Will to Power II:
Cry Havoc

Angyl and Orithain

May 2001

Disclaimer: Andromeda belongs to the estate of Gene Roddenberry and Tribune Entertainment Company. No profit is being made.

"Cry ‘Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war." 
~ Act 3, Scene 1, line 273, Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare.

Harper grimaced in pain as his back protested being slammed into the floor for what seemed like the hundredth time. Above him Dylan stared down, more than a little frustrated. "Dammit, Harper, you countered that move the last time!"

"I'm tired and sore, okay, Hunt, and unlike you and the Nietzscheans, I'm not uber anything!" Seamus groused as he groaned and slowly forced himself upright. "Damn, even on training level force lances hurt."

"They're supposed to. It's a reminder of what it could have been like if it had been operating under full power. Not that the Nietzscheans have anything like them. When the High Guard fell, our ancestors kept the knowledge of how to build them to themselves. That's why only very few humans have them these days, if you can prove lineage to the High Guard or prove you're openly against the Nietzscheans, and you have the skill to use one... Wonder what my old teacher would say to me helping some Nietzscheans," Dylan mused as he pulled Harper to his feet.

"You gotta admit, Dylan, this Nietzschean isn't as bad as some, like Orca or Drago-Kazov or Jaguar. Kodiak, for the most part, has been pretty fair in this whole war," Harper countered as he rubbed his butt.

"Speaking of, why hasn't your Nietzschean shown up to disembowel me for using you as my punching bag?" Dylan chuckled.

"Ummm, 'cause I bribed Rommie not to tell him?" Harper said, chagrined. "Told her that if he knew, he'd be pissed, and if he was pissed, he'd do something rash and stupid that would result in blood all over her. She'd rather avoid being bathed in blood, thank you very much."

"Smart man," Dylan said with a grin as he ruffled Harper's hair. "You're getting better, you know; you've managed to get me on my ass more than I expected you to. And those Orcas won't expect you to be able to fight back, let alone be fighting with a force lance. You'll do all right if it comes down to it. We'll meet back here tomorrow at the same time and keep training, and then Beka will go over your hand eye with you for weapons control. That can be done on the Maru, at least, and out of the Nietzschean's prying."

"Thanks, Dylan, I appreciate this," Harper responded, tucking his force lance under his shirt to walk back to the captain's quarters. No sense letting anyone see, after all, surprise was one hell of a good advantage in a fight.

In the corner, Agravaine watched silently, seemingly fascinated by the interplay of the two humans, though his eyes tended to stray more to Hunt's descendent than the captain's pet. He was there, ostensibly, to act as protection to Harper and keep an eye on Hunt.

As Harper had said, if Tyr knew that his little pet was being thrown around in such a manner, he might become... irrational. As such Agravaine chose to remain quiet so long as it was only a training exercise. Besides the little man needed to know at least how to defend himself because the battle with Orca would come. Every Nietzschean on the ship hungered for their blood.

Hunt was definitely proving himself... worthy, Agravaine thought to himself, appreciating the gleaming sweat and the undulating muscles. A shame they'd lost him as a breeding male, though if he'd seen Hunt earlier, he might have requested that the human become his body slave. Still, things had a way of changing. "If you are done here, I will escort Mr. Hunt back to the Maru. I assume you can find your own way back to your quarters?" he asked the young man quietly.

"Yeah, not a problem. And thanks for keeping quiet about all this. Tyr'd go ballistic, and that would be bad."

"As you said, sometimes that which you do not know cannot hurt you. Mr. Hunt?"

Harper watched the two men carefully, noting the tension and strange connection they seemed to have. Beka might want to start watching her man a little more carefully, he thought with a wry grin. Nietzscheans tended to take first and ask later, if at all.

Making his way back to the quarters he shared with Tyr, Harper quickly stashed his force lance in a safe spot and stripped out of his sweaty and torn clothes. The abrasions and small cuts would have to be repaired, he noted as he quickly jumped into the shower and under the hot water. "Hey, Rommie? Think you can help with these cuts and stuff, not to mention the bruises that I know are waiting to happen? Tyr'd freak!"

"And what exactly would I have to freak about?" Tyr strolled through the open doorway into the bathroom, eyeing his lover closely. He rapidly catalogued the various injuries, seeing that none were serious. He'd gotten worse himself in a good workout against one of his men.

"Well, Harper?" He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, waiting for an answer before he gave in to his urge to strip his clothes off and join the other man in the shower.

"Ummm, well, I was working on the Maru's engines, and I kinda wasn't watching where I was stepping and hit a slick spot and fell over the railing to the catwalk below, so I kinda got all scraped up and stuff. Was gonna have Rommie fix me before you saw me but... you saw me," the young man replied, thinking on his feet for the first plausible answer he could come up with.

Trying to distract the bigger man from further questions, Harper began to stroke his soapy hand back and forth along his rapidly filling cock, his other hand sweeping broadly across chest and abdomen. "But you didn't come here to question me, did you?"

Tyr wondered if he should tell Harper that the best lie was kept simple. Harper had a habit of making them too complicated and talking too fast, never pausing to breathe. Watching his hands move over his body, Tyr decided it could wait for another time, as could the discussion.

He removed his clothes and stepped under the water, replacing Harper's hands with his own. They'd been together for well over a month now, and he still couldn't get enough of the human, wanted him all the time. He had a feeling that might never change.

"So why do you think I came here?"

"Gee, lemme think," Harper smirked, "To fuck me blind then go back to the bridge?"

"An excellent idea." Soapy fingers slid down Harper's back to work between his cheeks, teasing the sensitive muscle. "Turn around," he growled.

Harper whimpered and turned to face the wall, bracing himself against it with folded arms, using them as a pillow for his head. Spreading his legs as wide as he could, he thrust his ass back, ready for the plundering. "C'mon, Tyr, stop teasing! I'm desperate here; I need my uberfix, have been without it for like 24 hours solid!" the young man whined piteously.

Almost before Harper finished speaking, Tyr was buried in him to the root. "Is that what you wanted?" he growled in the other man's ear. He took him hard and fast, neither willing nor able to take it slow this time. The preparations for the retaliatory attack on Orca Pride were taking up most of their time, and they found it harder and harder to find time for themselves.

He slammed in and out of Harper, pushing the human against the wall of the shower as he took him. One hand slid over his hip to wrap around his cock, pumping it time with his thrusts into Harper's ass.

"Yes, oh fuck, Tyr, so good, so fucking, oh shit!" the engineer wailed as his prostate was slammed over and over, his cock manipulated and his whole body driven higher and faster than it had been in a while. Gasping and grunting with the need that slammed through him, Harper thrust his ass back to meet each and every stroke, one hand leaving the wall to wriggle its way between their slamming bodies in order to 'feel' Tyr take him.

"Missed you, love you, need you, want you," Harper groaned mindlessly as his body was claimed ferociously, Tyr's hands and cock his only two focal points as he was pushed and pulled, driven and claimed. "Tyr, Jesus god, fuck me now, oh hell, TYR!!!" Harper's body seized and froze, his hands clenched, and his head was thrown back in ecstasy as the first thick ropes of hot cum splashed over Tyr's hand and onto the cool tile of the shower wall.

Tyr's body clenched as well, feeling Harper contract around him and his body ripple, his fingers still touching the spot where they were joined, making Tyr nearly insane with lust. He bit down on Harper's shoulder as he came, muffling his cry of completion as well as marking his mate.

They remained motionless under the pounding spray for a few minutes while racing pulses returned to normal, then Tyr reluctantly pulled away. "Come, I have a few hours before I have to get back to the bridge. I wanted to spend some time with you." After they cleaned up again, he drew Harper out of the shower and to the outer room.

Harper followed willingly, amazed at how used to the Nietzschean he now was so that any absence was unpleasant and made him ache for his lover. Damn, he had it bad! "So, you gonna tell me how things are going?" Harper asked as Tyr settled into his favorite chair and then Harper settled onto Tyr, his favorite chair.

"I mean, I know the rest of the crew, well, with the exception of Agravaine and a few others, think we humans are pretty much useless, but I want to help, Tyr! I owe that bitch, maybe not as much as you do, but she... let's just say I have the need to return the favor of taking a pound of flesh, maybe not in the way she did it, but I do," Harper continued hotly, letting his anger reveal things he'd normally have kept to himself had he been thinking rationally.

Tyr froze. "What exactly do you mean? What did she do to you?" He was afraid he knew, but he had to hear it from Harper. If he was right, there was no place in the universe that Orca bitch would be safe from him.

"She didn't do anything to me, Tyr," Harper replied hastily, "Besides it's between me and her. It's my score to settle, not yours." Harper's chin lifted stubbornly; the last thing he needed was for Tyr to get crazy and emotional. He'd make mistakes and get killed, and Harper couldn't bear to think about his life without the big Kodiak any more.

Tyr's eyes narrowed and he growled, but he let it go. For now. When he had Freya's throat between his hands, then he would find out what she had done to his lover. Or had had done to him. His arms tightened around Harper protectively.

Eventually, he relaxed a little and sighed. "We should dress. Any of my children might wander in here, and you're not really ready for company." He stroked Harper's hip regretfully. He liked him without clothes, but at twelve, his oldest son already took far too much of an interest in Harper for the captain's liking.

Harper snickered. "I don't have anything they haven't seen before, Tyr, well, except the arm spikes. But if you insist." The human pulled his lover down for a deep and satisfying kiss full of tongues and exploration of cavities before he finally stood and got dressed in a tight shimmering gray Henley and a pair of black jeans.

Turning, Harper grinned at the bigger man. "So does this meet with your approval?" he teased, turning slowly so that Tyr could get the full effect, his hands on his hips.

Tyr pulled him back down onto his lap and kissed him thoroughly. Finally, when Harper was panting for breath, the Nietzschean grinned down at him. "Very definitely. You look edible." Suiting actions to words, he started nibbling on Harper's throat, not pausing even when one of his children came into the room and stood watching them.

"Tyr, hey uh, Tyr," Harper motioned frantically as he looked at Loki looking at him. "Tyr!" Pulling hard on the older man's braids and making him growl in displeasure, Harper turned the Nietzschean's head towards the door. "We have company!" he said in an exaggerated voice.

"Weren't you the one just saying that you didn't have anything they hadn't seen before? And you're dressed now," Tyr teased. His arms tightened around the human possessively, however, and he gave his son a warning look.

"Is something wrong, Loki?"

The young Nietzschean shook his head. Although he was only twelve, he looked about fifteen, large for his age, or at least he would have been had he been human. He dragged his eyes from Harper and flushed dully when he met his father's eyes. "I knew you were away from the bridge, and I hoped to spend some time with you, Father," he said hopefully.

Tyr held out an arm to his son, inviting him into his embrace. "You are always welcome, Loki, you know that."

"They've never seen me having you," Harper muttered under his breath even as he grinned at the young man. "Hi again, Loki, you still up for giving me a hand with that project I mentioned?" he asked the youth.

Seeing Tyr's questioning gaze, Harper laughed. "No, I'm not telling you; no, you're not going to find out until it's done; and yes, Loki is helping me; and no, he's not going to tell you either, so save your breath," he admonished his lover.

"Tell you what, why don't I go grab the rest of the kids; that way you can spend time with them, okay?" the human suggested quietly. He knew that the children, more than even him, would need Tyr right now. They'd lost all their mothers. They had to be devastated. Harper could have his time with Tyr when they slept or made love; for right now, Tyr's children needed him more. Not waiting for an answer, the younger man slipped outside to go to the quarters next door and gather the remaining children, herding them inside Tyr's bedroom before trying to make himself scarce.

Before Harper could slip out of the room, Tyr caught his hand. "Stay, please." He ignored his children's shock at the word please, concentrating instead on his lover. "You are part of my family too."

"Tyr, I... thank you," Harper managed to choke out as he took a seat on the bed. He couldn't begin to express how much it meant to him to hear Tyr call him family. It meant that he was no longer just a temporary thing, at least in his own mind. Oh, Harper knew he'd eventually have to take new wives and have more children, but for now... he was happy.

