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"Extend an invitation to whoever is leading the rebels that I would like an audience." Gabriel tells Ellen, she glances up from her tablet. Silent, unwavering but calculating. He notices.

"Permission to speak freely." She asks, and he knows something has changed. Ellen has never asked this of him, she is an equal to him.

"More talk?" He deduces and she nods.

"You're considering a truce of some kind." It's not a question.

"I'm considering a better way of governing an empire that is at present eating itself from the inside out."

But Ellen isn't buying it, not fully.

"With all due respect, sir, this will lead to anarchy." She tells him knowingly. He shakes his head.

"They'll understand."

"When?"

Gabriel puts a trusting hand on her shoulder.

"When I make them see the bigger picture. Dismissed." He watches her go. He tells himself he's doing this for the sake of the empire. That he's not uniting anyone, just putting a blanket over a fire. There's nothing in him that even remotely believes Federation ideals could survive in a Terran world.

Michael believes they could.

And there it was again. Was he doing this for the sake of salvaging a brutal empire or... was he doing it because somewhere along the way of trying to get back to his home, he found himself believing that maybe the idealism of the Federation and what they stood for could transfer over?

He shakes his head. It's a foolish thought, foolhardy.

No, he decides. Ellen and the others are right, he was going soft. It was Michael who made him this way. Made him think he could be better. She was right, he couldn't be.

It was in his DNA to be this way; the Demon inside him sighed, tempting him to go to her, to bed her again. She's willing, even if only in body.

Following the Demon, he finds himself at her quarters. No guard is needed anymore. There are meetings, training simulations to run, promotions, an entire empire to rule and yet he finds himself in rapture outside her door. It's all meaningless by comparison.

Gabriel knows he could simply enter, but that's not what she wants. She wants a choice. As simple as that. He presses the comm.

He doesn't understand his own behavior. He rules an entire empire, the galaxy was his, and he still asked her for permission. It enraged him. If he were a paranoid man prone to giving into such fantasies as naive ideals such as witchcraft he would call her a witch and demand to know the spell she had cast over him. This was all her fault. She knew how helpless he was against her.

Michael answers the door, dressed in a dark blue shift, a book in her hands. She had asked Landry to replicate her some classic novels.

"I didn't' think I would see you today." She comments when he says nothing.

Walk in, don't wait for an invitation, the Demon tells him. But he doesn't. It's not what she wants.

"May I come in?" He asks and for a moment she hesitates, she realizes the power he's now given her. She steps aside and he enters.

"I'm actually glad you're here," she tells him slowly. He hides the hopeful look on his face with a mask of nonchalance.

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm sorry for asking about her the other night. It's none of my business."

His hope is deflated but he appreciates the sentiment behind her apology. So, she didn't want to see him entirely in pain. She challenges him daily, constantly, even if they're not in the same room or even speaking. But her presence is felt nonetheless.

"I want..." he pauses, swallowing, deciding "want" wasn't the best course of action, so he tries again. "I would like to perhaps go over the boundaries of our... relationship."

Michael raises an eyebrow at him.

"I'm your prisoner and you my captor, by definition boundaries are obsolete." She says. He shakes his head.

"No. Not anymore." He argues but she disagrees, visibly.

"We cannot establish boundaries until I know what my purpose is here. Until I know what I am here." Michael says strongly.

"I want like you to be my... my," he clears his throat trying to get the words out. "Consort."

"Consort?" She repeats. "As in... wife or as in mistress?" She wants clarification.

And Gabriel realizes where he fucked up; he said "want", he didn't ask, didn't give her a choice. Why did all of this have to be so difficult? Did she realize there were plenty of other women who would gladly warm his bed but instead he wanted her.

"What's the difference?" He asks, throwing his hands in the air. "It doesn't matter. Either way you win."

Michael lets out a shocked laugh.

"Me? How have I won anything in all of this?" She demands. They're arguing again, she remembers what happened the last time they argued. She won't deny the thrill the memory of their first time together causes. It courses through her and for a split second she can taste his tongue again.

"If I fuck you you're not really there," he says rudely. "If I keep you at arms length it's like I've lost a limb. You want to know why I loved her?"

Michael nods slowly.

