BSG fic: Enough (Anders/Tyrol)
Why do I say 'Adult' sometimes, and sometimes 'NC-17'? I don't know. Content, maybe. Sex as just a part of the story or sex as the point of the story? Yep, that's how it boils down, I think. 'Cause it's certainly more graphic than R. *nods*
Title: Enough
Pairing: Anders/Tyrol (with a lot of reference to Kara/Anders and Tyrol/Cally; it's almost just as much about the canon het as the slash)
Rating: Adult
Summary: Vague future. Established relationship. Spoilers for "Crossroads, part two." 2400 words.
Warning: I cannot write this pairing without them being pretty frakkin' earnest and sort of unrepentantly schmoopy. Just so you know. Also, there's a dead wife and an ex-wife. Ah, canon-thwarting. Ah, flangst.
Enough
It fits neatly in his hands, this heart he's been given, just as easily as Tyrol's body wraps around his without squeezing too tightly or holding back too much, despite every reason he has to be afraid.
"Hey," Tyrol says, circling his arm around his waist and sliding his body up close to his for a moment before he draws back, leaving only his hands in contact. His lips, too. They fall against the back of Sam's neck, and they feel like a question.
"You don't wanna know what I'm thinking."
"Sure I do." When Sam murmurs in the negative, Tyrol adds, "I'll tell you what I'm thinking. I'm wondering how you've got such cold feet. Women are the ones that are supposed to have the cold feet, but you're the one who has them."
The wind whips at the flap of the tent, helping to jolt him out of his thoughts. He asks what Tyrol might not have even known he wanted him to ask. "And Cally didn't?"
"No. Cally didn't." There's an almost imperceptible catch in his voice, but it's not guilt anymore, not about her memory or about inflicting it on Sam. It's just part of what this is. He still misses her. Sam can understand that. "What about Starbuck?"
"I don't remember." It's the truth. In the end, he hadn't stayed long enough to know. She hadn't wanted him to.
It was so different for Tyrol and Cally, he thinks. He wonders what that must've felt like for him to go through losing her. It was hard enough for him to lose Kara, and she's still alive. And Tyrol really had Cally, heart and soul. Even now, despite what he and Sam have, he doesn't pretend that he doesn't still love her. It would be ludicrous if he didn't. He wouldn't be Galen Tyrol. This is why Sam holds his heart with such care.
Of course, Sam's been here before, too, in part. It's a little overwhelming, like drowning. At least it was for him, even if it maybe never was for Kara. Sam doesn't resent her for it. He loves her too much-loves her, not just the person he sometimes wished she'd let herself become. It's just that it makes him sad and maybe a little bitter when he thinks how different things are now, since he has a strong hand to pull him up. Someone who understands how to hold things just tightly enough.
"Sam?"
"I'm sorry. I'm just…thinking. Too much."
"About?"
It's a fair question, one with different answers every time they get to this place where Sam's shut up in his head and Tyrol's making the decision whether to draw him out or let him be. The Cylons. Their own still confusing natures. This earth they're clinging to. The future.
Tonight, the past.
"Kara," he says, then he pauses, unsure of whether he wants to go on. This doesn't feel like a night for talking, or maybe it's just that he doesn't want to fall prey to the atmosphere the wind has set as it continually rustles the canvas of the tent and occasionally shakes it as if to get their attention. It certainly isn't keeping this half-gloomy, introspective mood of his.
But the words fall from his lips anyway: "I can't help but wonder if I maybe didn't try hard enough."
This is nothing he hasn't said before.
Tyrol's silent, and Sam can feel the gravity in it. He's come to depend on that gravity just like he depends on his body to hold him down, fasten him so securely to the earth, but that doesn't make it easy. Of course, that's part of this thing, too.
"Maybe you didn't," Tyrol says finally. "And maybe she tried as hard as she could and it still wasn't enough. But it's nothing you can fix, not now. What's past is past."
"Yeah."
"Knowing that doesn't help much, does it."
"No."
Tyrol's hand has stopped, warm and flat between his shoulder blades; he begins a lazy path up and down his back, and Sam wonders if this is how it's supposed to be, this patience.
"I'm sorry," Sam says.
