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No Sanctuary
by Jen

 
For a micron he wonders why he isn’t laughing, but even as he wonders, he knows.  However incongruous it might be to see Apollo like this, it isn’t laughter he feels: it’s good old-fashioned lust.  If he were a better Kobolian, perhaps he’d be concerned for the state of Apollo’s soul, but screw that; if Apollo in leather pants is sinful, then that makes Starbuck a very happy sinner.

As he moves closer, weaving his way across the crowded dance-floor and escaping the sometimes pressing invitations with a smile and a deft body-swerve learned in the bars of Caprica and perfected on the triad court, he’s not quite so sure that Apollo’s a happy sinner.  There’s a glitter in his eyes as he pushes up against the guy he’s dancing with that seems to Starbuck to speak more of desperation than just alcohol – though Starbuck’s willing to bet there’s a large amount of alcohol involved too.  His cheeks are flushed beneath the sweat that glistens in the pulsing lights, and there’s no doubt that the Commander’s son is making an uncharacteristic exhibition of himself.  He never thought he’d live to see Apollo here, Rising Star third deck, and least of all in a club like Queer Street.  And he certainly never thought, even when he heard the first stirrings of scuttlebutt, that he’d see Apollo’s ass in tight black leather, mesmerising as he pushes his hips rhythmically against the man he’s supposedly dancing with but might as well be screwing on the dance-floor.

Starbuck sighs, and does what any good friend would do in the circumstances: he peels an unresisting Apollo from the boray-faced idiot he’s plastered against and then finds he needs to hold Apollo close to stop him falling over.  This near, he revises his opinion about desperation versus alcohol because the fumes on Apollo’s breath are enough to take out a small fleet of base ships at medium range.

Boray-face is looking pretty pissed, which Starbuck can understand: Apollo’s far and away the prettiest there, not to mention the fact he’s just begging to get laid.  Starbuck does his impression of Tigh that goes down so well at the Officers’ Club, and his glower seems to work.  Boray-face scowls but backs down, and goes off in search of other, less pretty, prey.

“Starbuck?”  Apollo seems to be having problems focusing as well as enunciating, but that’s all right because it means he’s very, very close to Starbuck as he blinks.  “What are you doing here?”

It must be a rhetorical question because before Starbuck can say anything, Apollo’s lips are on his and his tongue’s in Starbuck’s mouth, his body plastered even closer to Starbuck’s than those leather pants are to his ass.  And Starbuck does what any sane man presented with an armful of horny strike captain would do, and kisses him back.  The taste of alcohol disappears into the warmth and wetness that’s Apollo’s mouth, and Starbuck forgets everything except kissing Apollo.  Almost everything, anyway, because there’s something else he’s been wanting to do for what feels like all his life.  Certainly ever since he first saw Apollo at the Academy, walking down the corridor in front of him, allowing Starbuck to admire the perfect ass that the slight bagginess of the uniform did little to disguise.  But then they got into their first tutorial and he saw the rest of Apollo and did his best to forget his ass because uptight Sire Perfects did not give their ass up for anyone, let alone nameless orphans who broke the rules and only avoided being kicked out of the Academy because they could fly better than anyone else there.  Except that now Sire Perfect is practically climbing him in his eagerness to give up his ass to Starbuck, and Starbuck has never been one to turn down an opportunity.

He seizes the opportunity with both hands, and he’d give anything not to have heard the breathy sound that Apollo makes into his mouth as he does so, because he’s getting hard and it’s really not fair; he didn’t come here for this, he came because he was Apollo’s friend and was worried about him, but if Apollo insists on pushing against him like that then there’s nothing for it except for him to keep the captain pulled snug against him.  The very small part of his brain that’s still working can’t help but smirk and think only Apollo; only Apollo in the madness that is their life since the Destruction won’t wear just any leather pants but must have the best – butter-soft leather that’s warm to his hands and clings to the curve of Apollo’s ass in a way that should be illegal.  It should be illegal because only he should be able to see and enjoy this, only his hands should hold and stroke, the calluses from the Viper control stick catching against the softness of the leather, and he employs all the dexterity he’s learned through countless hands of Pyramid until Apollo is sighing into his mouth again and pressing the hardness in his pants against Starbuck’s thigh, which seems to have worked its way in between Apollo’s legs.

