Title: Better Than Aspirin (or 'I though you guys went in for amputation' )

Author/Pseudo: Julie Mitchell

Rating: NC-17

Archive: Yes

Series/Sequel: A follow on from Recreational Activities by Lianne Burwell

Author Email: julie27mitchell@yahoo.com

Summary: Harper's feeling under the weather, then he's feeling under Tyr

Spoiler for:

Disclaimer: All the usual (yadda, yadda, yadda.) Due to the irregular airing of episodes in the UK characters may act strangely.

Feedback: Please.

By Julie Mitchell
May 2001
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Tyr Anasazi stepped up to the doors to the bridge of the Andromeda Ascendant and as they swished open walked onto the deck of the Andromeda to find only her avatar on duty. "Where's Harp..?" He stopped himself finishing the question but Rommie noticed

"He is in his quarters" The avatar responded with the knowledge of the ships computer, the knowledge of the whereabouts of every member of the crew on board as well as the legion of mechanoids used to upkeep the ship.

Briefly Tyr wondered if Andromeda had logged the fact that Harper had spent all but 2 of the last 14 sleep periods in Tyr's quarters rather than his own. Which brought another question to Tyr's thoughts.

"Shouldn't he be on duty?" he asked as the doors slid open again to admit Trance. The purple girl answered Tyr's question. And Tyr noticed she didn't need to ask which member of the crew he'd been talking about.

"I've sent him to bed. His implant is causing him pain and he needs to rest. He's been working himself too hard since he had all that stuff dumped in his brain". As an aside to herself she added "I'm not entirely sure I got all the data out"

"Perhaps I should go to him" Tyr said without thinking then mentally kicked himself as both Rommie, who had maintained her position monitoring the scanners, and Trance turned to stare at him.

Trance shrugged "It couldn't hurt to monitor his condition - just don't annoy him".

Rommie agreed "I am fine to take another shift" She paused as though considering her words "with Trance's help of course".

As a computer linked avatar Rommie could take all shifts so long as she was near her power supply but to give the avatar the appearance of being a member of the crew she rotated with the others. However, as Bekka, Rev and Dylan were involved in some tricky negotiations with a possible future member of the new Commonwealth, so the 'live' crew were down to three, Harper, Trance and Tyr.

Tyr grunted, his usual response when words would just muddy the situation. He turned and left the deck not seeing the glance the two 'women' shared behind his departing back.

<+> <+> <+> <+>

Tyr's thoughts were tangled as he walked towards Harper's quarters. Although he knew the location, he'd never been there. Since he'd invited Harper to share his bed their nights had been spent in Tyr's rather Spartan quarters. When not on duty Harper was generally to be found in the machine shop or engine rooms, and Tyr wondered briefly what his quarters were like. This led him to consider his current relationship to the engineer. After 2 weeks of sex and sleeping with Harper the initial competition had worn off and they were now comfortable together. In fact on, Tyr paused in his ruminations to remember, 4 occasions no sexual activity had taken place - they'd just curled up together and slept. And that was the thing - they had a routine. Not that Tyr minded, he'd been fucked 6 times by Harper; enthusiastically just the way he liked it, and there had been a lot of mutual sucking and stroking. However, Tyr was no nearer to sampling Harper's ass, finding out how he liked to take it. He clamped down on that thought - now was not the time to dwell on Harper's small tight buttocks.

Tyr had reached to door to Harper's quarters and as he stood outside the automatics announced the presence of a visitor to Harper. The door slid open to reveal a darkened room.

"Yeah" Harper's sleepy voice came from the rumpled bed.

Glad that his Nietzschean eyesight allowed him to step around the various broken components that littered the floor, Tyr entered and announced himself. "Its me, Tyr"

Harper's tousled blond head lifted from his pillow as Tyr approached the bed. His eyes were unfocused and he looked pale and as Tyr came closer and stood over the bed he let his head fall back so he could look up at him.

"Sorry, I have the mother of all headaches going on in here. Trance said she'd take my watch".

"I know, I've just come from the bridge. I wondered if you needed anything, water, food?" Tyr searched for what humans offered their sick. "A back rub perhaps"

Harper watched Tyr Anasazi, Nietzschean warrior stand by his bed like Florence Nightingale modeled by a Greek sculptor and, if his facial muscles had been up to it, would have smiled.