"For what?"
"I'm here with you. I want you to know that. You do, right?"
"Yeah," he says. His hand never stops. "I know."
"Good."
Tyrol's hand makes a few more sweeps, a measured, steady pace. Then he says, "I think there are probably conversations about Cally that we had that I don't even remember, I was so drunk. You didn't go anywhere."
"It's not in my nature."
He says it, but something inside him drops the same way the wind sometimes dies away, its absence as unnerving as its presence. They still know so little about what their nature really is. But they've learned to deal with that the same way Tigh did all those months ago, by clinging to the people they've always been. That's what troubles him now: maybe the person he's always been, apart from questions of biology, really isn't who he thought. Stripping away illusions about his nature has made it even easier for him to see that there are other things he might've been fooling himself about his whole life. Maybe he's never been a loyal person. He's run as far as he can get from Kara Thrace, torn his heart out of her hands. It still hurts.
But he also knows that he didn't go anywhere until after she'd already drawn up inside herself, her heart tucked safely away. On his more cynical days, he thinks maybe it never left that fortress she built for it. But that can't be true. There were times what they had was as real as anything he's ever known. He doesn't blame her; it is what it is. Failure on both their parts. He doesn't want to fail again.
He tells himself that it doesn't matter whether it's the first time for him or he's had it before. He's been given a heart, and it's one he thinks he can hold. He can't imagine what it took for Tyrol to get to a place where he'd want to let go of it again, and he's equally as confused about why it should be him to receive it. But he has.
Tyrol's palm keeps sliding, slipping up to his neck then down again until it's curving over his ass. He's testing. Wet lips drag over the skin at his shoulder, and there's a gentle scrape of teeth. Sam rolls his body just enough to make things plain.
Though Tyrol seems to respond to him, and his other hand creeps up over his hipbone and splays across his stomach, he says it anyway: "If you need to kick me out, just say so. I'll understand."
"Nope. You're staying."
"Good." Sam can hear the smile in his voice, even over a sudden howl of the wind. "Because I kinda wanna be inside you again."
"Yeah?" The hand on his stomach wanders down to the join of his thigh. The other slips down between the cheeks of his ass. Sam groans softly.
Tyrol presses closer, his chest and stomach coming to rest against him. Sam can feel his cock thickening again against the small of his back as his finger plays over his asshole. Tyrol murmurs, "I love the sounds you make. You want this, don't you? You wanna feel me filling you up like this."
His finger presses into Sam's already slick opening, smooth and sure. So quickly bringing his body back to what they did just a little while before, sending a spike of arousal through him that settles in his gut.
Sam murmurs, "Yeah. Godsdamn." As Tyrol takes his hands away to get more lube, Sam says, "Hurry up."
When Tyrol goes back to stretching him open, he takes hold of Sam's cock and strokes it slowly in time with the movement of his fingers. The tighter and tighter Sam is wound up, the more he can feel the tension mount in Tyrol's body, too, as he rocks against his back, drawing it out of him as he shudders and tenses with every heave of Sam's chest, every jerk of his hips. His teeth leave marks on his shoulder, and Sam can feel a warm pant of breath on his skin as Tyrol jerks him, still pressing in with his finger, still rocking with his body. When he thinks he can't take it any more, that he needs to just be inside him already, Tyrol crooks his finger and holds, fisting him hard. Sam groans and Tyrol's body, strung tight and vibrating with arousal, is tucked up so tightly against his it feels like they're both coming at once.
But they're not. He knows they're not because he can feel Tyrol's hard-on hot and thick against his back, just rutting there as he brings him through with short, hard jerks of his cock, finally snaking a hand down between them to his own, and Sam doesn't know if he's trying to stop himself from coming or he just needs to put his hands on himself, but it's frakkin' hot. Tyrol's hands always are. Sam feels so warm, almost too warm, flushed, the pleasure racing through his body spurred on by feeling how close Tyrol is to coming apart, too.
