sam’s chest tight. His emotions suddenly raw in the watery light of early morning.
“to find solace in the hard times... to take pleasure in the good... to find your way back, if forced apart...”
Sam had been lost in thought for a moment, his hands tight against Kara’s, attention narrowed down to the single spot of warmth between their touching palms. As a child, he’d gone to temple with his grandmother, his knees cold and aching as he knelt on the marble floor, but he’d never felt as close to the gods as he had that morning. He’d watched Kara intently as the final words were spoken and the priestess had anointed their joined hands with oil and water, blending them together on both his skin and hers. Kara had closed her eyes at that point, her head bowing reverently, as the final oaths had been spoken.
“For where one goes, so shall the other... where one stays, so shall you both... The gods have bound your souls... not even the hand of death may separate you now...”
For a moment, no one had spoken, and Sam’s eyes had jumped over to the robed priestess. She’d gestured toward Kara, her voice changing, becoming light and teasing.
“You should probably kiss her now,” she’d whispered.
Sam had glanced back to catch Kara watching him. Her eyes looked, Sam had thought, almost completely gold in the light of sunrise, all turbulent emotions - joy and fury and pain - now faded. Another sentiment filling them; one he’d never seen before.
She’d looked... solemn.
Sam had leaned forward, his lips pressing against Kara’s, almost chastely. That morning by the river had felt important, like everything in their lives had been shifting. Moving forward rather than back.
“With these rites of Artemis,” the priestess had intoned. “I bind you as husband and wife.” She’d paused dramatically, before adding the well-known epithet. “So say we all...”
Kara had grinned at that point, her face transforming with sudden joy.
“So say we all,” they’d both echoed.
: : : : : : : : : :
Part 2: Fire and Water
Tonight, Sam lets out a happy sigh, remembering the wedding day. They’ve come so far, in a few short months, and he’s amazed by the difference. He’s learned, for one, that he cannot keep up with Kara’s mercurial moods. Instead, Sam offers her balance, letting her yell and scream in frustration, until she’s worn out under the explosive force of her own nature.
She always comes back to him.
Tonight, Sam’s hand drifts over to her, resting overtop the curve of her hip (separated by two layers of stiff fabric, but there, nonetheless). He can feel Kara’s breath against his neck, the subtle shudders as her body fights the cold. After a moment, he feels Kara’s fingers begin to wheedle their way underneath the fabric of his tank, taking the heat and comfort his body is offering. He smiles at this.
‘Reaction,’ his mind observes sagely.
He presses his nose against her hair - the first hint he’s given that he’s really awake - the heady scent of night time and cook-fires and paint thinner and under that, like a secret hidden amongst all the other pages of a single book... the subtle scent of Kara. For a long moment, they lay silently twined together, her hands starting to warm where they press against his skin. She moves closer still, her feet - covered by two layers of socks - winding their way around his. He can feel the tenseness of her shoulders, the way she hasn’t quite settled tonight.
‘Something’s wrong,’ an inner voice whispers.
“How’s the painting going?” he asks quietly, careful not to startle her.
Kara’s hands are sliding up his stomach as he says the words, and she freezes for the count of two heartbeats. After a moment, her fingers go back to their tracing, measuring the striations of muscles, moving down bit by bit with practised ease.
“ ‘S’alright,” she finally answers him, her voice an irritable grumble. “Ran out of kerosene though... not done yet.”
She mutters a curse under her breath and Sam nods. Kara’s lips are now close enough that they brush against the skin of his neck as he moves. He knows now what has unsettled her. The limits of this place where they live - the lack of amenities on New Caprica, (which Sam actually rather enjoys), can still be frustrating for Kara.
Like now.
“Gonna go back in the morning?” he suggests, and she swears again (quieter this time), her other hand working its way underneath his chest so that her palm now cups his ribs, pinned down to the bed by his body.
“Maybe,” she growls petulantly, “maybe not... dunno...”
Sam recalls that Kara didn’t paint for the first month of their marriage. Everything between them had still been settling into the pattern which Sam now thinks of as ‘theirs’, the two of them doing a shifting dance as newlyweds, trying time and again to find the pattern of steps without stepping on one another’s feet.
‘If Kara’s element is fire,’ Sam thinks, ‘mine has always been water.’
In the last months, he has learned to move around her, adapting to her moods. The things that he didn’t expect she’d particularly want, she abruptly insisted on. (The marriage tattoos, for instance, displaying for all the worlds that she was his and he was hers.) The other things Sam expected Kara would insist on, she’d have nothing to do with at all...
Their marriage had begun in a canvas tent, three streets into the residential quarter of New Caprica, the single room housing a mishmash of furniture, begged, borrowed and traded from various friends and connections. A large bed dominated the centre of the space, while a small dresser sat at the side, contained the few items which they’d brought into their marriage. On the far side near the tent flap was a small camp stove - a real one, not one of the blackmarket ones which carried with them the danger of unexpected fires - providing both warmth and the ability to cook. When they’d first moved in, there had been a single metal chair with ‘Property of Battlestar Galactica’ stamped into the back. That had since grown to two chairs, courtesy of a triad game. Lastly, there was a small trunk at the side on which Kara placed her icons when praying.
For someone who had once lived in a penthouse apartment in Caprica City, driving expensive cars and living in air-conditioned comfort, one might have assumed that Samuel T. Anders would have found the transition difficult. Not true. The tent - and the tell-tale snap and pop of the canvas when the wind blew each night - reminded him of his own childhood, camping with his father. He didn’t have a lot of memories of him, since he’d died when Sam was eight, but there was one that was particularly clear.
One morning, as the two of them had been dressing, Sam had mentioned it. Kara had paused while pulling on her boots, listening.
“I remember my dad would take me out to the woods with him,” Sam had said quietly, dropping his chin bashfully, “sometimes in the middle of winter, and we’d stay in this old cabin he had there.”
Kara had tugged hard at the laces of her boots, tying them tight, then switching feet. She had been working with one of the irrigation crews at that point in time, the group of them surveying the land of the delta for possible use as farmland.
“What kind of cabin?” she’d asked.
Sam had closed his eyes, forcing the memories back to the surface, a smile playing on his lips. He could almost feel the wind against his cheeks...
“A one room thing...” he’d begun. “It had been a trapper’s cabin back before my dad bought it. Just raw logs and paned windows, a loft for sleeping in and an old pot-bellied stove... shutters for when he closed it up for the winter.”
Sam had smiled, opening his eyes and looking over at Kara. She’d gotten both her boots on now, but hadn’t moved from the spot; there was a line of worry or sadness between her eyebrows.
“Dad used it for hunting sometimes,” Sam had added, “but mostly it was just a place to get away.”
Kara had nodded, giving him a half smile.
“Sounds really nice...”
It had been the wistful sound of her voice - lost and almost heartsick amidst the rising morning wind that had had Sam making the offer.
