Section Two : Heart Scarabs & Old Linen

 

 

"Here," said Joss. "Can you feel it?"

The boy's slender hands, smooth inside the skin-tight protective gloves, moved tentatively over the mummy's intricately bandaged chest.

"I think so," he said, doubtfully.

Joss put his own hand over the boy's. Apollo stilled for a micron, letting Joss move his hand into place.

"Here. Just here." Joss pressed lightly down, letting the boy feel the amulet where it lay on the mummy's rib cage. "Got it now?"

He smiled when the kid's amazing green eyes lit up with delighted wonder.

"Yes!" Apollo grinned at him. "I really can."

"What is it?"

"The heart scarab, I think."

"Well done." Joss took his hand away, reluctantly. "And why would the mummy have that?"

"Magical protection to ensure that he has his own heart, when he reaches the Field of Reeds, when he's resurrected." Apollo looked down at his hand, splayed over the mummy's chest, and Joss had to fight the impulse to cover it again. "And because the heart scarab's essential to the Opening of the Mouth ritual to restore sight and speech."

"Right. The sensor says that this one's made from solid gold." Joss nodded, thinking of the collection of these amulets that he had back at home in his apartment. Nothing as elaborate or fine as this one promised to be, unfortunately, but a nice little collection, for all that. "The other amulets are as finely made and he's very nicely wrapped - most of this linen is specially made, not old robes recycled. This was a very wealthy and sophisticated young man, six thousand yahrens ago. He could afford the best."

Apollo gave him a cocky little grin. "Like you, you mean?"

"I'm a bit older than you, but not six thousand yahrens older," said Joss, thinking that the brat was trying to flirt with him again. It was a little clumsy, but endearing. "Although I'll accept the wealthy and sophisticated."

The grin grew positively cheeky. Joss had to be about twice Apollo's age, and they both knew it, but apart from a glance down at the mummy, Apollo didn't comment on Joss's claim to relative youth. Instead he straightened up.

"Are we going to remove it?"

"No. The museum has hundreds of the things, and we're archaeologists, not treasure hunters. It's better where it is."

"Oh," said the boy, and he sounded disappointed. At Joss's amused glance, he added, in explanation, "Only this is the closest I've ever been allowed to a mummy. I've never had the chance to open one up."

Joss laughed, unsurprised that even this privileged young student hadn't been allowed to touch a mummy. They were precious beyond belief, and good as Apollo undoubtedly was, he had a lot to learn yet and the Kobolian was a little wary of letting teenagers loose on its best assets. Joss was breaking the rules a little, letting Apollo into the lab while he was working, but the kid had a way of begging with those big green eyes that would take a stronger backbone than Joss's to resist. The kid was often around when Joss was at the Kobolian. Sometimes Joss wondered if Apollo watched and waited for him. He thought so, if the way the kid lit up was any guide.

"You won't get many chances either. We don't do it often." He straightened up and turned back to the scanner. "See if you can find the tet and djed amulets. They're close by."

"Easy enough for you to say. You're the one with the scanner."

"A good archaeologist doesn't need a scanner," said Joss, sententiously, watching the skeletal hand on the scanner screen as it passed over the djed, hesitated, then pressed down on it lightly. "What have you got there?"

"A column, about three inches long. Little horizontal bars..." Apollo paused, then grinned again, pretty pleased with himself if Joss was any judge. "A djed pillar: Osiris' backbone." His hand moved. "And here's the tet, the girdle of Isis."

"Yes. Well spotted." Joss turned the scanner off, and moved it to one side. Apollo was hanging over the mummy as if over a lover, his face rapt and intent, one finger delicately tracing the interlaced linen bandaging. The boy looked up, and smiled, and Joss felt that too familiar stirring. He wondered if the child had any idea at all of how pretty he was; face with cheekbones to die for, and skin so smooth that Joss doubted if Apollo even had to shave much yet. And that was a very strong mouth, there, that probably would taste... he stopped himself, and went back to watching Apollo working on the mummy. He smiled, feeling a sudden affection for the boy, overlaying the attraction he'd always felt.

"Why aren't you at school, anyway?" he asked, diverting those unprofitable thoughts and readying the tray of instruments that would allow him to take the tiny sample of DNA that he needed for his tests.

"I'm in my last yahren," said Apollo, stepping back slightly to give Joss more room. "I don't have to be there every day now, especially since I already took the Jancis history prize. That let's me out of some lessons and I always have today free."

"Boasting again," sighed Joss, although he had been as impressed as anyone connected with the Kobolian when the most prestigious academic prize it offered had been stolen - there was no other word for it -out from under the noses of several promising scholars by a scrubby little schoolboy yahrens their junior. That the scrubby little schoolboy had spent every spare centar at the Kobolian for yahrens - first in the museum, hanging around until he knew all the curators, and later allowed back behind the scenes as the youthful passion for history hadn't fizzled out - meant that they hadn't been surprised, though. When, after several yahrens absence, Joss had returned to Caprica and the Kobolian a few sectars before, he had found Apollo already installed as the Dean's protégé. He supposed what had impressed everyone was that, even with that advantage, they hadn't expected Apollo to try for the prize for another yahren or two or to take it with such apparent ease that several scholarly noses were severely out of joint.

"I'm not boasting," protested Apollo, blushing. "It's just that it means it saves me two yahrens and I can come straight in here at the junior yahren, and I don't have to worry about taking the exams. There's not much point in going to school for that when I've done it all, is there?"