By the time Sam's come through it enough to start pressing back against him purposefully, and his arm reaches back to pull him closer, grope whatever part of his body he can get his hands on, Tyrol nudges him over onto his stomach. He spreads him open, his thumb pausing to test, one last time, and then he shoves in, filling him maybe too fast, but Sam's so loose now, and he wants it. Tyrol drives deep, his warm body draped over his as his hips make contact again and again. It doesn't take long before he's grunting and slowing, slipping in with a sharp thrust that he holds as he shudders. Sam can feel the warm pulse of it inside him, wet and slick and full.
Tyrol pulls out soon after he comes, and he rolls over onto his back. Sam turns, sated and sleepy, and watches Tryol's chest heave with each breath, calming and calming until he opens his eyes again. When he does, he turns and looks at him and sneaks his hand out, palm-down, against Sam's thigh.
When Tyrol speaks again, his voice cracks. They're exhausted.
He says, "I still don't know if I could do that, what you do. But I'm really frakkin' glad you like it this way. Because I like it. A lot."
"I told you a long time ago, I don't care if you never want me to frak you."
"'Cause it's not about trust. You know that?"
"I know."
"I trust you."
"I know, Chief," he says with overblown seriousness, and Tyrol chuckles.
They don't sleep curled up around each other. Nights are too warm planetside, and, besides, Sam squirms a lot in his sleep. Tyrol just rolls toward him for a moment and slides his hand up over Sam's throat and neck, his thumb sweeping against his jaw. He kisses him once on the lips, lingering and soft.
Sam smoothes a hand over Tyrol's stomach before they both roll over onto their backs. He thinks about how even though they talk so much when the mood strikes them, sometimes, too, about how they feel, they never use those three words. He's amazed by how little he needs to hear them when he can feel them, even in this space between them. It was the same with Kara, a voice inside him prompts; it was just something he knew, felt. He still knows, if he's honest with himself. Maybe it's just easier to think it was never really there than to admit he let it go.
He's almost asleep, the churning thoughts about Kara having settled for a time, heavy but unresented, when Tyrol suddenly says, "She trusted you, too."
It's a little like having a bruise prodded, smashed over with the heel of a hand, even if Tyrol didn't mean it.
"Galen…"
"She didn't know how. That's what made her nervous. But she did anyway. That's what love is, right? You don't have a choice. Just happens to you?"
Sam knows he's thinking not just of Kara but of Cally, probably Boomer, too.
"I don't know," Sam says, suddenly feeling the need to lighten things up. "You didn't just happen to me."
Tyrol chuckles, warm and thick like honey. His hand slides over Sam's hip. "Oh, hell yeah, I did."
"Shut up," Sam says, shifting his hip, feeling Tyrol's fingers digging in.
"Make me," he says.
Sam laughs, lazy and slow, then he suddenly rolls and climbs up on top of Tyrol, hands coming down on either side of his head.
"Hey, asshole," he says, grinning down at him.
"You," Tyrol says, taking hold of him by the waist. His face twitches up in a mischievous smile. "You are so frakkin' hot."
"And you're not fighting fair."
"Like you ever did."
"For you, no. Because you absolutely did happen to me, and I wasn't gonna be stupid enough to let you get away."
He hates it when sincere shit like that comes out of his mouth. He's half afraid Tyrol's going to mock him for it, but he doesn't. But he should know better; Tyrol somehow always knows when to poke fun and when to be serious.
Tyrol just closes his eyes and smiles. "I'm glad."
Sam resists the urge to just kiss the everliving frak out of him. Instead, he bends down and nips at one of the sensitive spots on his neck. "You're glad? Yeah?"
"Dammit, Sam."
"Say it."
"Say what?"
"I'm not leaving you alone until you do."
"Gods," he groans, squirming underneath him. "Gods. Yeah. You're about as subtle as one of Hot Dog's landings. Always were. I didn't stand a chance."
"No?"
"No."
Sam's adrenaline is up again, but his body isn't all that eager to try for a third erection in an hour. Neither, apparently, is Tyrol's. So he slides back off him, pausing as he does to kiss his shoulder, then his mouth. Tyrol's hand clasps his for a moment as he pulls him back for another kiss, this one longer.
When he lets his hand go and Sam rolls onto his back again, he thinks he can still feel his fingers, the way they felt threaded through his own; familiar, like home. It ought to freak him out, and it does, a little. But that's just another part of this thing, too, so he closes his eyes and listens to the sound of Tyrol's breathing, the way it blends with the sound of the wind rippling at the canvas, and falls asleep.
