Content Warning:
It's gonna get a bit steamy in this chapter. If you don't like to read that kind of thing, I suggest skipping it. The next chapter will make sense even if you don't read this one.
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Null awoke from a dreamless sleep to the sight of the star-spangled darkness of space.
As she sat up on their bed in the Captain's cabin and stretched, she winced in pain. The fight against the augmented Major General of Orion's Reach had definitely left a bruise or two, and their legs felt like they had been running a marathon. But other than that, their augments informed them, they were perfectly fine.
Overall, she felt unusually well rested, as if a great weight had been lifted off of her. The memory of the burning Orion's Reach headquarters on Astraphos filled her with content and for the first time in a long while, she felt at peace.
Well, there you have it, Captain Scott, she thought, recalling their conversation form their dream, Another problem solved by blowing it up.
Good morning, Lars mumbled at the back of their head.
Is it morning? Null wondered.
I have no idea... We have slept about twenty hours I think. I have to admit I lost track of what kind of time we're running on, he replied, still sounding groggy.
Twenty hours?!
The loud rumbling of their stomach only seemed to confirm his estimate.
Well it's always time for breakfast somewhere in space, she remarked.
Twenty minutes later, they sat freshly showered and dressed in the galley, while Rutherford was preparing scrambled eggs with bacon. On the video screen above the kitchen counter, a news feed was running, reporting on the terrorist attack on Astraphos. The authorities were still in the process of figuring out who had been behind it, so the report focused on a long list of Hunters that had been declared dead after the attack. A smile flickered across their face as they spotted the name 'Nicolas Meyer' among them.
"Enjoy, Ma'am," Rutherford addressed her as he placed the plate before them.
"Thanks Rutherford," she said and began to dig in.
Ensign Darwin rubbed against her legs under the table and meowed impatiently. When Rutherford turned his back on them, she fed the cat a piece of bacon. At his grateful purr, she was reminded of her words to General Neris, about not being able to buy loyalty with money or lies. Food, however, was a different matter.
"So how are the repairs coming along? When can we leave?" she asked Rutherford while she ate.
The Android crew had watched over the ship during her absence. They had hidden the Blackstar and Nova's ship in the orbit of an uninhabited planet in the same system as Astraphos. However, they had been gone far longer than expected. Upon their return they found that raiders had discovered the seemingly abandoned ships and thought they could salvage them easily. Heisenberg had made quick work of them, but Nova's ship had been damaged in the process. Null felt like the least she could do after all that she had dragged him through was to offer their help with the repairs, but being in the same place for too long always made her feel antsy.
"I did not want to disturb your sleep while the repairs are ongoing, ma'am, I hope that was in your best interest. Higgs has informed me that he had to improvise on some of the damaged parts, but he estimates to be finished within the next two to three hours," Rutherford reported. "Meanwhile, I took the liberty to offer Mister Nova a bed in the infirmary."
"Sure. Good thinking. Thanks," she mumbled.
She recalled now with some embarrassment some dreadfully long moments of silence between them during the shuttle trip back here. Something had been on his mind, but she hadn't dared to ask. Shortly after they had discovered the damage to his ship, they had both boarded the Blackstar, and while Nova had been busy discussing the repairs with Higgs, she had walked straight to their cabin without another word to either of them. There, she had simply collapsed face down on their bed from exhaustion.
Luckily, Rutherford was a more polite host than she would ever be.
"If Mister Nova joins our crew, may I suggest some refurbishing of the old crew quarters? We androids don't mind, but-"
"Nova is not a member of our crew, Rutherford," she cut him off.
"Apologies, ma'am," Rutherford replied, "I was merely considering the possibility. It's a pity, if I may say so. He seems like a capable lad. Even if Heisenberg disagrees for some reason."
"No possibility," she emphasized. "None whatsoever."
Why? Lars asked.
I like our crew the way it is, she replied, as she watched Rutherford turn around and begin to clean up the kitchen. His chef's hat balanced precariously on top of his spherical body, which bobbed up and down as he moved.
