Whoever thought that Galactica could feel like home? But that was the feeling when Lee stepped onto the deck. He hadn’t expected any kind of welcome – he wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone on Galactica hated him for betraying the Commander – but when he climbed out of the Raptor, Kat crossed the flight deck to throw her arms around him. He’d nearly staggered backwards, expecting that she’d go for Kara instead. Starbuck was the hero after all. But a guilty look from his father beside him had told Lee everything he needed to know. There’d been a new CAG and by the looks of Kat not a very good one.
After Kat left, his father slung an arm around his shoulders and said that a CAG was part of a ship’s family. Family couldn’t be replaced. Lee bit his lip at the word, looking down at the ground. He hadn’t really felt part of a family since Zak and for the longest time he’d felt like an outsider on his father’s ship.
Racetrack spotted him after his dad moved away to head back up to the CIC. She didn’t hug him like Kat had, just smiled. Lee almost wished she hadn’t done even that when he caught Kara’s expression out of the corner of his eye.
“You frakkin’ her?”
There wasn’t anything to do but snort. Racetrack was definitely hot stuff, but Kara didn’t know the half. She was too hung-up on that rescue mission to Caprica to get a lot of things these days. But even Kara had better things to do than worry about who he was frakking. She stalked off to her quarters, leaving him alone.
He had his own quarters to go to and that was where he went, exhausted and thinking only of showering and lying down in his rack for a while. It’d been a long time since he’d actually slept. He was so exhausted that he didn’t think anything of the footsteps behind him until a hand found his shoulder just as he was ready to close his door.
Lee froze. Somehow he knew who it was even before he turned around. Who it was wasn’t the problem. His first worry was whether anyone had seen.
“What are you doing here?”
Tom Zarek didn’t even flinch when Lee finally faced him. He just stepped aside and let him close the door, waiting for the ominous clang to fade before speaking. “I thought I’d say goodbye before I descend from Olympus back to the realm of mere mortals.”
Lee rolled his eyes. Zarek talked as though they lived like kings here on Galactica. Her crew worked harder than anyone else. His father worked harder than anyone else. No one should be mistaken on that account. But Lee let the comment go. Zarek was waiting for him to speak.
For a moment, Lee struggled for something to say. He didn’t regret killing Zarek’s man, if Zarek was looking for remorse. He didn’t give a frak about Mieir either, but he had seen Zarek grieve over the body. The mission had been hard on all of them, even Zarek – Lee could see the tiredness in his face.
“Hey, uh . . . sorry about your friend.” He managed to keep his voice level. What good would it do to say that the bastard had deserved what he got? Lee had seen Mieir talking to Sharon. What else had he expected from one of her kind?
Zarek just studied him, no emotion in his face. “So stumps have friends . . .”
Lee shrugged. “I guess so.” The answer disappointed Zarek. The statement had been some sort of challenge. But Lee wasn’t in the mood for debates at the moment. “You gonna miss him?” he asked instead just for the hell of it.
It was a stupid thing to say – he knew it the instant the words left his mouth – but he didn’t quite expect the bitterness that entered into Zarek’s expression. “You think we’re like the Cylon - Sharon? We don’t feel.” He held his hands out in a clutching gesture. “We . . . obey Zeus and Laura Roslin, and our losses are chalked up to the greater good of their designs. Is that how it all works, Apollo?”
More debates, more ire toward the oppression of the system. Why did everything have to be a frakking debate? Couldn’t Zarek take something at surface value for once? “You know that’s not what I meant.” He meant that Mieir was complete slime, conspiring with a Cylon, a Cylon whose copy had shot his father at point blank range in cold blood. Lee seethed inside. “He put a gun to my head.” And he’d given Sharon a gun to shoot his father all over again. If Sharon had shot Mieir instead she had no doubt done it for her own reasons.
Zarek’s features sank. This time, sadness showed through, his voice low and shadowy when he spoke again. “I tried to talk him out of it.”
He turned away, focusing his attention on the opposite bulkhead, his shoulders tense, pulling the black leather of his jacket. Lee stared, folding his arms and leaning against the locker. So Mieir had wanted him dead – not his father, him - and Tom Zarek had wanted no part of the plan. Folding his arms tighter, Lee tipped his head back and eyed the other man suspiciously.
“So what made Tom Zarek decide to spare me?”