~
Title: Enough
Pairing: Anders/Tyrol (with a lot of reference to Kara/Anders and Tyrol/Cally; it's almost just as much about the canon het as the slash)
Rating: Adult
Summary: Vague future. Established relationship. Spoilers for "Crossroads, part two." 2400 words.
Warning: I cannot write this pairing without them being pretty frakkin' earnest and sort of unrepentantly schmoopy. Just so you know. Also, there's a dead wife and an ex-wife. Ah, canon-thwarting. Ah, flangst.
Enough
It fits neatly in his hands, this heart he's been given, just as easily as Tyrol's body wraps around his without squeezing too tightly or holding back too much, despite every reason he has to be afraid.
"Hey," Tyrol says, circling his arm around his waist and sliding his body up close to his for a moment before he draws back, leaving only his hands in contact. His lips, too. They fall against the back of Sam's neck, and they feel like a question.
"You don't wanna know what I'm thinking."
"Sure I do." When Sam murmurs in the negative, Tyrol adds, "I'll tell you what I'm thinking. I'm wondering how you've got such cold feet. Women are the ones that are supposed to have the cold feet, but you're the one who has them."
The wind whips at the flap of the tent, helping to jolt him out of his thoughts. He asks what Tyrol might not have even known he wanted him to ask. "And Cally didn't?"
"No. Cally didn't." There's an almost imperceptible catch in his voice, but it's not guilt anymore, not about her memory or about inflicting it on Sam. It's just part of what this is. He still misses her. Sam can understand that. "What about Starbuck?"
"I don't remember." It's the truth. In the end, he hadn't stayed long enough to know. She hadn't wanted him to.
It was so different for Tyrol and Cally, he thinks. He wonders what that must've felt like for him to go through losing her. It was hard enough for him to lose Kara, and she's still alive. And Tyrol really had Cally, heart and soul. Even now, despite what he and Sam have, he doesn't pretend that he doesn't still love her. It would be ludicrous if he didn't. He wouldn't be Galen Tyrol. This is why Sam holds his heart with such care.
Of course, Sam's been here before, too, in part. It's a little overwhelming, like drowning. At least it was for him, even if it maybe never was for Kara. Sam doesn't resent her for it. He loves her too much-loves her, not just the person he sometimes wished she'd let herself become. It's just that it makes him sad and maybe a little bitter when he thinks how different things are now, since he has a strong hand to pull him up. Someone who understands how to hold things just tightly enough.
"Sam?"
"I'm sorry. I'm just…thinking. Too much."
"About?"
It's a fair question, one with different answers every time they get to this place where Sam's shut up in his head and Tyrol's making the decision whether to draw him out or let him be. The Cylons. Their own still confusing natures. This earth they're clinging to. The future.
Tonight, the past.
"Kara," he says, then he pauses, unsure of whether he wants to go on. This doesn't feel like a night for talking, or maybe it's just that he doesn't want to fall prey to the atmosphere the wind has set as it continually rustles the canvas of the tent and occasionally shakes it as if to get their attention. It certainly isn't keeping this half-gloomy, introspective mood of his.
But the words fall from his lips anyway: "I can't help but wonder if I maybe didn't try hard enough."
This is nothing he hasn't said before.
Tyrol's silent, and Sam can feel the gravity in it. He's come to depend on that gravity just like he depends on his body to hold him down, fasten him so securely to the earth, but that doesn't make it easy. Of course, that's part of this thing, too.
"Maybe you didn't," Tyrol says finally. "And maybe she tried as hard as she could and it still wasn't enough. But it's nothing you can fix, not now. What's past is past."
"Yeah."
"Knowing that doesn't help much, does it."
"No."
Tyrol's hand has stopped, warm and flat between his shoulder blades; he begins a lazy path up and down his back, and Sam wonders if this is how it's supposed to be, this patience.
"I'm sorry," Sam says.
"For what?"
"I'm here with you. I want you to know that. You do, right?"
"Yeah," he says. His hand never stops. "I know."
"Good."