Tyr smiled at his lover, his eyes warming, then returned his attention to the wide-eyed children. He sighed. Nietzschean children normally were kept safe at home until they were old enough to become warriors, so none of them had even seen a human before.

"Things are different away from the homeworld," he began, "you know that. Beyond being a husband, a Nietzschean warrior may form relationships with other warriors or even humans. Like Harper." He smiled at his lover again. "Harper is here because he wants to be; he is not a slave. Someday, you may find someone... special... like that yourselves."

"But, Father, he's got a mark on his hand, a slave mark," one of the younger girls pointed out without thinking.

"That's because I used to be a slave, a long time ago," Harper broke in quickly. He didn't really want Tyr's children to know that he and their father had started out as master and slave; it would undermine what Tyr was trying to do now.

"I belonged to Orca Pride when I was born until my late teens, then I was liberated by my human friends, Dylan and Beka, and I worked for them as their ship's engineer on the Eureka Maru. Then I... met your father, and he convinced me to stay. Eventually," Harper grinned at his lover.

"Humans can be very stubborn," Tyr said, as if sharing some big secret. He grinned at Harper, and the children watched curiously. They'd never seen their father act like this, not even with their mothers. It was... nice.

"Does that mean that you will stay here forever?" Loki wanted to know.

"I'll stay as long as I'm wanted, Loki," Harper answered honestly, not sure what else to say. Looking helplessly at his lover, his eyes silently pleaded for rescuing.

"And as for being stubborn, no one is as stubborn as your father. He could probably outstubborn Beka, and that's saying a lot."

Tyr stood up, setting his daughter on her feet. "Go on out to the other room. Dinner is waiting. Harper and I will join you in a minute." He waited till the children left the room before turning back to his lover.

"You still don't believe I want you forever, do you?"

"Tyr, I... no one's ever wanted me forever, and I only know how to live my life one day at a time, never expecting anything beyond the here and now. It was the only way for me to survive," Harper admitted quietly. "Please be patient with me, and try to understand. It's not that I doubt you; I just can't fathom anyone really wanting me."

Tyr sighed and pulled Harper into his arms. "I do want you. And if it takes decades, I will convince you of it." He kissed Harper quickly and led him toward the door. "Now you can have the adventure of eating with twenty-two children. Be grateful several are still too young to join us."

"Why am I suddenly very afraid?" the human whimpered as he allowed himself to be pulled into the living area and over to the table that had been laden with food.

At Tyr's command all the children began to fill their plates and then find spots on the floor around the room to eat. Harper found himself sharing the couch with Tyr, Loki and four others, including a two-year-old girl, Skadi, who'd taken residence up on his lap. "Umm - they're not gonna start calling me mamma or anything, are they?"

The adult Nietzschean hastily hid his face behind a glass of wine, trying not to laugh. When he'd regained control, though he dared not look at Loki, he finally answered. "No, my children know the difference between male and female." He pulled Harper a little closer, enjoying having his lover and his children with him. It was even better than the sleep he should be getting.

"I think they'll just call you Harper... or Seamus," he added teasingly.

"No! I mean, Harper is just fine, okay?" the man in question squeaked out quickly, looking around at the children scattered around the room. "I just really hate Seamus. Which your father knows and still calls me by it just to annoy me," Harper growled as he elbowed Tyr in the side.

"Behave, you," he whispered harshly, "Or I'll go sleep on the Maru tonight!"

The children giggled and turned their attention to the much more interesting topic of the food on their plates.

Tyr gazed at Harper, one eyebrow rising. "You and I both know that you'd hurt yourself most by that," he replied softly, so quietly that the children couldn't hear unless they were actively trying to. "I'll be happy to demonstrate why after dinner." He leaned closer, almost close enough to kiss, then pulled back, only his breath ghosting over Harper's lips.

Harper groaned slightly as the need began to rise once again. Damn the Nietzschean, he was making it almost impossible to sit still. Harper just hoped that Skadi had no idea what was happening to him.

"Tyr, will you please behave?" he whispered, squirming slightly on the couch. "All you gotta do is look at me a certain way, and you know what happens, no friggin' fair!"

Tyr smirked. "I certainly do know, Pe-Harper. And I enjoy every moment of the results." He rubbed his chin against Harper's neck, knowing what the short bristles of his beard against the human's sensitive skin would do to him.

Harper shivered as his skin was abraded, but his eyes narrowed. "I hear that, you know, that Pe... I know what you were gonna say, you..." Harper saw that all twenty-two pairs of eyes were trained expectantly on him, and he forced himself to swallow the insult he'd originally begun to say. "You son of a High Guard," he finished lamely.

Shifting Skadi to a place on the couch between him and Tyr, the engineer bolted to his feet. "Umm, hate to eat and run, but I promised Trance I'd show her the Hydroponics level. Silly purple girl has a thing for plants. Bye!" With that he bolted from the captain's quarters and didn't stop running until he'd reached the Maru. His old room was unoccupied; Dylan and Beka wouldn't mind if he used it to... relieve himself quickly, that was if they even knew he was on board!

Tyr briefly considered following Harper, but he'd promised himself to allow his lover more freedom, more room to breathe as the human called it. He just hoped that Harper came back before he had to return to the bridge. He really wanted to spend some time with him. And he needed to explain about that nickname that so irritated Harper.

Half an hour later a much-relieved Harper strode back into Tyr's quarters, bringing with him his last few possessions from the Maru, including his music vids. He couldn't wait to see Tyr's face when he started to listen to the Violent Femmes or Screaming Golgatha from Antares Prime. That would set the Nietzschean's teeth on edge for sure. Harper loved it!

Depositing the box in a storage closet to be dealt with at a later date, Harper noted that Tyr was nowhere to be found. "Rommie? Do you know where Tyr is?"

"He's in his children's quarters, Harper. Would you like me to tell him you're back?"

"Nahhh, I wanna grab a shower. He'll come back when he can. It's all right," the engineer replied, stripping out of his now damp and faintly sex-smelling clothes.

A quick shower later and there was still no Tyr. Harper was tempted to have Rommie round him up, but then he considered all that those poor kids lost - their mothers, their home, their friends and their way of life. He could wait. Throwing on a thin pair of sleep pants, the human slipped between the cool sheets of the bed he shared with the captain and promptly fell asleep.

By the time he made it back to his quarters, Tyr was fuming at Harper's continued absence. He intended to have Rommie tell him where he could find his errant lover as soon as he'd showered - 22 children left a man mussed! - but his anger was derailed by the sight of Harper curled up in their bed.

Though Harper looked exhausted and probably needed his rest, their time together was too precious just now for Tyr to be able to leave him sleeping. He lightly stroked Harper's chest, glaring slightly at the sleep pants before admitting that his children made them necessary.

Stirring slightly, Harper batted at the sensation that was tickling his stomach, only to have his palm connect with Tyr's arm spikes. "SHIT!" Jumping straight up in the air, suddenly wide-awake, the younger man glared at the Nietzschean. "Will you watch where you put those things?!"

Eyebrows rose as Tyr eyed the other man. "Perhaps you should look at what you're hitting before starting to swing." Seeing Harper's mouth open to begin another pointless argument, he shifted his arm so that the spikes lightly rubbed over Harper's neck. Satisfied that the young man would remain silent now, he smiled slightly.

"Earlier... when I call you Pet, it's not because I think of you as a slave. Quite the opposite. When you wouldn't tell me your name, it was the only way I could think of you except for slave. I got used to thinking of you that way." A quick grin made an appearance. "And it fits... you are affectionate and cuddly after all."

The man in question grimaced slightly at the explanation but accepted it for what it was. "Just not in front of your kids, okay? They'd start calling me that all the time and actually believe it! I mean there's the whole me human the rest of the friggin' ship, except for the Maru's crew and the AI, Nietzschean thing going on here," Harper continued then moaned as those damned spikes brushed against the sensitive skin around his cyberjack.

"Damn, Tyr, you're making me hungry all over again," he admitted before pouncing on the Nietzschean and knocking him flat on his back. "Don't start something you can't finish, okay, 'cause this conditioning leaves me really, really pissy if I'm aroused and can't get satisfied."

"And I don't like making time to be with you and having you disappear," Tyr growled. "I expected us to have time together after the children ate... instead of you going off to satisfy yourself," he added with a deeper growl, still able to smell it on Harper despite his shower.

"I was gone for half an hour, Tyr," Harper replied, exasperated, as he pushed himself up and off the bigger man. "And I wouldn't call what I did satisfying, but considering how nuts you had me, I needed to do something, or I was gonna jump you right in front of all twenty-two of your kids! I don't think you'd really want them to see their father fucking his human lover, now would you?"

Throwing himself off the bed, the human began to pace. "Why the hell are you picking a fight? I was here, I came back. I always come back!" Harper demanded.

Then Tyr betrayed just how tired he was as well by sounding like a sulky child when he replied, "I wanted to spend time with you." For a moment it looked like he might actually pout before Nietzschean dignity reasserted itself. "And do you really think I would arouse you and not intend to take care of you? Do you still think so little of me, Harper?"

"NO! God dammit, Tyr, I didn't mean that, I meant... ah hell, what does it matter, you're gonna believe what you believe, and you're stubborn enough that I won't be able to change your mind."

Falling back on the bed again, Harper looked up at his lover. "You done fighting with me yet? 'Cause I'd really like to not fight anymore and spend what little time I actually get with you doing something much more constructive, not to mention enjoyable."

Catching the change of mood and more than willing to play along, Tyr trailed a long finger down the center of Harper's chest. "What exactly did you have in mind?" He stretched out beside his lover, a tiny, smug smile curving his lips, looking very like some ancient Earth pasha waited to be pleasured by his concubine.

"Oh I don't know, some cuddling, maybe a kiss or two, holding each other and whispering sweet nothings and that stuff," Harper replied, tongue in cheek.

"How very pet-like."

"Fine," Harper pouted, "Just forget the whole thing. I'm going back to sleep. You're no fun at all!" Rolling over so that he was facing away from the Nietzschean, Harper let the frown turn into a full-fledged shit-eating grin.

The next thing Harper knew, he was flat on his back under a very large, very aroused Nietzschean who seemed to be trying to remove his tonsils with his tongue. Eventually, yielding to the human's need for air, Tyr raised his head and growled softly. "I don't think you'll be going to sleep any time soon."

Since Harper was still panting, he turned his oral explorations to the human's throat and neck. He sucked a large passion mark into being at the base of his throat before moving on to the implant, his tongue licking around it, teasing the small ridge of flesh that surrounded it.

The noise that emitted from Harper' throat when Tyr touched his implant with his tongue could only vaguely be called human. It was, in fact, rather animalistic in nature and completely impossible to reproduce. "Tyr, oh fucking hell! You know how nuts that makes me!" the younger man wailed as he tried to thrust up into the huge body covering him, desperate for any kind of friction.

Weaving his fingers into the long, chocolate brown braids, Harper tried to yank his lover's head to where he wanted it, a dusky nipple. "Please, Tyr, please, if you keep that up, I'm gonna come in my pants!

"Then we'd just have to start over," Tyr rumbled. "I intend to feel you come apart around me while I take you... and then start over again." He yielded to Harper's tugging and lapped at a rigid nipple, then took it into his mouth and suckled hungrily.

"Gonna kill me. Gonna have to see Rommie and have her give me something so I don't end up suffering from permanent dehydration with the amount you keep making me come, not to mention some cream or something for the chafing!" Harper teased before whimpering as his flesh was distended and lapped and nibbled on, driving him insane with need.

Tyr suddenly released him and sat up. "Oh, is it too much for you?" he asked with a straight face. "I wouldn't want to hurt you. We should just get some sleep then." He stretched out on his side, facing away from Harper and appeared to be settling down for a nap.

"The hell we will!" Harper snarled as he yanked the Nietzschean onto his back again and then straddled his waist. "You said you were gonna fuck me, and by your progenitors and my god, you're gonna do it, you hear me?" the younger man bellowed in his lover's face.

