Duly disclaimed: characters, setting, etc respectfully borrowed from the owners/creators of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. No profit, just for fun, etc.
Rated M for the first section (and some swearing), but I sincerely believe this is still OK under ff.n's rules. If you believe otherwise (especially if you're a modly type), let me know and I will delete what's here now while I edit it accordingly.
Comments and concrit are more than welcome.
It's dark, and there are candles - scented ones, something musky, heady and intoxicating - and the air is warm and close and smells of sweat and right here right now no arguments. Harper's flat out front-down on the soaking sheets, long beyond coherent thought, and and he can hear that he's trying so damn hard not to growl and it's not really working and somehow, right now, it almost doesn't matter. Almost. The braids have given up on their careful ponytail, and this isn't going to be it, not for a long time, the mood Tyr's in-
Somewhere in the very back of his mind, he knows this is dangerous. Maybe bad dangerous. But the sort of dangerous that stopped mattering when it started feeling so good, and this is still Tyr, after all - Tyr flipped a switch into full-on all-out Alpha mode, maybe, but the same Tyr he knows and trusts: Tyr who rumbles a low, consistent growl when people hurt him, Tyr who he suspects might- just might - risk his own survival to ensure Harper's, Tyr who'll go hard and heavy but never mean to hurt him. Tyr who knows the boundaries. Who's playing the game.
Dangerous game.
He's used to the bone blades, which he can just about see out of the corner of his eye - when his vision clears enough to see anything, just for a moment at a time - he's used to the weight, the firmness (damn hard to find a comfortable place to curl, when he's allowed to curl up; those shoulders are like frigging rocks), the possessiveness. Some days he can even almostget used to the growling. Some days it doesn't immediately remind him of dark alleyways and drunk Ubers who really didn't care whether he was hurting or not.
Tyr does care. Tyr hurts people who hurt him, or wants to, or would given the chance. Some tiny coherent part of Harper's mind is clinging on to that right now.
He's pretty sure he's making noise, possibly noises approximating words - or something that had been words once upon a while ago - but it doesn't really matter right now, and he's so far buried into the pillows (how the fuck many pillows does one rock-solid Nietzschean need, anyway?) that not even Tyr's going to be able to make 'em out anyway, so who the hell cares-
-and there's the growl, Harper knew it was coming, he was ready for it and just at this precise second, thanks a lot, he doesn't care one fucking bit.
The entire universe explodes in one perfect pleasure-pain-pleasure second of shooting stars and broken-wire sparks and everything inside is exhausted freaking mush and- and Tyr, oh god Tyr oh yes keep it comin'-
And oh fucking hell what the crap there are teeth in his neck-
Harper scrambles so hard he might have been burnt, not caring about the fast get-out explosive pain - his own or Tyr's - with a hand clapped to the side of his neck and sheer animal panic in his eyes. The movement came on a wave of sheer petrified adrenaline; he couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to before, with Tyr's solid weight on top of him, but now he's wide awake, heart pounding; all trace of the heady passion is gone in a flicker and Harper's curled up against the pillows, instinctively looking for the best way out, when Tyr makes one of the biggest mistakes of his life and shifts a little closer.
"Don't you dare," he hisses, barely aware of where he is, hardly consciously noticing the fact that the Uber sitting in front of him has an expression on his face somewhere between pain and worry. "I swear, you come any closer and I'll-"
"Harper, please-"
"Shut the hell up," Harper tells him, and to his great surprise, the Uber does.
He takes a very deep breath - shuddering, damn it don't show weakness- and manages to calm down a little. At least enough to remember where he is, and who's perching in front of him with the braids in disarray all over his face and yes, that actually is concern...
Tyr. Tyr who'd hurt anyone who hurt him.
Yeah, right.
"Too far, Tyr," he says quietly, a little impressed with himself for how steady his voice is. "Way too far."
The bone blades are twitching, up-down-up-down, with a rhythmic click when they connect as they go to flat. Harper's jumpy as hell and he knows it. He's trying desperately not to start a little bit on each click. It's just a nervous habit, or as close as a Niet's ever going to get to nervous, anyhow. This is Tyr. He knows Tyr. It's not meant as a threatening gesture.
Even though he's managed to drag himself around enough to recognise him and remember his name, remember their friendship, every instinct is still shrieking Uber! Run! Kill it or get the hell out of dodge!
