Harper groaned as he headed down the corridor to his
quarters. He rotated his right shoulder, trying to loosen
the giant knot that his neck muscle was tied in, starting
at his interface port and continuing down his shoulder and
upper arm, not to mention his back. His entire body had
been a massive ache since Jeger had jammed that laser probe
into his access port. Every nerve had felt like it was on
fire. The probe was gone, but good luck telling his body
that.

Between the aches, pains and the lack of sleep -- that
library database had come up with some real humdinger
nightmares -- he hadn't been able to do more than just play
around with the X1 thingy he'd started building while under
the influence. He wished he'd made some notes while doing
it, since he didn't remember much of what had happened over
the last day or so. But in a way, figuring it out on his
own was going to be more fun.

As for the library, that was taken care of. So hopefully no
nightmares tonight. He'd safely tucked away the data,
except for the file that had caused all their trouble. That
one, he'd given to Dylan. As for the rest of the library,
who knew; maybe someday he'd even tell someone where he'd
stashed it. Maybe.

Then again, maybe not.

In the meantime there was nothing he wanted more than a
really hot, really long shower and a good night's sleep. A
sleep undisturbed by stray images.

The door to his quarters swished open as he reached them
and he went in, shedding clothing as he headed for the
shower. A moment later, he was standing under the spray
with the temperature set to parboil and every massage
feature turned on. He sighed happily. *This* was true
bliss. Well, at least as close as he was ever going to get
to it.

Unfortunately, happiness never lasted. Eventually he
reached the point where if he stayed in the shower any
longer he would shrivel up until he could wash down the
drain. He turned off the water reluctantly, then stepped
out and grabbed a towel. He used it to blot the water from
his body and hair, then wrapped it around his waist.

Feeling a little better, but still aching, what he wanted
right then was bed. Blissful, wonderful bed. Whoever had
invented the concept of a bed should be elevated to
sainthood. No, *god*-hood.

Yawning widely and trying to slow his brain down, he went
looking for his bed.

"Harper."

The soft, deep voice was definitely out of place in the
dark room. Harper nearly jumped out of the skin, twisting
around quickly to face the ship's big, buff, bad
Nietzschean and Harper's occasional bed-partner. "Geez," he
gasped. "What are you trying to do, give me a heart
attack?"

Tyr just looked at him with that solemn but somehow smug
expression that seemed to say "A Nietzschean would have
noticed me before I spoke" or "Only inferiors have heart
attacks."

Normally he found that attitude amusing, but not tonight.
Tonight he hurt and all he wanted was to go to bed. He
could see it behind Tyr. Unfortunately, Tyr still hadn't
shifted, not one teeny-tiny bit, nor had he said a word. He
just stood there, arms crossed over his chest, glowering.
Bare chest, Harper noted, carefully controlling his drool.

"Gee, who stuck a bee in your bonnet?" Harper asked
snidely, trying to detour around the large, breathing
obstacle in the middle of his room. The response was a soft
sound that could only be called a growl. He shot a glance
at Tyr, but the man's expression was now studiously blank.

"Okay, that does it. I am *not* in the mood to play twenty
questions," Harper finally said. "If you want to say
something, say it. Otherwise, I'm going to bed."

"You called her pretty."

Harper hadn't really expected an answer and this one didn't
make a heck of a lot of sense. "Who?" he asked.

Tyr growled again, but didn't answer. Instead, Harper was
left searching his memory. Then it hit him and he had to
laugh. "Actually, I called her beautiful. *Then* I called
her pretty." Of course, Beka had just cut him down from
where Jeger had strung him up for the torture session.

The growling intensified. In fact, if he didn't know better
he could have sworn that the big oaf was jealous. Of
course, Nietzscheans didn't get jealous, especially over
scrawny human engineers. Didn't stop him from needling the
man, though. "What's the matter? You don't think Beka is
pretty?"

Tyr opened his mouth, then shut it again, treating Harper
to the rare sight of a speechless Tyr Anasazi.