"Because she loved me when I was the last man who could ever be loved. She was cruel and beautiful and hateful and she took what she wanted. She was everything you aren't." Michael wonders if he's trying to hurt her, his words cut deeply and thinly into her.

"Stop projecting your feelings for her onto me," Michael tells him when he takes a breath. "I'm not her. I don't want to be her."

Gabriel frowns, then comes towards her.

"Don't you realize that's the last thing I want?" He asks, aghast she could be so short sighted. Michael doesn't understand. It's quite clear she missed the point. Gabriel's Demon comes alive when he draws closer to her, he can smell her everywhere.

"I... but why else-"

"I want you, Michael." He tells her powerfully. It shakes her to her marrow. "Christ, do you even know?"

Michael clearly didn't. He shows her. Kissing her without even taking her in his arms. He simply leans his head down, catching her lips in his. It's minute and doesn't last before he moves back from her once again.

"I... I assumed you wanted me to be like her." She tells him.

"Michael, I've loved you for you this whole time. Not because you could be like her. I hate myself for saying it, I love you because you're not her. It... cuts me in half to say that."

Gabriel lowers his head, his feelings laid bare. There was a bloodbuzz is in his head, his Demon doesn't even recognize him. So it tries to establish its place in his psyche. There was a hierarchy, there was the Demon and there was him. For years they had worked well, side by side. And then he was thrown into Michael's universe and the Demon was put on the back burner. And it had resented him ever since.

"You... love me?" The words bring him back to the moment, she's not looking at him, she's simply saying the words as if it weren't possible. He knows Ash had said them to her, he had to of. The words had the same definition but the meaning had completely changed.

Gabriel knew he couldn't love her like Ash did; maybe that was better, or worse. He wasn't sure anymore.

"Is that so hard to believe?" He asks her, his gravelly voice chafes at her spine and she rubs her arms as if she were cold. She can't look at him and she turns away.

"I... it's not possible." She says so sure of herself, disbelief still wrapped around her like a scratchy blanket.

"That I'm capable of love?" He bites back at her and she stiffens visibly, her discomfort evident. He can't help himself, he enjoys watching her squirm, even if he can't see her face.

"You should go." She says quickly, sniffling and hiding herself from him. Normally, it's he who sends her away. But he'll not go. Not when he has come so close. Not when he's laid bare all that he holds dear at her feet.

Gabriel shadows her, takes her shoulders in his hands and she shivers under his warm touch. She can still taste his abrupt kiss from minutes ago, the crispness of it still tantalizing her mouth.

He's temptation and sin and she wants to burn.

This isn't healthy, it is impaired and barely breathing.

"You're everything, Michael." He tells her, still unable to stop himself from speaking the words, articulating them isn't easy but, Christ, he can't stop.

"I'm an obsession. A selfish, compulsive delusion." She rebuts, but it only fuels his fire. Her unwavering belief he couldn't really love her. He knows what she's thinking, this isn't logical.

"Look at me, Michael." He whispers, it's not a command but he's ready to make it one if she continues to be so elusive. The Demon is hungry. He watches the back of her head, she doesn't have to say the word "no", she simply stands her ground firmly.

Tightening his grip on her she flinches but not from pain.

"Look. At. Me." He says, the grit in his voice distinct.

"No." She says, finally audibly, but it's through clenched teeth that the word seeps out of her.

And the Demon has its day.

"Fine," he hisses into her ear. "You want to think you're nothing but a whore, I'll treat you like one."

Her fear is evident when he uses his knife to cut the back of her shift in half, she feels the metal even if it doesn't touch her. She knows what it will feel like when it stabs into her flesh, it will feel like him.

Michael doesn't know where his weapon disappears to, but his hands find their home inside the ruined cloth of her shift; they're as they always are, rough and crushing as he moulds her against his chest. She breathes out, hating her body, her biology for being so easily swayed by this man.

As if there were a link tethering them together between stars, galaxies and universes. She hated it and relished in it.

Gabriel moves one hand to the back of her neck, shuddering when she tenses.

He utters one word,

"Walk." He directs her to the bed and as she draws closer to it she realizes she won't fight him. She tries to make herself but she can't.

He bends her over, shoving the remaining tattered fabric up her thighs, yanking her ass against his hips, against his hardened manhood.

