Title: Right Kind of Wrong

Author: Harper

Fandom: Battlestar Galactica

Pairing: Starbuck/Cain

Rating: R

Spoilers: Contains some of those for the first two episodes of Season 3 and the season finale of Season 2.

Archiving: This will be at www.realmoftheshadow.com/harper.htm with the rest of my drivel. As always, thanks to Kim.

A/N: This isn’t particularly light and fluffy. I’ll be at xfjnky2@yahoo.com should you care to comment.

It wasn’t that she was in love. There hadn’t been enough time, and even if there had been, Starbuck had the distinct impression that Admiral Cain wasn’t the kind of woman who could love. She was the kind of woman who could gut you like a deer without that unflinching stare ever allowing for anything less than full eye contact, but not the kind of woman who could love.

Starbuck imagined she was the kind of woman who could fuck. Women like Cain had always left her a little weak in the knees. Something about the searing intensity, she imagined, or the ability to bring out the little girl hidden not so deeply within who wanted nothing more than to please, please, please. And she thought maybe there was something wrong with her, fingers moving furiously under her worn, thin blanket as she tried to modulate her breathing because, for frack’s sake, she was in her rack and nothing close to alone, with thoughts of Cain shoving her up against something hard and metal and probably distinctly uncomfortable playing in vivid color against the backs of her eyelids. She could almost feel those hands on her, hard yet sure, pushing her flight jacket back over her shoulders and unsnapping her utility belt and digging into the base of her skull as lips that looked hard and thin but that felt hot and addictive fracking owned her.

She couldn’t imagine soft kisses and silk sheets. When she tried, all she saw was herself, naked and sweaty and writhing like something possessed, spread out on the command table with models of the battleships that had outlined their victory against the Cylon fleet scattered and crushed around her, Cain smirking down at her from between her legs and long fingers curled up deep inside of her making her scream. She saw blonde hair, dark with sweat and wild about her face, her ponytail having lost the battle for control – a sharp contrast to Cain, fucking her ruthlessly but without a hair out of place, uniform jacket gone in a quest for freedom of movement and looking like living sin in her Fleet issued tank.

If she was feeling particularly adventurous, she imagined herself slinking up to Cain, fingers toying coyly with the buttons on the other woman’s jacket as she mustered all the bravado she wasn’t feeling and shot her a look of desire ten times too blatant for a woman as slyly sharp as the Admiral. But, Starbuck didn’t want any misunderstandings, didn’t want any searing looks to be misconstrued as some sort of hero worship or blind adoration. What she wanted was the feel of those strong fingers tugging hard against the hair at the nape of her neck, not so gently guiding her down to her knees. She wanted those same capable fingers to calmly flick open rather staid uniform trousers, to press her face into silky curls as cutting blue eyes and that ever present smirk gave way to the slightest curl of lips and an approving nod of the head. She wanted the taste of Cain on her tongue, irrefutable proof of the other woman’s returned desire.

She wanted to be the one to make the otherwise icy Admiral sweat. And maybe, if she was lucky or, more likely, just plain good, she’d get a moan too. A scream was really taking things too far, but it didn’t hurt for a girl to have dreams.

Sometimes she wondered if Cain had had thoughts like that too. She knew she hadn’t imagined the look in the other woman’s eyes, the one that seemed one second away from devouring her alive. She thought it had to be more than trust, pride, respect and psychosis. It was desire, of that she was sure. It was Cain’s barely restrained urge to wrap her new CAG’s legs around her waist and demonstrate, in no uncertain terms, Starbuck’s place in the new chain of command. She had never played a subservient role in any of her sexual relationships, but Starbuck couldn’t help but picture herself on her knees in front of Cain. Or her back, or her belly, or quite honestly anywhere Cain wanted her to be, because in her, Starbuck had finally found a god she could worship.

Sometimes, in her seemingly neverending fantasies, she’d watch Cain’s gonna-make-you-beg smirk grow deeper, bordering on sinister. And just when she thought the seemingly simple facial expression couldn’t get any fracking sexier, the smirk would turn into blank confusion as a trickle of blood crept between surprisingly delicate eyebrows and over the bridge of an aristocratic nose, and in her twisted reality Starbuck came and came, fantasy fingers digging into the metal of the gun she hadn’t realized was in her hand so hard that she could feel it tear into her skin. And then she’d be bleeding too, and Cain’s eyes would be full of disappointment and grudging pride, because Starbuck’s moment had come and she hadn’t fracking hesitated for even one second, and Starbuck would look down to see that the slickness coating her body was blood and not sweat. She’d see the traces and swirls of the strokes of Cain’s fingers painted onto her in swaths of thick, vibrant red and she’d look up to see that smirk once again firmly in place as blood dripped off of Cain’s chin to splash against her skin and she’d scream and she’d come again and she’d shiver against the wave of searing cold rushing up her spine, freezing her body into a taunting, macabre rictus of pleasure. And she’d rub her hands against her upper arms, would wrap her blanket around her more tightly and wait for the cold to creep away, but it wouldn’t leave.

After a little while, she realized she couldn’t ever get warm, and was beginning to think that all the time they’d spent out in space chasing ghosts and running from robots had permanently altered her body temperature.

In fact, both her body and her mind were mutinous traitors, and she wondered when Adama was going to figure out that she hated him just a little. She hated him for what she’d been almost prepared to do, for being alive when Cain was not. She hated him for his lies about Earth and his dedication to starting over instead of claiming back their pound of flesh. She hated him for making her love him like a father, for knowing that she’d do anything he asked of her even if it killed off a part of her soul. She hated him because she couldn’t hate him, because he was right and good and worth surviving for and because he’d probably be their salvation after all, even if it did seem like he was leading them off to a painfully slow death fed on faltering false hope.

And she absolutely did not love Admiral Cain.

The End