But like all truly rare events, it was fleeting. Tyr's
expression darkened and he moved swiftly. Before Harper
could react, he found himself draped over Tyr's shoulder,
staring at a butt that put his own skinny ass to shame. He
winced and shifted as best he could. Tyr's shoulder was
hard.

There was a quick tug and his towel hit the ground, leaving
him literally 'bare-assed naked.' At that point, he
expected to be tossed onto the bed and subjected to a bout
of wild, uninhibited sex. It was a tough job, but someone
needed to keep the big guy happy. He would just have to
sacrifice himself for the sake of the ship.

Okay, so the sex was fantastic. Still...

But instead of heading for the bed, Tyr moved forward and
Harper heard the swish of the doors to his quarters opening
as Tyr moved out into the hallway.

"Hey! Wait a minute!"

"Be quiet," Tyr ordered, slapping Harper's ass hard enough
to sting. The rush of head that followed told Harper that
the resulting mark was probably as red as his face and
would be immediately recognizable to anyone who saw it. He
prayed that no one would see it. He prayed *real* hard.

"Hi Tyr! Where are you going?" Trance sounded far too
chipper, but then she usually did.

"My quarters."

"Aren't they the other way?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Okay. Bye!" She swept past, giving Harper cheery wave
as she passed out of his limited field of view. The last he
saw of her was the tip of her tail as she rounded a corner.

"If we're going to your quarters, why are we going the
wrong way?" Harper asked, more than a little dizzy from all
the blood rushing to his head.

"Because I want to take the scenic route," was the dry
response.

"Oh." Harper thought about it for a moment, which wasn't an
easy thing to do considering the bouncing effect as Tyr
walked through the ship's corridors. Uh-oh. "No. No way.
You are *not* parading my naked ass around the ship. Do you
hear me?"

"Then stop me," Tyr said reasonably, then stopped
unexpectedly. "Captain."

"Evening Tyr. Are you enjoying yourself?"

Harper tapped into his stores of curse words at the sound
of the Captain's voice. Dylan didn't sound upset at the
sight of his engineer draped naked over his Nietzschean's
shoulder. In fact, he sounded downright amused.

"Very much."

"Ah. Good. Harper, the communications system seems a little
erratic lately. Could you take a look at it in the
morning."

Harper replied with another string of curses that would
have made even a pirate blush. Somehow, he knew that even
if he could have seen Dylan's face, the man wouldn't have
blinked.

"Thank you. Enjoy your evening, gentlemen."

Tyr passed him and Harper groaned when he saw the very
familiar, very female form next to him. Well, her legs at
least. "Do Nietzscheans' usually engage in this sort of
behavior?" Rommie was asking as she and Dylan continued on
their way.

"Sure. Remember the time when Gaheris..."

Dylan and Rommie rounded the same corner that Trance had
and Harper missed hearing exactly what the ship's former
first officer had done.

"Now what?" he asked through clenched teeth. "Go looking
for the Rev?"

"No," Tyr said in a disgusted tone, already in motion
again. That relieved Harper to no end. The Rev was an okay
guys, considering he was Magog, but Harper had vague
memories of growling something in a language that he didn't
know that had sent the normally calm and cool Rev into a
rage. Besides, the Magog ate humans and he didn't really
want to test the Rev's devotion to 'The Way' by parading,
willingly or not, naked in front of him. It would be like
waving a steak under the nose of a born-again vegetarian.

Harper was about ready to ralf down the back of Tyr's
favorite pair of leather pants when the man finally --
*thankfully* -- came to a stop. Harper felt him reach
forward, then heard the sound of a door buzzer. A moment
later, the door swished open.

"Tyr, what is going on here?"

Harper groaned and wished for a handy brick wall to smash
his forehead against.

Tyr shifted his weight, getting comfortable. "Harper says
he is attracted to you. Do you wish to challenge me for
him?"

"Hey, I said she was attractive, not that I was attracted
to her." Which he was. He was a guy. He certainly wasn't
dead. Still, "Big difference, you know."

