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For the first time since meeting Jeger, Harper woke without screaming. There was a moment of panic as he realised he was lying on an undeniably male chest, but he relaxed as he recognised Dylan’s sleeping face in the low light. He felt heat run through him as he remembered what had happened during the night. He woken from a nightmare and pretty much attacked Dylan. In his mind the only way to erase the bad memories was to replace them with good ones. Always in the past the compulsion to have wild sweaty, and essentially empty, sex had involved women but Dylan had been there, and he’d been willing, and Harper had needed to feel…in control. He rolled off Dylan and threw an arm over his eyes. "Shit!" "Mmf…what?" Dylan started to wake up. Harper shot out of the bed and into the bathroom. He didn’t feel up to dealing with the morning after embarrassment. #Stupid# #Why did I jump Him# Harper stepped into the shower and scrubbed himself clean. He took his time, hoping that Dylan would take the hint and be gone when he finished. His fingers were starting to get pruney and the hot water was making his head spin when he finally decided that it was time to get out. Harper wandered back into the bedroom and stopped short. Dylan was still in the bed, sitting up and looking at him with a questioning smile. "Are you okay Harper?" #Anger# "I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve asked me that over the last few days. Give it a rest would you?" Dylan’s smile disappeared. "Do you regret what happened last night?" #Yes# "No." Harper shrugged. "I’m just not a morning person." "I’d understand if you had some concerns. I certainly didn’t plan it when I agreed to stay here." "I know," Harper said pulling on a shirt, "I didn’t plan it either. We just have to accept that it happened and move on." "Oh." Dylan said quietly. The small sound hung in the air for a moment, making both men feel a little uncomfortable. Harper scrambled into his pants and almost ran to the door. "I’ve got stuff to do in engineering, I’ll…um…see you later." Dylan didn’t have time to answer before Harper was gone. "Shit." Dylan swore and flopped back on the bed. "You really screwed it up this time Dylan." <+><+><+> Harper was working in the smallest, most inaccessible tube he could find and fit into. Fixing the passive sensors wasn’t on his urgent list but he needed a difficult, time-consuming task somewhere Dylan couldn’t get to him. #Idiot# #Don’t think about it# No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the job at hand his mind kept going back to the events of the previous night. Usually after one of his one-night stands he’d forgotten about the other person by the time he woke up. This was different. After the third electric shock in ten minutes he realised he wasn’t going to get any more work done; or at least, nothing that involved brain function. It was almost inevitable that the first person he saw after emerging from the further reaches of Andromeda’s systems would be Dylan. "Harper…" "Uh, can it wait? I’m in the middle of something." Harper tried to look like he was in a hurry. "We have stuff to talk about." Dylan seemed really nervous. If Harper hadn’t felt so twitchy he’d have been amused. "No, we don’t. We really don’t." Harper backed up, away from Dylan. "I’m sorry if I took advantage of you last night." Dylan was actually blushing. Harper’s jaw dropped. "You didn’t take advantage of me. I took advantage of you. I just needed to get…I don’t know…I needed to feel better and you were there." "I wanted to be there." Dylan was smiling now. #Don’t smile at me# "Yeah, I know. But that just makes it worse." Dylan frowned, "I don’t understand." "I know. And I can’t explain it." "Try." Dylan crossed his arms and stared at Harper. #Anger# "Don’t pull that captain shit on me Dylan. That’s fine for when I screw up as crew, not when I screw up in bed." "You didn’t screw up in bed. It felt great. For you too, I may not be the most observant person in the universe but I could tell you were enjoying yourself." Harper ran both hands through his hair tugging it away from his face. "I was just getting the bad out." "Huh?" "Replacing the bad with the good." "So it was good?" "No, because you got the bad." Dylan looked startled. "Do you think you’ve contaminated me or something?" #Yes# "I told you, I can’t explain it." Harper turned and walked away. "Just give me couple of days, I’ll get over it." <+><+><+> #Sound of a door being kicked in# #Laughter# #Fear# #Humiliation# #Pain# Harper choked trying to keep the scream behind his teeth. "Andromeda, privacy mode means you don’t rat on me to the captain doesn’t it?" Silence Harper relaxed slightly and tried to get his breathing under control. Andromeda wasn’t spying on him. Dylan wasn’t going to come through the door. He was totally alone. #Alone# #Fear# Suddenly Harper didn’t want to be alone. He jumped out of bed and pulled on his pants, he stopped momentarily on his way out of the door to gulp down a few mouthfuls of whisky. #He’s not going to like that# #That’s not where I’m going# #Yes it is# Harper put down the whisky and left the room. The End
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