"Back rub sounds good". His voice caught in his throat and he coughed gently "Not to hard though!"

Tyr wandered over to the fresher and found a bottle of scented oil.

Returning he offered the bottle for Harper's consideration. "Shall I use this?"

Harper frowned at the bottle, squinting in concentration. "Sorry, can't read the label" Harper tried shaking his head to illustrate the point but ended up groaning as the throbbing pain increased with the movement.

Tyr considered the prone young man. "Can you sit for a moment?" he asked

"Yeah, but I'll need some help" Harper offered his hands for a pull and as Tyr gently lifted his torso upright went on "I didn't think you guys had time for sickly members of the team".

"If by 'you guys' you mean Nietzschean's, then within the pride we don't. However, your condition is, I understand, relatively common in humans and therefore deserving of treatment."

During this long speech from the Nietzschean, Harper was divested of his undershirt, his pillows were arranged in a long line beside his body and he was laid flat; his pajama pants followed the shirt onto the floor, so he lay bared for the Nietzschean's ministrations.

All through Tyr's ministrations Harper's only thought was that if migraines like this were common there would be more suicides.

With a gentle hand Tyr smoothed his hair out of his eyes. "I will start with your front" he informed the patient. Harper said nothing, his eyes closed; he was concentrating on the feeling of lying totally flat rather than raised on pillows and wondered how the Nietzschean would react if he spewed.

Tyr must have sensed how he felt for the first touch of the warriors hot oily hands on his belly warmed his rebelling stomach and seemed to instantly dispel the nausea.

"God that feels good" he husked. Tyr's hands were always so warm. "never make a pastry chef of you" Harper said the words as they floated out of the liquid glop that his brain had become.

Tyr's hands made light circular motions on his skin traveling smoothly upwards over his ribs, breastbone and across his collar bones, stroking over his shoulders and down his arms to his wrists.

Seated on the edge of the bed Tyr was able to run his hands from Harper's hips to his throat with little trouble. In fact he shifted down the bed and continued to work from Harper's knees, over his thighs and upwards across his chest and again over shoulders and down to his hands. His chain-mail shirt clinked as he moved and he stopped to pull it off, wanting nothing to trouble Harper's relaxation. He returned to the massage and after five or six slow repetitions had thoroughly mapped Harper's musculature. Then the Nietzschean began to knead the long muscles in Harper's thighs, then moved up to his belly, sweeping the heels of his hands around the engineers navel, then upwards again repeating the circular movement over his pectoral muscles.

Harper swallowed several times, the nausea was returning as his mind looped the loop. He moaned and Tyr lifted his hands. Harper's eyes flew open "Please don't stop" he whispered.

Tyr smirked as he watched Harper's cock swell a little.

"You are in distress?" he looked pointedly at Harper's burgeoning erection.

Harper tried to lift his head but it was heavier from a flat bed than from the pillow. He swallowed again "It's OK, just not enough blood for my brain 'n all. It's makin' me feel a whole lot better though". Which was true, the actual pain in his head was receding, it was just the side effects; foggy vision and nausea that were hanging around.

Tyr grunted in acknowledgment, "I will turn you over now. Just relax"

And Tyr moved Harper's lax limbs tucking his arm against his side and bending one knee upwards until he was happy to roll Harper over onto the pillows. Throughout the maneuver he supported Harper's head with one steady hand.

Seamus Harper realised he was lying in the recovery position, a first aid basic. Not quite fully prone on his stomach, the pillows supported his head, chest and hips and some of his weight rested on the bent knee and folded arm. The brief feeling of falling as he was moved was gone in an instant. This position was incredibly comfortable, and, practically, there was no chance of him choking on his own vomit.

Tyr, knelt on the bed beside the pale body of the engineer. He picked up the oil bottle from beside the bed and held it over Harper's back.

Realising that he was moving from medicinal to sensual, he paused for a moment, letting his gaze wander over the body before him from the dirty blond hair, to the smooth skin, marred at the neck by the silver implant then stretching down across shoulders and back to small rounded buttocks and lightly downed thighs. Harper was beautiful in the darkness, his space white skin almost luminescent.