"Be quiet, boy." Again, the command was accompanied by a
slap. It wasn't really painful or anything. In fact, the
following rush of heat was kind of sexy, not that he'd ever
tell the man. Of course, the erection digging into Tyr's
chest was probably a bit of a give-away. So he was a bit of
an exhibitionist.

He was *not* going to live this down. He just knew it.

Beka was silent for a moment, and when Harper managed to
twist around to see her face, he was surprised to see that
she seemed to be seriously considering the question. He
wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

Then Beka grinned. "Nah, you keep him," she said. "He's a
little too high maintenance for me."

"Hey!" Harper said, both relieved and insulted at the same
time.

"Be quiet, Harper," Tyr and Beka chorused.

"Great, just great. Stuck on a ship with a bunch of
testosterone-poisoned Alpha types. Amazing that the three
of you haven't killed each other yet. Ouch!" He reached
back and rubbed his ass. It was starting to look like he
wasn't going to be doing anything from a seated position
tomorrow.

"That's all I needed to know," Tyr said.

"Woah!" Harper said as Tyr pivoted fast enough to make his
stomach heave again. "Watch it unless you want a mess all
over the floor."

Tyr grunted, but did slow his pace to something a little
less stomach churning. In short order, another door opened
in front of them and they passed into a dimly-lit space.

Tyr leaned forward and Harper found himself set almost
gently on his feet. He swayed on his feet for a moment as
the blood rushed away from where it had pooled in his head,
then steadied.

Once he was sure that he wasn't going to hurl or collapse,
he glared at Tyr. "You want to explain what the hell *that*
was all about?" he demanded angrily.

Instead of saying anything, Tyr grabbed him by the scruff
of the neck, careful to avoid the burned patches around his
interface port, and hauled him in for a hard kiss. By the
time he was released, Harper was feeling dizzy again.

"You will *never*," the word was punctuated by another
possessive kiss, "do that again. Understood?"

Harper grinned up at the man. "Alright. I promise never to
tell Beka she's pretty again."

Tyr growled softly. "That is not what I meant."

Harper sobered, all his aches and pains forgotten. He knew
exactly what Tyr was talking about. He'd already had this
lecture more than once since his rescue. "It was the right
thing to do."

"You did not believe that we could protect you." Tyr
sounded almost... hurt.

"Are you saying that you wouldn't do the same thing? You
wouldn't sacrifice yourself to protect the ship? The...
pride?"

Tyr was silent for a moment and Harper began to wonder if
that had been the wrong thing to say.

"If there was no other choice," he finally said, "yes."

"Well then--"

"We had not reached that point."

"Says who?" Harper said, bristling. It had been looking
pretty bad from where he'd been sitting. Okay, where he'd
been lying in the Sickbay strapped to a bed.

"Says me," Tyr said firmly. "And if you will not trust
Dylan to know when there is no other choice then trust me."

Harper thought about it. Dylan *was* one of those noble
types who would fight to the last breath instead of
sacrificing a friend. Tyr, on the other hand, was a
Nietzschean, and Nietzscheans were nothing if not realists.
If the sacrifice of one would save the rest, they would
sacrifice with glee. Especially when the someone was
someone else. "Alright," he finally said. "I promise."

"What?"

Harper rolled his eyes. "I promise not to sacrifice myself
for the ship unless you tell me that it's our last hope.
Okay?"

Tyr nodded.

"Good. Now, unless you've got something else on your mind,
I'm going to bed."

All of the sudden, Tyr's expression was pure evil. "A very
good idea," he said, advancing. "In fact, there's one right
behind you."

"I meant *my* bed," Harper said, backing up.

"Are you planning on running through the halls as you are?"
Tyr said, looking him up and down in a pointed reminder
that his towel was lying in a soggy heap of the floor of
his quarters in the next corridor over. Not to mention his
still half-aroused state.

"Hey, streaking has a long and noble history."

Tyr's expression darkened. "You will *not* expose yourself
to everyone."

"This from the man who just paraded me around the ship
bare-assed," Harper shot back. Teasing Tyr -- in more ways
that one -- was becoming his favorite recreational
activity.