"I'm a Nietzschean; I have perfect hearing." Hearing Harper almost growl with frustration, Tyr finally laughed and pulled his head down to kiss him, claiming him once again.

"I want to watch you," he breathed, eyes fixed on Harper's. "I want you to get yourself ready for me and then take me inside you. Show me what you want, take it from me."

"Jesus," Harper breathed, his whole body quivering with need. "Oh Jesus, Tyr. You're trying to give me heart failure, aren't you?" Clambering off his lover, Harper quickly stripped off his sleep pants then raced to the door, engaging the lock just in case one of Tyr's kids came looking for him.

Returning to the bed, he once more straddled his lover, this time at his calves, and bent to inhale the large, dark chocolate cock waiting for him. Sucking avidly, the young man quickly got it wet then crawled up Tyr's body and snagged the lube off the table next to the bed. "So, where ya want me?"

"I already told you, I want to watch you pleasure yourself on me." Tyr watched Harper avidly. "Ride me, Harper. Make yourself come with me deep inside you." His hands rose to curve lightly around his lover's hips.

"Oh hell!" came the weak response. Suddenly a truly wicked idea sprang into the young man's mind. Taking one of Tyr's hands, he lovingly lubed the older man's fingers then moved the hand so it was behind him. Holding it steady, Harper sank down on the slim digits, 'preparing himself' to ride his big man. "Kinda like this?" he gasped quietly as the fingers nudged his prostate.

"Then you'd better be prepared for a second act, Pet, because you will come with my cock in you." Despite the threat - or promise? - Tyr's fingers were moving, stroking the clinging channel, spreading the slickness of the gel inside him. "So beautiful," he purred, watching Harper's face as the pleasure raced through him.

"Yeah, right, what have you been sniffing?" Harper replied caustically before choking on a gasp. "Frig, Tyr, you keep that up, and I am gonna cum at this rate!" he whimpered as the fingers once more grazed his prostate.

With a strangulated moan Harper lifted himself up off those too wicked fingers and, smearing the precum over the tip of Tyr's erection as he held it steady, impaled himself. Sinking down rapidly, he bottomed out as he felt the wiry curls of the Nietzschean's groin abrade his spread asscheeks. "Oh yeah, come to Harper, big boy!"

Even overwhelmed by sensation as he was, Tyr paused to shoot a look of disbelief at Harper. "We really need to talk about your vocabulary," he muttered. "Later." His fingers clenched on his lover's hips, holding him down as his back arched, driving him the last tiny fraction into Harper. "Ride me," he groaned, "take me."

Hot brown eyes remained focused on the smaller man, watching every flicker of expression, every tiny shudder. His grip loosened, still holding Harper but more a support now than keeping him still.

Setting a slow, almost maddening pace, Harper did as he was bade. Bending backwards to brace his hands on the iron thighs behind him, the younger man raised and lowered himself at a pace that even drove him insane with its passivity. "You like me just the way I am, and you know it," he gasped as the considerable length found his prostate again and again, enough to caress it but not to give him what he really wanted.

However, Harper was enjoying the look of tortured frustration on the older man's face and was willing to delay his own desperately needed release just to tease and play with Tyr. After all, the captain only said to ride him, he didn't say how fast or slow!

Tyr glared at the other man, knowing that he was doing it on purpose. Still, even though he felt like the frustration and building pleasure might kill him, it was all worth it. He enjoyed every moment they spent together... well, except when he had to look at what Harper considered attractive clothes. A naked Harper though... His eyes ran over the blond, and he growled softly.

Deciding to beat his bratty lover at his own game, he lay back comfortably, his hands rising to toy gently with the rigid pink nipples. He smiled at the gasp that provoked, pulling and twisting a little harder for a moment before returning to lightly flicking his thumbs over the nubbins of flesh.

Harper gasped at the sensation, the slight pleasure pain making him even more desperate for relief than he had been a few seconds ago. The bastard! Eyes narrowing as he realized the challenge had been accepted, Harper decided it was time for Tyr to experience the full scope of some of his training.

Shifting his body weight around, Harper balanced himself on one hand, the other snaking back and behind to roll and caress Tyr's balls, every once in a while straying further to the dark crevice he'd yet to explore. Hmmm - next time he'd wake Tyr up with his tongue in the older man's ass. After he'd gotten his newest 'improvement' done in medical. Rommie had already agreed to help him tomorrow as soon as Tyr left in the morning. He'd need a full day for the nanobots to heal him.

Shaking off his reverie, the former slave began to undulate his ass muscles, squeezing and releasing the impaling pole of flesh, milking the older man for all he was worth. No way was he gonna let a Nietzschean beat him at his own game!

Groaning, Tyr arched up under Harper, driving into him, the rippling of the muscles encasing him driving him higher and higher. Since he'd told Harper to take what he wanted, and he seemed to want to make Tyr come, it would be the captain's pleasure to oblige him. A guttural moan escaped him as his whole body tensed then shuddered, his seed fountaining forth inside the other man.

Sated, he smiled up at Harper with heavy-lidded eyes. "Mmm, I needed that. Now I can sleep. Thank you."

Harper's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me? Oh really, Mr. High and Mighty Nietzschean?" Harper was pissed, beyond pissed, he was furious. Games were one thing, but when it came to this damned insatiable need, a need that Tyr had caused to be reborn in him, the bastard knew that he needed relief and often.

Well fine, if he wanted to play it that way... "So glad your little whore could oblige you. Anyone you'd like me to service while I'm at it? Agravaine perhaps? Maybe the entire Officer staff?"

Harper suddenly found himself on his back beneath a furious Nietzschean. "No one touches you," he snarled. "You know damned well I would never leave you wanting, but if you ever threaten me with going to someone else again..." He stopped, realizing that this was about to go much too far for something that had started as a game.

"You are mine," he growled, slamming his renewed erection into Harper. "Don't you ever forget it!"

Harper looked up at the older man, eyes wide and shocked. How had this gotten so far out of hand? How had it evolved into something ugly and hurtful? Moaning as he felt himself taken hard and fast, he found his relief quickly, his need too intense not to allow him that. But it was a hollow relief, one he'd never thought he'd feel again. Not since falling in love with the overbearing lout above him.

As soon as Tyr had come a second time and had released him, Harper was off the bed and glaring down at the older man. "You would never leave me wanting; you rolled over and tried to go to sleep, damn you! And for the record, I love you; the only way anyone else would ever have me is through rape, and believe me, I know the difference very well indeed. You are such a prick, Tyr. Christ, why do I love you? Tell me, please? Why are you as essential to my life as breathing oxygen, eating, sleeping, the blood in my veins?

"On second thought, don't answer because right now I don't give a fuck. I'm sleeping on the Maru tonight!" Hastily pulling on a pair of sleep pants, the younger man fumbled with the locked door, the sheen of tears in his eyes making it hard to see anything at all.

Before Harper could get the door open, Tyr was there, his arms around the smaller man, holding him. "I'm sorry," he breathed. "I never meant... I only wanted to tease you a little." He sighed, eyes closing briefly. "We keep hurting each other without meaning to.

"Loving is difficult."

Harper sagged, collapsing back against his lover. "D-don't say it unless you mean it, 'kay?" he whispered quietly. "I can handle you not loving me. Have been used to being not loved. But for you to say that then change your mind... it would kill me, Tyr. Please mean it, okay?"

Whirling, Harper wrapped himself, limpet like, around Tyr, clinging to the older man and letting silent tears seep through tightly closed lashes. "You've become everything to me. I love you so much!"

Tyr held Harper close, arms wrapped tightly around him and cheek resting on the blond hair. "I... I am happiest when I'm with you, even just sitting and talking. I don't ever want to be without you, and your happiness matters more to me than anything. I think I would die to protect you, Harper."

"Okay, can we change the subject on the whole dying thing, please?" Harper replied as he drew back a bit. "Kinda want you around for a good long time, okay? Guess this means you're stuck with a crazy human, don't it, big guy?"

Returning his head to its position on Tyr's breastbone, he squeezed tightly. "I'm really sorry I acted a jerk. I guess I just get a little nuts when, well, when I feel like I'm being treated like a slave again. Especially now that you've made me feel more important than one. I'll try not to overreact again, okay? And I sure as hell won't suggest... well, you know," he finished off in a mumble, ashamed of his actions. He did know better, he really did.

"I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I never meant to." Tyr stared down at Harper, eyes serious. "I forget sometimes that things might seem different to you because of your past. Understand this, I do not think of you as a slave. You are my mate."

"You say the sweetest things," the human teased coyly, trying to lighten the mood and get them back on an even keel. "Talk dirty to me some more, Tyr; you know what that does to me."

The Nietzschean had to laugh. That was his Harper, one minute angry, the next affectionate and demanding. "Should I tell you how much I enjoy being inside you then, how hot and tight and clinging you are? How I feel you trying to take me deeper and deeper, wanting more, demanding more..." He ran his hand up and down Harper's back, pulling him closer, pressing his renewed erection into his lover.

Harper purred and writhed against the Nietzschean, the hot, dark words making him shiver with need. "This mean we're gonna have make up sex now? You know, the hot, sweaty, writhing in animal heat kind that makes me scream until my throat is sore and you growl and purr and make those really sexy noises?"

Reaching up to grab a handful of braids in each fist, the younger man tugged Tyr not over to the bed but into a chair. "Variety is the spice of life, you know that, right?" Harper teased as he straddled the Nietzschean's lap. "But I don't feel like riding this time, switch positions."

Yanking Tyr up again, Harper sat on the chair, scooted his hips forward, hooked his legs over either arm and placed his hands behind his head. Smiling up at him, the human purred. "See anything you like?"

Tyr sank down to kneel in front of the chair, his head moving forward so he could lick Harper. "Mmmmmm, yes." The very tip of his tongue trailed along the length of Harper's rapidly filling erection, then moved lower. He toyed with his lover's sac, sucking on the balls, then rolling them on his tongue. He licked the sensitive skin of the human's perineum, teasing the squirming man, then moved on to the still loose muscle between the wide-spread cheeks.

He probed inside, tasting the lubricant they'd used, himself, and beneath it all, Harper. His tongue stabbed into the other man several times, making Harper whimper, then he stood up and pushed into his lover.

Hands braced on the back of the chair above Harper's head, he smiled down at the blond. "I definitely like what I see." His hips began to move back and forth, possessing Harper, making both of them gasp in pleasure.

"Gl-glad to he-ar it," the human moaned his hands moving to twine with Tyr's. "Lo, love you." Panting and arching up into the thrusts, Harper moaned, his eyes locking onto Tyr's and watching the passion turn the older man's eyes black and scorching.

"Ha-arder, oh god, Tyr, please, fuck me, need it, need you always!" the human begged, wrapping his legs around perfect, muscular hips and using his own legs to lever himself up to thrust.

Tyr couldn't quite bring himself to say the words, but his feelings shone in his eyes as he watched Harper. He could count the length of time he'd known the human in weeks, yet it seemed as if Harper had always been part of his life. He couldn't imagine being without him any more.

"Always," he repeated. He caught Harper's rhythm and drove into him over and over, pleasure racing through his veins. It was as if this man had been made for him, more perfect than any genetically engineered fellow Nietzschean could ever be. He lowered his head between his outstretched arms and licked at Harper's lips, his tongue flicking over the moist, parted flesh.

He watched him avidly, wanting to see Harper come, to watch the ecstasy overwhelm him and to know that Harper was his.

"So good," the human moaned, his eyes becoming heavy lidded as his breath came in heavy pants and caught in his throat. The need consumed him, fire-like in its intensity, burning as brightly as a star going nova. "Yours, all yours!" the confession came out in a strangled scream as his back arched, his toes curled and his whole body went ramrod stiff before the softening that came with orgasm.

Melting, his bones dissolving into the chair, leaving him liquefied and pliant, Harper's hands tiredly squeezed his mate's. "No one but you, ever again. On my life I swear it!"

Tyr stared into Harper's eyes as his own orgasm overwhelmed him. He wished he could make the same promise, but he knew that he would take another wife and have children. Harper held his heart though.