And Nova will be happy to leave once his ship is repaired.
She was certain about her first statement - not so certain about the second. Part of her hoped he would, while another didn't. But the truth was that his presence on the Blackstar made her even more uncomfortable than the feeling of being stuck in one place. She still couldn't get over the fact that he continued to hit on them at every possible and impossible occasion. Even after he had found out that he was talking to two people, not one. With one of them being an AI. And Null herself, albeit organic, was about as messed up as one could get. Together, Lars and Null were barely even capable of making sense of and dealing with their usual emotions, without adding their confusing feelings for Nova on top of that.
And there were many confusing feelings whirling about their mind right now. She could feel their face flush with heat as she tried to force them away, but her thoughts continued to spiral out of control, descending into a turbulent downward flurry of anxiety, doubt and impossible what-ifs.
She groaned and shook her head forcefully to clear her mind again.
It's just... too weird, she explained.
I agree, Lars suddenly said.
You do? She asked in surprise.
Lars didn't reply. She could feel that he was thinking about something somewhere in the back of their mind, behind the veil, but he was apparently not willing to share it with her. And his silence and absence only added to the turmoil on her side of their mind.
~ ~ ~
After breakfast, she made her way to the bridge to check on the status of their own ship. She couldn't wait for Higgs to finish the repairs so they could get away from here, although she still had no clear idea of where to go yet. But she was yearning to put as much space between themselves and Astraphos as physically possible.
Lars had managed to move a copy of the files from Neris' terminal on the Blackstars's computer systems, so she could look at them more easily now. As she browsed through the list of names of people who had paid Orion's Reach in order to be able to secretly keep their augments, she wondered if they would be happy about the destruction of the organization that had extorted them. On the downside, they had most likely also gotten their hardware through them. With the Butcher, Blake and Neris all dead, she wondered where they would get replacements from, and who would perform the surgeries.
Lazarus, she thought, That's our next lead. They must have hidden all that illegal hardware somewhere...
She was too lost in thought and too focused on the data on the screens in front of her, and Lars was still hanging out somewhere in the back of their mind. She didn't hear the door, or the footsteps behind her, and so she was caught completely off guard by the feeling of somebody standing closely behind her back.
In a heartbeat, her eyes widened and all of her augments flared to life at once. She whirled around, one hand shooting up and grabbing the exposed throat in front of her, while her other grabbed the wrist of the hand that had been about to touch her. Nova winced at the pain as she twisted it away.
"You! You really have a death wish, don't you?" she hissed at him, her voice barely audible to her over their now racing heart beat.
"Apparently, that's just what it means to be into you," he replied in a low voice.
His face was close to hers, and his breath carried the faint scent of mint as he spoke. Somehow, it irked her that she even noticed that. And she couldn't read the strange expression he was wearing at all. That irked her too. Even more so than the fact that the shock of the surprise had caused her to forget most of her thoughts from mere seconds ago.
She clenched her teeth as anger welled up inside of her, and she tightened her grip for a moment. Nova didn't fight back. He didn't even wriggle his hand free from her grasp, despite the pain it must have caused him. He just stared down at her, his dark brown eyes unwavering and unreadable.
He looked better again, after he had rested and cleaned up. Color had returned to his face. His tanned skin had its healthy, golden hue back, and there was no trace of the crimson of dried blood. But there were still faint purple shadows under his eyes. It reminded her of the sordid state he had been in after their extended connection via the comm link.
The comm link she had opened. The connection she had caused. The pain she was to blame for, and that had caused all that crimson and purple to mask the gold.