Tyrol's hand makes a few more sweeps, a measured, steady pace. Then he says, "I think there are probably conversations about Cally that we had that I don't even remember, I was so drunk. You didn't go anywhere."
"It's not in my nature."
He says it, but something inside him drops the same way the wind sometimes dies away, its absence as unnerving as its presence. They still know so little about what their nature really is. But they've learned to deal with that the same way Tigh did all those months ago, by clinging to the people they've always been. That's what troubles him now: maybe the person he's always been, apart from questions of biology, really isn't who he thought. Stripping away illusions about his nature has made it even easier for him to see that there are other things he might've been fooling himself about his whole life. Maybe he's never been a loyal person. He's run as far as he can get from Kara Thrace, torn his heart out of her hands. It still hurts.
But he also knows that he didn't go anywhere until after she'd already drawn up inside herself, her heart tucked safely away. On his more cynical days, he thinks maybe it never left that fortress she built for it. But that can't be true. There were times what they had was as real as anything he's ever known. He doesn't blame her; it is what it is. Failure on both their parts. He doesn't want to fail again.
He tells himself that it doesn't matter whether it's the first time for him or he's had it before. He's been given a heart, and it's one he thinks he can hold. He can't imagine what it took for Tyrol to get to a place where he'd want to let go of it again, and he's equally as confused about why it should be him to receive it. But he has.
Tyrol's palm keeps sliding, slipping up to his neck then down again until it's curving over his ass. He's testing. Wet lips drag over the skin at his shoulder, and there's a gentle scrape of teeth. Sam rolls his body just enough to make things plain.
Though Tyrol seems to respond to him, and his other hand creeps up over his hipbone and splays across his stomach, he says it anyway: "If you need to kick me out, just say so. I'll understand."
"Nope. You're staying."
"Good." Sam can hear the smile in his voice, even over a sudden howl of the wind. "Because I kinda wanna be inside you again."
"Yeah?" The hand on his stomach wanders down to the join of his thigh. The other slips down between the cheeks of his ass. Sam groans softly.
Tyrol presses closer, his chest and stomach coming to rest against him. Sam can feel his cock thickening again against the small of his back as his finger plays over his asshole. Tyrol murmurs, "I love the sounds you make. You want this, don't you? You wanna feel me filling you up like this."
His finger presses into Sam's already slick opening, smooth and sure. So quickly bringing his body back to what they did just a little while before, sending a spike of arousal through him that settles in his gut.
Sam murmurs, "Yeah. Godsdamn." As Tyrol takes his hands away to get more lube, Sam says, "Hurry up."
When Tyrol goes back to stretching him open, he takes hold of Sam's cock and strokes it slowly in time with the movement of his fingers. The tighter and tighter Sam is wound up, the more he can feel the tension mount in Tyrol's body, too, as he rocks against his back, drawing it out of him as he shudders and tenses with every heave of Sam's chest, every jerk of his hips. His teeth leave marks on his shoulder, and Sam can feel a warm pant of breath on his skin as Tyrol jerks him, still pressing in with his finger, still rocking with his body. When he thinks he can't take it any more, that he needs to just be inside him already, Tyrol crooks his finger and holds, fisting him hard. Sam groans and Tyrol's body, strung tight and vibrating with arousal, is tucked up so tightly against his it feels like they're both coming at once.
But they're not. He knows they're not because he can feel Tyrol's hard-on hot and thick against his back, just rutting there as he brings him through with short, hard jerks of his cock, finally snaking a hand down between them to his own, and Sam doesn't know if he's trying to stop himself from coming or he just needs to put his hands on himself, but it's frakkin' hot. Tyrol's hands always are. Sam feels so warm, almost too warm, flushed, the pleasure racing through his body spurred on by feeling how close Tyrol is to coming apart, too.
By the time Sam's come through it enough to start pressing back against him purposefully, and his arm reaches back to pull him closer, grope whatever part of his body he can get his hands on, Tyrol nudges him over onto his stomach. He spreads him open, his thumb pausing to test, one last time, and then he shoves in, filling him maybe too fast, but Sam's so loose now, and he wants it. Tyrol drives deep, his warm body draped over his as his hips make contact again and again. It doesn't take long before he's grunting and slowing, slipping in with a sharp thrust that he holds as he shudders. Sam can feel the warm pulse of it inside him, wet and slick and full.