When his arms and legs would again support him, Tyr stood up, separating from Harper. He scooped the other man into his arms and carried him back to the bed. Laying him down, he settled at his side. "Get some sleep," he urged. "I have a little while before I have to get back to the bridge."

"What about you? You need to sleep too, no matter how much of a 'superman' you are," Harper yawned, snuggling into the tall frame with the ease of familiarity. He'd gotten very used to having a Nietzschean pillow, a Nietzschean everything for that matter.

"Don't deserve you, you know, don't deserve to be this happy. Just a kludge after all, and a pretty scrawny one at that. Gonna make you sure you never, ever regret me, don't want you to leave me, ever," the younger man confessed quietly, his eyes drifting shut and his breathing evening out. "Love you, life," and with that he was asleep.

Tyr lay watching Harper sleep for a time, needing this quiet time together more than he needed sleep. "I think I love you too," he said so quietly that Harper couldn't have heard him even if he had been awake. Finally, he closed his eyes and slept, knowing he still had a couple of hours before he had to return to the bridge.

Harper yawned and stretched, scratching his chest as he reached out for Tyr, only to find the Nietzschean gone. "Damn. Back on the bridge, I bet. Christ, why can't we just attack the freakin' Orcas and get it over with. Damn the bitch," he growled unhappily. All he really wanted was some time alone with Tyr, even a day would do at this point, just the two of them, alone. Not that that was going to happen any time soon, dammit.

With a groan, he rolled out of bed and stood up, heading for the shower. Oh well, no time like the present to do what he wanted and surprise Tyr, hopefully, if his lover ever stepped off the bridge again before Harper had turned old and grey.

"Hey, Rommie, you got time to do what we talked about? I can meet you in medical as soon as I grab a shower."

"I'll be waiting for you, Harper. Are you sure about this? It will take a full day with the nanobots working from almost immediately afterwards for you to heal."

"It's not like I've got anything to do, or anyone for that matter," the human groused as he stepped under the hot spray.

"Very well, Harper, medical in twenty minutes."

An hour later Harper was back in the captain's quarters, sprawled out on the bed and trying to ignore the throbbing in his tongue and around his navel. Damn, why had he decided he wanted to do this again? Piercings were painful, fuck it all, even with a local anesthetic and nano-technology healing him. He almost wished he had the Nietzschean version, but those were designed for Nietzschean hosts only.

Footsteps were the only warning Harper had before Loki appeared beside him. The young Nietzschean peered at the human curiously. He extended a finger and poked gingerly at the piercing visible at Harper's navel. "Doesn't that hurt?"

"OWWWWWW! owowowowowowoowwow!" Harper bellowed as he jumped and moved away from the brat's fingers. "Dammit, Loki, didn't anyone ever tell you look but don't touch?" Harper managed to get out around his swollen tongue. "You're tryin' to kill me, aren't you?

Loki's eyes widened when he saw the tongue piercing. "By the makers! That's..." He couldn't find words to describe it. "Why would you do something like that? Do you enjoy damaging yourself?"

"No, I don't, not particularly," the human groused. Realizing that the kid wasn't going to go away until he got an answer, any answer, Harper sighed and sat up. "I did it for your father, okay; he likes to... look, among other things, and he'll find these, ummm, pleasing to the senses. It's a surprise.

"And why aren't you in classes with your siblings? Don't you Nietzscheans have philosophy school or something?"

"My schooling is finished for the day. Normally, I would spend time with my siblings, or my father if he were home, but we see each other often now. Since you seem important to my father, I wanted to get to know you better." Loki perched on the side of the bed, staring at Harper, clearly waiting for the human to say something interesting. He had decided to leave the issue of his father liking to look at Harper for a later time.

"Umm, well, now is kinda a bad time, Loki. I mean, Rommie said I shouldn't talk too much until the nanobots had time to heal my tongue, and I shouldn't move around that much either," Harper replied quickly.

The way Loki was eyeing his midriff shirt and his low riding jersey shorts was actually making him feel like - well, like a piece of rare meat on a dinner plate in front of a hungry Nietzschean. Christ, if that was what Tyr looked like when he was younger, how had he managed to wait until twelve years ago to start to breed?

"Tell ya what, tomorrow you can start helping me on my little project, okay? And then we can get to know each other all you want." Harper only hoped he wasn't suggesting they get to know each other carnally; god only knew what a Nietzschean hormonally active teen considered a come on line!

Loki eyed Harper curiously. "All right. But I still don't see why the ship needs a body that looks like its hologram. It has done fine with featureless androids until now." He shrugged, dismissing the matter as unimportant. He placed one hand on Harper's bare midriff curiously.

"I don't see what's so different about you that fascinates my father." He looked up inquisitively, apparently waiting for Harper to explain it.

Harper's stomach muscles contracted, shying away from the teen's touch. It felt strange to let anyone but Tyr touch him - especially Tyr's son! Finally giving into the urge to move, Harper slid out from underneath Loki's hand and put considerable space between the Nietzschean and himself.

"And that's something that I can't explain to you either, Loki. Your father and I just... click. Call it chemistry, animal magnetism or maybe something as simple as we were meant for each other. Maybe the whole reason I was born was so that I could be with your dad, I don't know. All I know is that we are and that your father is the only one for me."

Loki frowned, clearly not understanding. He stood up, moving toward Harper, intent on figuring it out.

"Loki!"

The roar stopped the pre-teen in his tracks, outstretched hand just short of touching Harper. He glanced almost fearfully over his shoulder at his father. "Father. I-"

"I don't care. Listen to me very carefully. My son or not, I will cut your hand off if you ever touch Harper again against his will." Possessive rage flamed in Tyr's eyes, and he pushed past his son to hug Harper, only to stop and stare at the navel ring he hadn't noticed until that moment.

"I-it's all right, Tyr, he was just curious is all," Harper replied softly, clambering off the bed to get between father and son and avoid bloodshed.

"He wanted to know why you liked me so much. It's flattering, kinda, that he wants to know. He just wanted to get to know me, nothing devastating, and he didn't touch me at all, really," Harper continued to babble as he tried desperately to soothe the pissed off captain and calm the situation down some. Last thing he wanted was to come between Tyr and his son. However, he completely forgot about his piercings, so when he bit his tongue in frustration, he let out a little yelp of pain as the still throbbing flesh protested its abuse.

Tyr instantly focused on Harper. "What's wrong?"

"He has a piercing in his tongue too," Loki announced.

"Last time I try to save your hide, kid," Harper muttered under his breath before looking from father to son and back then hightailing it into the bathroom and slamming the door behind him. So much for surprising Tyr with a hot and mind blowing blow job!

Tyr's eyebrows rose as he stared after his fleeing lover. He pushed Loki out the room, telling him they would discuss this later, and locked the door so that no one except him or Harper could open it. Then he followed Harper, stepping inside and wrapping his arms around him.

"You didn't really think I wouldn't notice, did you?"

"Was kinda hoping to 'show' you before you noticed, okay? I've been told that having a tongue piercing gives the most incredible sensations to someone who's being blown. Wanted to surprise you," Harper sulked, his lower lip quivering as he stared back at Tyr through the mirror.

"You did surprise me," Tyr murmured, lowering his head to nibble at the sensitive area where Harper's neck curved into his shoulder. "And I'm looking forward to feeling that when you're healed. In the meantime, I want you..." He pressed his erection against Harper's ass, letting him know how much he wanted him but leaving it up to Harper whether anything happened.

"Gee, there's a shock!" Harper teased lightly, his hands stroking back and forth over Tyr's arms, fingers tracing and playing with his forearm spikes.

"How much longer 'til we find and kill the bitch, Tyr?" Harper asked suddenly, changing topics. "I just... call me selfish, but I want to have you all to myself without my slavery, Freya, Orca or anything else hanging over our heads. I want some peace and quiet with just you and me and no interruptions or needing to be on the bridge twenty out of twenty-four hours in the day. I kinda want to get to know the man I fell in love with, you know?"

Tyr sighed, stepping back, suddenly losing interest in sex. "Then you'll be pleased to know that we are planning to attack the Orca stronghold tomorrow. When we come out of slipstream the next time, we will be in striking range.

"My information says that neither Freya nor Guderian is present right now." He looked up, meeting Harper's eyes in the mirror. "They are away with a new slave they both seem much taken with. From the description, it is likely your friend, Rafe Valentine."

"Oh god! Does Bek know? Jesus, Tyr, that's her older brother; he took care of her after their dad died and practically raised her. Oh god, oh fuck, I know, I know what they're doing to him. I know how they break a slave and... and..." Harper's eyes were wide and wild with terror; that brief little sentence managed to shatter his illusion of control and let the memories come flooding back. Memories of training and conditioning, of how the Orcas would break a person's will and spirit even as they broke the body.

To be born into slavery and to have that done to you was bad enough. To be a child and to know nothing else was even more horrible. But to be a free man, an adult who'd known nothing but freedom his entire life... "We gotta save him, Tyr. Oh my god, I gotta do something. He was nice to me! He looked after me and healed me and protected me! Please, Tyr!"

Large, protective arms wrapped around the human and pulled him tightly against a broad chest. "I know, Harper, I know. I promise you I'll help you find him. I owe him for keeping you safe for me, and I want to feel Guderian die between my hands for what he did to my pride. We will find them and bring your friend back."

Harper whimpered, whirling around to bury his face in the older man's shoulder, trying to hold back the shivers of terror as his mind raced from memory to memory. It made him want to find a dark closet and hide in it, a corner that he could back himself into and protect himself from being taken somehow. Instead he clung to Tyr, to his lover, his lifeline to sanity.

"They hurt you and... do things to you. They use psychotropic drugs and hallucinogens to weaken your mind and leave you vulnerable, and then they have," Harper choked on the word, "gangs of people who get to use you until you're used to being a whore for them. Then when you're broken, they start to train you to please them. And teach you how to find pleasure in it too. They pervert and corrupt you and leave you a shell.

"That's what they did to me, and I was just a child. For someone like Rafe, it's a million times worse, Tyr. I watched them try and break a free man once, a long time ago. He went so crazy they had to put him down 'cause he was trying to hurt himself, hurt them, hurt the other slaves. They snapped his mind. I don't want that to happen to Rafe."

Tyr could only hold Harper. He knew he couldn't promise that they'd be able to prevent that happening to Rafe. For all they knew, it might already be too late for the man. He would, however, do everything in his power to save Rafe Valentine if he was still alive when they caught up to Freya and Guderian.

"We'll do everything we can to prevent that, Harper. And I swear to you that they will never touch you again." Tyr knew he would never allow anything to happen to Harper. He couldn't. The very thought made him almost quake.

"I know you won't, Tyr," Harper replied softly, cuddling further into the hard frame. But if they wanted to catch Freya and Guderian faster, they'd need something that the two Orcas wanted more than even Rafe Valentine. That meant being bait.

But there was no way Tyr would go for it. Hell, he'd kill anyone who even looked at Harper funny let alone... but Beka, Dylan and Trance would back him up. Tomorrow, when the majority of the remaining Kodiak warriors were seeking retribution on the Orca stronghold.

Maybe Agravaine Rhade would help them too; if not, Harper's bodyguard would have to be tricked into being left behind. It was a good plan, one that would work. Harper could leave a latent command in Rommie's memory banks, one that would be triggered when Tyr returned, one that would give him the frequency of the tracking device he'd implant into himself on the Maru.

Tyr would find him, of that Harper had no doubt, and he could endure if it meant saving Rafe. He only hoped that Tyr would forgive him, someday. "Tyr, I need you, please. Love me?"

Tyr could hear the desperation in his lover's voice, but he assumed it was because of the memories and empathy for his friend, a human failing. He drew Harper closer, tilting the smaller man's head up so he could kiss him, more than willing to make him forget everything except the pleasure they gave each other.

He led Harper back to the other room where he slowly stripped the clothes from his body, nibbling and kissing each exposed inch of flesh. Once Harper was naked, he removed his own clothes, pleasantly aware of Harper's eyes on him. When he met the human's gaze, however, he saw that the pain and worry were still there, though shadowed by his growing pleasure.

