Disclaimer: I told myself that I would actually write a one-shot...and look what you forced me to do! Maybe I'll continue this as an actual storyline, but I must get lots of good reviews! In this one, Tyr's POV. I know I screwed up the tenses, but maybe it works, hmm?
I amsprawled across a chair on the bridge, cleaning my nails with my dagger. One recently cleansed of blood.
The one he used.
With seemingly great interest, I hold it up so that light glints off of it. So remarkable that he Instantly, my temper flares, and I throw it across the room. It isn't designed to be utilized in such a manner, but it plunges deep into the wall, just in front of Captain Hunt.
Startled, he flinches back and reflexively grabs for his force lance, before realizing there is only me nearby.
"What's the problem, Tyr?" He walks towards me with the calm, precise movements of a well-trained Highguard officer. At least, I assume he's well-trained. I could be wrong. "I'm pretty sure the wall didn't do anything to you."
"No, it did not, Captain Hunt," I snap, glaring at him. "I would appreciate being left alone, now."
"You know, that's funny," The man spoke with a chuckle, indicating he was not pleased with my response. "Last time I checked, the bridge was a common area. I had no idea it was now your personal demesne."
I did not respond, closing my eyes and fixating my hearing on the drone of the ship's engines.
"I have a suggestion," Hunt's voice intruded, shattering the fragile dome of calmness where I was slowly becoming enraged at a certain human's actions once again. "Why don't you take a walk? See the sights, go to, oh, I don't know. Andromeda, just out of completely random curiosity, where's Harper?"
"Observation deck," the ship replied, face appearing briefly on the screen ahead of us.
"Go to the observation deck." He told me, taking his "I am a rock. I am a mountain. Try to make me change my mind and I will smash you into gooey little pieces."-stance.
"Is that an order, Captain?" Acid dripped from my voice, and I add the title almost as an afterthought, ensuring that he understands I am using it as an insult.
"Yes, Tyr, it is. I'll be watching, too. Or, Andromeda will, whichever is more efficient."
Divine help us all, he truly is hit-or-miss.
"And take your knife!"
I hesitate at the entrance, all of my engineered instincts toward survival screaming at me to save myself.
From what? A paltry engineer? Still, I feel nervous, my mouth is dry, and my palms are sweaty.
"Go inside!" Andromeda's holographic form appears next to me, arms crossed and an expression of intense irritation on her face. "It's been two weeks, and you haven't even spoken to him!"
"If he wanted to speak to me, then he would have come to me." Even I knew my argument was pathetic. Imagine, a Nietzschean, defending himself against a machine while being nervous about a meeting with a mere human. An attractive human who had, apparently, overridden all my engineered urges towards procreation and replaced them with some strange, pull, towards him, his brilliant mind, and his slender body.
If I had a pride, I would have been laughed out.
"Here, I'll make up your mind for you!" Two of the ship's drones grabbed my arms and pushed me into the observation deck, where Harper was sitting, staring at the stars, knees tucked underneath his chin. My sudden irritation at the drones died quite suddenly when my keen sight caught shimmering trails on his face, evidence that he'd been crying.
I felt disgusted with myself, for causing the incarnation of beauty to be so sad.
"Leave."
My attention came back to the here and now when Harper spoke, no quiver in his voice, though it is devoid of all emotion. No anger, no sadness, just, nothing. It struck me as nothing else he could have done would have.
He just sat there, staring out at the stars, a hand pressed against the clear surface.
"Are you still here?"
Again, almost like a physical blow. I feel reluctant to speak, afraid that the vacuum within Harper would destroy me if I do.
He continued speaking as though I had actually spoken. The silence in here was so complete, he probably heard my thoughts.
"Then listen, Nietzschean, and listen well, for I will say this once only."
Perhaps I should ask Andromeda to raise the temperature in here, for surely it has dropped.
"You do not respect what I do, trust what I do, or even attempt to do so. For you, it is glory and genetics, pride and arrogance. I don't feel that I should pity you, though." He turned his face toward me, and I saw what I had first taken to be tears, were trails of crimson. It appeared that he had attempted to gouge his eyes out. "Of course, I don't really feel much anymore. Not since you crushed me, destroyed my soul and made quite clear, in no uncertain terms, that you could not love me."
A tiny hint of emotion crept into his voice at last. It was minute, but I could detect the carefully checked anger. Even with all my training, I doubted I would be willing to defend myself. He wanted to hurt me, crush me, destroy my soul as I had his.
I would have let him, had he not started crying. Not loud, just tears rolling down his angelic face.
"I didn't say that I could never love you," I spoke quietly, the first words since I'd come in. Harper narrowed his mutilated eyes at me, quite possibly considering all the ways he could use a laser-cutter to dismember me, and whether Captain Hunt would let him get away with it.
"Then what did you say?" The cloying sweetness in his voice was enough to give one a tooth-ache, but it did nothing to allay my nervousness of this little human. Every single fibre of my being ordered me to run, but I stood still, prideful enough to take my punishment at the hands of this man I had wronged.
"That, we can't be together." My voice dropped to a whisper. "Not until you think of me first." Instantly, I knew it was the wrong thing to say, and the little human looked bigger than Andromeda in his rage.
"Not until I think of you?" He shouted. "What do you think I've been doing for the last four months? Sorry, I forgot, you're not a mind-reader, you're just a muscle-bound moron!" He grabbed something from where he'd been sitting and stalked over to me, glaring all the time. "Or maybe you are a mind-reader, and just can't be bothered to look at a kludge! Never mind what's been staring you in the fucking face!" Harper had apparently picked up his force-lance, and when he got close enough, he swung it as hard as he could at my head.
I chose not to move, to take whatever he wanted to give me, as it would probably be the best I could get.
The pain never came, and curiosity beckoned my gaze to turn from his agony-stricken face to his hand, which had been caught mid-swing by some deeper instinct in my body, in the form of his forearm being held firmly by my right hand.
Surprise crawled across my normally impassive face, and Harper made a half-hearted attempt to extricate himself, but I held firm.
"For too long have I waited," I murmured, bringing my other hand up to caress Harper's blood-stained cheek. "I said I needed you more than life." The human looked up at me, suddenly very frail. "I told you I wanted nothing before me, and nothing before you." Looking at my fingers, smeared with Harper's blood, I suddenly felt his sorrow, replaced by emptiness, a void I wished to fill. "There is nothing before you," I pulled him flush against my body, letting his arm down. "Is there anything before me?"
"There is one thing." he murmured, tilting his head up, as though to greet my lips with his own.
The pain was sudden, unexpected. I looked down, only to find my own dagger shoved up, under my rib-cage, but not far enough to pierce my heart. But it was beating wildly, unsteadily, as though something were interfering with it.
My eyes met Harper's. If eyes are windows to the soul, then he no longer has one.
What have I done?
The poison was not too hard to acquire, and a properly coated blade would have been instant and painless. An engineer, such as Harper, who was exact in most everything else, had chosen to use it improperly, ascertaining Tyr's death to be incredibly painful and drawn out.
After his nerves had stopped sending signals, which caused the Nietzschean to twitch and shake, Harper knelt down, kissing the body's forehead.
"Will your soul ooze everywhere, like your blood?" The short human wonder aloud. "Or will you cease to exist, like you did to me? Maybe you'll be lonely. I should send you someone to talk to."
Harper stood up, bloody, poisoned dagger in one hand and force-lance in the other.
"I'm coming, Trance," he giggled, licking the blood off the blade, and enjoying the searing taste of the poison. "There's someone you should see."