Tyr saw it a little differently, though. He advanced,
growling softly, and Harper ducked. He wasn't fast enough
to avoid the other man, though. Instead, he was pulled
tight against that oh-so-firm chest and kissed again. Half-
aroused was quickly becoming an understatement. Despite his
earlier comment, he did kind of like it when Tyr went all
alpha-male.

"That was different," Tyr growled.

Then he released Harper again. All the earlier aches and
pains were fading from consideration as he grinned up at
the man. "Well then, if you don't *want* going back to my
room like this then you better stop me."

He swerved around Tyr, heading for the door, but the
Nietzschean caught him first, wrapping an almost
ridiculously over-muscled arm around his waist. The world
tilted and he found himself airborne for a moment before
landing on Tyr's bed with a grunt and a bounce. The bed
*was* comfy though, so instead of rolling off of it, Harper
rolled over onto his side, curled up and closed his eyes
and did his best imitation of a human going to sleep.

In fact, it was such a good imitation that he was halfway
there when the bed dipped under Tyr's weight and a warm,
naked body spooned up behind him. He sighed happily, even
though he'd missed the strip show. Warm was good. Tyr
reached down and cupped Harper's genitals in his hand
almost protectively. Harper made a happy noise and pressed
back against Tyr.

He could feel the man's erection pressed hard against the
crack of his ass, but Tyr didn't seem to be interested in
doing anything about it. In fact, the only movement he was
making was his thumb, rubbing softly against the underside
of Harper's cock, just enough stimulation to keep him hard
and awake.

It was a very pleasant feeling. Quite different from what
usually happened when they shared a bed. Tyr usually liked
his sex a little on the rough side, although Harper had
never had more than a bite mark to show for it the next
day. Of course, in complete contrast, Tyr also liked to
cuddle after sex. But cuddling first? That was a new one.

The light stroking was intensifying now and Harper's
breathing had quickened. He tried to shift his hips but Tyr
was holding him to tightly to move. "You better be planning
on fucking me or I'm going back to my own quarters," he
said. He shifted his legs, but Tyr moved one of his own to
pin them.

"Be quiet," he said, although there was no accompanying
slap this time. His shifted his hips slightly and his cock
slipped easily between Harper's thighs. He thrust slowly,
leaving smears of pre-cum behind. It was nice, but Harper
wanted more and he was no longer in a mood to cooperate.

More from force of will than body, he managed to twist his
hips so that the next thrust hit close to his asshole. He
growled in frustration and shifted again.

"Easy," Tyr said softly.

"Like hell," he ground out from behind clenched teeth. His
whole body was twitching with need.

The next thrust went exactly where he wanted it and he had
the head of Tyr's cock just barely lodged inside of him,
but Tyr refused to move. He whimpered in frustration and
tried to press back, but the bastard seemed determined not
to cooperate. He twisted his head to the side and bit into
Tyr's bicep hard enough to draw blood.

That got him the reaction he wanted and Tyr slammed forward
so hard that he would have been damaged if they hadn't
already been slick with sweat and pre-cum and he hadn't
done this too many times to count in the past. "Yes," he
hissed around the chunk of flesh he was still worrying with
his teeth.

Gentleness was a thing of the past as Tyr set a relentless
pace matched by his stroking hand. All Harper could do was
lie there and take, which he was more than willing to do.

But he *was* tired and he *was* aching and there was no way
he could last very long. Almost before he was ready, he was
squirting his own fluids all over Tyr's hand and bed.
Seconds later -- or maybe it was minutes -- Tyr's teeth
fastened on *his* shoulder and he could feel the pulsing in
his ass.

Then Tyr pulled out and away, leaving him bare to the now
chilly air. Harper muttered a protest, but couldn't find
the energy to move. But Tyr returned quickly with a warm,
damp cloth. Harper was wiped clean, then carefully tucked
under the covers like a baby. A moment later, Tyr rejoined
him, taking up the same position again.

"Nobody touches what is mine," Harper heard the man mutter
before his breathing evened out into sleep.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said. Still, the sentiment
felt... well, weird but not in a bad way.

Then he followed the man's example.

THE END