Tyr looks a little shaken too, not that Harper's in any state to notice it. "I know," he says softly. "Harper, I know. I'm-"
"Can it," Harper snaps, edging his way carefully off the bed, keeping as far from the bonespurred bastard as he can manage while maintaining eye contact. "Not staying. Can't. Don't follow me. Don't you freaking dare follow me."
Tyr nods, just once, watching him just as carefully as Harper's watching back. "I won't."
"Right. Good." He's backed up against the wall now, hopping into his trousers without looking. As long as it doesn't move, he'll be okay. He knows it's unarmed, except for the bone blades, and you can't throw a bone blade into someone's back, not without losing a hell of a lot of blood and that's pretty anti-survival. One movement towards the knife on the bedside, or the leather pants hastily abandoned on the floor, and Harper'll have him. He's got his own pants on now, found his belt by good luck rather than good management and clipped that on too, he's armed, and still half-way gone enough that he wouldn't trust himself not to shoot if Tyr twitched a mucle wrong right now.
He edges towards the door with his back to the wall, feeling his way rather than seeing. The door opens at a touch of the controls, expert fingertips darting across the unlock sequence without Harper having to break his gaze at the Uber for even a split-second. And then he's gone, barefoot and shirtless, darting away into the corridor with barely a sound.
Tyr waits until he can't even hear the little man's heartbeat before he dares to move.
Beka hasn't approved of their arrangement from day one.
Well, not day one; she didn't know until about day... day heavens know what, actually, but the point remains: from the moment Beka Valentine found out about Tyr and Harper doing anything more interesting than snipe verbally at one another from across the command deck, she has disapproved with a capital D.
Harper usually does his best to warn her off. Nobody's getting hurt, everyone's a consenting adult and besides, it's his damn life and she can screw off and let him live it in peace. He knows she cares, that's the only reason she's so bothered. Because she knows where he comes from, what he went through in the past, and she'd rather die than see her engineer hurt any more, by anyone. Honestly, though, sometimes he wants to shout at her to leave it the hell out. Nobody's ragging on her for who she's boinking or not boinking or whatever else. Actually, hell, maybe Beka should go and get laid, that might lighten her up a bit...
Still, disapproving or not, Beka's his best bet for someone who'll understand right now. Harper avoids going to wake her up, though, because Beka needs her rest and it's the middle of the frigging night and nobody needs a panicky mudfoot landing on them at stupid o'clock of the morning, especially when he knows deep down that he's overreacting and it was an accident and at some point, maybe, when he's got a bit of nerve back, he'll find Tyr and discuss it and it'll be all right. Or if it isn't all right, he can shoot his balls off. Either way would do.
Beka's got a sixth sense for Harper, though. That or Rommie told her, and Rommie's not admitting to anything.
She shows up in the doorway of machine shop four with her hair a tangled mess and still in her pyjamas, looking for all the world like she'd rather be curled up in bed and sound asleep right now, but there's a glitter in her eyes that says 'To hell with that. This is more important.' Harper - properly dressed by now, albeit in a tee-shirt that's probably a week old and socks from the land that time forgot, still no shoes - pretends not to notice, giving her time to turn away and go back to bed if she wants, but he knows she's there.
"Morning," Beka says sleepily. "You're up late."
"Couldn't sleep," Harper says, with a hint of a shrug, not quite looking at her. "You know me, boss."
Beka sighs softly. "Yeah, I do. What's bothering you?"
A dozen sarcastic replies flash across Harper's mind, but this is Beka, and she doesn't mean any harm; she's just there, being gentle and unobtrusive and worried, and in the end he settles for simply, "Nothing."
"I know you better than that, shorty." Beka's coming closer and Harper shifts around, keeping his right side facing. There's a mark on the left of his neck. He checked already.
Too quick. Beka frowns with concern, and tries to get around quickly to see what he's hiding. She's looking too low, thinks he's got something in his hands. Nope, nothing to see there, boss. Look all you like; it's just a nanowelder. Won't bite you.
"Jumpy," he chides her, with a grin that covers his nerves. "What d'you think you're looking for, anyway?"
"Nothing," Beka says, a little embarrassed. "Just wondering what you're up to."
"Fixing things. Working on stuff. You know."
