Title: Of Fresh and Salt
Author: SabaceanBabe
Rating: adult
Pairing: Helo/Sharon
Word count: 1,622
Spoilers: missing year fic, so through the beginning of s3, to be safe
Author's note: My waaaaaaaay late entry for the I Spy Something Red Ficathon. Betaed by the delectable rebelliousrose. She encouraged me to take it further, and this doesn't end at all where I'd planned it, but Helo and Sharon just won't let me go any further – I guess they just don't want the angst that would've entailed. And a major, MAJOR thank you to gravity for allowing me to use her lovely fic Through the Fire for background/setting.
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Their bodies covered in a thin sheen of sweat, Sharon felt the heat build as Helo moved inside her. She bit his shoulder and tried not to cry out, but the little mewling sounds low in her throat made a lie of her actions. Licking at the marks she'd left on his skin, she tightened her thighs around his hips, arched her back, took him deeper. His thumbs pressed hard on her hipbones as he leaned in and sucked at her nipple, grazing it with his teeth. He thrust harder, faster, the pressure building until everything within her focused on where their bodies were joined, a part of her brain cataloguing each sensation even as she gave herself over to them.
Every nerve in Sharon's body seemed to come to life at once, a bolt of lightning traveling down her spine. An incoherent cry burst from her, answered by Helo as he spilled himself into her. Her head fell back. Her hair, which he'd loosened an eternity ago along with the ties of her wedding dress, tickled her neck and shoulders. Abruptly, Helo released her, pulled out of her, pulled away. The only sound in the room was that of their labored breaths.
Her skin cooling under the air currents of the old battlestar's ventilation system, Sharon relaxed into the hard mattress and let one arm flop to the side as she rolled her head toward her husband – her husband! – and smiled. He was so beautiful, standing naked at the end of the bed, the light of dozens of candles gilding his pale skin, but he didn't answer her smile and her own faded.
Sharon rolled onto her side, suddenly troubled. She couldn't read his expression, but it wasn't the look of a man on his wedding night. She frowned. "Helo, what's wrong?"
"What just happened?"
She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees, feeling vulnerable and a little embarrassed. "What do you mean?" she asked, although she had a sinking suspicion of what was the matter.
That suspicion was confirmed when he gestured toward the mirror that hung on the inside of the open closet door. "Your back." His jaw worked as he fought to find the right words and Sharon knew he was trying hard not to say something that might hurt. Almost giddy with relief that it wasn't something more serious, Sharon closed her eyes and bit her lip to keep from laughing – which would be absolutely the wrong thing to do – when Helo finally settled on, "What the frak?"
A pool of red and orange near her husband's feet caught her attention, the silk of her wedding dress seeming to ripple with a life of its own in the candlelight. Racetrack had refused to tell her where it and the matching veil had come from, instead giving her a cryptic excuse and an infuriatingly smug grin. She glanced quickly over at the traitorous mirror – I guess red was a more appropriate color than I thought – and then back at Helo as he turned away from her and took a pair of workout pants from a drawer in the small bureau. She watched the play of muscle beneath skin in the warm light as he slid the pants up over his hips.
"Sharon?"
He sounded a little less freaked as he leaned back against the bureau and crossed his arms over his bare chest. Sharon dropped her eyes, picked absently at the blanket. She didn't think he had any idea just how distracting a sight he was, but if she allowed herself to be distracted much longer, he might think of a more sinister explanation than the simple truth. Still biting at her lower lip, she looked up at Helo to find his eyes focused on her mouth, but he quickly lifted them to meet hers.
"You've never…?" she began, but again she hesitated. His left eyebrow shot up and Sharon sighed. Frak this, she thought, irritated at her own reticence, embarrassment is for humans. "Right. You've never noticed." She shifted so that she sat cross-legged on the bed and leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees.
"Lords, Sharon." He sounded a little freaked again. "You're telling me that every time we made love, your back had its own damn light show?" He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand up in odd little tufts and spikes and she wondered if she should offer to cut it for him, as she had back on Caprica. He'd allowed it to grow out a bit in the days since they'd found New Caprica.