“Let’s start working on our cabin in the woods,” he’d said, his words coming out in a sudden rush. “We talked about it, babe, but we never did go back to that sandy spot where-”
“Frak, No!” Kara had snapped, and then she’d pushed herself back up to her feet, flinging back the tent flap and storming away.
And that had been the end of the cabin.
: : : : : : : : : :
Part 3: Homesick
Laying in bed next to her, he feels a subtle rise in that earlier Kara; the one who’s been tempered in the last months. The sharp edges smoothed down by open spaces and sunlight, the ability to breathe unprocessed air when they go hiking together... and by painting.
‘Especially by that,’ Sam’s mind offers.
Here tonight, the anger is rippling beneath the surface of her skin like the bright sparks of static under the woollen blankets, leaving Sam waiting for her to share it.
“Hate this frakking rock sometimes,” she grumbles.
Sam nods and doesn’t answer, just combs his fingers through the lengthening strands of Kara’s hair (yet another thing he didn’t expect from her.)
“Frakking rationing!” she adds, and Sam smiles at her tone. Everything on the planet is measured and divided, and that makes all of the luxuries of life all the more precious.
Paint is one of them.
It wasn’t until the work crews had been organized and Sam had been finishing up the trim in the newly-built sanitation building, that the idea had suddenly come to mind. It had taken him a full week and a half to barter his way into a complete set of pigments and brushes for Kara. He’d located the primaries first: bold, arrogant colours once used to emblazon the Fleet’s serial numbers and information details. Next he’d scrounged a mish mash of other hues varying from a pale grey (a touch-up colour common aboard Galactica) to rusty orange (once used to mark the recycling containers on the Astral Queen.) The canvases had been the easiest item to muster: New Caprica was made of it.
The night he’d given Kara the paints was the first time Sam had seen her cry.
: : : : : : : : : :
Tonight, hidden in the darker shadows under the heavy layer of covers, Kara’s hands drop lower and lower on his chest until they reach the edge of Sam’s shorts. She pauses there, going no further, and his breath hitches as she slides a single finger along the inside of his waistband. Her hand pull back for a moment as Sam leans in, brushing his mouth against hers. Kara doesn’t respond at first, just lets him kiss her instead. She’s still tense and irritable, the disquiet rolling off her in supple waves, but he can feel her wavering. Close to distraction.
Sam moves closer still, pulling her against him, hip against hip, his erection nudging impatiently despite the layers dividing them. She’s no longer chilled to the touch and his hands slide up over her breasts until he reaches the closure of her jacket, sliding it slowly down and then moving his hands underneath, peeling back the layers of clothing, one at a time, the faint odour of paint thinner rising for a moment as he does.
She lets him undress her in the darkness, her body soft and pliant under his fingers. She sighs again and he moves in, closing the distance between them before she can close her mouth. For a second, she stiffens in his embrace, but his tongue pushes past her lips, tasting the sweetness of Kara, and she relaxes.
‘Action and reaction,’ Sam’s mind observes. ‘Give and take...’
It’s another key to their happiness together... like her paintings, really. The way that painting them had unsettled things under the surface for her, bringing memories forth at random moments. The kiss grows deeper, but Sam’s mind is spinning backward through the months, to the early days of their marriage.
Sam had first noticed the change when he’d started working on the construction of the sanitation facilities and outbuildings. He’d spent a summer in high school working odd jobs in construction, (giving far more experience than most of the settlers had.) In the first months after settling, the planning committees had called for teams to assist in the construction of the infrastructure for the struggling colony: digging ditches and laying pipes for sanitation, clearing the land and digging the pilings for the foundation for a hospital, using loose gravel and sand and finally charcoal to set up a primitive water-filtration system. It had been mindless work, but Sam had thrived with it.
Kara hadn’t.
She’d been short tempered and irritable those first couple months that she was working, drinking each night and falling into bed just before dawn. Sam’s temper - slow to ignite - had finally flared up when she’d dragged Duck and Nora and a number of other ex-pilots from Galactica to play triad at their tent. When everyone had finally headed home, Sam had spoken up.
“It’s not fair to bring ‘em back here,” he’d grumbled. “Stay out and drink if you need, but let me get some frakking sleep.”
“I need to burn off steam!” she’d snapped her cheeks flushed with two pink circles.
“Then do it on weekends, not every gods-damned night of the WEEK, Kara!” Sam had growled, his anger flaring for a moment. It was well past midnight, a blurry grey smudge marking the edge of the distant mountain range hinting that dawn was nearing. “Some of us have to work!”
“Fine for you,” she’d barked, her words loud in the small tent, “but I frakking HATE my job!”
He’d stepped up toward her before answering, his own voice dropping low. (There were no secrets on New Caprica, not with canvas walls and nothing to do but gossip.)
“Then do something ELSE to let it out,” he’d hissed. “Play pyramid or go for a gods-damned run or...” he’d paused, suddenly inspired. “Or PAINT for frak’s sake!”
She’d been about to say something else, but she’d closed her mouth instead. Stiff backed and angry, she’d snatched up the still-white canvas from the corner, and the unopened cans of paint, and walked out into the darkness.
Sam had waited up for her, but she hadn’t returned until dawn, by which point, he’d fallen into an exhausted sleep.
In the morning when he’d awakened, there had been a canvas propped up against the side of the tent wall, and Kara - boots and clothes still on - had been asleep on top of the covers, her hand curled next to her face like a child. Sam had left her sleeping there, walking over to her worksite, before his own, and covering up for her absence. The painting had floated in the back of his mind for the rest of the day, leaving him aching and sad. It had been a black night, scattered with stars and the faint colours of a nebula.
Exactly what you’d see from the interior of a viper in flight.
: : : : : : : : : :
Part 4: Dark Secrets
In the darkness, Kara’s fingers move down to the waistband of Sam’s shorts again, shoving them impatiently lower, and then taking him in hand. He gasps, breaking the kiss as he tightens his arms around her. She’s warm and naked under the covers, the only clothing she’s still wearing a pair of wool socks that tickle his calves as she wraps her legs around him. Kara is guiding the caressing now, her body starting to shift and move, like a dance, the pumping of her hand in time to the pattern of his pants.
Sam groans, laying his head back against the cool cotton of the pillows, letting her take the lead.
“Oh frak that feels good,” he growls.
Kara chuckles under her breath as she shifts closer, her face dropping down under the covers for a moment as she moves down his chest to his stomach and then lower. Sam blinks as he suddenly realizes where she’s headed, but by then she’s already there, the slick heat of her mouth, replacing her fingers around him, leaving him gasping in shock, blood rushing in his ears.
“Oh gods, Kara!” he hisses between clenched teeth, oblivious to the fact that every neighbour around can now hear his moans of ecstasy.
Sam has always been expressive, his emotions expressed through physicality. As a child growing up in a single-parent home, his anger at his father’s death was exorcised through rough and tumble games. In his teens, the frustrations came out in occasional fistfight and one close call with the law... ‘Before pyramid, ’ his mind adds distractedly, even as Kara’s tongue slides back and forth across the ridge at the tip of his cock, her hand moving in tandem with her mouth.