The Nietzschean let the bottle of oil tilt, and a thin steady stream lightly fell on the body below. The bottle moved to trickle oil onto Harper's spine, following the ridge of vertebra down his back right to where they fell into the crease of his ass. Even continuing there, a slow steam allowed to fall over his exposed anus and scrotum. Harper groaned, pressing his cock into the pillow beneath him, the oil slid silkily over his balls, softer than fingertips.

Tyr put the oil bottle down and stroked from shoulders to thighs, spreading the oil over skin, again mapping the muscles and bones.

The nausea had retreated, but Harper felt even more light-headed as the blood left his brain and filled his cock. All the nights he'd spent with Tyr, the sex had been either bluffly straightforward or rough and exciting. Tyr liked to be fucked, hard, this gentle treatment went against all Harper's conceptions of the Nietzschean.

He wriggled, pressing his hips into the bedding again and the warm oily hands that had been caressing his shoulders slid down his spine to spread across his lower back, fingers barely touching his hips. Harper's breath stopped in his throat as fingers followed the oil into the crease of his ass, touched the pucker of muscle and moved on to press against the underside of his balls. He breathed again as palms moved down the inside of his thighs to the sensitive back of his knees. Harper convulsively swallowed his moans, as he did so often with Tyr, not wanting to show any sign of perceived weakness, and yet he felt the Nietzschean knew exactly how he affected the engineer.

There was a rumble of thunder and he realised that Tyr was speaking. "Are you going to vomit?"

Hardly the sweet words Seamus Harper found himself hoping for.

"N'no" he felt foolish stammering, and cleared his throat "Just tickles". God listen to him, tickles indeed.

Gentle thunder sounded again and Tyr chuckled, "I will try not to 'tickle' you again" And Harper clamped his mouth shut before he invited Tyr to tickle as much as he liked.

Fingers were running up the outside of his thighs and palms rubbed lazy circles on his flanks before meeting in the small of his back again. Harper knew where those talented hands were heading and he knew that as fingers slid over his anus this time it would clench and relax in reaction, whatever he tried to do.

Tyr's reaction was still a surprise. He grunted and then asked "Are you sure, I thought you were unwell". His fingers had stilled, warm against Harper's tightened sac.

Harper's response was to look over his shoulder and give Tyr a smoldering look which said 'I'm feeling a whole lot better and sooo relaxed you could do anything with me at the moment. Get on with it.' Tyr must have been capable of reading such looks because he stood and quickly removed his leather pants, displaying his huge half-hard cock. Harper sighed and settled his head back on the pillow, knowing that he was going to get the necessary prep work he'd need to take Tyr's monster.

Tyr chuckled as he knelt again on the bed and Harper knew he would do anything to prolong the sound. He canted his hips a little more clearly indicating to the Nietzschean that he should carry on stroking the sensitised flesh between sac and anus.

And Tyr did. The gentle stroking of Harper's smooth flesh and his surpressed little noises of appreciation had aroused the Nietzschean but not in the way the engineers body usually did. Sex between them was fast and furious followed by a cuddle before sliding into sleep. Now watching the small opening spasm beneath his fingers Tyr wanted only to make love slowly, touch Harper with his lips and fingertips and whisper words of reassurance, of love.

A single fingertip entered the ring of muscle and rubbed oil into the skin lining the channel. If Harper's skin was silk this went beyond silk, flesh as delicate as spider web, Tyr withdrew his finger and glanced sharply at Harper when he cried out into the pillow.

"Did I hurt you?" Tyr realised that time seemed to have stopped as he knelt there, one palm on the small of Harper's back the other stroking the swollen area behind his scrotum, thumb resting on the contracting ring of muscle.

Harper's back arched and Tyr watched as his cock, held clear of the bedding, discharged in three short shots of semen.

"You should have said" the Nietzschean whispered enthralled by Harper's orgasm.

Harper's reply sounded like "Ugnahhh" as he collapsed back onto the bed.

Tyr lay down, shifting his body to curve around the slighter, paler Engineer. His hand again stroking gently, knowing Harper would be sensitized after his coming. He lent closer and tasted the flesh just below Harper's hairline with nuzzling kisses, starting slightly when his lips met cold metal. The flesh around the implant was hot and the engineer sighed as Tyr licked his way around it.