She snapped out of her strange and confusing houghts and realized that she was still choking him. Finally, she let go with an annoyed groan. He cleared his throat and moved his hand up to rub his skin where her fingers had left red marks. For a brief moment, her gaze trailed over the scars on the back of his hand, and then along the dark lines of the tattoos on his neck, a perfect map of the layout of a subcutaneous circuit. She followed them over his shoulders to where they branched off, for one set of lines to continue down his back, and the other to dip down and run back parallel to his clavicles. In the center of his chest, just above the top of the sternum, the lines coming in from both sides almost met. Without ever touching, they formed an intricate pattern over the top half of his pectoral muscles. Below, his skin was unmarked by tattoos and unblemished by scars. Nothing but smooth gold all the way down over his abs and to the waistband of his ripped, black jeans, that sat precariously low on his narrow hips.
She snapped her head back up again too late, and felt hot blood rush to her cheeks.
"Nova," she hissed through clenched teeth, closing her eyes for a moment in an attempt to regain her composure, "What the fuck are you doing sneaking around on the bridge of my ship half naked?!"
"I was looking for you," he said matter-of-factly, his voice still sounding slightly hoarse, "Rutherford told me you're awake and I wanted to-"
"That doesn't explain why you're not wearing a shirt!" She raised her voice, almost yelling at him.
She had to force herself to keep her gaze on his face with considerable effort. And yet he had the audacity to wear that insufferable smirk of his plastered across it.
"Rutherford has kindly offered to get all those pesky blood stains out, he told me he's quite the expert at that," Nova chirped innocently.
His smirk wavered under her glare, and he combed his fingers through his tousled purple curls for a moment as he was looking for the right words to continue.
"And I just wanted to... well, I wanted to thank you for your hospitality and-"
"You're welcome," she snapped and turned around to face the screens again. Her hands were shaking as she placed them on the panel. But not looking at him made it easier to keep them there - just to avoid punching that stupid grin on his face, of course. She wasn't that bad of a host.
"Now leave. I'm working," she grumbled.
She could feel him move behind her again. His warmth radiated out from his half-naked body like a veritable sun. And she was right in his perihelion, paralyzed on an orbit between his body and the control panel before her.
"You should regularly take breaks from work, you know."
His voice was a deep and low whisper, and close to her ear. His peppermint breath brushed against her skin and her hair, and the sensation caused a shiver to run down her spine. She had to close her eyes again, and took a deep breath.
That annoying, insufferable, impossible idiot has still not given up, she thought with a mixture of disbelief and anger.
She whirled around again and he took a surprised step back.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Nova?" she exclaimed angrily. "I mean... how... why... how can you..."
She wanted to continue shouting at him, but the sight of his naked upper body caused her thoughts to trail off again, along with her voice. She gulped heavily, unable to pry her eyes away completely. She opted to focus on that point on his sternum, where the lines almost touched. It struck her as at least somewhat more polite than staring at anything further to the south.
"I mean, now you know, and still..."
She gestured vaguely, unable to put anything about this absurd situation into words. Finally, she managed to lift her gaze and look at his face. His smirk had disappeared, and his face was unreadable again as he looked down at her, one eyebrow raised.
"Nothing's wrong with me," he said and shrugged, "I told you before - I just... don't care. It's no big deal to me."
She opened her mouth to say something back, but her mind went completely blank as he stepped closer again, carrying that solar heat along with him and towards her. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he moved a hand up to her face. She stared back at him wide eyed, a feeling of complete paralysis taking hold of her as he brushed a few strands of black hair from her face and tucked it away behind her ear. There was a strange, faint smile on his lips now, one she had never seen him wear before.
What... what's happening? Lars asked all of a sudden.
She had barely noticed that he had shut himself in up until now. Now that he returned to the front of their body, he sounded terribly confused. She couldn't blame him, she felt terribly confused, too.
She could have pushed Nova away. But for some reason that she didn't quite understand herself, she didn't. Not even as his fingers brushed against their cheek for a moment as he tucked away the white portion of their hair as well.
It doesn't hurt when he touches us, she realized.
She had noticed it before, on Astraphos. But she hadn't given it a lot of thought back then.