Joss managed not to grin, somehow. "Intellectual arrogance comes before the fall, brat," he said. It was even harder not to grin when he saw Apollo's chagrin at the failure of this attempt to claim academic equality. "I would have thought that you'd want to spend some time with your friends."

Apollo shrugged, face reddening. "I'd rather be here." He paused, and added in a low mutter, "With you."

Joss didn't look up from the mummy, although he allowed himself to smile down at the bandaged face that he was holding between his gloved hands. It took some effort, but he deliberately ignored the provocation. Not for the first time, he wondered how old this precocious young scholar was, exactly, and just what Apollo was proposing to study next.

Well, he wasn't the boy's teacher. Not in any real and academic sense he wasn't. The fact that the amount of money he gifted to the Kobolian each yahren gave him a quasi-formal position here, was incidental. He wasn't on the teaching staff. There were no professional standards at risk if he chose to do what he wanted to do ... he shut down on that thought for the centon, and let a faint amusement into his tone.

"Well, if you want to spend your days locked up in here with old mummies, who am I to stop you? Do you want to help me take a DNA sample from young Amthoth, here?"

He heard the boy sigh, gently.

"Sure." Apollo leaned over from the other side of the examination table. "Professor Bachman said that you were doing DNA tests on the whole collection."

"Uh-huh. I'm charting the familial and generational patterns, doing some kinship analysis. We've hundreds of the best and earliest mummies here, and plotting out their relationship with each other helps fill out some of the gaps in the written records."

Joss gently manipulated the mummy onto its side, and then its face, something in him astonished as always, no matter how many times he'd handled one, at how light these husks of once living men and women were. Apollo helped him get the mummy into position.

"Amthoth's beautifully wrapped, and I want to damage the linen as little as possible, but here, on the back of the head - " Joss tapped a laser scalpel against the mummy's skull, " - the bandages are less ornate, and we'll risk a short incision in them and see if we can find some hair."

Apollo grimaced, and Joss laughed, enjoying himself. He was glad that he wasn't a teacher. He didn't think he had much aptitude for it - he was too much of a dilettante for that, playing at being a serious archaeologist, but Apollo was damnably easy to teach.

Apollo looked up at him and smiled, those deep green eyes in such a contrast to the rest of his almost monochromatic looks that Joss's breath caught in his throat, and he had to turn the choke into a hurried cough. There was unmistakable admiration in that gaze, and more. An invitation, perhaps, a hint of a complicity that had Joss's head reeling.

Not for the first time, he wondered what he might be called upon to teach.

 

 

"It's the awards ceremony this secton end, isn't it?" Joss pulled the thin protective gloves off and dropped them into a nearby waste-bin, grimacing at their slightly greasy feel.

"Mmn," said Apollo. He glanced at Joss and began to reseal the mummy case, when Joss nodded permission.

Joss watched those careful, slender hands at work. The boy had an aptitude for this, that was for certain. Long fingers smoothed down the new seals, almost sensuous in the way they touched the delicate, fragile cartonnage of the coffin, drifting over the exquisite painting, careful not to damage it. It was nice to watch. Joss was particular about hands. They were one of his vanities, his own hands. One of his many vanities, if he were feeling honest enough to admit it.

"Nicely done," said Joss, when the boy was finished. "You've got nice hands."

Apollo blushed, and muttered something that Joss knew he wasn't meant to catch. He smiled. He was enjoying this little game, charting its growing intensity over the last few sectons. Apollo was new to it, he thought, but was playing valiantly. Once again, he wondered how old the boy was, exactly.

"You can leave it now. The porters will take it back into storage." Joss watched Apollo step back, watched as the slender hands were freed from their protective gloves. "So, the whole family celebrating with you?"

Apollo shook his head. "No. They're not bothered."

Joss blinked. "Not bothered?"

Apollo shrugged. "Dad won't be back for sectars and Mama's got a committee meeting, and the kids are too young. It's not that important for them."

"Oh?" said Joss, taken aback.

"I mean - " and there was something of archetypal teenage bitterness in Apollo's tone, " - they've got my life mapped out for me. I'm meant to be leaving school and going to the Academy in the autumn, and then follow Dad into Fleet. This is just my little hobby."

"I see," said Joss. "And the Jancis Scholarship?"

"Nice, and they're proud I got it, but they don't think I need it. It doesn't fit with the Academy, now does it?"

"Do you?"

Apollo glanced at him, eyes hot with anger, and something else - slyness. Yes, that was it. Slyness. The brat was up to something, and not just testing his wings in a mild flirtation.

"No," said Apollo. "I've got other plans. I just haven't told them yet."

Joss didn't smile at the bravado. He'd not want to go up against 'Dad' himself. He knew Commander Adama a little. His father, now dead, had known Adama better, since they both belonged to Caprica's best families, unrelated except by wealth and class and political affiliations, but known to each other. Incredible as it was, both Joss and this skinny kid had the right to the 'Sire' before their names, although Joss never bothered with his title and Apollo, presumably, had yet to grow into his. Adama didn't use his title either, but then in Adama's mind, the title of Commander was probably by far the most honourable he could bear. The man didn't have blood, he had liquefied service and honour and duty instead. That could be hard for a kid to stand up to.

"You want to come here."

Apollo nodded, and came back to Amthoth's coffin, leaning over it to study the painted vignettes. "I want my chance at this. Professor Bachman wants to teach me, and I can't miss out on that."