"My followers think you've made me soft," he tells her and she hears him unbuckling his belt. "What do you think?"

Michael doesn't know if he expects an answer so she doesn't respond. This is it, so much for boundaries when he has her face down in her bed. He's never taken her here. She can't help but feel the tingle of anticipation when she feels him hard against her, the way he slides her underwear aside. The way her body naturally responds to him without him even caressing her most intimate parts.

The sweat gathers between her breasts and she wishes he would touch them, she aches so deeply for him that it makes her think she's gone mad. How could she desire a man like him?

What was that old saying about love and hate? That they were intimately locked together in a never ending fight, where was the line truly drawn? He loved her beyond measure and reason, she hated him for being the only man capable of awakening and unleashing the darkness inside of her.

Had it always been there, waiting for him?

"I want you." She suddenly says without prompting.

"You don't need to lie." He snaps, raising her onto her knees, further onto the bed, behind her. She reaches back faster than he can react, taking his hand and bringing it to her front, between her legs.

Michael surprises him yet again, turning her head to look at him, moving onto her knees and pressing her back against his heaving chest.

"I'm not." She promises. His eyes search her for the truth behind her charade.

Gabriel allows her to move his hand against her slippery entrance and they moan together. He doesn't know what's real or what's not. This wasn't his dead Michael seducing him. It was Michael Burnham the mutineer who sacrificed herself to his Demon.

"Fuck me." She begs him against his lips as he touches her clit, his blunt fingers creating a tide pool of ecstasy within her. "I don't want to fight it anymore."

Gabriel moves inside of her and she collapses against his chest before regaining her strength. He's so big inside of her, so powerful and raw. He's penetrating not just her body, but her soul. He has taken everything from her now and she can't fault him entirely; she let him in.

She's limp and willing but he holds her up anyway. He's like a fleshy pillar against her, raising her up. He said he'd treat her like a whore but he's putting her pleasure first. He's holding himself back, she knows he's not giving her his entire all.

Michael wants to tell him that she won't break but she's already submitted so much. She knows she's blushing as he takes her. It's only their second time together but it feels like the first.

Gabriel's face is directly next to hers, his mouth hovering beside hers, lips parted. His eyes are on fire and she wants him to devour her.

"You're incredible." He whispers, shakenly. She believes him, she wants him to say it again.

"I..." She can't finish the sentence, she doesn't even know where it would lead or how it would sound; she doesn't know if it would be the truth or a lie.

Gabriel reacts to it quickly, thrusts his hips so hard it rocks her forward and it almost hurts.

"Don't." He tells her, as if he doesn't want her to say it. He can believe she wants what he can offer to her body but doesn't believe that she'll say the words. Gabriel holds her still, his punishment couples with his need to protect her even if it's from herself.

"What are you doing to me?" She asks, bewildered and intoxicated.

"I don't know anymore."

There was nothing more to say. When the verbal silence was met by more silence all that was left were the sounds of their sexes pushing against one another and their heavy breathing.

Michael didn't know where one began and the other ended. It was true, they were one. She had never felt so connected to one person before; she knew what he was thinking and feeling. It was terrifying to feel so close to one person, to be so intimately linked to another human being. She knew what every moan and grunt meant. She knew he liked being close to her when they had sex.

That he preferred sex that wasn't planned but spontaneous. She knew he wanted to be dominant, that he needed to be in control. And that was fine. She was willing to relinquish control, but only to him.

Gabriel stops abruptly, propping himself up with a hand on the bed. She's weak and tired but doesn't want to stop, she can't find it in herself to stop. He wants to ask if she's okay but he doesn't. He hates to but he removes herself from her and she clenches her legs on his retreat.

"Come here." His voice is coarse and tingling. She doesn't know how much closer he could want her to be. He rolls her onto her back and slides her ruined shift off her body. He undresses, his cock is engorged and he's shaking.

Michael doesn't anticipate his next move, it's shocking and so in character for him she doesn't know how she didn't see it coming.

On her back he parts her legs, her knees are bent, her feet on the bed.

Gabriel leans over her, kissing her neck and down her breasts. It feels like he's worshipping her, silently praying, giving thanks for her sweetness and all that she's given to him. She watches him as he pays homage to her. Michael's breath hitches when he closes his lips around one taut nipple, the room is dim but she sees him clearly. The outline of his hard, muscular body makes her quiver.