He could stay here forever, especially since Apollo’s fingers have wormed inside his shirt and are exploring until he’s shivering with the heat, but the music finishes and Starbuck has enough wit left to realise that if they don’t move now, he’s going to end up taking Apollo right here on the dance-floor.  And while the rumours about Apollo aren’t yet common knowledge, he’s pretty certain that would make them so.  The only members of the squadron he’s seen here are a couple of deck crew who seem more interested in one another’s tonsils than in Apollo and him, but one of the reasons Starbuck’s so successful as a gambler is because he knows when to fold.  And when Apollo moves so his erection slides directly against Starbuck’s, Starbuck knows that it’s now or never; if he doesn’t stop this now, he won’t be able to stop it at all.  When he’s finished groaning into Apollo’s ear, he pushes him away, forcing down his regret at Apollo’s confused look and tries to find the words to stop this happening.

But the words won’t come to him, and Apollo’s expression clears with the slowness of the very drunk as he grabs for Starbuck’s wrist – successfully, on the second attempt – and pulls Starbuck after him, out of the dark club into the corridors, and all the time Starbuck’s feeling that he should be finding the words to say, except that if he does then this might stop.  Apollo stops outside Room A3824, where he fumbles but eventually gets the right key code and Starbuck follows him inside.  It’s what any good friend would do; leave now, and Apollo would just go back to the club and who knows who might take advantage of him in his current state.

Here, nobody is going to take advantage of Apollo.  Apollo taking advantage, though; that’s a different matter.  He’s practically pushing Starbuck through the wall in his eagerness, lips and tongue hungry and hands pulling open Starbuck’s shirt, exploring the skin underneath with the single-minded aggression he normally reserves for shooting cylons out of the sky.  And Starbuck can’t seem to take his hands away from Apollo’s ass – that lovely, perfect ass that he’s forced himself not to think about for all these yahrens but now can’t live without – and he’s coming back at Apollo, kissing him just as hard as he’s being kissed until their lips and teeth are clashing even as their bodies are glued together.

It’s Apollo who ends it; Apollo who steps – staggers – backwards and takes Starbuck with him, turning them until he’s pushing Starbuck backwards with all the subtlety and determination of a land ram.  And Starbuck isn’t normally submissive, but Apollo like this is a force of nature that can’t be denied, that he doesn’t want to deny, and so he’s still moving backwards when the bed hits the backs of his legs and he goes down hard, with Apollo on top of him in an uncoordinated heap, beyond all expectations managing not to put his knee or his hand or anything else anywhere where it would dampen Starbuck’s ardour.  Because his ardour is now – well, it seems the right thing to do to be pulling at Apollo’s pants, fingers clumsy as he manages the buttons and works his hand inside to find to his delight that not only is Apollo not wearing any underwear but that he’s harder than he has any right to be, given the drinking he’s been doing.  He realises that his fascination with Apollo’s ass is replaceable as he revels in the heat and the length in his hand, and his thumb swirls through the wetness on its head, leaving Apollo shuddering and breathing in soft, hot pants against Starbuck’s neck, even as he pushes into Starbuck’s hand, begging for more.

His thrusts help Starbuck to work Apollo’s pants down further.  And at last Apollo seems to be getting with the programme, because he’s fumbling with the fastening to Starbuck’s pants, finally managing to open them and Starbuck raises his hips to let Apollo pull them down.  But raising his hips brings his cock into direct contact with Apollo’s, and all thoughts of undressing are lost; Apollo’s mouth is back on his, his tongue driving deep into Starbuck’s mouth as his hips thrust and his cock slides along the length of Starbuck’s.  Starbuck’s hand is between their bodies where their cocks are hard and hot together, and he spreads the moisture that’s coming from his cock now to mix with Apollo’s, not caring about the sounds that rise from his mouth into Apollo’s at the sensation.