No indeed. The Dean wasn't going to let this little scholar slip from out of his fingers if he could help it.

"That might mean a fight with your parents, if they want you in the military. Your family's always been military, hasn't it?"

"Back to his time," said Apollo, with a nod to the long deceased Amthoth. Again that sly look. "I've got an idea. I've applied for a place with SSI."

"And that is?" said Joss, with an academic's contempt for anything outside his world enhanced and augmented by the gay socialite's contempt for anything outside his.

"Strategic Studies Institute. It's a sort of fast track to the military and they only take maybe ten people every yahren. If I get in, I can do that after I finish here. It's only a yahren, so I wouldn't waste any time at all. I'd gain a yahren, in fact. It takes four yahrens to get through the Academy and I'd be commissioned in three."

"Why would you want to do that? If you break free, why not break all the way free?"

Apollo frowned, looking uncertain for the first time. "I.. I'm not sure I don't want to be in the military, though. I think I do. I just know I want this as well."

"Oh well," said Joss, shrugging. "There's nothing wrong with wanting it all. I always do."

"Do you get it?" asked Apollo, with one of those unpredictable changes of mood that had Joss mildly on edge - in a frisson-y, rather exciting way. Now the brat was flirting again, outrageously, overlaying his tone with a deep significance that once again invited Joss to be complicit, to know what Apollo was saying without him actually saying it.

"Usually." Joss certainly had the money and the leisure to get anything he wanted, when he wanted. That was normality. That was the way things were. He laughed. "Yes, I do."

"Then I'll have a go at getting it, too," said Apollo.

Joss smiled, and watched him. The kid was back to studying the coffin text paintings, lips moving soundlessly as he read the hieroglyphics. Shit, but he was more than pretty. He was beautiful.

"So," said Joss, with an effort, trying to turn the conversation back to where it started. "Who are you taking to the ceremony, then?"

And then he laughed silently to himself, because he knew that he wasn't turning the conversation at all, at least, not turning it away from the increasing charged atmosphere. What he was doing was giving Apollo his opportunity, testing him, seeing if all this was, was the mild flirtation of a boy trying to find the limits of his attraction, teasing someone twice his age, or whether it was something a little more significant. It was like sending a little bolt of energy through the charged particles of that tense atmosphere, and seeing where the lightning struck.

"No-one," said Apollo. A minute pause, long enough for Joss to see the upward glance from the face that was still ostensibly bent over the coffin, to see the flash of green through the thick black lashes. Apollo said, shyly, "Unless you'd come? I'd like that."

Joss smiled as the lightning crackled around them, invisible, but no less potent for all that. Right bang on target, he thought.

"Thank you," he said. "So would I. I'd be delighted to come with you."

Apollo smiled that sly smile again.

 

 

"This is amazing," said Apollo, looking around the apartment, eyes wide. "Brilliant."

"I've seen your family home," said Joss, dryly, thinking the awe was a bit overdone. The boy's family was almost as rich as he was. "It's hardly your average family semi-detached."

"But its so... so dull, compared to this."

"Mmn," said Joss, agreeing. "I haven't been there for a few yahrens. Your parents gave a reception - some political thing, I'd guess, since my father dragged me along to it. But I remember that the house was a bastion of good taste."

Apollo grinned, and walked up to the glass sculpture that dominated the huge main room. Whichever way you came on it, it changed shape and colour, subtly altering form and meaning. It was one of Joss's favourite pieces. He had to force back a warning when Apollo reached out to it, but he remembered how sensitively those hands had touched Amthoth's fragile mummy case, two days ago, and forbore. Besides, he could always commission another.

Apollo touched the sculpture, very gently.

"It's by a new artist, called Ailion," said Joss. "She's going to be very, very collectable some day."

"It's lovely." Apollo turned to face Joss, putting the plaque that was his prize, carefully onto a nearby table. "I don't remember ever seeing you at my house. I don't remember ever seeing you before last yahren, in the library at the Kobolian. You were reading the Lexus scrolls."

"Observant," said Joss, flattered. "It was yahrens ago, at least ten yahrens. You were probably tucked up safe and warm in bed at the time."

Apollo looked down at his feet and smiled at his shoes.

Joss almost laughed aloud. The boy was as transparent as the glass sculpture behind him.

"Come on," he said. "I promised to show you the amulets." He beckoned Apollo over to the showcase near the window, the panoramic window that showed almost the entire city spread out before them, just beginning to darken. The dome of the Kobolian shone at him across the park, carefully and beautifully lit with soft milky light. He'd paid for that himself. It gave his apartment spectacular views.

Apollo leaned on the case, hands on the wooden frame taking his weight. Joss watched him, smiling. He'd met Apollo at a favourite restaurant and treated the boy to a celebratory dinner, ignoring the slightly raised eyebrows of the serving staff, all of whom knew him and who were probably surprised to see him there with someone too young to legally drink the wine that Joss got for them. Apollo had enjoyed himself, Joss thought, though he'd only sipped politely at the sparkling nectar.

Apollo had been shyly sweet at dinner, but he hadn't seemed uneasy or apprehensive until the awards ceremony had started, hardly nervous at all, but when the scholars had started trooping up to the podium, one by one, he'd swallowed hard and Joss had seen him rub his palms over the padded arm of the seat, to dry them. There was a difference then, between a quiet dinner between someone you were flirting with, and having to do something in public, even just walking up onto a stage to get a prize. Without thinking, he'd put his hand over Apollo's to comfort him, touched and alarmed all at once when the boy's hand turned under his to grip it, and he could feel the long fingers trembling.