That got Zarek’s attention. He turned, putting the matter of Mieir aside as he moved closer. Something in his eyes suddenly made Lee feel pinned to the bulkhead.
“You took a stand aboard Colonial One, defying the whims of Zeus. I respect that. But now that Zeus has welcomed you back to Olympus with open arms, what will you do, Apollo? Roslin isn’t being reinstated for the sake of democracy. The suffering of the people at the hands of military tyranny has yet to be redressed.”
Lee laughed inwardly. The man was a dreamer. “Right. Colone’s Tigh’s just gonna be court-marshaled and held accountable for every frakked-up things he’s done. You think my father’s gonna do that? He needs him, or thinks he does.”
The worst thing was that Tom was right. He gets thrown in the brig for trying to stop an illegal overthrow of the rightful government while Tigh drinks on duty and fraks up the fleet without so much as a slap on the wrist. But if Lee knew anything he knew it all would come back to haunt Tigh sooner or later. The people wouldn’t forget what had happened aboard the Gideon. His father would have no choice but to confront Tigh’s screw-ups then.
Zarek knew he had him, and with a knowing smile he inched even closer, so close that Lee could smell the leather of his coat. He didn’t know why, but he found the awareness disconcerting. But then something so simple as the smell of leather wasn’t the only thing he found unnerving about Tom Zarek. There was the way the man was looking at him now, for starters, partly like an animal seizing on his pretty and partly like . . . . Lee swallowed hard; he didn’t want to go there. He was too aware of the fact that he was alone with Zarek behind a closed door. Who wanted to be alone with a guy who spent the last twenty years in prison?
“That would make you our only hope,” Zarek went on in his theatrical way of speaking, persuasive and passionate, his pitched low now. Lee wondered if he ever got tired of orating all the damn time. “You stand for something. When the will of the people can be so easily crushed by massacres and declarations of martial law we need the prince of Olympus on our side. Will you remember that, Apollo?”
Lee had no choice but the step back until he was pressed against the bulkhead. Zarek stood to close. His heart beat faster with the unnerving proximity. “It’s part of my job,” Lee’s own voice came rough and quiet now. “Defend the Articles . . . They make us who we are.”
“Part of your job?” Zarek’s hands came up in another dramatic gesture. They cloud have touched Lee’s face, they were so close. “The preservation of freedom isn’t another order to be obeyed like a good soldier. But I’m talking to the perfect soldier, aren’t I . . .? Strong, brave, quick, knows how to move, how to shoot . . .”
Those hands settled on Lee’s shoulders, smoothing back and forth. Lee’s heart beat harder; he was suddenly uncomfortably warm, nervous, anxious. He couldn’t inch away any further and Zarek was staring too intensely to have any intentions of backing off. Lee’s hand moved for his gun by habit, but he didn’t have a weapon on him anymore. All he could do was stay pinned to the bulkhead while Zarek went on, his fingers curling into the collar of Lee’s jacket, eyes fixed eerily on his body as Zarek pushed the camo from his shoulders.
“Do you know what freedom is?” His breath was coming harder now. Lee could feel it on his skin, hot and unwelcome. “Freedom is a passion, my friend, a passion that burns deep down.” Tom lowered his hand, his fingers trailing over Lee’s chest as he went. Lee went rigid, the two shirts he wore suddenly seemed too thin. He wanted to push, Zarek off, wanting to say something, but he couldn’t move. “It consumes you and everything you do. It’s a need just begging to be satisfied.”
Zarek’s hand found it’s target, gripping tight. Lee’s eyes went wide, aware of the pounding between his legs and the fact that Zarek could feel it against his palm. Tom Zarek, the terrorist, had pinned him to the bulkhead and grabbed his crotch . . . Lee’s head started to spin.
“What the frak do you think you’re . . .?” The words were raspy, low and thick. Lee wished he weren’t breathing so hard. Zarek didn’t pull his hand away.
“Have you been waiting to be satisfied, Apollo?”
He started to rub him through the camouflage cloth, up and back. Zarek knew what he was doing; a sly smile curved his lips when he squeezed and drew a gasp from Lee’s mouth. Frak . . . . What the frak was this? Lee felt himself responding, the blood flowing downward, pounding until his cock swelled against Zarek’s hot hand. Then there was Zarek’s voice, something to focus on in the confusion.