It’s the clumsiest sex he’s had for sectares, his pants twisted and threatening to cut off the circulation below his knees, but this is Apollo, writhing desperately on top of him, Apollo making sounds of need because of him, Starbuck.  And it’s Apollo whose mouth tears from his and whose cries rise in pitch as Starbuck’s other hand explore his ass, a finger teasing lightly, but enough for Apollo to press back, seeking it, before rubbing himself against Starbuck’s cock, frantic and open-mouthed.  Reading the signs, Starbuck gives up hope of anything further and takes things in hand, stroking them both with quick, sure movements, so that when Apollo shudders and comes, it takes only a few more strokes, and Apollo’s sobbing breath against his ear, for Starbuck to join him.
 
Once his heart has stopped threatening to jump out of his chest, he opens his eyes again and realises that he’s lying on a bed on the third deck of the Rising Star.  He also realises that, rather than being alone with his hand in the Officers’ Quarters, he’s got the Strike Captain of the Galactica lying panting on top of him.

Apollo isn’t actually offering any conversation at the moment, and despite his yahrens of experience, Starbuck’s not sure of the correct etiquette in the higher echelons of Caprican society for peeling your drunken friend off you so you can either get dressed or undressed but not lie here in an uncomfortable place between the two states.  So he lies there for a while longer, pretending that he’s catching his breath while waiting for Apollo to raise his head from where it’s buried into his neck.  Drunkenly drooling, he has a nasty suspicion, from the wetness he can feel.  And when did Apollo let himself get so out of shape; his breathing shouldn’t be this fast, even though Starbuck knows that he’s damned good at what he does and takes some breathlessness as his due.
 
But it’s more than just breathlessness; his breathing’s fast and hitching, and Starbuck eventually realises that Apollo’s crying.  He still doesn’t know what to do, but he knows he hates for Apollo to be in pain, so he holds him close and doesn’t say a word about the fact he’s just about lost all feeling in his legs or about the unpleasant dampness that’s beginning to tighten on his stomach.

He slowly becomes aware that there are words mixed in with Apollo’s drunken gulps, and he strokes Apollo’s hair, never mind that it’s damp from sweat and clinging to his neck.  It reminds him of the times he’s seen Apollo comforting Boxey except that Apollo always seems to know what to say, and Starbuck doesn’t.

He’s cold and he’s stiff, and as he blinks awake he realises that, against any odds he would normally have accepted, he had fallen asleep.  He’s cold, he deduces, because his drunken blanket has disappeared.  The sounds from the turbowash indicate that Apollo is taking a shower.  A much-needed shower, if the state Starbuck’s in is anything to go by.  The chrono by the bed shows it’s more than halfway through the sleep period, and he reckons he’s had about four centars sleep.  Wincing as blood returns to parts of his anatomy that thought they’d been cut off forever, he slowly stands and begins to get properly undressed, wondering what he’s going to say to Apollo.

He still hasn’t worked it out and is back in bed, under the bedclothes to keep warm because for all her luxuries, the Star doesn’t believe in spending too much on heating, when the door to the turboflush opens and Apollo comes out.  He looks sober but pale, swaddled in one of the dark blue robes that the Star has reinstated in the last yahren as a throwback to the extravagance of pre-Destruction times.  He stops dead in the doorway when he sees Starbuck looking at him, and then his eyes are everywhere except on Starbuck’s face.
 
“’Pollo.”  Lords help him, he doesn’t know where that old, old nickname came from, but maybe it’s his need to reach Apollo, to make it all right again between them.

Apollo relaxes slightly – at least to the point where he doesn’t look as though he’ll snap in a high wind – and manages to look at Starbuck again.