It had taken quite some effort not to take Apollo's hand again when the boy had accepted his prize and returned to his seat, the shield-shaped plaque in his hands. It was a beautiful thing, cast in silver, embossed with hieroglyphics and Apollo's name, and Joss had admired it as fulsomely as was proper. Apollo had looked a touch disappointed when Joss kept his hands to himself, but hadn't pushed it.

Now Joss stared momentarily at the hands gripping the case, watching Apollo study the amulets.

"They're lovely. I like that heart scarab." Apollo pointed to the one carved from green basalt. The boy had taste. It was one of the best. "Really nice carving."

"It's not bad." Joss moved away from the case and stood to take in the view that he never tired of. He wondered if the air conditioning had given up on him, the apartment felt so airless. He watched the reflected Apollo look at him doubtfully. "The view's nice from here," he said, invitingly.

Apollo joined him. "Am I keeping you from doing something else?" he asked, sounding very young.

"Not especially. Why?" It wasn't strictly true. It would be the first secton end for yahrens that hadn't seen Joss lording it at one of the many bars in downtown Caprica city, in the area where most of the gay population gathered. It would be the first secton end in yahrens when he hadn't come home with some willing and beautiful young man to share pleasure with... but then, maybe things weren't so different, after all.

"It's what you said about me being a kid. I guess I'm in the way."

Transparent as glass, thought Joss. Why not just write me an invitation and hit me over the head with it?

He turned and put his hands on Apollo's shoulders. "You really are the most dreadful tease, Apollo," he said, and kissed him.

 

 

I shouldn't be doing this. I really shouldn't be doing this. The kid's hardly out of leading reins...

Joss's bedroom was almost as big as the huge main sitting room, the windows showing the same panoramic view of the city, spread out under him, the view to be savoured and appreciated. Apollo was on the bed, spread out under him, half naked, to be savoured and appreciated.

"Don't stop," said Apollo, very softly, when Joss pulled back from him, releasing Apollo's mouth with reluctance. He raised a hand to touch Joss's face. "I want this."

"You're too bloody young to know what you want," said Joss, angry and desperate, all at once.

"I'm nearly eighteen! And I've always known. I just didn't know who."

The aggravating brat!

"If you say, 'until I met you', I swear I'll... I'll..."

"Yes?"

"Oh shut up," said Joss, and kissed Apollo again, noting in passing that for a novice, Apollo was showing a great deal of ingenuity. "Who's kissed you before, I wonder?"

"I had a girlfriend," said Apollo, sounding faintly aggrieved. Joss didn't know if it was aimed at him or the girl. "Two, in fact."

"Both at once?" Joss nipped at Apollo's lips with his teeth.

Apollo moaned, very, very softly. "Of course not," he said, when Joss let him speak again. "They never did that to me, neither."

"What?" said Joss, nipping at those lips again. "This?"

"Mmmnph."

Joss laughed, and did it again, making Apollo's lips tender and a little swollen, increasing their sensitivity until the boy was almost coming, just from being kissed. Somehow on their slow progress across the room to the bed - stopping every few microns to kiss or shed a little more clothing - Apollo had got down to tee and shorts, and there was nothing to impede Joss's hand slipping inside the waistband of the shorts.

Apollo's back arched, right on cue. "Lords!" he said, almost shouting it, as Joss brushed his fingers down over the jutting hipbone, tracing along the wiry bush of hair to touch the hard young cock with little butterfly touches that barely made contact.

"Didn't they do that, either?" asked Joss, slyly.

"It didn't feel the same." Apollo gasped twice, and got both hands around Joss's neck to pull his head down and kiss him again. He locked gazes with Joss, then, quite deliberately, he took one hand away and lifted his hips under Joss's body, using his free hand to push the shorts down.

"Are you sure?" asked Joss, soberly now, keeping eye contact.

Apollo nodded. "I'm sure. I've wanted it ever since I saw you."

"Reading the Lexus scroll," said Joss, in an attempt to keep it light, in the face of that intense green stare. Apollo only smiled, wriggling to get the shorts down far enough so that he could kick them off. "Here," said Joss, feeling an sudden and unaccustomed tenderness, something close kin to the feeling he'd had at the ceremony when he'd taken that trembling hand in his. "Let me help."

And so he was lost, he supposed. While he knelt, straddling the boy's legs and reached behind him to tug at the shorts, Apollo crossed his hands on the hem of his tee and pulled it off, quickly, so that when Joss looked up again, the boy was naked, his still hairless chest gleaming slightly in the faint light coming through the window.

"You really are very beautiful," said Joss. "Time for a new lesson, little schoolboy."

Apollo smiled and dropped back onto the banked up pillows again, mutely holding out his arms. Joss stripped off his own remaining clothes, swiftly, and settled down, holding Apollo close. Apollo's arms closed around Joss's shoulders, his eyes very wide and his body trembling, and Joss thought that for all the brave protests about previous girlfriends, this was probably the first time that the boy had lain skin to skin with anyone. Not that it was inhibiting him, if the hard length pressing into Joss's thigh was anything to go by.