“Everyday, every task is regimented, crushing precious free will and individual passion. I can’t imagine how badly you must ache to do something that isn’t orchestrated by those puppet masters of our fates whom we call a commander and a president.”
Gritting his teeth, Lee shook his head. This was a trick, a ploy to get him to denounce his father again. “You’re out of your frakking . . . ”
Those quick fingers had undone his zipper. Zarek had his cock in his hand, hard flesh against a calloused palm. He was still smiling shyly, even as his slid down in one smooth move, dropping to his knees on the hard floor.
“Freedom is release.”
He sounded so reverent that for a moment Lee almost believed him. But he knew what release would be in a way that Tom Zarek didn’t. Release was unloading a few rounds into that Cylon who had shot his father.
Zarek continued to smile his sly smile, leaning forward until Lee could feel the man’s breath on the tight skin of his cock, tingling. Zarek’s mouth opened. Lee’s eyes squeezed shut. He jerked away from the bulkhead when wet heat closed around him. Zarek was . . . Frak . . . .
A quick, rough rhythm started up. Zarek’s lips closed impossibly tight, almost yanking him forward, and then he let go and Lee dipped backward. One moment his palms were flat against the metal behind him and then next he was gripping Zarek’s shoulders, his fingers slipping on the leather.
“Frak . . .” he ground out through his short, ragged breathing. Zarek had nothing to say now, but what could he say with his mouth full? Lee’s lower body was moving, rocking slightly with the rhythm of Zarek’s mouth. He could feel himself pounding against the hot wetness, feel himself straining, starting to reach a peak
He couldn’t stop it when it happened. Shudders took hold of him. He gripped Tom’s coat for dear life. The climax was quick and powerful, like the shot he burned to fire into Boomer’s skull, and all at once Lee exploded with sensation, exploded into the other man. Wrong or right, it didn’t matter; for the moment it just felt good to come.
His knees barely held him up when it was over. He leaned heavily against the bulkhead, dizzy and overused like a piece of paper starting to tear at the edges. He needed to lie down. But eventually his head cleared and he had to face Tom Zarek kneeling in front of him on the floor.
A bright flush colored the man’s face. Lee couldn’t figure why he looked so smug, half smiling even as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He remembered what Zarek had said before and shook his head before the man could claim any kind of triumph.
“That’s not freedom, that’s just you sucking me off.”
The words failed to knock the smile from Zarek’s face. Never missing a beat, he looked up, impassioned all over again even though he knelt before a man with his fly open and the goods hanging out. But maybe in his zeal Zarek didn’t have a concept of dignity.
“Freedom is choosing to go . . . a little bit further, to open yourself to the gratification of surrendering to unimpeded desires . . .”
Lee stared, too dazed to grasp the words. Eventually they clicked. With what strength he had left, Lee reached down and grabbed Zarek by the collar, yanking him up. “You know what?” he growled. “Frak you. I don’t know what the hell you think you came here for, but now that your buddy is gone you can go back to the Astral Queen and find yourself someone else to frak.”
Zarek didn’t bat an eye. “You’ll be back.” Somehow he managed to get his hands up, cupping Lee’s face between them. One minute Lee was ready to punch him for being so smug and the next Tom Zarek’s mouth was pressed hard to his, driving his head against the wall behind him. He tasted hot and fierce, and salty most of all. Lee’s own taste, mingled with Zarek’s. This was insane. He didn’t want this.
After finally getting his hands to cooperate, Lee managed to shove Zarek back, so hard that his body hit the door. “Frak off,” he hissed.
Shaking his head, Zarek opened the door, letting himself out without a word. Once he had gone, Lee trudged over to his bunk and sank down flat on his back, still both angry and tingling with the memory of Zarek’s mouth. How could Zarek think that he would go back to the Astral Queen? He was home now, with his father . . . his father who had removed Roslin from power, who didn’t take the law as seriously as he did.
Democracy, Tom Zarek, and freedom, pitted against martial law and shootings. It didn’t matter. He could talk to his father later about freedom and the importance of the law. Maybe he would sound a little bit like Zarek when he did, that was the scary thing, those beliefs that bound the two of them. The last thing he wounded was to be bound up with Tom Zarek. In fact, he’d be all too happy never to see the man again now that he knew what Zarek wanted from him.