She’s in control of him, and for a minute and then two, Sam lets her take him the way she wants. He knows soon enough she’ll want to wear away her frustrations; her body already seeking out release.
Sam gets Kara’s need to connect her emotions to action. It makes sense to him, somehow... the way she is. Deep in the burrow of blankets, Kara’s mouth and lips move faster, leaving Sam gasping for air. As he does, he flashes to a cool mid-Autumn afternoon when the two of them had hiked up to the top of the nearby ridge, the hike leaving them both panting and sweat-slicked by the time they’d arrived. Sam had left Kara laying out her paints near the lake, going fishing instead. When he’d come back, hours later, he’d been shocked by what she’d created.
It was an abstract piece, dark and glaring, the black and grey under-painting fractured by splashes of sharp-edged white. Seams of red dripping in places. The darkness exaggerated by its contact with light.
Ugly.
“What is it?” Sam had gasped in shock.
Still painting, Kara’s hand had jumped in surprise at his words, her brush leaving a small smear at the edge of the canvas, the smoky line abruptly different than the rest of it. ‘Too soft,’ Sam’s mind thought in horror.
She’d glanced over at him nervously.
“It’s uh... it’s nothing,” she’d muttered sullenly, crossing her arms and setting the brush down onto the palette at the said. “Just... colours.”
She’d taken a single step back and then another. Next to her, Sam had moved closer to the easel, his fingers hovering over the surface, unable to explain why something so... horrible... intrigued him as this did. It was layered in thick wedged paint, the impasto colours sharp and defined into a riot of shapes. From far away it became a pattern of military precision, but up close, it was just... dark and awful.
“The black sections,” Sam had finally said, struggling to bring his thoughts into words. “They look... different here next to the light.” He’d gestured to them, frowning. “What’s that technique called? ...what you did here.”
Kara had stepped closer, her arm brushing up against his. He’d noticed how she’d held back slightly, her body bumping into him, as if taking comfort from his nearness.
“Chiaroscuro,” she’d answered, her voice uncharacteristically dull. “Light and dark together...”
She’d let out a sigh, turning away from to sit down on the ground where she began cleaning the brushes in the borrowed jar of paint thinner. The painting had loomed, unpleasant and invasive behind the two of them. Turning around, Sam had noticed how Kara’s shoulders had been hunched over, her face tight and anxious. He’d dropped down to a loose crouch next to her, finally saying the thing that had been bothering him all along.
“What does the painting mean... ?”
Her eyes had been wide and scared when they’d darted back up to meet his gaze.
“It’s about my mother,” she’d whispered, her eyes dropping back to the brushes almost immediately.
It had been the first mention she’d ever made of her childhood.
“What about her?” Sam had asked quietly.
Still cleaning brushes, Kara had answered him with a shaking voice, not looking up.
“My mother was military... an ex-marine who’d seen action in the first cylon war... a hard woman... a survivor,” she’d muttered, “raised me that way too. ‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst’ was what she used to always say... liked routine and order...” She winced. “Liked punishment even more...”
Her words had faded away for long enough that Sam had thought she was finished when Kara had abruptly turned to him, her face twisting angrily.
“Didn’t make my bed one morning when I was nine and she was so frakking angry she split my head open with a broom handle.”
She had been panting hard as she said it, her eyes glittering furiously.
“Oh gods, Kara,” Sam had gasped, his chest tight with horror. “That’s frakking awful...”
She’d shrugged, dropping the brushes, forgotten, to the ground and standing. Sam had followed her up.
“Mama was dealing with a lot,” she’d grumbled, shaking her head.
Hearing the bone-deep weariness woven into her words, Sam had stepped forward, pulling her into a tight hug, ignoring the stiffness of her body as he wrapped her in his arms.
“Sorry, babe,” he had whispered against her ear. “You want to talk about it?”
Kara had laughed bitterly, her hands suddenly coming up around his chest, holding onto him painfully tight.
“No, Sammy,” she’d hissed. “I wanna frakking drink until I can’t remember her anymore.”
: : : : : : : : : :
Part 5: Shelter from the Storm
In the tent, Sam reaches down for Kara’s shoulders, pulling her up and off of him, gasping as he feels her mouth release. His body is thrumming with desire, his limbs shaking and tense, so close to climax he can taste it. Kara chuckles, low and throaty, as he moves her up on top of him.
“Didn’t like that?” she teases and Sam groans. He wonders, for a moment, if she knows the power she has over him... what it does to him to hear her say that.
“Oh I liked it good enough,” he gasps, as he gets hold of her hips, tugging her until she’s straddling him, his cock nudging against her wet heat. “I just want to have you too.”
She leans down, kissing him, and he can taste himself on her mouth - sweaty with a hint of salt - her tongue pushing against his teeth, and his tongue. Sam gasps as the tip of his cock bumps up against the entrance to her body and Kara breaks the kiss, sitting up. He’s got a hand on either hip and he feels her shifting back and forth, moving herself until she’s poised directly over top of him, her naked body glowing silver in the dimness of the tent. Sam reaches up, his hands kneading the soft weight of her breasts, his fingers rolling her nipples. They are puckered tight from the cold, hard between his fingertips. He slides the palms of his hands lower, teasing over her ribs and waist, finally locating the small nub of nerves just above the point where their bodies are about to join, circling slowly.
“Frak, Kara,” he moans just as she slides down the length of him, leaving him seeing stars.
She reaches back behind her, pulling up the top blanket , and tucking it over her shoulders like a cloak, her breath making white clouds in the frigid air. Sam is panting as she rides him, the tight fit of her body like a fist around his cock, pumping him hard and fast. He can feel his attention focused down into a coil of desire gathering in his balls, his chest slick with sweat despite the cutting cold of the tent.
Everything’s explosive and reactionary with Kara. Her paintings do that too, blurs of colour and pigment rioting together across the surface. Sam moans aloud, eyes pressed tightly closed as he fights for control of his body, another memory intruding. It had been a few weeks ago, and they’d been trapped indoors by a sudden storm - one of the first of the winter - the wind and sleet leaving the streets of New Caprica’s tent city a boggy mess.
Kara had been pacing the room like a trapped animal, her face furious with the weather. In the distance, there’d suddenly been a series of hollow booms, and both of them had looked up in surprise. It was the sound of several craft breaking atmosphere, almost at once. Kara had pulled back the flap of the tent and pushed outside without delay, the rising wind nearly guttering the kerosene lamp as she did.
When she’d returned, minutes later, her face was closed off and distant.
“What was it?” Sam had asked her warily, and she’d slumped down on the bed, tucking her legs underneath her.
“Vipers,” she’d muttered after a few seconds, “they’re doing manoeuvres in the upper atmosphere.”
She’d stared forward blindly, past Sam to the wall of the tent, her body curled into a ball on the bed. Grief a third person in the room with them. Palpable and raw.