Wrong answer. Beka shifts slightly, just the faintest hint of something in her posture, and Harper knows right away that he should've given her more than that, more of the usual pointless ramble. Now she knows he's upset - or rather, worse than upset; if he was upset, he'd be babbling, not much different to being happy or excited or hell, even indifferent, some days. By being short with her, evasive, he's given her everything she needs to know. Something's scared him. It's the only time he ever shuts up.
Beka's breath comes out as a very soft sigh, and she eyes him up evenly for a long moment before she speaks again.
"Was it Tyr?"
"What?" Harper half-turns to face her, still trying to keep his left side out of her direct line of sight. "God, boss, can't I just have a bad night? I'm freaking insomniac. I get ideas, I get up to work on 'em at quarter past stupid in the morning. Why's frigging everything got to be about Tyr all of a sudden?"
Beka quirks an eyebrow. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because he's the last person likely to have seen you awake? And because there's something you're not telling me, Harper." She's edging around again, determined to get a look. Still looking too low, though. Maybe she thinks he's cracked a rib or something. Stupid; he wouldn't be hopping around like a genius engineer monkey on steroids if he'd broken a damn rib, would he?
"Leave it, would you?" Harper tells her, a little more defensively than he meant to.
Beka knows exactly what 'leave it' means, in that tone, coming from her precious mudfoot. Keep going, but be careful, she thinks. I want to tell you, but it's not going to come straight out.
"Okay," she says lightly, and hops up onto a bench, pulling her legs up to sit in a small ball. "Mind if I hang around and watch for a bit, then?"
Harper shrugs. She's just gone and cut off access to half the damn machine shop, sitting there; he can't get to the racks on that side of the room without her seeing. Great.
Beka takes the shrug as agreement, and settles in a bit more comfortably, bare feet cold against the metal of the benchtop.
The silence that pervades for the next few minutes is tense, but companionable. Beka and Harper have worked together for long enough that they hardly need to speak, sometimes. Beka stays still and quiet, giving Harper a chance to get used to her presence; Harper potters on with tinkering odds and ends, ignoring her mostly.
Eventually, Harper can't stand her sitting there pitying him any more.
"He didn't mean it," he starts determinedly, pointing the nanowelder in her direction to emphasise the point.
Beka tilts her head to one side. She'd been half-falling asleep there, not that Harper noticed - far too busy with whatever he was fixing or working on or whatever else, though he's still carefully keeping his left side away from her as much as he can without it looking too weird - but she's wide awake now, and paying attention. "Didn't mean what?" she asks carefully.
"Any of it. It was an accident."
"Harper..." Beka sighs. "I need a bit more than that, you know? 'Any of it' could cover a whole multitude of sins."
Harper eyes her up, sidelong; Beka feels almost like he's trying to decide if he can trust her all over again. Maybe he is. She hasn't been too forgiving about the whole arrangement with Tyr. Too late to regret it now; she can only hope she hasn't damaged their friendship already.
"He didn't mean it, okay?" he tells her again. "I freaked out, but it was an accident. Just one of those heat of the moment things. Okay?"
"Okay," Beka said carefully. "What'd he do...?"
Harper hesitates for a long moment. Beka can see something in his eyes that's a little too close to fear for her liking, and more than anything she wants to reach out and hug him, but she knows how well he'd probably take that right now. She stays quiet and waits until Harper's gathered up the courage - or found the right words, the least incriminating way he can think of, perhaps - to tell her.
Except it doesn't come in words. He just turns around a bit, until she can see the angry red mark on the side of his neck, and Beka has to steel herself not to gasp and recoil.
"Oh," she whispers. "Oh, God, Harper..."
"It's nothing, okay?" Harper snaps. "I told you. Heat of the moment. That's it."
Beka shifts forward, uncurling her legs so her feet are swinging, brushing the floor with every back-and-forth stroke. "Come on, shorty," she says, forcing herself into practicality mode. "Let's go to medical and see if we can get that bruise dealt with."
Harper looks like he's about to protest, but the choice is pretty clear: put up with Beka mothering him for ten minutes, or live with a nasty red bruise in a really obvious place for a few days at least, probably closer to weeks. Mothering's the better option.
He follows her quietly along the passages, trailing her up ladders and along endless echoing corridors until they come to the medical deck, whereupon he submits to sitting quietly and allowing Beka to poke and prod at him with various scanners and tools and a hypo full of nanobots until she's satisfied. "Okay," she tells him when she's finished. "That should take the bruising right down. It won't show by morning."