“Did...   Starbuck, what happened?”

“You were dancing,” he explains slowly, watching Apollo.  “And I think you’d had a few ales before I got there, and then we danced, and then we came back here.”

His neutral tone has the desired effect.  Apollo walks across the room and sits on the edge of the bed.  He still won’t look at Starbuck, but at least he’s not going to run away.  Yet.  His robe gapes open as he sits down, and Starbuck has to employ more self-control than he ever thought he had not to keep staring at the smooth skin of Apollo’s chest that he didn’t get to taste earlier.
 
The silence grows until it’s like a third person in the room, demanding attention and not going to go away of its own free will.

“I haven’t seen you in Queer Street before,” Starbuck says, finally.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”  Apollo sounds bewildered, like Boxey does sometimes when he doesn’t know where his father is.

Then he takes a deep breath.  “I needed to get away.”

The confession is made with the weight of self-condemnation that Starbuck would expect from a mass-murderer admitting to his crimes, but what Apollo says makes perfect sense to him.  He finds his escape in betting more than he can afford on games of chance, and in nights of anonymous coupling, without making a public display of himself.  But then he’s had yahrens to perfect it, and he thinks that this is all new to Apollo, who must have been the Colonies’ most dutiful teenager.

“Well, you did that all right,” Starbuck comments, lying back against the pillows and trying to relax, to get Apollo to lighten up.

But Apollo’s Kobolian upbringing is too strong to let him get away with a half-confession.

“It’s too much, Starbuck.”  The words are quiet, and defeat rings through every syllable.  “I can’t do it any more – the squadron, the Commander and Boxey, and all those lives depending on me.  I just – I can’t.”

He knows that if the Commander were here, he’d have the perfect words to meet Apollo’s crisis of faith and get him moving forwards, but all Starbuck can do is agree.  What they ask of Apollo – of all of them – is too much.

They’re on almost constant readiness these days.  They’re supposed to be warriors, but all they do is retreat.  It’s not a tactical way of getting a breathing space to regroup; running away is their entire strategy.  Their soul-destroying strategy.  He’s seen the effects across the squadrons: the pilots whose hands tremble late at night in the OC when they think no-one’s looking, those whose breath smells of ambrosa before lunchtime, and the exhausted pilots blasted out of existence who should never have been allowed within a hundred metrons of a Viper.  And this is even with Apollo scheduling regular breaks for all crew; all crew except the captain, of course, who’s the one giving the orders to run away.

Starbuck can’t find an answer because whatever the Commander might say, he doesn’t believe there is an answer.  Apollo has to do it, to keep doing it, just as Starbuck does.  He knows it and Apollo knows it.  So Starbuck does the only thing possible; he pushes the bedclothes back and moves across the bed so he can touch Apollo, his hand squeezing the tense shoulder, and all he can think of to say is something that he always hoped Apollo would have known.  “You’re not on your own.”

If he’d had time to think about it, he’d never have said it because it’s got to be the most clichéd line in the galaxy.  But Apollo’s reaction shows that maybe it’s been over-used for a reason; he leans back against Starbuck, and the tension beneath Starbuck’s hand begins gradually to ratchet down.

He kisses Apollo’s hair, because it seems to be the thing to do, and encourages Apollo to lie down again beside him.  It’s not long before Apollo’s asleep.

When they wake up later, it seems the thing to do to kiss Apollo again.  And Apollo seems happy to be kissed by Starbuck.  If the enthusiasm he displays for the pastime is anything to go by, Apollo doesn’t even seem to mind that Starbuck could really do with a shower.

Kissing isn’t all they do.  This time it’s everything Starbuck had dreamed of, in those rare instances when he let himself think about it: slow, intense, and involving Apollo’s perfect ass.

The desperation and the defeat of the night before seem a world away to Starbuck, provided he doesn’t look for too long into Apollo’s eyes.
 

End