‘She gave up flying for me,’ his mind had whispered guilty.
With a heavy sigh, Sam had sat down next to his wife, his fingers reaching out to brush the long strands of hair out of her face.
“You miss it,” he’d said after a moment.
It hadn’t been a question. He’d already seen the answer.
“Yeah,” she’d muttered, closing her eyes and breathing slowly, as if fighting down tears.
Kara’s face was rippling with something, her emotions playing out across her features despite the stony silence.
“Tell me what it was like,” he’d whispered, laying down behind Kara and wrapping his arms around her where she lay.
Outside the sound of sleet and wind against the tent had been rising, the echo of it like the sound of static... or, Sam would think later, like a viper’s headset in flight.
“I... I can’t, ” Kara had whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. “I don’t know how...”
He’d let out a weary sigh, holding her for a few minutes, before he’d realized what she could do.
“Then why don’t you show me what it felt like?” he’d asked.
And that dismal afternoon, for the first time ever, Kara had let him watch her paint.
: : : : : : : : : :
Sam’s eyes drift open, his gaze falling on her answer: the blur of colour and light on the painting that sits above the dresser, leaned precariously against the wall of the tent. There are bright smears of gold and white against the black. Red and yellow and a swirl of blue along one side, all soft edges and light. It is pure joy, expressed through pigment, and Sam smiles seeing it.
Above him, Kara is moving faster, one hand dropped down between them, touching herself as she moves to her own rhythm, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration. The sight of her, wanton and lush above him almost undoes Sam. Feeling his body tightening down as the edge looms nearer, Sam reaches up for the blanket around Kara’s shoulders, pulling her forward along with it and tipping her onto her back. His knee nudges her thighs apart, his limbs shaking as he moves on top of her, sliding back inside her body with a gasp.
“Gods I love you,” he pants against her neck, picking up the pace where she’s left off.
“Love you too, Sam,” she whimpers, then tips her face up so she can kiss him again.
In seconds they are moving together as one, her nails scoring lines down his back, her tongue swirling against his mouth and then his neck. Kara’s panting and moaning as she fights her way up to the top. She bites down hard against his shoulder, her body arching as she tumbles over into her own release.
“Oh gods, Sammy,” she cries.
Sam’s nearly with her now, his whole body focused into this action, his body and hers, moving together in perfect harmony. ‘Like flying...’ He can feel himself wavering and for a moment his gaze skitters over to the painting again, the variation of colour, the pattern of brush strokes, the light and dark all seeming to mean something greater when put together. Kara’s word - ‘chiaroscuro’ - comes to mind just as he begins to come. The two of them, opposites in so many ways enhancing one other by existing side by side. Sam groans aloud, his hips losing their pattern and thrusting twice as he spills his seed into her.
He lays panting atop her and then suddenly realizes that he’s probably crushing her. With a muttered apology, Sam shifts sideways, meaning to move, but Kara holds on tight.
“No,” she says quietly, her voice peaceful in the wake of their coupling, “I like you here... just stay, okay?”
Sam swallows hard before answering, tears prickling at his eyes.
“Okay,” he rasps, pressing a kiss against her temple, and trying to hold his weight on his elbows as they lay, still joined as one. His love tethering Kara to this place and time, his body sheltering her against the cold.
After a time, Kara’s breathing slows, her hands sliding off his shoulders to fall limply next to her and he knows she’s fallen asleep. Peaceful once more... This time it is Sam who tips carefully to the side, sliding out of her as he moves into the cold spot on the bed, then pulling her into his arms. She’s soft and pliant now, her breath tickling the skin of his neck. Distantly, Sam can hear someone snoring a tent or two over, and somewhere else, a little child, crying out in the night. In a few minutes even these noises fade and all he’s left with is the sound of the wind. Sam takes a slow breath, pressing a kiss against Kara’s half-open mouth, then laying his head back down against the pillow. He feels good tonight. Settled.
He smiles to himself as another word comes to mind.
‘Loved.’
: : : : : : : : : :
Title: Chiaroscuro
Characters/Pairings: Kara / Sam
Current Word Count: ~ 6,500
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A painted portrait of Sam and Kara’s first year of marriage.
Spoilers: Generalized spoilers for BSG, taking place during the off-screen year between Lay Down your Burdens and Occupation.
Part 1: In the Dark
Sam wakes around midnight to the feel of Kara climbing into bed with him. Her long hair brushes over his face for a second as she puts one arm over and then a leg, leaning herself across, careful (she thinks) not to wake him. He smiles into the darkness, the smell of turpentine and linseed oil wafting from her clothes wrapping around him like some dark perfume. The bed shifts just slightly as she tips over and he feels her move to her side of the bed, the absence of her presence a breath of wind across his skin.
Kara’s been painting again tonight. (It’s where she is when she’s nowhere to be found). Out in the dark somewhere, carrying her pigments and palette and whatever brushes she’s scrounged on the gods-forsaken hole of a planet, finding a quiet spot and then painting until she’s near to collapse. She goes out alone - sometimes to high mountain climes, and sometimes to the forest - her hands moving to a rhythm only she can hear.
Sam doesn’t follow.
In the tent, he feels Kara fumbling for the edge of the covers,. She’s kicked off her boots, but hasn’t bothered to take off her pants or jacket as she slides underneath. There are never enough blankets in the biting winter cold. (The disappointing grimness of New Caprica’s weak summer is only surpassed by its winter glooom.) Sam can hear Kara blowing on her fingers, trying, again, not to wake him. The thought makes his throat tight for some reason. Her care for him, even in these small things. He thinks how the last months of marriage have softened her, somehow, against all odds. Given her a modicum of peace at long last.
If anyone deserves that, it’s her.
Kara turns to her paints more than to the bottle these days. Sam knows it wasn’t always like that. Knows too, that the change won’t likely last forever. (Or even for the rest of this winter, for that matter). But for now, he’s happy for whatever truce they’ve established, side by side in their tent. Their small piece of the worlds, separate from the rest of the universe. The two of them now bound together, the way the priestess had bound their hands that day next to the river.
For a moment, Sam is pulled back into another memory, the morning after Founders’ Day.
That day last summer, he’d awoken to Kara leaning over him, the silhouette of her head against the sun a corona of gold; the shadow of her face blocking him from the sunlight. She’d shaken his shoulder once, and then a second time, her expression pinched and anxious, lips narrowed.
“Tired,” Sam had grumbled, closing his eyes again. The dream of moments earlier had been fading, but the sense of flying had remained tantalizingly close.
“Get up, Sam,” she had insisted, shifting him sideways, and wheedling her fingers underneath his chest, tugging roughly.
With a heavy groan, Sam had pushed himself up to sitting, staggering. His head had been pounding in time to his heartbeat, his left arm numbed from where he’d been sleeping awkwardly on the sand.
“What’s going on?” he’d muttered.
The world around him had been shifting, trying to resettle into the balance of his inner ear. The dregs of alcohol still pulsing through his bloodstream. ‘Too much ambrosia,’ his mind had argued.