Harper's distress gave him the impetus to do something he'd been considering for a while. The Nietzschean knelt on the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss his now prone lover. "Would you like to take me?" he murmured against Harper's lips.

"What do you mean, take you?" Harper looked up at the bigger man quizzically, until the heat in Tyr's eyes and the myriad meanings those softly spoken words contained processed. Gasping, he stared up at the Nietzschean, not really believing what he heard.

"T-take you? You mean like you take me? Tyr, you want me to make love to you?" the younger man stuttered, in shock, even as his body hardened rapidly. "I've never, I mean I have once or twice when I was with other slaves, but that wasn't making love; that was fucking, and I wouldn't want to mess this up or hurt you or..."

Yanking the Nietzschean captain down by his braids, Harper proceeded to devour Tyr's mouth, showing him beyond a shadow of a doubt how much he 'liked' the idea, ignoring, for the moment, the slight throbbing in his tongue caused by the piercing. A little pain was well worth the pleasure of tasting his Tyr.

Tyr cooperated enthusiastically. He enjoyed it when Harper became more aggressive. His arms wrapped around his lover, and he rolled them over so that he was lying beneath the human. "I'll take that as a yes," he laughed, dancing eyes staring up at the other man. "So how do you want me?" His head rose for a moment to kiss Harper, then he sprawled beneath him.

"I, ummm, I want to see you; I need to see you, okay?" Harper requested softly as he began to trace his lover's face with his fingers, mapping Tyr's features and memorizing them... just in case.

"You are beautiful, you know. Even when I hated you that first day, when you captured us, I still thought so. I remember looking up and seeing you and getting an instant hard on, which scared the shit out of me since I hadn't had one in, oh, about three years, ever since Bek and Dylan helped me get it under control," the young man confessed.

Sliding down the hard frame, not waiting for an answer, Harper began to map the hard, Nietzschean body with lips and fingers, trying to avoid using his tongue for the most part, taking his time to explore every inch of Tyr from head downwards. He wanted to remember everything, explore and taste and feel every part of his lover.

"You know what did it? What made me love you even when I didn't want to? You came after me," Harper purred as he gave in and lapped at dusky brown nipple, feeling the bitter sweet bite of a body still healing, although the nanobots had taken a sharp pain and lessened it to a dull throb by now. "No one's ever cared that much about me, well, that could do anything about it that is, to come after me. Even if I was only a possession at the time, I was still yours, and when I saw you across the room, I knew, in my heart, that I was. Was one of the reasons I rabbited the way I did. You scared me half to death!"

Moving down further, the human nuzzled his way through wiry soft curls, then licked his way up the large erection before him, lightly running the steel ball embedded in his tongue up the sensitive vein beneath. "This is so big, I could hardly believe it had fit, but it fit so well. Like I was made for it, to be taken by you that way. And the feelings, Tyr, you blew my mind. Not even when I was being - rebellious - could I deny that you made me feel better than I had ever felt in my life. Sexy, you know? And desirable and so hot, so incredibly hot. You made my toes curl and my bones melt.

"And now, now you want me to take you. You trust me enough to do that. I can't begin to describe the feeling. It's... I love you so much," Harper husked, as he rose to blanket the older man's body as best he could once more, his eyes glistening with moisture. "My life, my everything. You are, you know."

One large hand rose to cup Harper's face, holding him still while Tyr stared into his eyes. "How could I not come after you? Even then, not knowing how much you would come to mean to me, I knew that I couldn't lose you, could not allow you to be harmed. I could no more leave you than I could... could enter slipstream without a ship!"

His fingers wove through the short, spiky blond hair, and he tugged Harper's head down to him. His tongue delved deep, seeking out and claiming every inch of his lover's mouth, leaving the human panting when he finally laid his head back down.

His arms were crossed behind his head, pillowing it, and his legs were spread and raised, his knees pressing against Harper's hips. A smug smile curved his lips as he lay waiting for Harper's next move.

"You are so damned sure of yourself, aren't you?" Harper chuckled as he rubbed his cock back and forth over Tyr's, feeling their precum mix together to form a wet glide of flesh. "How could I possibly resist that?"

Still chuckling, Harper reached for the lubricant and squirted it into his hand to warm it. "You're also easy; look at you splayed out like that," Harper continued to tease as he slid a moistened finger down his lover's ass and slipped between to tease the muscle.

"Fuck, Tyr, you're tight," Harper groaned. "Can't wait to be in you. Can't..." Harper's lubricated hand stroked his own erection roughly then positioned it between Tyr's ass cheeks. Finding the tight pucker, he slid in with a thready moan. "Minnne."

Tyr rose up into the thrust, taking Harper deeper, then sank down again. "Oh yes," he groaned, "so very good." His eyes, which had shut at the incredible sensation of Harper sinking into him, opened again and focused on the pale blue ones staring down at him.

"I'll never be like this with anyone else again," Tyr vowed, promising Harper that this much, at least, would be his alone.

"You'd damn well better not!" Harper growled, slamming into the Nietzschean as he surged upwards, biting the older man above his heart, marking Tyr as his and his alone. "I may have to share you with wives you need to take and children you need to father, but this is mine, damn you!" Harper snarled furiously, almost insane with jealousy at being reminded just how little of Tyr he really had.

The Nietzschean gasped, his teeth catching his lower lip as Harper took him hard. "No one else, no other lovers, never again." His hands ran over Harper's body, exploring him, a finger sliding inside him as Tyr rode the rigid length plunging into his depths. "Only want you." His throat arched as the pleasure grew, and he caught one of Harper's hands, drawing it to his aching cock.

"No other lovers..." Harper laughed quietly, his anger nowhere near assuaged. Maybe no other lovers, but there would be wives; he wasn't completely ignorant. Harper knew what being alpha of Pride Kodiak meant: it meant he had to prove his virility, and there was one of two ways - children and wives or children and lovers. Tyr was giving up lovers, which meant that he'd have to have children, and that meant more wives. Tyr would never be exclusively his. Never.

Hips slamming harder into the older man, Harper forgot his need to be gentle, to learn Tyr in case something went wrong. He was hell bent on claiming the Nietzschean, making sure that Tyr never forgot him under any circumstances. Especially when he was off procreating with some Nietzschean bitch.

"Mine, mine, mine, mine!" he snarled over and over again, taking Tyr harder and faster, his hand mimicking the action of his hips, claiming the older man as thoroughly as one little human could.

Groaning and thrashing, the Nietzschean came, his body convulsing beneath his lover, clamping down on the rigid length filling him. Even then he continued to move, wanting to share that pleasure with Harper. The human's roughness, though nothing compared to what a Nietzschean was capable of, still gave Tyr an idea of what Harper was feeling, and he gave Harper what he could.

As his body milked his lover's, Tyr looked up into his eyes and said, "I love you."

"Oh god!" Harper crumbled, even as those desperately wanted words caused him to go over the edge and find his own release, pouring everything he was into Tyr. Collapsing onto the strong body beneath him, Harper held on for dear life, tears streaming as he begged for forgiveness of his insane jealousy, promising to never be selfish again, just so long as Tyr never took it back.

Tyr held Harper to him tightly, soothing and petting him, slowly calming till he lay quietly in his embrace. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I know you want more, deserve more, but..." To give up his place in the pride, to not procreate, would be to deny everything that made him Nietzschean. Even if he could, it would destroy him.

"I never expected to feel this," he admitted. "You are my weakness, Harper, something that matters more to me than my own survival." He shook his head. "I don't think we need share that with anyone else. Just... be careful. I don't want to lose you." His arms tightened convulsively.

"I'm trying, Tyr; I really am. I know you have to do what your genetic imperative demands, and I know why you need to do it. It's just... hard. I'm selfish. Now that I've found the most wonderful thing in the galaxy, a person who loves me, who wants me, I want to keep you mine forever. But that can't happen. Just don't... I don't want to know who, okay, or how many. Leave me on the Andromeda when you finally get around to... I don't want to know," Harper begged quietly.

"And I'm learning how to take care of myself. Dylan's teaching me stuff - about self-defense, and Bek's teaching me how to shoot a gauze rifle, and Agravaine is watching me 24-7 when you're not around. I'm protected," at least until I give Agravaine the slip and make myself into bait, the younger man thought with a twinge of guilt. But Rafe was his friend, and Rafe needed help. Help that Harper was probably the only one qualified to give.

Tyr smiled slightly. "I wondered when you were going to tell me about your combat lessons. No, the ship did not tell me. Did you really think that I wouldn't recognize the bruising?" He shook his head.

"As for the other... that will be separate from us. I promise you that." He tucked the blond head under his chin, just holding him.

Trying to shake the suddenly somber mood, he teased, "So, should I assume you like it this way too?"

"Variety is the spice of life, Tyr," Harper grinned at his mate then stretched upwards to kiss the full, pouting lips and rub his almost smooth cheek against Tyr's beard roughened one, purring. "But only once in a while. I kinda prefer you taking me. You're just so damn butch!"

That drew a chuckle from the Nietzschean. "You won't find too many weak Nietzscheans," he pointed out. "And I'll be more than happy to take you as often as you want." A hand ran possessively over Harper's ass. "I like being here."

"Really? Couldn't tell," Harper sassed, snuggling into the lean frame then yelping as his still tender navel ring caught and was pulled slightly. "Owwwowowowowow. Why the hell did I get this again?"

"I wouldn't know since you haven't seen fit to share that information with me," Tyr replied, still a little surprised that Harper had chosen to get the two piercings. "Not that I mind the occasional surprise, especially not one that makes you even sexier, Pet." He stroked Harper lightly. "I'll be happy when the nanobots complete healing your tongue and I can kiss you properly again though."

"Tomorrow morning," Harper replied softly. "Whether they're finished healing me or not, you kiss me before you go, okay?" Little did the younger man know but he sounded more like a frightened child than anything else at that moment. And he was frightened.

Harper knew Tyr would survive, of that he had no doubt. It was his own survival that was questionable. If Freya or Guderian ever got their hands on him, he wouldn't survive the hour, let alone a day or long enough for Tyr to ride to the rescue. Not this time. This time he was well and truly on his own.

Hearing the fear in Harper's voice, Tyr frowned, but he assumed that it was for him. "The Orca are not strong enough to harm me, Harper. I intend to come back to you." He held Harper tightly to him, stroking him soothingly. "You will be safe here, with my children. All that I care about, aside from my pride, is here in one place. I won't be gone long, Pe-Harper."

"You'll still kiss me goodbye," Harper demanded fiercely, not willing to tell Tyr about his plans.

"With pleasure," Tyr said quietly, arms tightening around his lover. "Kissing you is never difficult. Now sleep."

"I... I'll have enough time to sleep when you're gone. I just want to be with you, Tyr. We haven't had any time together since this all began. Talk to me, tell me about growing up in the prides, about growing up free? Please?"

Sighing, Tyr realized that he was not going to get any sleep that night. Fortunately he was well rested, so it would not affect him in the next day's battle. He sat up, settling himself comfortably against the headboard, then pulled Harper back into his arms. He urged Harper to settle against him, head on his shoulder, as he began to speak. He described his childhood, picking and choosing the details to share with Harper, telling him about his parents and siblings, talking until Harper dozed off in his arms.

He stared down at the blond head fondly, pressing a light kiss on him before closing his own eyes to get what sleep he could.

Morning came far too early for Harper. He watched silently as Tyr girded for battle, even assisted where he could. His own plans were in readiness; Dylan, Beka and Trance had done most of the preparations, all but the weapons, which Harper had to take care of himself.

It hadn't taken much to rewire a couple of deactivated androids to register as still deactivated as they carried the weapons through the ship, and it was a common sight to see what with the attack that was being mounted. He'd overridden the codes on the weapons lockers and had the androids install them on the Maru, Andromeda Ascendant and the Nietzschean crew none the wiser. If Harper's plan worked, then the weapons would be discharged, and the Maru wouldn't be carrying any when it re-docked, and the missing weapons would be considered used in battle.