"Thanks," he says, a little grudgingly. Didn't need Beka fussing.
"No problem," she says easily. "So. D'you want to tell me what happened?"
Harper doesn't meet her eye. "He bit me. Didn't mean it, okay? It was just-"
Beka cuts him off. "Heat of the moment, shorty. Okay, I got it. I'm not even going to ask about the 'moment'."
Harper grins slightly at that. "You probably don't want to know, boss, although you know, if you're really after the details, I could-"
"Stop there," Beka says, with a little grin of her own. "Don't want to know."
Good, Harper thinks. He doesn't really want to tell her. He's not sure he could pull off a light-hearted, joking, deliberately-TMI report right now.
Beka's thinking, anyway. He can practically hear the cogs turning.
"Come on, then," he says after a moment. "Sock it to me."
Beka hums quietly, under her breath. "I don't get it," she admits at last. "I mean... why would a Nietzschean hurt his-" She pauses, searching for the right word. Harper's not sure there isa right word. Beka bites her lip before she makes her decision: "His mate. It doesn't make sense."
"I'm not exactly gonna start dropping his kids, Beka, am I," Harper points out. "Bit different to hurting your precious child-bearing freaking wife."
"Is that it?" Beka asks. Harper can see the anger rising. Her hackles are going up and any second now she's going to storm out of here and go get herself creamed to crap against a pissed-off Uber. Bad plan, Beka. Real bad plan. "So what the hell," she presses on, "what the hell does he think you are?"
If Beka approved, if she trusted Tyr not to hurt him or abuse him or mistreat him in some way, Harper would have shrugged, grinned and shot back convenient or local or talented or any one of a half-dozen other things, but now wasn't the time. "Beka," he starts instead, not sure where this sentence was going to end. "It's not just about breeding. I mean, it's... He's going to go off and have children, isn't he, spread his genetic godliness all over the freaking galaxy or whatever, but that doesn't matter right now, you know?"
"Oh, so he's using you until something better shows up?" Beka cuts in. "Because he's hardly going to want my children, or Trance's, and Dylan might have a ship but he couldn't fix it up if Andromeda all went to hell, and Rev - let's not even go there - nowI see," she spits poisonously. "I think I get it."
"Beka," Harper says, with a level of patience that surprises himself. "Shut up. It's not like that."
"It sounds like it to me. God help me, I could go over to his quarters right now and-"
"And what? Get brained on a bone blade?"
Beka calms down a bit at that. "I'm going to tell Dylan about this, Harper. I have to. I'm sorry, I like Tyr in theory - I really do - but in practise, he's dangerous in more ways than one."
Harper eyes her up evenly. "Beka. Listen a minute. I panicked. I mean, I really panicked - you remember the nightmares I used to have on the Maru, when you first picked me up? That kind of panic. Not even knowing where the hell I was panic. And I got over it. I'm okay. So you can shut the fricking hell up, Captain Valentine, and let's get one thing straight: nobody's telling Dylan, and I'mgoing to sort this out with Tyr. You hear me?"
He'd tucked the nanowelder into his toolbelt when they left for the medical deck, and he's waving it at her for emphasis again. Beka backs off, considering.
"What happened after... you know...?"
"After I get a mouthful of Uber pearly whites through my neck?"
"Yeah. That part."
Harper shrugs. "I dunno. I was a bit out there at that point."
He remembers it more than he's letting on - the scent of the candles, the flickering light, the sudden sharp pains in his neck (not to mention his ass), the freezing panic whirling in his stomach... the worry in Tyr's eyes. Not just worry, either. Harper knew fear when he saw it, even if it looked a little different coming from a Niet. Why fear, though? Afraid of having lost control, or afraid of hurting Harper?
And he remembered only too clearly that he hadn't moved when Harper had ordered him to stay still. Non-threatening.
Guilty.
"It's probably some kind of Uber instinct thing," he tells her after a moment's pause. "The Dragans ... back on Earth, they bit, sometimes. It was a control thing, I'm thinking. 'I'm in charge here'. Marking their territory."
"Oh, Harper..." Beka's voice is barely a whisper. "Please, stop this..."
Harper tilts his chin defiantly. "Boss, I might. I really might, if he doesn't persuade me it's gonna be okay. But it's up to me, okay? Don't get involved. This one's my fight."