“C’mon,” she’d growled, reaching out and pulling at him. “I want you to come with me.”
Sam had glanced up at the sound of her words; the tone confusing him. Kara had been crouching in front of him, chewing her lower lip. Every line of her body had been tensed for action, her impatience with him growing by the second. Seeing it, Sam had moved again, making it up to his knees this time and reaching out so that he could rest a hand on her shoulder, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth, fighting down waves of nausea.
There was something else going on this morning, but he hadn’t quite figured out what.
“Why?” he’d asked.
Kara had given him a grim smile. He would remember that later... (remembers it now, actually, as he lays in the darkness beside her)... that her smile had been more determined than excited.
“I think we should get married.”
: : : : : : : : : :
Tonight, Kara pulls the blankets higher, tucking them up around her neck and curling herself, cat-like, into a ball on the bed. Feeling her shivering, Sam turns onto his side, feigning sleep, drifting toward her, until he reaches the cool spot in the mattress where she lies huddled. He keeps his eyes closed, sighing and shifting and inching forward until he’s all but leaning up against her. A moment later Kara (as he knew she would) turns her body into him, her arms sliding up to rest against the wall of his chest, the chill of her fingers seeping through Sam’s threadbare tank and down to his skin.
He knows if he ‘awakens’ and comments on how cold she is (or worse yet, offers to help), then she’ll be defensive and annoyed, the truce between them fading as it so often did in the first days of their marriage. Kara Thrace isn’t compelled by anyone, but day by day Sam is learning what things do move her into action.
The first key to her, he’s discovered, is that Kara prefers to react, rather than choose. Throwing a punch one moment and slamming into his mouth with a kiss so hard he ends up tasting blood the next. Drinking hard and frakking harder. Sam smiles, remembering how she’d been hesitant to live with him one day and yet had insisted on marrying him the next. Dragging him along with her before the sun had reached its apex.
Twenty minutes after he’d awoken that long-ago morning after Founders’ Day, they’d been standing on the banks of the river. The two of them had waited hand in hand while a priestess of Artemis - a woman with a young face, and old voice - had stood before them, the sun over the mountains, leaving her eyes in shadows. She’d reached out to each of them, taking their hands in hers and binding the two of them together with a thin leather cord. It had been the same length of leather that Sam had used to keep Kara’s tag when she’d left with the arrow from Caprica, and had only been pulled from his neck moments earlier.
“Seems fitting,” Sam had said with a happy smile, and Kara had nodded, white-faced and silent.
“In the presence of the gods I bind you as one,” the priestess had said, her singsong voice echoing in the morning air with the ancient rites of binding. “I entreat you not to leave one another... to stay together in all things...”
As she’d spoken, Sam had stared down at the woman in front of him: messy blonde hair, full lips, wide cheekbones. If he hadn’t already been in love with her, he’d known then he would have fallen for her that day. (Knows that even more tonight as she lies tucked against him in their bed). The sight of her, hair sleep-mussed and unkempt, had been so at odds to the aching seriousness with which Kara had uttered her vows, it had left Sam’s chest tight. His emotions suddenly raw in the watery light of early morning.
“to find solace in the hard times... to take pleasure in the good... to find your way back, if forced apart...”
Sam had been lost in thought for a moment, his hands tight against Kara’s, attention narrowed down to the single spot of warmth between their touching palms. As a child, he’d gone to temple with his grandmother, his knees cold and aching as he knelt on the marble floor, but he’d never felt as close to the gods as he had that morning. He’d watched Kara intently as the final words were spoken and the priestess had anointed their joined hands with oil and water, blending them together on both his skin and hers. Kara had closed her eyes at that point, her head bowing reverently, as the final oaths had been spoken.
“For where one goes, so shall the other... where one stays, so shall you both... The gods have bound your souls... not even the hand of death may separate you now...”
For a moment, no one had spoken, and Sam’s eyes had jumped over to the robed priestess. She’d gestured toward Kara, her voice changing, becoming light and teasing.
“You should probably kiss her now,” she’d whispered.
Sam had glanced back to catch Kara watching him. Her eyes looked, Sam had thought, almost completely gold in the light of sunrise, all turbulent emotions - joy and fury and pain - now faded. Another sentiment filling them; one he’d never seen before.
She’d looked... solemn.
Sam had leaned forward, his lips pressing against Kara’s, almost chastely. That morning by the river had felt important, like everything in their lives had been shifting. Moving forward rather than back.
“With these rites of Artemis,” the priestess had intoned. “I bind you as husband and wife.” She’d paused dramatically, before adding the well-known epithet. “So say we all...”
Kara had grinned at that point, her face transforming with sudden joy.
“So say we all,” they’d both echoed.
: : : : : : : : : :
Part 2: Fire and Water
Tonight, Sam lets out a happy sigh, remembering the wedding day. They’ve come so far, in a few short months, and he’s amazed by the difference. He’s learned, for one, that he cannot keep up with Kara’s mercurial moods. Instead, Sam offers her balance, letting her yell and scream in frustration, until she’s worn out under the explosive force of her own nature.
She always comes back to him.
Tonight, Sam’s hand drifts over to her, resting overtop the curve of her hip (separated by two layers of stiff fabric, but there, nonetheless). He can feel Kara’s breath against his neck, the subtle shudders as her body fights the cold. After a moment, he feels Kara’s fingers begin to wheedle their way underneath the fabric of his tank, taking the heat and comfort his body is offering. He smiles at this.
‘Reaction,’ his mind observes sagely.
He presses his nose against her hair - the first hint he’s given that he’s really awake - the heady scent of night time and cook-fires and paint thinner and under that, like a secret hidden amongst all the other pages of a single book... the subtle scent of Kara. For a long moment, they lay silently twined together, her hands starting to warm where they press against his skin. She moves closer still, her feet - covered by two layers of socks - winding their way around his. He can feel the tenseness of her shoulders, the way she hasn’t quite settled tonight.
‘Something’s wrong,’ an inner voice whispers.
“How’s the painting going?” he asks quietly, careful not to startle her.
Kara’s hands are sliding up his stomach as he says the words, and she freezes for the count of two heartbeats. After a moment, her fingers go back to their tracing, measuring the striations of muscles, moving down bit by bit with practised ease.
“ ‘S’alright,” she finally answers him, her voice an irritable grumble. “Ran out of kerosene though... not done yet.”
She mutters a curse under her breath and Sam nods. Kara’s lips are now close enough that they brush against the skin of his neck as he moves. He knows now what has unsettled her. The limits of this place where they live - the lack of amenities on New Caprica, (which Sam actually rather enjoys), can still be frustrating for Kara.
Like now.
“Gonna go back in the morning?” he suggests, and she swears again (quieter this time), her other hand working its way underneath his chest so that her palm now cups his ribs, pinned down to the bed by his body.
“Maybe,” she growls petulantly, “maybe not... dunno...”