Now all Harper had to do was wait for the Nietzschean assault force to leave, taking Tyr with them. "Never thought I'd say this, but you look gorgeous all dressed up to kill," he joked lamely, trying desperately to lighten the mood as he tied Tyr's hair back from his face in a thick tail.

Tyr smiled crookedly and wrapped an arm around Harper's waist pulling him closer. "I think it's time for that kiss now." He took Harper's mouth hungrily, as eager for him as if they hadn't spent themselves already that morning. When he finally raised his head, he smirked down at the dazed human. "There, that will inspire me to finish off the Orca quickly so I can come back to you and continue where we left off." Another quick kiss pressed to Harper's swollen lips and he was gone.

It had been fairly easy to convince Rommie that he and the other humans were bored and just wanted to take the Maru out for old times' sake. For once Harper was glad of Loki's interest because it meant that he'd been able to ask Agravaine to escort the younger Nietzschean back to his lessons, thereby giving them an easier time to make their escape. Rommie's sensors were focused on the battle below on the Orca colony, so she couldn't react to the Maru going into slipstream until it was too late. Harper's fingers flew over the computer pad, his cyberjack feeding him information at a phenomenal rate. Trajectories, variables, the complete list of Orca's worlds, the slave camps, the training centers, all the information that was burned into his brain from decades of enslavement and years of specialized assignments thanks to his above average intelligence. After half an hour of frantic searching Harper knew where Freya and Guderian had taken Rafe.

"They took him back to the installation I was trained at," he choked out, collapsing, exhausted, into Dylan's arms.

Exchanging a worried glance with Beka, Dylan held the younger man, who seemed to be running on pure nervous energy. "Harper... maybe you should go back to the Andromeda and let us go after Rafe. Going back there..." He trailed off, unsure how to express his concern. He was afraid that facing his past would be too much for Harper. Seeing him this last while, happy, had made Dylan realize how tightly strung Harper had always been. Strange that he had a Nietzschean to thank for his happiness, when it was Nietzscheans who had caused his misery.

"No, you're gonna need me. I know things. Things I wasn't supposed to. Blueprints, schematics, security codes, where to go, where to look, what conduits go where. And Rafe is my friend, Dylan, I don't have many of 'em, so I really wanna keep the ones I've got.

"Besides," Harper's voice cracked, "I'm the only one who's going into his cell, the rest of you are staying outside until... until I say you can come in. I've seen what happens, experienced it, but you haven't, and he won't want you to... see," the young human choked.

Beka cringed, thinking of her big brother in that state, remembering how Harper had been when they found him. "Oh Rafe..." The tiny cry escaped her, and Dylan moved to her side, wrapping his arms around her.

"We'll find him, Bek. I promise you." He refused to believe otherwise, refused to consider a universe without Beka's practical joking older brother in it. "But not at the cost of you, Harper. Losing one to save one is not a good bargain. Both of you have to come out of there... sane."

"Hey, I've got no arguments, big guy; however, considering what I'm gonna have waiting for me, one royally ticked off Nietzschean, crazy may be what I am now," the engineer tried to joke with a wry grin.

"Listen, I'm gonna try and get some sleep, okay; wake me up before we come out of slip stream." Beka watched as the younger man disappeared down a corridor to his old set of rooms. "He's right, Anasazi is gonna be less than impressed. Hopefully he'll take it out on us, though, and not Harper. The kid's heart is way too big for that little body, and he wears it on his sleeve. He's gonna get it smashed one of these days.

"We're not going to be able to do this alone, Dylan, no matter what Harper says. We've got enough of a head start that it'll take the Andromeda at least a good two hours to get to us, longer if they're still fighting. We need to send our coordinates back to Rommie so that she can follow. We're gonna need them."

Dylan nodded. "It might save our lives too, if we let Anasazi know where Harper is. I never thought I'd say this, but I think he really does love the kid, and he is going to be incredibly pissed that he's in danger." He sighed. "What a messed up universe when I can't even hate a Nietzschean alpha anymore.

"Send the coordinates, Bek. The less time that captain has to stew about where Harper is, the better for all concerned."

"And after I do, how 'bout we let Trance watch the ship for a while and you hold me, please?" the blonde captain asked softly, the strain of the situation at last making itself known in her fractured voice. "I... I need to be held, Dylan; I hate it, but I do. He's my brother," she got out on a choked sob before wheeling and racing to the helm to send the coordinates back to the Andromeda Ascendant.

Dylan followed, standing behind her, his arms around her waist. "You don't always have to be strong and take everything alone, Bek. I'm here for you. I love you, Captain Valentine. We will get your brother back, love, I swear it.

"How could we fail?" he teased, trying to cheer her up. "With two Valentines, me, Harper and Trance, nothing can stop us. And having a very pissed off Nietzschean coming behind us doesn't hurt either."

"Not to mention the last High Guard ship in existence," the captain grinned wanly. "Now let me get this message off, and then you can take me back to our cabin and teach me how to 'share' my feelings."

"Incoming transmission, Captain. It's the Maru; she's giving us her slipstream coordinates and destination," Andromeda informed a very, very irate captain as he prowled the bridge, his crew remaining discreetly out of range of his arms, or body or even pulse gun.

Tyr stiffened, freezing motionless and silent for a long moment while the entire bridge crew seemingly held their breath. "Follow them," he growled, then resumed pacing the bridge. No one dared say a word, not wanting to draw his attention, which would likely be lethal just now.

Many crew members wondered at their captain's rage at the flight of a mere kludge, but others, those who'd seen Tyr and Harper together and had a better idea of how things really stood between them, wondered what was really going on.

Tyr growled frequently as he stalked back and forth in the confined space, mentally plotting how he would teach Harper not to ever again do anything this foolhardy.

Harper grasped his force lance tightly, his finger on the discharge button as he motioned the women to stay back a bit and Dylan to come halfway down the hall. "That slave I talked to? I knew him kinda well. He said... Freya's asleep in her quarters, but Guderian is in there with, with Rafe. Giving him another lesson," Harper all but spat the last out. "I don't want the girls to have any idea, Dylan, so don't let them past this point, no matter what happens. If I don't come out in five minutes, run like hell and don't stop 'til you're back at the Andromeda, okay?"

Knowing it was the only way Harper would remain even slightly in control of himself, Dylan agreed, but he had no intention of leaving without Harper. He liked the kid, and even if he didn't, going back to the Andromeda without Harper would be a death sentence for all of them.

They'd all be leaving together, Harper and Rafe included, or none of them would leave. "Be careful, Harper. Don't make me have to tell that big Nietzschean that I lost you," he teased, trying to draw a smile from his friend.

Harper nodded tersely and crept stealthily forward, all his years of trying to be as unobtrusive as possible paying off in a way he never expected. Glancing back over his shoulder, he nodded once to the first officer of the Maru and slipped inside the training room.

Dylan wondered if he was making a mistake, if he should have insisted on accompanying Harper. Would he be strong enough to face his demons, both his childhood and his recent experiences with the two Orcas? He took an uncertain step forward, then stopped.

No. Harper was a grown man, and Dylan had to let him do this. He was the best hope of rescuing Rafe.

Normally it would have been described as a scene out of someone's worst nightmare, but for Harper it was far worse. It was a scene out of his past, a memory he'd refused to revisit until now.

Rafe was strapped to an odd-looking table with cranks and levers that supported his back and head and kept his legs spread-eagled open. It could be raised, lowered, flipped, brought vertical in either direction and folded almost in half. It simulated every sexual position known and then some that the Nietzschean trainers were sick enough to create. The walls were lined with a multitude of sex toys in a vast array of sizes as well as those toys that would cause pain. Probes, prods, electrodes, piercing equipment, lashes, paddles, belts, tongs, clamps, weights, razors and even knives and wire-laced whips. It was a room meant to break, not to bend, and it had broken Harper once upon a time.

Strobe lights flashed in the semi-darkness, their purpose to confuse and disorient the victim. There were vid screens showing others who had been broken before, the lewd acts they performed with a variety of creatures and races, both sentient and non-sentient. Everything was orchestrated to devalue, dehumanize, desensitize and destroy a human's will to fight. And the process worked. Guderian was standing over Rafe; the older Valentine's body was contorted and forced to feel the sick and perverted pleasure that the Nietzschean was forcing on him. Just like it had been forced on Harper.

A low, almost inhuman growl started low in the former slave's throat, becoming something full of rage, pain and insanity, something that was definitely not human. Guderian heard, but it was too late. The force lance was activated, and Harper struck with all the strength his madness provided. Decades of pain, abuse, rape, and torture poured out in a violent wave. The weapon discharged time and again, and the blunt end broke bones, shattered even a Nietzschean skull as Harper battled and destroyed his demons, pouring all his rage and hate out onto the now dead Orca Pride alpha.

The sounds coming from that room made Dylan change his mind, and he almost ran down the hall and through the door, only to stop so abruptly that he almost fell when he saw what was inside. Horrified by the implements of pain that decorated the walls much like a medieval torture chamber on Earth, it was a moment before he registered the bloody, shredded thing that had once been a Nietzschean.

When he could drag his gaze away, he didn't know which man needed his help more. Rafe lay unconscious in his restraints, a handle sticking out of his ass, blood dripping from the many lash marks on his body, and Harper sat huddled on the floor in a pool of blood and other things he didn't want to inspect too closely, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking, unblinking eyes fixed on nothing.

"Dear God!" He hurriedly released Rafe, talking to Harper all the while with no response. Nearly frantic, he managed to get Harper on his feet and had Rafe over his shoulder, somehow getting them all out of that room that would star in his nightmares for the rest of his life and back to the Maru.

Beka and Trance didn't say a word as they moved to flank the big man and his grisly wards. Beka, in fact, refused to even look in Rafe's direction beyond a cursory glance, a smile to show she wasn't disgusted with him, and a quick jab of a hypodermic to send him out cold.

"As soon as we're back on the Maru, I want them both checked out completely, Trance," the captain ordered in a tight voice. "And fix them, god, please fix them," she choked. "Don't worry, Beka, I have this feeling that everything will be okay. It may take some time, but you'll see. Things will work out," the purple-skinned woman told her friend with a mysterious smile before allowing her eyes to be drawn back to Beka's brother. A gentle hand came out to brush damp and matted hair aside. "Everything will be just fine, I promise."

He knew Beka needed comforting right now, but Dylan felt like he would claw his skin off if he didn't shower. He could feel the blood and horror of that room on him, and even though he knew it was in his mind, he couldn't bear it. With a choked explanation he bolted from the room to the quarters he shared with Beka, ripping his clothes off as soon as he entered the room, knowing he would never wear them again.

He stood under the shower, scrubbing and scrubbing until his skin was raw, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw that room and felt the filth of it on him.

Beka fought the urge to go after Dylan, to check up on Harper and Rafe, to scream. She had a ship to pilot, and any minute now Rafe's escape would be discovered, and the Maru would be detected, and... As if on cue the warning klaxon sounded as a phalanx of Nietzschean fighters launched from the installation. "FUCK! Where the hell is our back up when we really need the over-hormoned human!"

Never one to miss a cue, Andromeda's graceful shape suddenly dropped into the region out of slipstream, weapons firing as Tyr both attacked those who had massacred his pride and protected his mate. Guderian's death had the Orcas in enough disarray that he was able to take advantage of his unexpected arrival to destroy most of the enemy ships.

The Andromeda took a few hits, but the outcome was never in doubt. Less than an hour later, Tyr's image filled the viewscreen on every ship as he demanded the surrender of the remaining Orcas.

That settled, Tyr set out in a slip fighter for the Maru, needing to see Harper again. His seconds would make sure that the Orcas were taken care of, and they would bring Freya aboard to await his justice.

Dylan had taken control of the almost catatonic young man, taking Harper back to his quarters and gently scrubbing him clean, changing him into a spare outfit kept on the Maru for when he got too dirty working on her engines. He even stayed with the younger man until he'd heard that Tyr had docked and then had beat a hasty retreat to keep Beka company where she kept silent vigil over her still unconscious brother, leaving Trance to show Tyr the way to Harper's rooms.