"We'll take this slow and easy," said Joss, between kisses so light that Apollo's bruised lips should barely register them, except as a teasing little distraction. "I don't want to hurt you, and I don't think you've ever done this before, eh?"

Still mute, Apollo shook his head.

"So we'll go slow, and if it hurts you, we'll stop. All right?"

"I won't want to stop," said Apollo.

Joss just smiled and kissed his boy again, savouring the taste of him, the faint taste of their shared dinner, the even fainter sharpness of the nectar underlying it. He started slowly, kissing his way down Apollo's throat and neck, feeling it vibrate under his mouth as Apollo almost hummed in pleasure, using gentle teeth only when he got to the sharp little collar bones, working his way up each one and up the side of Apollo's neck again. He did it over and over, his hands doing little more than hold Apollo's sides, moving in slow, soothing circles, until the boy was bonelessly limp, almost drowsy with sensual pleasure, the only rigid thing about him the hard cock weeping precum against Joss's thigh.

"This is what it's all about, Apollo," said Joss, softly, working his way back to Apollo's mouth and speaking against it. "This is how good it can be."

Apollo's eyes were glassy, and Joss laughed, wondering where his sly little tease was now, hidden somewhere behind that unfocused greenness. Apollo blinked at him, coming back, and blushed faintly, self-consciously.

"Don't ever let anyone sell you short on this, Apollo. It can always been this good, I promise."

"It feels wonderful."

Joss kissed him, very gently. "I haven't started yet. Let's see what it can be like when I really get going."

"What do you want me to do?" And the silly child blushed when he said it, adorably, confessing without actually coming out with the words to just how green he was.

"This is your night. Your first time. I don't want you to do anything at all except enjoy it." And hell, just the sight of this kid getting his first taste of a cock, and loving it, would be more than enough recompense for having to do all of the work. More than enough, and Joss shivered with anticipation as he thought about teaching Apollo how to reciprocate, how to touch a man the way he was being touched now.

Apollo started to protest, but it died away into a fretful murmur when Joss started again, round on that little circle of throat, collarbones and shoulders, just to remind the boy of the first lesson, before moving down the slender young body. For a very long time he worked his way slowly down, covering every inch of Apollo's chest, spending a seriously long time on each little nipple until all he had to do was breathe on them, and their sensitised peaks hardened and the boy gasped for breath.

The belly was flat, more than flat, slightly concave as Apollo breathed in when Joss's tongue started down in long lazy sweeps from breastbone to navel, and beyond. He shivered on every long wet trail that Joss left across the soft skin, whimpering now, his hands carding through Joss's hair. Joss chuckled to himself. The brat knew how close, how tantalisingly close, his tongue was.

But not yet. Not yet. There were a few lessons yet, and Joss continued to work south, crouching on his knees between Apollo's spread thighs. The wet tip of a cock tapped him imperatively on the cheek as he licked and nibbled his way down the pubic bone, laving the wiry little hairs until they lay flat out of his way, but he ignored it for now. He nuzzled his nose between the taut testicles, breathing in the faint musk, the stronger scent of soap.

For an instant he paused, feeling something in his chest contract. How could Apollo have known what to do, to get ready? How could he know, if he'd never done this before, how to cleanse himself so that all his lover would taste would be clean skin? But this was a research student, of course, and he'd be willing to bet that his bold, naïve Apollo had worked out where to do his research and had been pretty thorough about it. Later he might even ask, Joss thought, and get him to show the websites he'd looked at, the diagrams he'd analysed. Joss wasn't sure whether to laugh at Apollo's innocent presumption that he'd be taken to bed, or at the equally innocent care he'd taken not to offend.

Lords, but this one was dangerous! Such bold innocence was dangerous.

Still laughing, he took each testicle into his mouth by turn, feeling them tighten as he rolled them, licked at them, breathed on them - tightening too far now, and he slipped one hand in under his chin to press firmly at the base of the impatient cock, inhibiting the boy's orgasm, pressing hard until he felt Apollo relax. Slowly, he licked and kissed his way to drop a little kiss against Apollo's opening, a promise for the future, but before the boy had time to do more than gasp in realisation, he was licking upwards, up the perineum, and starting those long sweeps of the tongue up Apollo's cock, finally enclosing it in his mouth.

That was all it took. Apollo yelled and his hips came up, thrusting his cock into Joss's mouth, flooding it with hot, salty jism. Joss swallowed, letting the thick jism run down his throat, keeping up a hard sucking and licking as Apollo thrashed underneath him. When Apollo fell back, sobbing for breath, he licked and kissed the still-hard cock, and let it slip from his mouth, sliding up Apollo's body to kiss him, letting him taste himself on Joss's tongue.

"Oh shit," said Apollo, breathing heavily, in between kisses so frantic that Joss was finding breathing hard, himself. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

"What for? You came beautifully." Joss kissed him again, suddenly aware of the pressing hardness between his own legs as he took in Apollo's dilated pupils, and the flushed skin. Gods, but the just-fucked look suited this one. "And now it's my turn. All right?"

Apollo nodded, catching his lower lip between his teeth, looking eager and scared all at once. Joss kissed him, reaching for the lube in the drawer of the nightstand, beside the bed.

"Just relax. I'll try not to hurt you."

The kid was euphoric right now. He'd just come like there was no tomorrow, and he was still sweating with it. Joss intended to keep him that way. Time to pick up the pace.