Even in the shifting light, she saw it in his eyes the second another thought occurred to him. "Wait a minute."
"Helo…" she began, trying to cut him off before his thoughts went too far in the wrong direction.
"Maybe it didn't happen every time." He looked so serious; she bent her head and buried her face in her hands to hide the smile that she just couldn't stop.
"Helo…" she said through her fingers.
"I never saw any light show. I'm sure I would've noticed."
"Helo." He was pretty much ignoring her, lost in his sudden lack of confidence.
"Gods, Sharon. Were you…"
She'd had enough. "Karl!" She shouted his name, jumping naked from the bed.
"… faking it?"
Shaking her head in exasperation, she padded over to where he slouched against the bureau. She laid the palms of her hands against his cheeks and brushed her lips lightly over his. "Do you really think I was faking it?"
Sliding his arms around her waist, he pulled her in closer, the soft fabric of his workout pants tickling for a moment before she settled in between his legs. He offered her a rueful grin. "Okay, no, not really," he answered and rested his forehead against hers. "I don't know how the frak I missed something like that, though."
"Idiot." She kissed him a little more firmly and then nipped at his lower lip. "You never noticed it because I didn't want you to. Remember? The last time we made love, babe, you didn't know I was a Cylon." God. Has it really been that long?
He stroked the pad of his thumb over her mouth – "I guess that's true…" – followed it with his lips, catching her lower lip and sucking. She gave in to it, reveling in the taste of him, in the weight of his arms around her, in the way his hands cupped her ass and pressed her against him.
They kissed for forever, it seemed, and then he pushed away from the bureau and in one swift move, lifted her off her feet, swung her up into his arms. Her own arms tightened around his shoulders, the fingers of one hand burrowed into his soft hair as he carried her to their bed and laid her down. She held onto him, tried to pull him down with her, but instead he held back, gently rolled her over onto her stomach.
She held her breath as he straddled her, his knees to either side of her hips, his hands to either side of her shoulders. He leaned down and dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck, nuzzling her hair out of his way as he did so, and she stiffened. She knew it was irrational, that it was wrong, that this was Helo, her husband as of a few hours ago, but all she could feel was an iron grip on her wrists and a rutting animal at her back, the blazing pain in her cheek where he'd backhanded her.
"No!" She shoved with a strength born of panic. "No!" Suddenly, his weight was gone.
"Gods! Sharon, I'm sorry." She curled into herself, her knees to her chest. "Baby, I'm sorry. I didn't… I wasn't thinking."
He sat beside her on the bed, stroked her hair, tentatively at first, but when she said nothing, he continued to smooth her hair until she began to relax. She realized that her face was wet from tears she didn't remember shedding. After a time, the room became a little darker as the candles began to burn out. Helo lay down with her, his chest to her back. He slid one arm between her head and the pillow, reached the other around her, and took her right hand in his left. Sharon spread her fingers, twining them with his in silent apology.
His breath warm against the top of her head, he whispered, "I love you, Sharon. I'd never do anything to hurt you. You know that, right?"
She nodded, brought his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. "I know," she breathed.
"I just wanted to…" He swallowed hard; she felt the movement of it against her hair. "Well, I just wanted to watch it happen." He fell silent again, then whispered, "I'm not Thorne."
She closed her eyes, resenting that the bastard had insinuated himself into their wedding night. "I know you're not, Helo. I know that." Not willing to again break contact with his body, Sharon shifted until she could see his eyes – they glittered in the light of the dozen or so candles that still burned. She was startled to realize that part of that glitter came from tears of his own. "You're the man I gave up everything for," she whispered.
He closed his eyes at her words and allowed her to pull him to her, shifting in turn so that he supported his weight on his right arm, leaning over her. Pulling his head down, she kissed his eyelids, first one, then the other, and when her lips met his, they both tasted the salt.