January 04, 2006
In Flagrante Delicto
Kara stared intently at the ceiling of the rack they'd given her on board the Astral Queen. It wasn't as swanky as the senior pilots' quarters on Galactica and it had a vaguely unpleasant odor to it, but it would do.
Except for the small fact that she couldn't sleep. The night before a field op she should be bagging Z's instead of lying here studying the rust stains above her bunk. She was going to pay for her insomnia tomorrow when they were humping it across Kobol.
She'd tried to sleep, she really had. But whenever she closed her eyes she saw Lee's face looking back at her. So she'd quit closing her eyes.
It hadn't helped, though, because even with her eyes open she could clearly hear Lee's voice in her head, echoing the things he'd said earlier in the day. Gods, he'd sounded so frakking brotherly.
"Lee Adama loves me," she'd teased, but only to disguise her disappointment. Because he hadn't meant it the way she'd wanted him to mean it. Or had he? There had, after all, been The Kiss when she'd first stepped onto the Astral Queen--that hadn't been brotherly at all.
Her mind wandered all the way back to Colonial Day--it felt like a million years ago, now--and how Lee had looked at her in her blue dress and how perfectly their bodies had fit together when they danced. But then he'd walked away from her to dance with Dee and Kara had ended up leaving the shindig with Baltar.
Wow, had that been a mistake. But she'd wanted Lee so badly that night she'd had to do something--or someone.
And then there'd been the fight, after he'd found out about her and the Vice President. She could still feel the impact of Lee's fist against her jaw. It hadn't been the first time she'd felt it--not by a long haul--but that one had hurt more than all the others put together.
Her fingers drummed impatiently on the thin mattress. When she realized she was doing it she balled her hand into a fist and tucked it into an armpit.
The hatch to the crew quarters she'd been assigned to opened with a clank. Kara held her breath and listened. She had the curtain drawn across her bunk but she'd know that precise, measured tread anywhere. Lee walked quietly to his locker and snapped it open. There was a rustle of cloth and shoe leather as he shed his uniform and boots. Then he walked off in the direction of the head.
When he was gone, Kara sat up and drew the curtain back. Took a deep breath, counted to five, and dropped down off her bunk. The deck was cold under her bare feet. She shivered once and padded off after him.
The water was running in one of the showers, a cloud of steam rising from behind the opaque vinyl curtain. Otherwise the bathroom was empty; the rest of evening watch had long since gone off duty and were dreaming sweet dreams in their racks.
Like I should be doing, thought Kara. It's not too late yet, I can still go back to bed.
But she didn't go back.
Quiet as a mouse, she edged closer to the showers, her eyes fixed on Lee's feet beneath the bottom of the curtain as the water streamed over his ankles and circled down the drain.
She still wasn't sure what she was doing here or what she wanted to say. No, that wasn't true. She knew exactly what she wanted to say, she just didn't know if she had the nerve to actually say it.
If only she knew for sure what was going on inside that head of his. In some ways she knew him so well, but in other ways--ways that mattered--she didn't know a Gods damned thing about him.
Frak this. She was Starbuck: tentative wasn't in her vocabulary. She reached up, yanked aside the shower curtain separating them--and promptly forgot everything she'd been about to say.
Lee started--his soapy fist jerking guiltily behind his back--and colored a deep red to the roots of his close-cropped hair.
Kara's eyebrows arched dramatically. "Well, well, Captain Adama." Guess she knew what was going on in his head now.
"Gods dammit, Kara!" barked Lee. "Ever learn to knock?"
"On a curtain?" She was smiling so broadly her cheeks hurt. She'd seen Lee in the buff plenty of times--between the communal bunks and communal bathrooms, modesty was a thing of the distant past--but never in his full glory, so to speak.
"Did you want something?" He made no effort to cover up or turn away from her, his pride taking precedence over his embarrassment. That was Lee for you.
Her gaze moved slowly up the length of his body to settle on his face. "Yes," she said. "I did."
"Well?" he said impatiently.
She stepped all the way into the shower with him. The water poured over her, drenching her tank top and the ends of her hair.
Lee's eyes widened in surprise. "Kara, what--"
"Shut up, Lee." She reached up and pulled his mouth against hers.
For a second he was paralyzed, but then he grabbed her and pulled her tightly against his wet, bare chest and there was nothing brotherly about the way he kissed her back. Nothing at all.
Her hand trailed down the slick skin of his arm, lingering indulgently over the muscular bicep. When she reached his palm she wrapped her fingers around the bar of soap he'd been clutching.
Their lips parted and he furrowed his brow in that way she loved so much, the way that was nothing at all like Zak.
She smiled slyly up at him. "I think you missed a spot."
He reached around her and pulled the shower curtain shut behind them.
Posted by Hannasus at January 4, 2006 04:10 PM