Beka sighs. "Okay, shorty. Just... just let me know, okay? You know I'm always here."
"I know, boss," Harper says softly. "I know. Thanks."
He means to sort it out the next day, he really does. It's just that Tyr's in one hell of a mood, he can tell from the length of a corridor away, and he doesn't want to start a fight because he knows - even if he hates to admit it - that he'll freeze and panic and he won't be able to have the rational discussion he wants. The next day, definitely. Except the next day they manage to get into a minor fire-fight with some upstarty blue guys, and he spends the whole day trying to fix Andromeda up to a hundred and ten percent again, and he's too tired to go and find Tyr and start something after that. There's always tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.
Except by the fourth day, Dylan's on the case too, and Rev's cornered him (in that quiet, unassuming, harmless way of cornering things that Rev has, the way that makes you feel like you're being cornered by a really ugly but kinda un-kickable fluffy puppy), and Beka keeps giving him these looks, and he's had to threaten to go in there and do things to Rommie's memory banks if she doesn't stop pestering him about it...
Tyr, as far as Harper can tell, is saying precisely nothing to nobody, at least not about that. He's doing exactly as he's told, for once, which is so damn weird that Dylan jokingly asked Harper if he'd actually done the impossible and got the guy house-trained.
Would have been a pretty good joke if Tyr hadn't overheard, and that was that day gone too because there was no way Harper was going to get in the way of a bad mood like that one. He suspects Tyr and Dylan may have had words about that little comment.
He knowsit when Dylan sticks his head into the access shaft Harper's presently busy rewiring and asks if he's doing okay.
"I'm fine," Harper says. "Just thought of something I've got to do, though. 'Scusie."
It's about damn time he got this sorted out, because fuck knows Tyr's way too proud to come and make the first move.
Dylan has to shoot out of the way pretty damn quick. Harper's out of the access shaft like a speeding bullet and gone up the corridor before the captain can think to shout him back.
"The hell?" he mutters to himself, shaking his head.
Andromeda's hologram appears by his side. "I would think he's gone to pick up a tool he's forgotten, or something like that."
Dylan shoots her a very odd look, but lets it go. There are times it's better not to question this crew and their funny little missions.
First rule of cornering an Uber: Don't ever do it. Especially not on his own territory.
Second rule: If one corners you, you do whatever the hell you have to to get out of there before you die.
Third rule: If it throws you down on your back and makes its intentions clear, you spit in the bastard's eye because hell, if it kills you for it, at least it'll get you out of doing that.
Course, all the rules have gone out of the proverbial airlock with Tyr. Tyr's not your usual Uber. Tyr actually gets quite pissy if Harper ever calls him that.
Third rule probably isn't going to be an issue. Second rule... chances are no, if Harper dares guess that he knows Tyr even a bit. Which leaves the first rule.
And the first rule makes it a really bad plan to go and approach him in the gym, which has only got one exit to the ship proper - the other doors are for the showers and changing rooms - but Harper does it anyway, because by now he's more sick of this than he is scared.
Rommie said he was here, but Harper can't see him immediately. He recognises the scent, though. Musky, a little sweaty, and warm. He's been in here recently. And it's a little steamy. Harper would lay a guess that the shower stopped seconds before he stepped through the door.
Dead right. A moment later, Tyr comes back through to the main area of the gym, bare-chested but re-dressed in leather pants and boots, with the braids sopping wet and a towel around his shoulders.
Harper's between him and the door, and he's going to hold his ground, damn it, even if his heart's going a hundred lightyears to the second.
"Calm down," Tyr says quietly, "before you have a coronary incident. I'm not going to come near you unless you want me to."
Harper swallows, takes a deep breath, and nods.
"Okay," he says, not really sure he's any calmer. "I want a word with you, Mr. Anasazi."
"As many as you like, Mr. Harper." Tyr settles down on the end of the bench-press and watches him impassively.
In the last few months, Harper's pretty sure a good proportion of his world has been shot to shit. First it was Ubers are actually okay, or at least some of them are; then came Oh fuck when did I start sleeping with a Niet and liking it?; somewhere in between the two there had been a healthy helping of learning to trust Tyr near-implicitly - never forgetting that he was, at the end of the day when all's said and done let's face it boss a Niet - and then, just when he'd started to settle, just when all of this was starting to make sense in his head, hisNiet had gone and chowed half through his neck.