He went down on Apollo again, licking at the still-weeping head of his cock, making the boy twitch and moan, before sliding his tongue down to the root and back down to lick at the perineum and balls again. Apollo sighed, and Joss felt, rather than saw, his head fall back on the pillows. The boy's hand slipped from Joss's hair, to fist into the bedcover as Joss moved on down to lick and kiss the tight opening, his thighs falling open to give Joss more room.

Joss squeezed lube over his fingers, rubbing them together to warm it a little, and moved his mouth up to the boy's cock again. Not surprisingly, the tight ring of muscle resisted his probing finger, and Apollo's breath hissed between his teeth.

"Just relax," said Joss, and smiled when he felt his boy obey him, Apollo sighing and almost pressing himself into the bed to show how relaxed he was. Another centon of kissing against Apollo's groin, and Joss's probing finger was in, up the knuckle. Apollo drew a deep breath.

"Relax," said Joss again, withdrawing the finger to the tip, before pushing forward again. Apollo moaned, but this time the ring of muscle relaxed, and Joss was able to start finger fucking the boy gently, loosening him up. "Tell me when you want more," he said, kissing the tip of Apollo's cock. "Tell me."

Apollo did, but not in speech. He reached down and got his hands behind his knees, pulling them back and apart, opening himself up to Joss, an act of such powerful submission that Joss almost choked at the unexpected wantonness of it. One more kiss, more lube on his fingers and he got two inside this time, twisting then and scissoring them slowly and gently. Apollo stopped breathing. Then Joss's finger tip found the hard little gland, brushed against it, and Apollo bucked against him so hard that Joss was in imminent danger of losing a few teeth. He certainly saw stars.

"Aha! That was a bit of a surprise, was it?" He laughed softly, and knelt upright between Apollo's thighs, letting the backs of them rest against his the tops of his own legs. He smothered his cock with lube, suddenly aching to get inside this boy and really teach him the lesson. He shuffled forward, aware that Apollo's head had raised from the pillow, seeing the glitter of those green eyes.

"Just stay relaxed," he instructed, feeling the tip of his cock press against Apollo. "Nice and relaxed, now."

The resistance was back. Two fingers were one thing, but a man's cock - well that was most definitely another. Apollo caught his breath, hissing again with the discomfort.

"It might burn a bit as I go in, but relax and it'll feel amazing, brilliant. Just go with it."

He grasped the slender hips and pulled Apollo towards himself, just as he pushed inexorably forward. The tight ring of muscle fought against the intrusion for a micron, then Apollo caught his breath again and opened up for him, the head of Joss's cock sliding in, breaching the way.

"Oh Lord," said Joss, at the heat. There couldn't be much that was better than giving this kid his first taste. Maybe there was nothing better. He pressed forward, taking it slowly, carefully, wanting Apollo to feel as little pain as possible, tightening his grip on Apollo's hips and pulling him, helping impale him. He was sliding in more easily now, the boy stretching to accommodate him, and slow as he went, it was only a centon before he was fully in, Apollo's strong legs hooked around his waist, Apollo's hands on the small of his back.

He smiled down at the flushed face and pulled back a little before surging slowly forward, looking for the angle that would get him stroking past Apollo's prostate. He knew when he found it. The frown on Apollo's face smoothed out like magic, and the boy moved tentatively with him, letting out his pent up breath in a groan.

"Nice?"

He surged again, not waiting for an answer, feeling Apollo shift and move with him, more confidently now, and he knew that the pain had faded, and that all Apollo was feeling was the intensity of Joss's cock moving inside his tight channel, brushing against the sensitised walls and stroking his prostate, once on the upstroke, once on the down. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again ...

Faster now, forgetting to be kind, forgetting everything except the flushed vacant-eyed face in front of him, listening to the jagged breathing, the little cries on every stroke. Joss pounded harder, both hands sliding to hold Apollo by the waist, his buttocks rising and falling against his heels as he increased the pace, his cock, slick with lube, sliding easily in and out, hot with the friction. One of Apollo's hands slipped from Joss's back to reach for his own, still-hard cock, fisting himself to the same hard rhythm that Joss had reached.

Joss leaned down, Apollo focusing on him just enough to lift himself up a little to meet the kiss, tongue pushing frantically into Joss's mouth, moaning against it.

"Oh fuck!" said Joss, faintly, as it hit him, and he pushed himself hard into Apollo's backside, pressing his tight, aching balls up against the soft skin, and in a wave of heat and pleasure, shot his load as high into the boy as he could, spasm after spasm, Apollo's body tightening around him as he came too, shooting jism up against Joss's chest.

"Oh fuck!"

He collapsed back to sit on his heels, head hanging, lungs struggling to get enough air into them. Apollo twitched around him, still holding him, and it was a long few centons before Joss could move, letting himself slide free, collapsing to lie on Apollo's sticky belly and chest, kissing him slowly, tiredly.

Apollo kissed him back, still gasping, but the kid was laughing too. Insane, he had to be.

"Wonderful," Apollo was saying, between breaths. "I loved it. I loved it."

"You," said Joss, when he was able, raising himself up on one elbow and looking into the sated, slackened face of his very young lover, " - are going to be very sore tomorrow."

Apollo swatted this aside as irrelevant, and smiled up at him sleepily. "Will you do it again?"

The eagerness in Apollo's voice made Joss wince. Teenagers.

"I suppose," he said, flopping down, and pulling his sticky, sweaty lover closer. "Here endeth the first lesson."