Sam recalls that Kara didn’t paint for the first month of their marriage. Everything between them had still been settling into the pattern which Sam now thinks of as ‘theirs’, the two of them doing a shifting dance as newlyweds, trying time and again to find the pattern of steps without stepping on one another’s feet.
‘If Kara’s element is fire,’ Sam thinks, ‘mine has always been water.’
In the last months, he has learned to move around her, adapting to her moods. The things that he didn’t expect she’d particularly want, she abruptly insisted on. (The marriage tattoos, for instance, displaying for all the worlds that she was his and he was hers.) The other things Sam expected Kara would insist on, she’d have nothing to do with at all...
Their marriage had begun in a canvas tent, three streets into the residential quarter of New Caprica, the single room housing a mishmash of furniture, begged, borrowed and traded from various friends and connections. A large bed dominated the centre of the space, while a small dresser sat at the side, contained the few items which they’d brought into their marriage. On the far side near the tent flap was a small camp stove - a real one, not one of the blackmarket ones which carried with them the danger of unexpected fires - providing both warmth and the ability to cook. When they’d first moved in, there had been a single metal chair with ‘Property of Battlestar Galactica’ stamped into the back. That had since grown to two chairs, courtesy of a triad game. Lastly, there was a small trunk at the side on which Kara placed her icons when praying.
For someone who had once lived in a penthouse apartment in Caprica City, driving expensive cars and living in air-conditioned comfort, one might have assumed that Samuel T. Anders would have found the transition difficult. Not true. The tent - and the tell-tale snap and pop of the canvas when the wind blew each night - reminded him of his own childhood, camping with his father. He didn’t have a lot of memories of him, since he’d died when Sam was eight, but there was one that was particularly clear.
One morning, as the two of them had been dressing, Sam had mentioned it. Kara had paused while pulling on her boots, listening.
“I remember my dad would take me out to the woods with him,” Sam had said quietly, dropping his chin bashfully, “sometimes in the middle of winter, and we’d stay in this old cabin he had there.”
Kara had tugged hard at the laces of her boots, tying them tight, then switching feet. She had been working with one of the irrigation crews at that point in time, the group of them surveying the land of the delta for possible use as farmland.
“What kind of cabin?” she’d asked.
Sam had closed his eyes, forcing the memories back to the surface, a smile playing on his lips. He could almost feel the wind against his cheeks...
“A one room thing...” he’d begun. “It had been a trapper’s cabin back before my dad bought it. Just raw logs and paned windows, a loft for sleeping in and an old pot-bellied stove... shutters for when he closed it up for the winter.”
Sam had smiled, opening his eyes and looking over at Kara. She’d gotten both her boots on now, but hadn’t moved from the spot; there was a line of worry or sadness between her eyebrows.
“Dad used it for hunting sometimes,” Sam had added, “but mostly it was just a place to get away.”
Kara had nodded, giving him a half smile.
“Sounds really nice...”
It had been the wistful sound of her voice - lost and almost heartsick amidst the rising morning wind that had had Sam making the offer.
“Let’s start working on our cabin in the woods,” he’d said, his words coming out in a sudden rush. “We talked about it, babe, but we never did go back to that sandy spot where-”
“Frak, No!” Kara had snapped, and then she’d pushed herself back up to her feet, flinging back the tent flap and storming away.
And that had been the end of the cabin.
: : : : : : : : : :
Part 3: Homesick
Laying in bed next to her, he feels a subtle rise in that earlier Kara; the one who’s been tempered in the last months. The sharp edges smoothed down by open spaces and sunlight, the ability to breathe unprocessed air when they go hiking together... and by painting.
‘Especially by that,’ Sam’s mind offers.
Here tonight, the anger is rippling beneath the surface of her skin like the bright sparks of static under the woollen blankets, leaving Sam waiting for her to share it.
“Hate this frakking rock sometimes,” she grumbles.
Sam nods and doesn’t answer, just combs his fingers through the lengthening strands of Kara’s hair (yet another thing he didn’t expect from her.)
“Frakking rationing!” she adds, and Sam smiles at her tone. Everything on the planet is measured and divided, and that makes all of the luxuries of life all the more precious.
Paint is one of them.
It wasn’t until the work crews had been organized and Sam had been finishing up the trim in the newly-built sanitation building, that the idea had suddenly come to mind. It had taken him a full week and a half to barter his way into a complete set of pigments and brushes for Kara. He’d located the primaries first: bold, arrogant colours once used to emblazon the Fleet’s serial numbers and information details. Next he’d scrounged a mish mash of other hues varying from a pale grey (a touch-up colour common aboard Galactica) to rusty orange (once used to mark the recycling containers on the Astral Queen.) The canvases had been the easiest item to muster: New Caprica was made of it.
The night he’d given Kara the paints was the first time Sam had seen her cry.
: : : : : : : : : :
Tonight, hidden in the darker shadows under the heavy layer of covers, Kara’s hands drop lower and lower on his chest until they reach the edge of Sam’s shorts. She pauses there, going no further, and his breath hitches as she slides a single finger along the inside of his waistband. Her hand pull back for a moment as Sam leans in, brushing his mouth against hers. Kara doesn’t respond at first, just lets him kiss her instead. She’s still tense and irritable, the disquiet rolling off her in supple waves, but he can feel her wavering. Close to distraction.
Sam moves closer still, pulling her against him, hip against hip, his erection nudging impatiently despite the layers dividing them. She’s no longer chilled to the touch and his hands slide up over her breasts until he reaches the closure of her jacket, sliding it slowly down and then moving his hands underneath, peeling back the layers of clothing, one at a time, the faint odour of paint thinner rising for a moment as he does.
She lets him undress her in the darkness, her body soft and pliant under his fingers. She sighs again and he moves in, closing the distance between them before she can close her mouth. For a second, she stiffens in his embrace, but his tongue pushes past her lips, tasting the sweetness of Kara, and she relaxes.
‘Action and reaction,’ Sam’s mind observes. ‘Give and take...’
It’s another key to their happiness together... like her paintings, really. The way that painting them had unsettled things under the surface for her, bringing memories forth at random moments. The kiss grows deeper, but Sam’s mind is spinning backward through the months, to the early days of their marriage.
Sam had first noticed the change when he’d started working on the construction of the sanitation facilities and outbuildings. He’d spent a summer in high school working odd jobs in construction, (giving far more experience than most of the settlers had.) In the first months after settling, the planning committees had called for teams to assist in the construction of the infrastructure for the struggling colony: digging ditches and laying pipes for sanitation, clearing the land and digging the pilings for the foundation for a hospital, using loose gravel and sand and finally charcoal to set up a primitive water-filtration system. It had been mindless work, but Sam had thrived with it.
Kara hadn’t.
She’d been short tempered and irritable those first couple months that she was working, drinking each night and falling into bed just before dawn. Sam’s temper - slow to ignite - had finally flared up when she’d dragged Duck and Nora and a number of other ex-pilots from Galactica to play triad at their tent. When everyone had finally headed home, Sam had spoken up.