And I'm not running like hell, Harper thinks with a wry internal grimace, and I haven't set Rommie's internal defences on him yet. The hell is wrong with me?
Or more importantly: the hell is wrong with Tyr, who had always displayed such careful self-control in all of his dealings with his annoying little man, to break like that?
There isn't anywhere sensible to begin, so Harper dives in with both feet, just like always.
"Why?" he says, so quietly he's not sure Beka or Dylan would have heard him.
Tyr does. Of course he does. He's an Uber. Sorry, a Nietzschean. Whatever.
"'Why' is unimportant. The first thing I should say to you is this: I'm sorry."
Harper nearly hits the deck, quite literally. He has never heard a Niet utter those words before. Not even sarcastically, or mocking the mudfeet. Never. He was pretty sure 'sorry' wasn't in the Nietzschean vocabulary. Actually, come to think of it, he doesn't know the Nietzschee word for it. Maybe there isn't one.
"What?" he says. Not the most intelligent reply he's ever made, and he knows it. Damnit.
Tyr quirks an eyebrow at him in that really annoying way he has. "I said, I'm sorry." And then he adds another word, it sounds Nietzschee, but it's not anything Harper recognises. Either it's Kodiak dialect or it's the previously-unknown word of apology. Tyr knows Nietzschee is practically his first language. He's not exactly comfortable speaking it - too many bad memories, thanks - but he's probably thinking if he drills it through Harper's skull in as many languages as they both know, it's more likely to stick.
No dice on thatone, pal. "What's that mean? That last word."
"The same. I thought you were fluent."
"Didn't come across many Ubers saying they were sorry for much."
Tyr nods, understanding that. "Now you know."
"Yeah, golly gee and thanks for the language lesson, big guy. I still want to know why."
"It was... an accident."
Harper glares, hands on hips. It's hard to be afraid right now, when he knows he's right and he's pretty damn sure Tyr feels like crap. "Right," he says scathingly. "An accident like that time you caught me across the face with the blades when we were messing about? That kind of accident I can accept, that was my fault, I moved the wrong way, you weren't expecting it, soft flesh, hard bone blades, doesn't take a genius to work out what's going to happen. I'm kinda impressed with myself that I moved so fast you didn't react in time, honestly. Takes skill, that."
"I was sidetracked," Tyr begins, with just a hint of teasing in his voice, but Harper's not ready to drop it just yet.
"Sure you were, whatever, I don't care, Tyr. Point is, that was an accident. Sinking your fangs into my freaking damn neckwhen you come, that's not exactly an accident!"
Tyr sighs and drops his gaze, and Harper feels something in his chest that's caught between pride - I made an Uber feel bad - and guilt for the same reason. I made Tyr feel bad.
Still, he'd been freakin' asking for it.
"Let me get one thing straight," Harper goes on, when Tyr doesn't seem to have much of a response. "I have been bitten by Niets before. Didn't like it then and I don't like it now. I dunno why you suddenly felt a need to chew through my neck, but it's not going anywhere, you got that? Not my kink." He pauses for a breath. "I mean, you know me - I'm not exactly vanilla, you know? But I got boundaries, and I figured you were actually decent enough not to cross 'em. If you're gonna make me start rethinking that-"
"Harper," Tyr says, quiet but firm. Harper shuts up and looks at him.
Tyr is silent for a long moment or two, working out where to begin. Eventually, he takes a deep breath and makes a start.
"That night... was probably ill-advised from start to finish. I was in no mood to be gentle, and I took it out on you. I had no right to do that, and I apologise."
"Stop apologising," Harper says softly, looking away, looking anywhere but at Tyr. "It's weird."
Tyr nods. "All right." A pause. "You can come over here any time, you know. If you wish."
That's decent. Harper appreciates that. After the whole running-out-in-the-dark incident, Tyr's been pretty good about keeping out of his way, waiting for Harper to come to him. Maybe it wasn't allbitchy Uber pride, Harper thinks. Maybe there was an element of not wanting to scare him any more. He did stay still when he was told, after all.
If Dylan knew that, he'd definitely think Harper had him housetrained.
Harper takes a step closer, then another one. Tyr doesn't move, except to look up at him. He doesn't have far to look, which is just the universe having a galactic fricking joke: it's not fair, Tyr's sitting on a low bench and Harper's standing and there's probably what, eighteen inches between their eye levels? Beka's right when she calls him 'shorty'.