 

 

So that's how it begins.

Funny, but when you start out on something like that, you think you know how it will end, tomorrow or the next day. You watch long slender hands move over a husk of dry bone and linen, six thousand yahrens dead, and you listen to the wonder and delight in his voice when he realises what's lying beneath his hands, what knowledge and secrets lie under his probing fingers. And you think that maybe all those sectons of mild flirtation are leading up to something significant after all, that they're leading to a beautiful kid trying his wings and you're going to be the one to help him spread them wide. Of course, it will only be until tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, and then it will be as empty as that husk of dry bone and linen and you'll see the next one to catch your eye, to flirt with, to spread wings with.

That's how they always are. That's how it's always been. So you start out on something where you don't think beyond tomorrow or the next day, but then there's suddenly a day after that, and a day after that, and you don't see the ending or it's a different ending to the one you were expecting. Because this one isn't like any of the others. This one has sticking power. This one doesn't leave.

This is the one, you suddenly realise, who you don't want to leave.

And that's something you never expected ever to happen to you; that's something that has never happened before and something that you thought never would. This is the one where that unaccustomed affection that you felt for him, overlaying the sexual attraction, catches you by surprise, laughs at you and your pretensions and your sophistication and transforms itself into something deeper without you even realising it was happening until it's done, and one morning you wake with him curled up warm beside you, breathing so softly that only your heart can hear it, and you never want it to be any other way.

It's quite the trick that he pulled on you, flirting with you over the silent witness offered by the long dead man in the ornate linen bandages, getting into that big empty space that was the centre of you and that couldn't be filled with playing at archaeology by day and dancing away every night, or by being the rich man, or the art patron, or any other of a couple of dozen ways you had of hiding. He took you by surprise, and with the soldier's skill that was his inheritance, he made the most of it, quietly infiltrating every corner of the space, setting his forces so tenaciously that a siege couldn't dislodge him. And he was clever about it, letting you teach him how to please and give. And he was generous about it, giving you the freedom to roam when he wasn't there and to come back again when he was, because roaming only empties the space, it doesn't fill it the way he does, and you'll always come back to where he's waiting for you.

You can't help but come back, because this is where the deep places are. What started out as him admiring the rich, sophisticated, older man inducting him into pleasure and you being flattered by a young boy's lust, has changed somehow. You never thought there was much more in life than lust and pleasure because until he came, you'd never found more than that and you thought that you were too old and jaded and cynical for love. But he was truly clever about it, and while you taught him about pleasing and giving, he taught you about love and devotion, and because he was hungry for it and sating himself in you, he opened you right up for more. And he was heart-generous about it, being there, quiet and steadfast even when you roamed, knowing that it meant nothing, and you'd be back, because he'd filled that space and no-one else could.

It's as if you're standing in the Field of Reeds, eyes widening against the light, his hands on your shoulders; and when you ask what it all means, he holds up a scarab, intricately carved in red jasper or cornelian or lapis lazuli, and he laughs as he holds your heart carefully in those long hands, holding it for you, safe.

You expected none of this. And before you can turn around, blinking with the surprise, there's soft breathing and new bone and warm flesh and hot blood in the husk and the dead man's gone.

Until now. It's back now, eight yahrens later, the dead man, the husk.

Because this is how it all ends: with him gone and leaving nothing behind him, not even a scrap of old linen pressed into new service to wrap the corpse.

 

 

"Here," said Ila, putting the glass into his hand.

"It won't help."

"No," she said, and her eyes were red and her nose was red. She'd worn herself out doing what he couldn't do. He couldn't cry. "No."

He took the glass anyway, because he liked her and she was being kind. After the break, when Apollo and Adama had fought with such deadly violence and Apollo had come to him, Ila had fought with the same tenacity to keep contact, to keep some link, however tenuous it was, between her son and the family that Apollo had left behind. She loved her son more than she hated what Apollo was and she'd accept anything and anyone, not to lose him. First meetings had been difficult, but over the yahrens Joss and Ila had slowly got to know each other, to respect each other, to accept each other, even to like each other.

"I was worried, when I couldn't reach you. I was worried about you." She sipped at her own liquor.

He shrugged. "I was out when the news came," he said. He'd been out. He'd had one of his lonely days and he'd gone out, knowing Apollo wouldn't blame him, that Apollo knew it meant nothing. Liam was black and beautiful, and he'd been pleasuring himself with that dark sensuality while his boy ... he choked, and took a drink, welcoming its harshness against his throat. When he could, he said, "I was out. The message was waiting when I got home."

He was Apollo's legal next of kin. He was the one to be told that there had been a laser shell on some scrubby little outpost, that they'd had to leave Apollo there, lying on his back, leaving the carrion to the Cylons. Of course, they hadn't phrased it in quite that way, those soberly dressed military types, when they came to the apartment and told him, grave and solemn-faced, that Apollo had gone back for an injured trooper and been hit himself. But he knew. He had an excellent imagination, and he knew.

Ila's hand closed over his, to help him still the shaking. She was crying again, and he watched her with absent minded envy. He couldn't do that.

Instead he put his hands onto the package that had come for Apollo only that morning, but Apollo was three days dead and he'd never open it now. Ila caught him looking at it, and he said, explaining, "Printer's proofs."

"Yours?"

"His." Another long sweeping caress, but this time it wasn't against the body he'd loved all those yahrens ago and all those yahrens since, but the hard edged package of data discs. "He revised one of the volumes of the History for the Kobolian."