“It’s not fair to bring ‘em back here,” he’d grumbled. “Stay out and drink if you need, but let me get some frakking sleep.”
“I need to burn off steam!” she’d snapped her cheeks flushed with two pink circles.
“Then do it on weekends, not every gods-damned night of the WEEK, Kara!” Sam had growled, his anger flaring for a moment. It was well past midnight, a blurry grey smudge marking the edge of the distant mountain range hinting that dawn was nearing. “Some of us have to work!”
“Fine for you,” she’d barked, her words loud in the small tent, “but I frakking HATE my job!”
He’d stepped up toward her before answering, his own voice dropping low. (There were no secrets on New Caprica, not with canvas walls and nothing to do but gossip.)
“Then do something ELSE to let it out,” he’d hissed. “Play pyramid or go for a gods-damned run or...” he’d paused, suddenly inspired. “Or PAINT for frak’s sake!”
She’d been about to say something else, but she’d closed her mouth instead. Stiff backed and angry, she’d snatched up the still-white canvas from the corner, and the unopened cans of paint, and walked out into the darkness.
Sam had waited up for her, but she hadn’t returned until dawn, by which point, he’d fallen into an exhausted sleep.
In the morning when he’d awakened, there had been a canvas propped up against the side of the tent wall, and Kara - boots and clothes still on - had been asleep on top of the covers, her hand curled next to her face like a child. Sam had left her sleeping there, walking over to her worksite, before his own, and covering up for her absence. The painting had floated in the back of his mind for the rest of the day, leaving him aching and sad. It had been a black night, scattered with stars and the faint colours of a nebula.
Exactly what you’d see from the interior of a viper in flight.
: : : : : : : : : :
Part 4: Dark Secrets
In the darkness, Kara’s fingers move down to the waistband of Sam’s shorts again, shoving them impatiently lower, and then taking him in hand. He gasps, breaking the kiss as he tightens his arms around her. She’s warm and naked under the covers, the only clothing she’s still wearing a pair of wool socks that tickle his calves as she wraps her legs around him. Kara is guiding the caressing now, her body starting to shift and move, like a dance, the pumping of her hand in time to the pattern of his pants.
Sam groans, laying his head back against the cool cotton of the pillows, letting her take the lead.
“Oh frak that feels good,” he growls.
Kara chuckles under her breath as she shifts closer, her face dropping down under the covers for a moment as she moves down his chest to his stomach and then lower. Sam blinks as he suddenly realizes where she’s headed, but by then she’s already there, the slick heat of her mouth, replacing her fingers around him, leaving him gasping in shock, blood rushing in his ears.
“Oh gods, Kara!” he hisses between clenched teeth, oblivious to the fact that every neighbour around can now hear his moans of ecstasy.
Sam has always been expressive, his emotions expressed through physicality. As a child growing up in a single-parent home, his anger at his father’s death was exorcised through rough and tumble games. In his teens, the frustrations came out in occasional fistfight and one close call with the law... ‘Before pyramid, ’ his mind adds distractedly, even as Kara’s tongue slides back and forth across the ridge at the tip of his cock, her hand moving in tandem with her mouth.
She’s in control of him, and for a minute and then two, Sam lets her take him the way she wants. He knows soon enough she’ll want to wear away her frustrations; her body already seeking out release.
Sam gets Kara’s need to connect her emotions to action. It makes sense to him, somehow... the way she is. Deep in the burrow of blankets, Kara’s mouth and lips move faster, leaving Sam gasping for air. As he does, he flashes to a cool mid-Autumn afternoon when the two of them had hiked up to the top of the nearby ridge, the hike leaving them both panting and sweat-slicked by the time they’d arrived. Sam had left Kara laying out her paints near the lake, going fishing instead. When he’d come back, hours later, he’d been shocked by what she’d created.
It was an abstract piece, dark and glaring, the black and grey under-painting fractured by splashes of sharp-edged white. Seams of red dripping in places. The darkness exaggerated by its contact with light.
Ugly.
“What is it?” Sam had gasped in shock.
Still painting, Kara’s hand had jumped in surprise at his words, her brush leaving a small smear at the edge of the canvas, the smoky line abruptly different than the rest of it. ‘Too soft,’ Sam’s mind thought in horror.
She’d glanced over at him nervously.
“It’s uh... it’s nothing,” she’d muttered sullenly, crossing her arms and setting the brush down onto the palette at the said. “Just... colours.”
She’d taken a single step back and then another. Next to her, Sam had moved closer to the easel, his fingers hovering over the surface, unable to explain why something so... horrible... intrigued him as this did. It was layered in thick wedged paint, the impasto colours sharp and defined into a riot of shapes. From far away it became a pattern of military precision, but up close, it was just... dark and awful.
“The black sections,” Sam had finally said, struggling to bring his thoughts into words. “They look... different here next to the light.” He’d gestured to them, frowning. “What’s that technique called? ...what you did here.”
Kara had stepped closer, her arm brushing up against his. He’d noticed how she’d held back slightly, her body bumping into him, as if taking comfort from his nearness.
“Chiaroscuro,” she’d answered, her voice uncharacteristically dull. “Light and dark together...”
She’d let out a sigh, turning away from to sit down on the ground where she began cleaning the brushes in the borrowed jar of paint thinner. The painting had loomed, unpleasant and invasive behind the two of them. Turning around, Sam had noticed how Kara’s shoulders had been hunched over, her face tight and anxious. He’d dropped down to a loose crouch next to her, finally saying the thing that had been bothering him all along.
“What does the painting mean... ?”
Her eyes had been wide and scared when they’d darted back up to meet his gaze.
“It’s about my mother,” she’d whispered, her eyes dropping back to the brushes almost immediately.
It had been the first mention she’d ever made of her childhood.
“What about her?” Sam had asked quietly.
Still cleaning brushes, Kara had answered him with a shaking voice, not looking up.
“My mother was military... an ex-marine who’d seen action in the first cylon war... a hard woman... a survivor,” she’d muttered, “raised me that way too. ‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst’ was what she used to always say... liked routine and order...” She winced. “Liked punishment even more...”
Her words had faded away for long enough that Sam had thought she was finished when Kara had abruptly turned to him, her face twisting angrily.
“Didn’t make my bed one morning when I was nine and she was so frakking angry she split my head open with a broom handle.”
She had been panting hard as she said it, her eyes glittering furiously.
“Oh gods, Kara,” Sam had gasped, his chest tight with horror. “That’s frakking awful...”
She’d shrugged, dropping the brushes, forgotten, to the ground and standing. Sam had followed her up.
“Mama was dealing with a lot,” she’d grumbled, shaking her head.
Hearing the bone-deep weariness woven into her words, Sam had stepped forward, pulling her into a tight hug, ignoring the stiffness of her body as he wrapped her in his arms.
“Sorry, babe,” he had whispered against her ear. “You want to talk about it?”