Tyrol pulls out soon after he comes, and he rolls over onto his back. Sam turns, sated and sleepy, and watches Tryol's chest heave with each breath, calming and calming until he opens his eyes again. When he does, he turns and looks at him and sneaks his hand out, palm-down, against Sam's thigh.
When Tyrol speaks again, his voice cracks. They're exhausted.
He says, "I still don't know if I could do that, what you do. But I'm really frakkin' glad you like it this way. Because I like it. A lot."
"I told you a long time ago, I don't care if you never want me to frak you."
"'Cause it's not about trust. You know that?"
"I know."
"I trust you."
"I know, Chief," he says with overblown seriousness, and Tyrol chuckles.
They don't sleep curled up around each other. Nights are too warm planetside, and, besides, Sam squirms a lot in his sleep. Tyrol just rolls toward him for a moment and slides his hand up over Sam's throat and neck, his thumb sweeping against his jaw. He kisses him once on the lips, lingering and soft.
Sam smoothes a hand over Tyrol's stomach before they both roll over onto their backs. He thinks about how even though they talk so much when the mood strikes them, sometimes, too, about how they feel, they never use those three words. He's amazed by how little he needs to hear them when he can feel them, even in this space between them. It was the same with Kara, a voice inside him prompts; it was just something he knew, felt. He still knows, if he's honest with himself. Maybe it's just easier to think it was never really there than to admit he let it go.
He's almost asleep, the churning thoughts about Kara having settled for a time, heavy but unresented, when Tyrol suddenly says, "She trusted you, too."
It's a little like having a bruise prodded, smashed over with the heel of a hand, even if Tyrol didn't mean it.
"Galen…"
"She didn't know how. That's what made her nervous. But she did anyway. That's what love is, right? You don't have a choice. Just happens to you?"
Sam knows he's thinking not just of Kara but of Cally, probably Boomer, too.
"I don't know," Sam says, suddenly feeling the need to lighten things up. "You didn't just happen to me."
Tyrol chuckles, warm and thick like honey. His hand slides over Sam's hip. "Oh, hell yeah, I did."
"Shut up," Sam says, shifting his hip, feeling Tyrol's fingers digging in.
"Make me," he says.
Sam laughs, lazy and slow, then he suddenly rolls and climbs up on top of Tyrol, hands coming down on either side of his head.
"Hey, asshole," he says, grinning down at him.
"You," Tyrol says, taking hold of him by the waist. His face twitches up in a mischievous smile. "You are so frakkin' hot."
"And you're not fighting fair."
"Like you ever did."
"For you, no. Because you absolutely did happen to me, and I wasn't gonna be stupid enough to let you get away."
He hates it when sincere shit like that comes out of his mouth. He's half afraid Tyrol's going to mock him for it, but he doesn't. But he should know better; Tyrol somehow always knows when to poke fun and when to be serious.
Tyrol just closes his eyes and smiles. "I'm glad."
Sam resists the urge to just kiss the everliving frak out of him. Instead, he bends down and nips at one of the sensitive spots on his neck. "You're glad? Yeah?"
"Dammit, Sam."
"Say it."
"Say what?"
"I'm not leaving you alone until you do."
"Gods," he groans, squirming underneath him. "Gods. Yeah. You're about as subtle as one of Hot Dog's landings. Always were. I didn't stand a chance."
"No?"
"No."
Sam's adrenaline is up again, but his body isn't all that eager to try for a third erection in an hour. Neither, apparently, is Tyrol's. So he slides back off him, pausing as he does to kiss his shoulder, then his mouth. Tyrol's hand clasps his for a moment as he pulls him back for another kiss, this one longer.
When he lets his hand go and Sam rolls onto his back again, he thinks he can still feel his fingers, the way they felt threaded through his own; familiar, like home. It ought to freak him out, and it does, a little. But that's just another part of this thing, too, so he closes his eyes and listens to the sound of Tyrol's breathing, the way it blends with the sound of the wind rippling at the canvas, and falls asleep.
~