Ila smiled, blotting at the tears with a handkerchief that was sodden with them already. Joss watched, fascinated, and more than slightly relieved. It had been worrying him, nagging at him like an aching tooth, but it had been done, finally. The rituals had been observed: there was his little scrap of linen, at last.

"He loved all that," she said, fondly. "And although it caused some trouble later, we were so proud of him when he won that prize. I wish they'd had some sort of awards ceremony to go to."

Joss blinked, puzzled, and she added, evidently misunderstanding his confusion:

"The Jancis Scholarship. Do you remember?"

Joss nodded and let it go. It didn't matter. He remembered. He remembered the prize he'd won that night, the one he'd just lost.

Ila said, pleating the handkerchief between shaking fingers, "He didn't mention that he was still doing some work for the Kobolian."

"He always has done. He never cut his ties there. It's what he should have been doing. It's what he wanted to do. It's what I wanted him to do."

"He wanted the military as well, Joss," said Ila, gently. "No-one forced him into it. We weren't in a position to, don't forget."

"Then he wanted it all, I guess," said Joss, tired. "Do you think he got it?"

Ila shook her head, tears very close again. It fascinated him, this easy facility for grief, and he resented it. After a moment, he said, unable to bear the silence and needing to tell someone, "We fought about it." He looked down at the parcel and touched it lovingly. "Things have been a bit - difficult. Did he say? We've been going through a bad patch over the last yahren."

"He never said anything."

"Usually we were fighting about him staying in the military. I wanted him here, at home, where we could be together and he was safe." He stared at her, and said, his voice shaking. "Was that so bad? I wanted him safe. I didn't want this. We fought about it just before he left. The last thing we did together, and we were fighting!"

Ila looked so sympathetic, that it made him feel worse. "No relationship's without its problems," she said. "It changes and grows up, Joss, as the people in it do."

Trite! But she was trying to be kind, and he bit back the words that boiled to be said. He hadn't wanted Apollo to change. He wanted his green-eyed scholar back. "We fought," he said dully. "He just wouldn't listen to me."

"Apollo was seven shades of stubborn," said Ila.

"He'd have done it, if he'd cared. He'd have stayed here."

She looked alarmed. "Joss, he left us and everything behind to be with you. He lived with you all these yahrens - I'm sure he loved you, very much."

"Yes." After another silent centon, Joss touched the parcel again, and said, quietly, "It wasn't his best period, but he did a really good job of it. Bachman was pretty pleased. He's going to do some..." He stopped. "No. Not now."

"He might still be alive," said Zac, from behind them, young voice taut with anger. "He might be. We don't know."

"No-one's going to go back to find out," snapped Joss. "That's not the military way."

Zac said nothing. Joss heard him move away, putting distance between them. Ila shook her head, blotting at her eyes again with Apollo's scrap of linen.

This time the silence went on so long it was shouting and shrieking the discomfort at him. Joss decided he didn't like it. "I meant to call... I mean, I would have..." he stopped, and said, bitterly, "I suppose they told you before they told me."

He hadn't been able to call her. He hadn't been able to do anything. He had meant to, but it had been easier to just sit and wait for something to happen, and in the end, she'd come to him.

She sounded apologetic. "Adama knows everyone in the military, Joss. And the Supreme Commander is Apollo's godfather, after all. The Shield Regiment commander told Jak, Jak told Adama, Adama told me."

Joss nodded. "I suppose he's upset," he said, a little tentative. He didn't really know Adama. The few times they had met, Adama had been stiff and proud with the man he considered had corrupted his son. Joss didn't know how that stiff pride would react.

"It's breaking his heart," said Ila. There wasn't any sharpness to her tone, the way there maybe ought to be. It was a mere statement of a cold, unimpassioned fact. But what the fact hid and covered - ah well, that was different thing altogether. She blinked back more tears. "I had to tell the children. Oh Joss, I had to tell them. Adama wasn't there to do it..." She broke off, and cried again, hiding her face in her hands.

Anguished, helpless, Joss twisted in his chair. Athena hadn't come. She and Joss didn't get on, so he wasn't surprised about that, but Zac had driven his mother into the city for this... this what? This ritual of bereavement, he supposed, so that she could do what he couldn't do, and cry for her son. Zac was by the huge window, staring out over the city, standing where Joss had kissed Apollo for the first time over the case with the green basalt scarab. Joss couldn't see the boy's face, but the rigid back spoke volumes of its own. Over the last couple of yahrens, Zac and Apollo had got very close again, overcoming the age gap and the fact that Apollo had left home when Zac was just a little boy, only ten yahrens old. There was no mistaking that stiff backed grief.

"Zac." He didn't know what to say. "Your mother."

He saw the shoulders slump in a sigh, then stiffen again, and Zac turned around to face them. Joss looked at him eagerly, but really all the brothers had in common was that thick mop of unruly dark hair, and their colouring. Zac's eyes were blue, not vivid green, and his face was nothing like Apollo's, nothing even in the shape of eyes or nose or jaw that would point to kinship. Zac looked like Adama.

Disappointed, Joss turned away again. Still in that detached and vaguely envious state, he watched Ila sob in her son's arms and he listened to Zac's clumsy, heartfelt attempts at comfort, and he felt a little useless and helpless because he could neither grieve nor comfort.

But most of all he thought about the husk of bone and linen that Apollo had become.