As she focused her attention back on Nova, she found him staring back at them. The expression in his dark brown eyes was not at all what she had expected. It was not that carnal hunger that she had seen in them sometimes, when they had run into him on Six. She had always known that he wanted this body, and she had not hesitated for a second to use that fact to her advantage when she had asked him to do something as insane as infiltrating Orion's Reach. But the look on his face right now was different. It showed sincerity and concern, and something that looked like... pain. He had looked at them like that when he had come to save them from Blake.
She tried to push all thoughts about that lunatic NC away again before more could creep up. It felt like all that had happened ages ago, lightyears away. What was left of Blake had been blown to hell, just like all the other stuff that she didn't want to remember.
It didn't take a lot of effort to stop thinking about it, as Nova softly placed his hands against the side of their face. She had thought it impossible, but his touch felt warm even against the unbearable heat that had flushed their face. It ignited something within her, something very different from the searing pain of an unwanted touch.
"Be honest with me. Does either of you really have a problem with this?" Nova asked with an unfamiliar softness to his voice as he caressed their cheek. "...with me?"
Well, I-
"No," she blurted out, cutting off Lars in their mind. Their blush intensified.
Sorry... she thought.
"I mean... Well... Don't you think that this is... kinda awkward?" she whispered sheepishly, trying to put both her own and Lars' thoughts into words.
"Why?" Nova asked. "From my perspective, nothing has changed. You're still amazing, Pirate Queen. Determined. Brave. Strong. Perhaps a bit too reckless. Perhaps a little bit insane. Slightly terrifying."
His serious look turned into a smirk again as he let his gaze wander up and down their body.
"But very beautiful. Very strange, but in a good way. Overall..." his voice dropped to a low and husky whisper that caused a strange shiver to run down her spine. "...just really damn hot."
He doesn't care. He really just... doesn't care about how fucked up all of this is, she realized in disbelief. And... it doesn't hurt...
The longer he looked at them like that, the more she was running out of reasons to shut him down. She suddenly recalled all those occasions when they had been very close to him, during the various insane situations they had dragged him into on Astraphos. In that maintenance tunnel in particular, she had been close enough to feel every breath that expanded his chest, every edge of his bones, every tensing of his muscles - everything. Now she could watch those muscles, lean but taut, moving under his skin that was exposed right before her, emanating that titillating warmth.
Their body began to feel really damn hot indeed now.
I think we dressed too warm this morning, Lars remarked in a low voice as he noticed.
She didn't reply, but she had a strong suspicion that the tank top and cargo pants they had put on had nothing to do with it.
Nova moved closer and she reflexively backed away, until she could feel the edge of the control panel behind them. She stared up at him wide eyed, as he tentatively put his hands on their hips, where the top had ridden up toward their waist and their skin was exposed. Lars wanted to interject something else about their outfit, but at the same moment, spontaneously evoked thoughts of being without any of their clothes right now caused him to fall silent again.
Nova only traced the tips of his fingers up and down along the exposed skin on their side. But as the light friction of the scars on his hands mingled with the feeling of warmth from his skin she shuddered and ther breathing turned erratic.
"Dammit, Nova," she mumbled, unable to hear her own voice over the heavy pounding of their heart, "I really hate you."
"I'm not entirely certain which one of you said this, but I suggest you make up your minds, because I'm getting some very mixed signals here," he said with a smirk.
In a way, she really hated him in that moment, hated him for making their knees feel so weak and their head so fuzzy. But to claim that she didn't like the way it felt would have been an outrageous lie.
If she hadn't known any better, she would have thought he was doing something with some interface augments, because his touch resulted in a tingling sensation that coursed through their entire body like an electrifying surge. Her breath hitched and she gripped the edge of the control panel behind their back hard.
Null, Lars stirred at the back of their mind uneasily. What are you doing?
Nova's grin widened at her reaction and he moved closer. The white rings in his dark brown eyes were glowing softly as he lowered his gaze from their eyes down to their lips. With his hand still on their sides, he pushed them back gently, only to lift them up until they came to sit on the control panel.Their heart skipped a beat as he moved even closer and placed himself between their legs.