Kara had laughed bitterly, her hands suddenly coming up around his chest, holding onto him painfully tight.
“No, Sammy,” she’d hissed. “I wanna frakking drink until I can’t remember her anymore.”
: : : : : : : : : :
Part 5: Shelter from the Storm
In the tent, Sam reaches down for Kara’s shoulders, pulling her up and off of him, gasping as he feels her mouth release. His body is thrumming with desire, his limbs shaking and tense, so close to climax he can taste it. Kara chuckles, low and throaty, as he moves her up on top of him.
“Didn’t like that?” she teases and Sam groans. He wonders, for a moment, if she knows the power she has over him... what it does to him to hear her say that.
“Oh I liked it good enough,” he gasps, as he gets hold of her hips, tugging her until she’s straddling him, his cock nudging against her wet heat. “I just want to have you too.”
She leans down, kissing him, and he can taste himself on her mouth - sweaty with a hint of salt - her tongue pushing against his teeth, and his tongue. Sam gasps as the tip of his cock bumps up against the entrance to her body and Kara breaks the kiss, sitting up. He’s got a hand on either hip and he feels her shifting back and forth, moving herself until she’s poised directly over top of him, her naked body glowing silver in the dimness of the tent. Sam reaches up, his hands kneading the soft weight of her breasts, his fingers rolling her nipples. They are puckered tight from the cold, hard between his fingertips. He slides the palms of his hands lower, teasing over her ribs and waist, finally locating the small nub of nerves just above the point where their bodies are about to join, circling slowly.
“Frak, Kara,” he moans just as she slides down the length of him, leaving him seeing stars.
She reaches back behind her, pulling up the top blanket , and tucking it over her shoulders like a cloak, her breath making white clouds in the frigid air. Sam is panting as she rides him, the tight fit of her body like a fist around his cock, pumping him hard and fast. He can feel his attention focused down into a coil of desire gathering in his balls, his chest slick with sweat despite the cutting cold of the tent.
Everything’s explosive and reactionary with Kara. Her paintings do that too, blurs of colour and pigment rioting together across the surface. Sam moans aloud, eyes pressed tightly closed as he fights for control of his body, another memory intruding. It had been a few weeks ago, and they’d been trapped indoors by a sudden storm - one of the first of the winter - the wind and sleet leaving the streets of New Caprica’s tent city a boggy mess.
Kara had been pacing the room like a trapped animal, her face furious with the weather. In the distance, there’d suddenly been a series of hollow booms, and both of them had looked up in surprise. It was the sound of several craft breaking atmosphere, almost at once. Kara had pulled back the flap of the tent and pushed outside without delay, the rising wind nearly guttering the kerosene lamp as she did.
When she’d returned, minutes later, her face was closed off and distant.
“What was it?” Sam had asked her warily, and she’d slumped down on the bed, tucking her legs underneath her.
“Vipers,” she’d muttered after a few seconds, “they’re doing manoeuvres in the upper atmosphere.”
She’d stared forward blindly, past Sam to the wall of the tent, her body curled into a ball on the bed. Grief a third person in the room with them. Palpable and raw.
‘She gave up flying for me,’ his mind had whispered guilty.
With a heavy sigh, Sam had sat down next to his wife, his fingers reaching out to brush the long strands of hair out of her face.
“You miss it,” he’d said after a moment.
It hadn’t been a question. He’d already seen the answer.
“Yeah,” she’d muttered, closing her eyes and breathing slowly, as if fighting down tears.
Kara’s face was rippling with something, her emotions playing out across her features despite the stony silence.
“Tell me what it was like,” he’d whispered, laying down behind Kara and wrapping his arms around her where she lay.
Outside the sound of sleet and wind against the tent had been rising, the echo of it like the sound of static... or, Sam would think later, like a viper’s headset in flight.
“I... I can’t, ” Kara had whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. “I don’t know how...”
He’d let out a weary sigh, holding her for a few minutes, before he’d realized what she could do.
“Then why don’t you show me what it felt like?” he’d asked.
And that dismal afternoon, for the first time ever, Kara had let him watch her paint.
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Sam’s eyes drift open, his gaze falling on her answer: the blur of colour and light on the painting that sits above the dresser, leaned precariously against the wall of the tent. There are bright smears of gold and white against the black. Red and yellow and a swirl of blue along one side, all soft edges and light. It is pure joy, expressed through pigment, and Sam smiles seeing it.
Above him, Kara is moving faster, one hand dropped down between them, touching herself as she moves to her own rhythm, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration. The sight of her, wanton and lush above him almost undoes Sam. Feeling his body tightening down as the edge looms nearer, Sam reaches up for the blanket around Kara’s shoulders, pulling her forward along with it and tipping her onto her back. His knee nudges her thighs apart, his limbs shaking as he moves on top of her, sliding back inside her body with a gasp.
“Gods I love you,” he pants against her neck, picking up the pace where she’s left off.
“Love you too, Sam,” she whimpers, then tips her face up so she can kiss him again.
In seconds they are moving together as one, her nails scoring lines down his back, her tongue swirling against his mouth and then his neck. Kara’s panting and moaning as she fights her way up to the top. She bites down hard against his shoulder, her body arching as she tumbles over into her own release.
“Oh gods, Sammy,” she cries.
Sam’s nearly with her now, his whole body focused into this action, his body and hers, moving together in perfect harmony. ‘Like flying...’ He can feel himself wavering and for a moment his gaze skitters over to the painting again, the variation of colour, the pattern of brush strokes, the light and dark all seeming to mean something greater when put together. Kara’s word - ‘chiaroscuro’ - comes to mind just as he begins to come. The two of them, opposites in so many ways enhancing one other by existing side by side. Sam groans aloud, his hips losing their pattern and thrusting twice as he spills his seed into her.
He lays panting atop her and then suddenly realizes that he’s probably crushing her. With a muttered apology, Sam shifts sideways, meaning to move, but Kara holds on tight.
“No,” she says quietly, her voice peaceful in the wake of their coupling, “I like you here... just stay, okay?”
Sam swallows hard before answering, tears prickling at his eyes.
“Okay,” he rasps, pressing a kiss against her temple, and trying to hold his weight on his elbows as they lay, still joined as one. His love tethering Kara to this place and time, his body sheltering her against the cold.
After a time, Kara’s breathing slows, her hands sliding off his shoulders to fall limply next to her and he knows she’s fallen asleep. Peaceful once more... This time it is Sam who tips carefully to the side, sliding out of her as he moves into the cold spot on the bed, then pulling her into his arms. She’s soft and pliant now, her breath tickling the skin of his neck. Distantly, Sam can hear someone snoring a tent or two over, and somewhere else, a little child, crying out in the night. In a few minutes even these noises fade and all he’s left with is the sound of the wind. Sam takes a slow breath, pressing a kiss against Kara’s half-open mouth, then laying his head back down against the pillow. He feels good tonight. Settled.
He smiles to himself as another word comes to mind.
‘Loved.’
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