Harper sat in the corner of his bunk, rocking back and forth, his head resting on his knees and his arms curled protectively around them. He was vaguely aware of things going on around him, his body being cleaned and dressed, being moved and put on the bed, but for the most part he was trying to work his way through the miasma of memories, nightmares and the past few hours in order to find his way home to something important that he knew was waiting for him.

Tyr stepped into the room, his eyes immediately focusing on Harper and widening in dismay. He moved with incredible speed to his lover's side, not even noticing when Trance stepped back and left them alone, activating a privacy lock. If Harper was lost to the horrors in his own mind, Tyr would rip Freya and Guderian to shreds with his bare hands.

"Harper?" he called softly, trying to draw the engineer back to him.

The voice was familiar; it was warm and made him think of comfort and happiness and good things. The hands were gentle as they touched him, and he unthinkingly crawled into the strong embrace, settling himself on a lap and snuggling his face into the crook of a neck.

Breathing deeply, the scent Harper smelled triggered something; he knew this person, on a bone deep, soul deep level. Everything about this man made him want to remember, to crawl back out of the nice, safe hiding place he'd found in his mind and face the galaxy again, if for no other reason than that feeling.

Harper's response to him gave Tyr hope, and he gathered his lover closer, surrounding him protectively with his own body. He stroked Harper comfortingly, talking to him, telling him about how angry and afraid he'd been when he'd discovered him missing, how much he loved him, that they were really going to have to do something about Loki's current obsession with him, saying anything that came into his head.

"Please, Harper, come back. Talk to me. Let me see you looking back at me out those big blue eyes."

"Green," Harper muttered, relaxing into the protective embrace.

Tyr almost reared back, startled by Harper's reply. "And thus you see the proof of Nietzschean superiority. We are not colorblind," he teased, hoping Harper would continue to respond.

"Are too, m'eyes are green as the grass of Ireland, or so mama used to tell me," the younger man replied. "Stop moving; I'm finally comfortable for the first time since you woke me up this morning."

Tyr stilled, not sure how to take that. Had Harper forgotten everything that had happened that day? And what had happened? "You could have been comfortable if you'd stayed in our quarters where I left you," he probed delicately.

"Couldn't leave Rafe there, not when I knew what was happening to him," the former slave whispered painfully, his body suddenly wracked with shivers. Crowding deeper into his lover's embrace, Harper wondered if he'd ever get warm again, not quite realizing that shock had finally set in.

Teeth chattering, he continued. "Was just like it was when I was there. Only thing different was that it was Guderian, not my trainer. I killed him. I really killed a Nietzschean. I think I'm gonna be sick." That said, Harper bolted out of Tyr's embrace and made it to the tiny washroom just in time to lose the contents of his stomach from the past three days.

"Guderian's dead?" Tyr was startled enough to remain where he was for a moment before following Harper. He wet a cloth with cool water and wiped his lover's face with it when he straightened up, then got him a glass of water to rinse his mouth. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"NO!" Harper nearly shouted. It was still too fresh, he could almost smell the blood and gray matter on his hands and face and clothes and... "I just wanna go home, please?" he mewled softly, turning to bury his face in the captain's mesh vest, breathing in Tyr's scent in order to overpower the mental smell that remained.

Still worried, Tyr scooped his human lover up into his arms and carried him out to the control room. As he'd hoped, the humans had steered the Maru back to the Andromeda while he and Harper were otherwise occupied, and he was able to carry Harper out of the ship and toward their quarters. "Almost there, love."

Whimpering quietly, Harper just clung to the older man, wanting to be alone with his lover, to be in their bed, their rooms, safe from harm.

"ANASAZI!" Freya's shriek could be heard halfway down the corridor.

Tyr glanced at one of his crewmembers. "Silence her. Keep her quiet and restrained until I am ready to deal with her." That said, he continued to their quarters, Freya completely dismissed from his mind.

"He killed Guderian; he's an Orca slave. He will die for it, Anasazi, and for humiliating me. The pride has declared blood feud," the enraged woman continued, not realizing when to quit. Harper shivered and tried to hide himself deeper in his lover's arms. A blood feud. Every Orca alive wanting him dead. Oh Jesus!

Tyr stopped and turned slightly to look over his shoulder at the raving female. "For that alone, even had you not already attacked Kodiak, I would destroy every living Orca." Waiting only long enough to see the understanding dawn in her eyes, Tyr drew his gun, easily supporting Harper with one arm, and shot her.

"Remove that refuse from my ship."

As easily as that he wiped Freya from his mind and carried his shivering lover into their cabin. "They'll never get near you, Harper."

"But she said, they must have seen, any children that survive," the human rattled out, his mind whirling. It had been an overwhelming day, to say the least, and it was barely twenty hours since it started. "I just want to go to bed and cuddle. Can I deal with the rest of the galaxy tomorrow, or never?"

"There won't be an Orca left alive to bother you," Tyr vowed as he laid Harper on the bed and settled beside him, one arm holding him close. "I won't let anyone hurt you."

"I won't have you killing babies to protect me, either. Maybe - can they get adopted into Kodiak? Or some other pride? I don't want anyone who isn't old enough to defend themselves to die, Tyr. Please?" Harper beseeched his lover plaintively. "I couldn't live with myself if you did that."

Tyr frowned. "I am not comfortable with the idea of leaving an enemy alive. It is not wise. But I suppose if we get them young enough, teach them to be Kodiak and watch them carefully, it shouldn't be too much of a disaster." He pulled Harper closer. "Now get some sleep. You said yourself that you were tired."

"They're kids, Tyr, babies for cryin' out loud!" Harper exclaimed, aghast. "What if it were Loki or Skadi? Would you want them to die because the Kodiaks declared blood feud on the human lover of a pride alpha and that pride alpha ordered them wiped out?"

"They are Nietzscheans, Harper. I don't think you really understand what the means, even now. They will remember, and someday, they will attempt to avenge their pride." He frowned again. "Although, if adopted and accepted in Kodiak, they could someday be permitted to breed and chosen by one of ours, which might outweigh the death of the Orca Pride. We shall see."

"I just... I just don't want anyone to die because of me. I am just a kludge, after all," Harper replied softly, staring blankly out at the room but somehow managing to find the space in Tyr's body to crawl back just a little further, bury himself just a little deeper into the captain's embrace.

"I'm tired now," the human continued softly, closing his eyes and willing himself to sleep, trying to somehow forget the memories that had resurfaced along with the new ones formed by the events of the day.

"You are not a kludge," Tyr growled, made even angrier by the realization that to any other Nietzschean Harper was exactly that. "I'll do whatever I can for the children, Harper." For you, he didn't add. He held Harper tightly, protectively, trying not to think about how close he'd come to losing him that day.

"Thank you," Harper whispered, rolling in the larger man's arms to face Tyr, nuzzling his face into the Nietzschean's chest. "I'm sorry I snuck out on you, but I had to save Rafe. What they did to him, what they did to me and every other slave... it's wrong, Tyr. We're not just kludges. We may not be as genetically perfect as Nietzscheans, but when it comes right down to our basic genes, our species, we're all human."

Tyr stroked the spiky blond hair tenderly. "Perhaps someday we'll all get along, but it won't be in our lifetime. Homo sapiens, of any variety, is prone to killing what's different. And there's no denying that we are different, Harper." He rubbed the spikes on his arm gently against his lover as a reminder.

"But you and I found a way to get along," the younger man pointed out stubbornly. "We even found a way to fall in love, Tyr."

"Individuals are easy... relatively," the Nietzschean added, remembering how they'd started. "Entire races are somewhat more difficult. But there's hope as long as individuals can learn to get along."

"Tyr, never knew you could be such a romantic," Harper teased on a huge yawn. "Forgive me?"

The big Nietzschean looked insulted. "I am not romantic." He growled at the very idea. "Go to sleep, Harper. You're growing delusional."

Harper burst into a fit of exhausted giggles, more punch drunk then delusional. "Just so long as you fuck me in the morning," he grinned before falling promptly asleep.

"As if there was any doubt." Tyr snorted quietly before he too fell asleep, his arms wrapped protectively, possessively, around his mate.

The next morning Tyr woke up first, as usual, and watched Harper sleeping. Only at these moments was the young human still, and Tyr enjoyed cataloguing his appearance as he could never manage to do while Harper was awake, the vivid personality overwhelming all else.

Rolling onto his side, Harper whimpered softly, his head thrashing back and forth as the nightmare came back. Alone, naked, in a cage, his neck on fire and then the door opening and huge arms, arm spikes, being lifted, forced, moved, taken, forced, taught, trained. Trained to like it, to lo... "NO!"

"Harper!" Tyr held his lover down, trying to wake him from the nightmare that had suddenly overtaken him. "Wake up, Harper, it's just a dream." He held the thrashing, yelling man, talking to him, reminding him of where he was.

"No! Get away, get away from me!" Harper bellowed, slapping at the arms that restrained him. "Let me go, please, please don't hurt me, don't... Tyr?" Harper sobbed softly, "Oh God, Tyr!" Throwing himself into his lover's arms, he broke out sobbing, wrapping himself limpet like around the Nietzschean.

Tyr held him protectively, stroking and soothing him, murmuring words of comfort. "It's all right; it was just a dream; you're safe now, Harper. I have you." He wished again that Guderian was alive so he could kill him slowly for what he'd done to Harper.

"Will it ever stop? Will I be able to forget again?" the young man whimpered quietly, shivering in his lover's arms.

"Forget? Probably not. But in time it will fade and lose the sharpness, and the nightmares will stop. For now, you have me to distract you. And I believe you said something last night about wanted to be fucked this morning." Tyr rolled Harper back onto his back and stretched out above him.

"Please," the human whimpered quietly, desperately. "Tyr, please, I need you. In me, over me, fucking me, taking me. Claim me, Tyr, make me forget about everything but you. I want to hear only you, see only you, feel just you, only you. Please!"

"In this bed, there is only me, only us together," Tyr vowed, taking Harper's mouth possessively even as he reached for the lubricant. Hearing Harper beg for him had him as hard as a rock, and he wanted to be in his luscious lover. He slicked himself quickly, then slowed down slightly to prepare Harper thoroughly despite the engineer's pleas to just do it. Soon, he was positioned, with Harper's legs over his shoulders, and he pushed into him, not stopping until his balls were pressed tightly to Harper's ass.

Instantly, he set up a hard, fast rhythm, neither man wanting a long, slow session just then.

Harper arched his back and pushed down trying, impossibly, to have Tyr in him deeper, to somehow be swallowed up by the huge Nietzschean over and in and surrounding him. The human's eyes never closed; he watched Tyr with an intensity that was almost frightening. He needed to know this was Tyr, his lover, his love, the only Nietzschean who'd ever looked beneath the surface and saw more than 'kludge', had seen instead 'mate'.

Reaching above his head to where Tyr's hands were braced on the headboard, Harper ran his fingers along each of the spikes, mapping their shape with touch alone, before returning to Tyr's hands and wriggling underneath so that they were swallowed and held by his lover. "Love you, Tyr Anasazi," he managed to gasp out as he let the need he normally tried to keep so tightly under control race free.

Tyr lowered his head to lick at Harper's lips, brown eyes never looking away from blue. "I love you too, Harper," he said fervently an instant before his body stiffened and drove deep in his lover, paroxysms of pleasure wracking him. His fingers tightened around Harper's, nearly crushing them though neither man noticed.

Wailing as his own body shuddered and contracted at the first splash of the Nietzschean's seed within him, Harper's eyes fluttered closed, not able to look any longer as the sensations crashed over him. "God, TYR!" he screamed softly, his whole body sweat soaked and limp with sated exhaustion. "Everything," the human whispered hoarsely after long moments of catching his breath. "My family, my life, you're everything. Never let me go, please? Never let me go back to what I was before you loved me?"

Tyr growled at the thought. "I'll never let you go for any reason," he swore, allowing himself to slump over the human rather than rolling them over, though he did lower Harper's legs to make him more comfortable. He needed to hold Harper just then, to surround him with his own body and know that he was his.