Let me rephrase that. Why aren't you doing anything?
Excellent question, Lars...she replied meekly, asking herself the same as she stared back at Nova and completely forgot to breathe for a few seconds. Let me get back to you on that in a minute.
Nova moved his hand up along their waist at an excruciatingly slow pace, pushing up the hem of their top in the process. He stopped just below the seam of their bra, where he traced his thumb across the naked skin over their ribs in a tantalizing caress. Erratic activity patterns flickered across the interface panel underneath their palms, and a soft moan escaped their lips.
"I take this as a sign that I may carry on," Nova said, sounding smug.
She wanted to snap back at him, but couldn't think of anything to say. She felt so hot that the only thought on her mind was to get rid of their clothes entirely. And his clothes, too. And that thought didn't help with the feeling in the least.
She closed their eyes with a deep sigh.
This is a bad idea, Null, Lars whispered.
Thank you Lars, she replied flatly. I appreciate your feedback. But could you, perhaps, just, not be the voice of reason in here for a moment?
Widow's Kiss, he just said.
Her eyes snapped open again, only to widen even further in shock at the sight of Nova's face right in front of theirs. In a sudden panic, she jerked their head to the side and his lips brushed against their cheek instead. She could feel his surprised breath tickle softly across their skin, and the sensation caused her to tremble.
She could have just pushed him away, she realized now. Why had she not pushed him away? Why did she not push him away right now? Why had Lars not taken control and pushed him away? In fact, what was Lars doing there in the back of their mind, anyway? He probably felt like a bystander watching a horrific accident right now - unable to tell whether to look on or look away. A wave of guilt flooded her mind at the thought.
Lars, I....
"Hm. Alright, not on the lips," Nova mumbled, "Pity. But I'll keep it in mind."
She was about to ask him to clarify, but the feeling of his lips against their skin caused her thought to trail off. He brushed their hair to the side and began to trace delicate kisses down along the side of their neck. When she exhaled a breath she had been holding way too long, it came out as a stifled moan.
Oh... Lars voice sounded surprised and very confused inside her mind. That's...
Lars felt it too - even without him being in control of the body, she knew that he would. Every time Nova's lips brushed against their skin, that insufferable man somehow cast a soft, electrifying surge on it that coursed throughout the entire body.
Nice, she spelled out what both of them were thinking.
Nova placed his lips against their collar bone, causing another shiver to run down their spine. 'Nice' was a colossal understatement. But Lars' presence felt odd beside her now, shifting and whirling, as if he couldn't decide whether to stay at the front of their mind or shut himself in completely. It was awkward - just not for Nova. He really didn't seem to care at all.
And as he continued to kiss their skin like that, she found herself to care less and less as well.
Sorry, Lars... she thought meekly, I hope you can forgive me for dragging you into this, but...
Lars didn't reply. He had made his decision now, and had receded so far into the back of their mind that she could barely feel him. For a brief moment, she was worried about his well-being, but she couldn't hold that thought very long.
As if he could sense that something had changed, Nova leaned back and met her gaze for a moment. She felt strangely alone within the body, and at the same time as if she was not herself, as she hesitantly moved her hands up, placing one against Nova's chest and the other on his arm. A part of her had yearned to touch them from the moment she had first seen them, and now she wondered about the story behind his tattoos and his scars more than ever. Tentatively and slowly, she traced along the rough white and smooth black lines with her fingertips, and she could feel him shudder slightly under her touch.
She didn't get a chance to ask about the story behind them. Nova pulled her tightly against his body all of a sudden, a low growling sound like a muffled groan rumbling deep within his chest. He wrapped one arm around her, cradling her in a tight embrace, and buried his other in her hair. For a moment, she thought he would pull her head back at the hair, and she gasped in surprise. But there was nothing demanding or forceful in his gestures. He didn't need to demand anything at this point, she just followed his every motion willingly, like water melding against the container holding it. She leaned against his touch with a soft sigh.