And then he is drifting lower, his mouth on her belly, her hips and before she knows what's happening or what to think his mouth is on her cunt. She's startled but doesn't push him away. She does look down at him to watch this new experience. His tongue glides up and down her slit and she shivers with each pass of his tongue.

Just when Michael thinks he's shown her all she needs to know he surprises her yet again. But he can't help himself. His Michael had already known everything she needed to know about fucking. But this Michael was an untapped river of possibilities. He didn't want to turn her into his own personal sex puppet, that's never who she was or who he wanted her to be.

Gabriel only wanted to show her how wonderful it could be to let go. And here she was, letting go and hanging on all at once.

She tastes glorious, indescribable and sweet. A gentle blend of raw feminine perfection and untamed beauty. He finds religion in the apex of her thighs.

"P... please." She whimpers, her voice is brittle. She's on the verge of snapping. He wants her to. He finds her hand while his other stimulates her into euphoria.

He's so fucking hard watching her cum from his mouth and fingers might be his unholy undoing. He's thankful he can't jerk himself off while he gives her this.

That's it, darlin', find your little death, he thinks darkly.

And Michael certainly does, under his strict and unyielding guidance. She's shaking and almost pushing him away but she can't entirely bring herself to. The pleasure is too much, bordering on painful but she can't help herself. She wants the pain as much as she wants the pleasure.

"Gabriel..." She says, so quietly that it's barely a sound at all. He says nothing, only moans as softly as she does. He feels her cum on his tongue and he soothes her gently back to earth. He sits back to watch the aftershocks rock her body, rubbing his palm over her belly.

"How...?" She mumbles, but he only kisses her forehead.

"Don't ask how." He tells her.

She feels him at her entrance again but this time she shakes her head and he lets her move on top of him and she guides him into her. It's in this moment she's most like her counterpart: insatiable.

Michael has never been some uptight goody-two-shoes in need of a filthy fuck. Not that the thought had never crossed his mind, but that's never been her. But to see her so unkempt and disconnected shook him. This wasn't his Burnham. This was his Michael. A woman he had needed for a plan to take back what was his, to avenge someone he loved and lost.

But she had become so much more. During their time on Discovery, he had grown to care for her more than he could have ever imagined. His need to protect Michael because he saw her as an asset changed rapidly to a desire to see her unharmed because he truly cared. He had fallen for her, not because her physical appearance reminded him daily of his dead lover, but because he wanted to change for her.

Even now as he roughly made love to her he wanted nothing more than to be the man she had thought he was all along.

And the idea she might find a way to escape frightens him. He has to keep her here, even if she's given herself to him fully he can't be sure she'll never stop wanting to return to her universe.

The thought is striking and horrid but the Demon in him has taken over. Who knows if it will actually take but in that moment he believes it will. It's pure madness, she would hate him forever. More than she hates him now. He's weak and pathetic and a coward.

Gabriel binds his hands to her hips, guiding them both to their end. He'll finish inside her, maybe then his plan will take shape. A conception born out of a need to retain her, have her by his side as his queen, ruling with him and not just beside him.

Michael is ignorant of his intentions, lost in a sea of countless feelings she cannot fully comprehend. And when he realizes he's wrong, that he can't do this, it's too late and she's reached her peak a third time. He means to pull away but he can't, the Demon has them both in its grasp now.

Gabriel cums inside of her, plants her firmly down on him and beating wildly into her he loses his own breath in the process and quite possibly his mind.

When it's over and she's asleep, exhausted but beside him, he can't find sleep as he thought he might. He's too guilt ridden. He thinks that perhaps it won't take, even if it does he'll put an end to it before it can become anything more than cells and atoms floating in a womb; not a life, just a thing.

But something tells him it will take root. That a child will eventually grow inside her. That she'll stay with him because of it. And he knows if he was weak enough to entrap her this way he's weak enough to see it come to fruition.

Gabriel can't stand the warm feel of her arms, so trusting and giving. He leaves her without waking her to say goodbye. He needs to be free and himself again. She's done this to him. She's forced him to doubt everything he's ever known.

On his way back to his quarters he scratches at his clothing, at his skin. She's buried deep in him now.

What have I done?