"Good answer, big guy," Harper joked weakly as he tried to crawl inside the captain. "After all I may be small by Nietzschean standards, but I can take down an alpha when I've a mind to..."

The sob caught him unawares. He didn't regret what he'd done; he'd never regret saving Rafe and killing Guderian, but he'd never killed anyone before, except for the odd Magog, and they were... Harper shuddered; disgusting and living nightmares didn't come close to describing Magog.

But he'd never killed a human before. He ached at the loss of that particular innocence.

Tyr held Harper, covering him with his own body, trying to let him know he was safe. He didn't know what to do to help the human; this kind of regret for saving oneself was not something a Nietzschean could understand. Regardless of his own feelings, however, he knew that this was tearing Harper up inside, and there was nothing he could do except hold him and be with him.

"I'd prefer that you concentrate on this alpha," he joked weakly, trying to cheer the human up.

"Kinda hard not to, "Harper replied with a watery smile, brushing tears aside. "You're kinda hard to ignore, ya know? And what did you mean you'd have to do something about Loki's crush - what crush?" the younger man continued, willingly letting the subject drop.

This was something he'd have to work out on his own or maybe talk to Dylan about. It was a human trait, after all, not Nietzschean, so Harper doubted that Tyr had any frame of reference for this type of guilt.

Tyr raised his head and eyed Harper oddly. "You cannot mean to tell me that you are unaware of my son's fixation on you? He follows you around like a man obsessed. Why did you think he was so fascinated by this?" flicking the navel piercing.

"I think he's his father's son," Harper chuckled, his voice gone low and husky with desire. "And I know you're fascinated with it. And let's not talk about obsessions, Mr. MINE!," he teased.

"The difference," Tyr replied in a near growl, "is that you are mine. I shall talk to Loki before he goes beyond what I am willing to overlook." Angered by the thought, he took Harper's mouth, needing the tactile reminder that Harper was here and his.

The younger human just laughed quietly, enjoying Tyr's ravishment of his mouth. When the ship's captain finally let him breathe on his own again, he grinned and grabbed onto two handfuls of lush braids.

"Loki's trying to emulate you. I'm exotic and different and safe because I am yours. He's trying his wings, Tyr, and sees me as a safe and acceptable outlet. Trust me to know how to handle this, please? And to know when to put on the brakes and tell him he's gone too far?"

Tyr growled again, reluctantly nodding his agreement. He thought Harper was discounting Nietzschean strength rather too easily, especially when driven by teenaged hormones, so he reminded himself to have the ship watch Harper at all times and notify him if things looked to be getting out of hand.

"I trust you, Harper. It's Loki I'm not so sure of, at least not around you," was all he said.

He finally rolled over onto his back, bringing Harper with him. Once the human was comfortably settled on him as usual, he relaxed into the pillows, petting him absently. "With the Orcas destroyed, now Kodiak must rebuild. It's going to be a difficult task," he mused.

"Yeah, but you seem to be the kind of person to thrive on a challenge. Look at me," Harper teased. "Tell me I didn't nearly turn your hair grey before you broke me."

Tyr snorted. "As if a mere human could challenge me," he scoffed. Seeing the gathering frown on Harper's face, his laughter broke free. "And if you try to convince me that you're 'broken', I'll send you to medical for a complete evaluation," he chuckled.

Smiling ruefully, Harper had to agree. "Okay, so you didn't 'break' me, and you sure as hell didn't tame me either. Conquer? Nahhh. Ummm control?" Harper snorted, "as if. I guess the only thing you really did, other than fuck me blind, was love me. I can live with that."

"That's a good thing since you really don't have any choice," Tyr replied in a good facsimile of his early arrogant attitude toward the human. "You made me love you, so now you're stuck with me," he added with a smile, tilting Harper's face up so he could kiss him.

"I made you? Me, a mere kludge, made the great Captain Anasazi fall in love with a human? Gotta be one for the record books," Harper sassed when he was finally permitted oxygen again.

"I begin to understand the meaning of the term 'brat'," Tyr replied. He chuckled at the look that got him, then stood up, easily bringing Harper with him and swinging him into his arms. "Shower," he said definitely. "You smell."

"Yeah, and like you're not pretty ripe yourself," the younger man replied haughtily. "Just for that you can wash my back, my front and even my feet!"

The Nietzschean laughed. He couldn't remember a shower they'd shared where they hadn't washed one another, so that was hardly a threat. Yes, life was finally getting back to normal. He smiled.

Harper shook his head, snuggling into the strong arms. "And you call me a brat?" he sighed in weary exaggeration.

"Of course I do. Nietzscheans call them the way we see them," Tyr teased.

"Jerk!" Harper rounded, beating his fists lightly against Tyr's back. "I must love you to put up with all that arrogance and conceit; there's no other explanation for me lowering my standards to love a Nietzschean of all beings!"

"It's Nietzschean superiority," Tyr replied, holding back a grin. "You realized just how lucky you were to get me."

"Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" Harper replied, thoroughly nauseated. "You keep this up and I'm gonna hurl; that's just stomach curdling."

Tyr chuckled. "Well, if you do, you'll be spending the day in medical instead of on the bridge with me. Assuming you want to, of course."

"The bridge?" Harper's head snapped around and his eyes lit up. "Really? I can, you mean you'll let me, I mean, YES!"

"Then hurry up and finish that shower," Tyr replied, stepping out. "I should be there soon."

"Hey! What about washing my back?" Harper replied, throwing one of the cleaning sponges at Tyr's retreating back. "And what do you mean, be there soon?"

Tyr glanced back, smiling as his eyes ran over Harper's naked form. "Duty shifts. You may have heard of them? It's almost time for mine."

A short time later, dressed in one of the damned tight Nietzschean outfits that Tyr had ordered for him, Harper hovered outside the door to the command deck, more than a little uncomfortable of his clothes, his position and the looks he was getting from the crew of the Andromeda.

"Maybe this was a bad idea, umm, Rommie? Tell Tyr I changed my mind and decided to spend the day in his quarters, okay?" the engineer asked softly, chickening out.

"I don't think so," the captain replied from behind him, herding Harper onto the bridge. He kept a firm grasp on his lover's wrist as he drew him over to the command station, knowing that Harper's love of all things mechanical would distract him once he got him there.

"But, Tyr, I'm a kludge," Harper whispered, aware of the stares and angry looks out of the corner of other Nietzscheans' eyes. "We're not allowed on bridges or... Hell, you're not supposed to act like you care about me, remember? You're their alpha."

Tyr growled softly. "You are my lover. You're not going to spend the rest of your life hiding in our quarters." He looked around the bridge, meeting every crewmember's eyes. "Does anyone wish to challenge me?"

Silence was his reply, no one looking away but no one willing to challenge him either. This was Tyr Anasazi, and if he wanted to make a kludge into a lover, they would grow accustomed to it.

Harper stood there, wide eyed and in shock. No one had ever done anything like that for him, ever! Tyr just kept doing these wonderful things that made him love the Nietzschean more and more each day... and part of Harper was terrified that his world was gonna come crashing down around him in a big way.

Tyr shifted his grip on Harper, settling for an arm around his waist now as he pointed out some of the Andromeda's features to the engineer. He loved seeing the interest spark in those blue eyes and the way Harper grew more animated as he started to ask questions. Those questions rapidly passed beyond the captain's basic engineering knowledge, but one of the Nietzschean engineers had been listening.

Startled and even somewhat impressed by the human's knowledge, the engineer stepped forward. "You can get a better idea from the engineering section," he offered, knowing that by suggesting it, he was making himself responsible for the safety of his captain's human.

"Really? That would rock!!" Harper all but jumped up and down. "I've been keeping that bucket of bolts, the Maru, flying for so long I think I've forgotten what a real slipstream engine room looks like. Tyr?" he asked, his heart in his eyes, "Please?"

Tyr could not have refused that look, and fortunately he had no desire to. "Go ahead, Harper. Just try not to disassemble my ship!" he teased, smiling faintly.

"Hey! I'll have you know that I'm the best damn engine jockey in the galaxy! Why do you think the Orcas kept a skinny little kludge like me alive?" he retorted indignantly.

Tyr let his gaze warm as it raked over Harper's body, but he made sure no one else could see, not wanting to make things harder for his lover than they already were. "Go, amuse yourself with the engines. I know you've wanted to get down there since you set foot on this ship." And maybe the engineers will respect your abilities enough to let you work with them.

"Don't worry, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's engines, and they'll respect me for that if nothing else," Harper replied quietly when he saw the concern in the captain's eyes. "Besides I already proved I know more than your chief engineer, and I was just getting warmed up. They may not think much of my race but they will of my mind."

Tyr smiled. "My ship couldn't be in better hands." Throwing caution to the winds, he leaned down and kissed Harper quickly. "Just don't forget to find your way home afterward."

"Sure, Tyr, whatever you say," Harper replied, already distracted by what he wanted to look at and what he wanted to do. "Hey, Rommie, you think I can interface with you again and get your opinion on things?"

"Of course, Harper, I would be grateful for any input you might have. You kept the Maru's systems in amazingly operational condition despite how ancient it was." 

"Thanks, Rommie, but it really wasn't that hard..." Harper's voice faded out as he walked after the chief engineer while carrying on an incredibly technical conversation with the ship's AI and understanding everything she said.

 There had been a shift change some time ago, and his stomach was rumbling in protest of lack of food, but Harper was beyond such physical needs as food, sleep and sex - not necessarily in that order. He was in love. With the ship. The young man was elbow deep in the bowels of the ship, his mind partially in reality, partially in the cyberworld Andromeda existed in as she watched him delicately repair a messy little glitch that had been driving her quietly mad for the past fifty years, and Harper repaired it with the finesse of a savant.

Rommie sighed, an almost exact copy of a moan of ecstasy, as her internal communication systems lost that annoying buzz it had. "Oh, that's much better, Seamus. Thank you!"

"Anytime, babe, any time at all!" the engineer grinned.

Tyr stood a few feet back, watching Harper, seeing how happy he was and how much in his element. He'd come looking for his errant lover when the shift changed with no sign of Harper in their quarters, but he hadn't had the heart to interrupt when he arrived. Harper looked more purely happy than he ever had before.

"Are you ever planning to come out of here again?" he asked dryly once it was clear the operation was over. "Or should I be jealous?"

Extracting himself from the wires and filaments, Harper carefully replaced the panel then launched himself at the captain. "Thank you, oh god, thanks for one of the best days of my life, Tyr. It was... this was... I wish I could do this all the time. I can't begin to describe how being able to help Rommie and do stuff again, really use my abilities felt. I love you."

Tyr's arms closed around the blond missile that had just hit him. "I'd say that I'd do whatever necessary to let you repeat the experience, but I think you've taken care of that on your own. A wise captain never interferes with the men and women who keep his ship in working order."

The shift leader stepped forward. "If you wish to continue, Seamus Harper, we will assign you a duty shift."

Harper's head shot up as he looked at the other Nietzschean, his face gone slack with surprise and his eyes bright with unshed tears. "I... I'd like that. A lot. Thanks," he rasped out before turning to Tyr. "Get me out of here, please? Before I start to bawl?"

Tyr hugged him tightly. "Send a message to my quarters to let him know his shift," he said quietly to the engineer, waiting for the nod before turning and leading Harper out of the section and back to their quarters. The moment the door closed behind them, he activated privacy and swung Harper up into his arms.

He settled onto his favorite chair, Harper curled up in his lap, and he smiled down at his lover. "It takes a lot to impress them, Harper. You must be even better than you keep telling me you are," he teased.

"God, Tyr," the younger man choked, torn between laughter and tears. "It felt so good - I mean they're Nietzscheans, and I'm a human, and they respected me. Me! It was wonderful, and it scared the shit out of me. Does this mean I'm finally starting to fit in around here?"

Cuddling closer into the huge frame of his lover, Harper laid his head down on the huge chest of the captain. "It's been an amazing day, and I'm really beginning to feel like - well, like I've got a home at last."

"Wherever I am, you will always have a home, Harper," Tyr vowed.

END

  since 02-17-07

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