He looked deep into her eyes as he tilted her head back in a delicate motion, and her pulse and breath quickened as his gaze wandered down to her lips. She wouldn't have the mental capacity to push him away if he tried to kiss her now. But he didn't. He pried his white-illuminated gaze away and leaned closer again. She could feel his breath, and then his lips, and finally the tip of his tongue, as he traced it along the side of her neck again. And then, as he reached the spot where her neck met her shoulder, she could feel his teeth graze against her skin. With a squeal of surprise, she clenched her hands which still rested against his body. She left behind faint red lines on the gold of his skin, but he didn't so much as flinch. He only shuddered briefly and let out a low hum, and then sank his teeth into the muscles of her shoulder. She gasped in surprise, but a wave of pleasure dulled out any pain she might have felt. As he nipped and sucked at her skin, her body was shook with tremor after tremor, and if she hadn't been sitting down already, her legs would have given in.
"Oh... god..." she moaned.
She stopped for a momenr and she could feel his lips turn upward in a grin.
"It's okay," he whispered against her skin. "You can call me Nova,"
"Insufferable... jerk..."
She barely managed to finish, another soft bite caused her to gasp and turned her last word into a distorted moan. And just when she thought the sweet pain of his bites was becoming too much to bear, he placed a delicate kiss in the same spot. He moved back up along her neck again, and briefly paused just below her jawbone. She melted against his embrace under the touch of his lips, until he parted them again and traced his tongue across her skin. Ocassionally, the soft and wet sensation briefly mingled with something else - hard and metallic.
A tongue piercing, she realized
And then her further thoughts about his tongue completely derailed.
By the time he pulled down the strap of her top and bra over her shoulder, she knew that it was way too late. Any remaining resolve to push him away at some point had evaporated completely under the searing heat that his touch and kisses had caused to well up inside of her. She used her last remaining shreds of common sense and willpower to keep herself from planting her lips on his. Because as much as he liked to joke about having a death wish, there might still have been enough traces of Widow's Kiss to give him that heart failure and asphyxiation for real.
Somewhat ironically, right now Nova managed to make her heart beat so erratically, and cause her breath to still, all without a deadly poison on his lips. She yearned to feel more of these lips - everywhere, anywhere, even if she could not kiss him, as long as they would stay on her body and she could lose herself in these sensations.
With a deep sigh, she wrapped her legs around his waist and put her hands around the back of his neck to pull him closer to herself, causing him to groan in surprise. She could feel the strain in the muscles of his back, and the tension throughout his body, his heart as it was beating fast and heavy in his chest, his hands as they moved along her body under her shirt. And in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to get rid of her damn clothes to feel more of his skin on hers.
As if he had read her thoughts, he leaned back to cast her an amused grin, then he grabbed the hem of her top and pulled it over her head in a quick motion. He continued where he had left off, kissing and nipping at her neck, exploring her body with softly caressing hands. The heat of his skin against hers was torturous now, but it felt to her as if it was thawing something that had been frozen way too long. She closed her eyes, ready to surrender herself to a blazing inferno, sent from heaven instead of hell. What harm was there in it? Just for this one time, she would let herself burn in that fire that promised a few mindless moments of blissful ignorance of the world and the pains of life.
Although it would be damn hard to do this without kissing him back, she realized, as he nibbled on her ear lobe. His breath was dancing over her skin, hot and erratic.
"Pirate Queen," he whispered suddenly
His voice was was raw and husky, and evoked a sweet ache in the core of the body. Another shiver ran down her spine that made her tremble in his arms.
He did not continue. Suddenly, she felt a different kind of tension in his body that startled her. As she opened her eyes she found him staring past her, the white rings in his eyes glowing brightly.
"Who's the flustered looking man on your vid comm channel?"
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A.N.
So, I asked myself, how would one even write such a scene, involving a person that is technically two people? ...this is the result of me trying to figure that out :'D
Who do you think is interrupting the two right now??