He stops just out of reach. "I'm still not sure I'm gonna trust you again."
"But you came to talk to me. Really quite brave of you."
"Don't freakin' patronise me."
"I wasn't."
Harper shrugs slightly. "Oh. Sorry."
He gets a small, sidelong grin from Tyr for that. "Stop apologising."
"Yeah, dead right - I've got nothing to apologise for."
"Very true."
Harper blinks. He wasn't expecting thatone.
"I've told you," Tyr says evenly. "I was angry-" He sounds like he's about to add something, but stops himself. "And I had no right to take my frustrations out on you."
Harper's pretty sure he's going to break any second, but he's determined to hold his ground for just a little bit longer. He's not going to be any Uber's plaything under anybody's terms, not even just messing around if it's gonna get that dangerous. Not ever again.
"Just," he begins, and realises that this is one of the few times in his life he's got next to nothing to say. "Just tell me why, Tyr."
Tyr gets precisely half a breath towards a reply before Harper's off again. "And don't give me the 'angry' crap. Angry, upset, whatever you were, taking it out on me, I get that, I think I might even be able to forgive you for it eventually, but tell me why thehell biting's suddenly on the menu, 'cos that's seventy-six separate shades of so not okay that-"
"Harper."
Again, just the one quiet word is enough to shut him up.
"Sorry," he says quietly. "Just... it's just that..."
"The Dragans bite," Tyr says. It's not quite a guess.
Harper nods, and almost subconsciously takes another step towards him.
"Yeah," Harper says. "They do. Did. Just about every time. Like marking their property."
Tyr considers that for a long moment before apparently accepting it. "That would make sense, yes. Just another way to show their ownership." One hand comes up to rub the back of his neck, and Harper bites his lower lip. He knows what's hiding under the hair there. Barely visible now - certainly a lot less noticeable than the slightly shiny pink scar of his own brand - but Tyr was a slave too. Harper hasn't decided yet if he believes Tyr that Kodiak Pride never kept slaves, but he absolutely believes that Tyr Anasazi never will. He's been there. And he gets that no-shit-no-prisoners glint in his eye when he talks about those other, weaker prides needingtheir slaves. Tyr is dependent on no-one, and never will be.
The realisation hurts a little, and yet somewhere in the bottom of his heart, Harper dares to suspect that maybe, just maybe, Tyr needs him, just a little bit. Maybe it's a pretty twisted messed-up sort of needing, but... just maybe, they kind of need each other.
In a really twisted messed-up way, of course. And either one of them could walk away any time and not look back.
"Showing dominance, or something," Harper says, because this horrible awkward conversation is better than being alone with his thoughts right now.
Tyr nods. "Of course. They're Dragans. They would manage to pervert everything."
Harper tilts his head at that, curious. "What d'you mean?"
"Harper," Tyr says, almost gently. "Would you consider our sexual encounters... intense? Passionate?"
Harper shrugs, not sure what the right answer is. "I guess. Intense, sure. Definitely. Heavy going. Usually in all the good ways." He manages a little grin. "Could do without the growling. And when your bone blades go all - whumpf, right by my freakin' face." He demonstrates on the sound effect with three fingers over his other arm, whipped up straight. "And the biting. I mean it, can the biting, or I'm gonna set Rommie's internal defences on your ass."
"Does that mean- no. Never mind." Tyr shakes his head and returns quite pointedly to the topic at hand. "Imagine, if you will, that level of intensity between two Nietzscheans. The strength, the stamina, the passion."
Harper whistles under his breath. "Fuck. Are you goin' easy on me, Tyr?"
"I have no particuar wish to rip you in half," Tyr says, and Harper has no freakin' clue whether or not he's joking - either about not wanting to rip him apart, or about being able to.
"So," he says uncertainly. "The biting thing... that's not just a Dragan thing?"
Tyr shrugs slightly. "It depends on the individuals involved. Some enjoy it. Some don't."
"Put me firmly in the 'don't' category, thanks."
Tyr nods. "Noted, I assure you."
"So why d'you do it? In general, I mean. Is it an ownership thing?"
"No," Tyr says, and there's a very low growl on the word, one which he catches and cuts off before Harper's too startled. "Nietzscheans are a strong and powerful people, in every sense of the words. Extrapolate what you wish about our culturally-acceptable sexual practises. You probably won't be too far wrong."
Harper shrugs. "I'm a freakin' genius. I can work shit out."
But if it's not about ownership... He's still lost. Presumably Tyr's in the 'do' category, though whether that's taking as well as giving or just dealing out the bruises is still open to the floor. Harper dares guess that a bite like that wouldn't even leave a mark on a Nietzschean. In total fairness to the guy, he was kind of careful not to break the skin. It was just the suddenness and the harshness of it - and the teeth, but not really biting, when Harper thinks back, just there, which is kind of natural when there's a mouth involved - that made him panic.
Hell, maybe some of 'em like getting chewed right through. Who'd ever have thought you got Nietzschean masochists? Another bit of Harper's world that's just been shot to shit.
And it's not like he's never nibbled before, but there's a hell of a difference between a pretty damn hot little nibble and landing a freakin' vampire attack on a guy.
Harper's working shit out like nothing in the universe right now, and some of it's still not adding up. He believes Tyr that it's not about ownership, that that's just a pervy fucked-up Dragan thing, taking full advantage of how much weaker humans are to leave a lasting mark, just another kind of brand - an even more shameful one, in some ways. Okay. Kinky Nietzschean sex, he can get his head around that. Seamus Harper is a freakin' genius, damn it. So what's not making sense?
The bit where if it's not about ownership, and Tyr was in such a fucked-off bad mood that he wasn't even there practically, and it's some kind of messed-up rough sex thing that wasn't meant to freak him the hell out...
Harper takes a deep breath, not sure he wants to know.
"So come on," he says bravely. "Who'd you think I was?"
Tyr blinks at him in apparent confusion. "What?"
"Well, you know," Harper says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "It's not about owning me, it's not about me being a filthy human slave-"
"You are not," Tyr snaps, with the sort of fierceness that's closer to hot than freakin' scary.
Harper smiles, very slightly. "I got that part, believe me. So if it's not about that, if it's... Niet BDSM or something - which Nietzschean did you think I was that liked it? Past girlfriend? Boyfriend?"
Tyr raises both eyebrows, looking thoroughly bemused. "I don't have precisely a string of past ... boyfriends."
Harper shrugs, lets it slide; he can stay in denial for all he cares. Okay, so they're not - that is, it's an arrangement, not - well-
Sometimes, Harper really wishes he could mute his brain.
"Whatever," he says with forced casualness. "C'mon. I can take it."
"I didn't think you were anyone else. I was perfectly aware of who you are; I have been for quite some time, and so it remains. Whatareyou talking about, you annoying little man?"
Harper frowns. "Okay. So - you're with me, hi, Seamus Zelazny Harper, Andromeda's chief engineer, freakin' genius-" He waves, to make the point. "And you don't think I'm a kinky Nietzschean. And you bite me."
"If you had been Nietzschean, I wouldn't even have marked you. Because you're human-"
"I'm weak as shit and bruise easy?"
"I didn't say that."
"And you seriously weren't thinking about somebody else."
"No."
Harper frowns, nods determinedly, and covers the distance between them before he can lose his nerve. Tyr looks up at him, probably trying to decide if it's all right to touch him. "Let me get two things clear with you here, Tyr Anasazi out of Victoria by- oh you know the rest. No kinky Nietzschean bitey sex."
Tyr nods. "Understood."
"Try to can the growling. Though I can kinda take it sometimes. Just - just don't push me, okay?"
"All right."
"And quit goin' easy on me."
He might regret that one, but he's not afraid to set Beka and Rommie on Tyr if he steps a steel-toed boot out of line. And they can talk. Harper's here proving that right now.
Tyr grins, and Harper thinks maybe he understands, anyway. "That was three things, Harper."
"Shut up." Harper leans in close, hands resting on Tyr's legs, and kisses him, good and hard. No point in doing things by half-measures, Tyr keeps reminding him - freakin' hypocrite, Harper thinks, going on about that and then taking it easy on me all this time. Tyr tilts his head up a little, leaning forward slightly to make Harper's job a bit easier.
He's got a damn fine lower lip. Harper's thought it a lot of times before.
He raises a hand gently, twines it through Tyr's still-damp braids, feels his Niet's warm, strong hand on his side, edging around to his back to pull him closer.
Seamus Zelazny Harper, freakin' genius and nobody's plaything, smothers a grin through the kissing-
-and bites.