Again Tyr's finger breached Harper's anus and slid deeper into the now boneless body beside him. Some of the oil trickled over him had been taken in by the contractions of the muscle and he was slick with it. Tyr worked slowly with a single finger until all resistance had gone, then added a second starting to scissor his fingers to stretch the muscle. Harper seemed to be asleep beside him until a moan and wriggle signaled his renewed interest in proceedings.

Tyr's cock was hard and starting to leak pre-ejaculate, ready for the task to come. Remembering Harper's apprehension the first time they had lain together, Tyr grinned to himself and pushed his cock down between his muscular thighs, holding it there. Even that grip was erotic against the slow building of sensuality that was occurring.

Tyr added a third finger to the slow internal massage he was giving Harper and watched him squirm with pleasure as his prostate was rubbed.

"Please" the engineers voice was husky and full of desire.

Not wanting to tease, Tyr pressed his hip down to lay Harper flat on his stomach. For their joining he wanted him resting easy and straight. If Harper was crooked in any way Tyr might bruise the tender gland inside. Harper roused himself and pulling away rolled over flat on his back, pale blue eyes half closed as he looked at Tyr. Not speaking he spread his thighs and braced his feet on the bed his invitation clear.

Tyr nodded agreement to the position. If Harper was on his back he need do nothing but lay at ease beneath the Nietzschean. Moving over him, the warrior caught Harper's crooked knees and lifted his legs onto thickly muscled shoulders. Harper grunted as he was folded, knees to chest and Tyr stopped to check on his lovers health. For they were lovers now, not just sex partners or sleeping companions, there was emotion and caring between them. Harper grabbed his thighs and pulled them back to his shoulders, demonstrating how flexible he was. Tyr hung over Harper positioning his cock at the entry to the Engineers body. Knowing that his cock would feel very different from fingers filling the smaller man he timed his entry to Harper's expelled breath.

Harper groaned eloquently as Tyr took his time easing into the supple engineer and he savored every second, every centimeter. It still hurt, even after all Tyr's preparation but it was the sort of pain that detracted from the almost simultaneous pleasure and stopped it overwhelming him. Harper was panting heavily now, letting out soft sounds of need as the Nietzschean slowly slid home.

Finally the Nietzschean was fully sheathed within Harper. The heavy weight of the warriors balls pressed against the pale backside beneath him as he waited there, giving the slighter man time to get used to the feel of him fully inside. Harper lay, hung in that one perfect moment, that one perfect sensation of Tyr, aggravating, uptight warrior, sunk all the way in him. Their bodies slotted together as though made to fit like this.

"Oh god" Harper was moaning, Tyr was big and hot and fucking fantastic. Pushing back against Tyr. "Move, please move' he begged.

And he heard the Nietzschean's chuckle again. Tyr's first thrust - the slow drag out of his cock over Harper's gland and then his slow push back nearly toppled Harper over the edge. Gathering his controls, swallowing, trying to relax back and breathe deeply.

"More" He whispered, wanting Tyr to possess him in the most primitive way he could but the Nietzschean still insisted on taking his time.

While Harper's limited mental ability realised that he'd be grateful for Tyr's care the following day, right then all his body wanted was for the warrior to pound into him.

Tyr found that Harper would not keep still, and the friction of the gripping anal muscles made it an agony for Tyr to hold back, so he bit his lip, teasing the engineer with minute thrusts and tormenting fingers until he had him sobbing quietly, suspended between ecstasy and agony. It was as he heard the helpless, racking sobs, that Tyr knew the time was right; he began to thrust deep, taking Harper up toward the peak, pumping his cock in the same hard rhythm. Harper was wild with it, twisting and wriggling, and Tyr felt when he was about to come; he became rigid from head to foot, his breath in-drawn to scream. Tyr bucked hard into him, filling him just once more, and they tumbled over the peak into the spiraling release of orgasm together.

Tyr managed to collapse onto his side, for which Harper was grateful. The weight of the warrior would have knocked the breath out of him and he needed all the air he could get right now. He panted desperately trying to ward of the roaring in his ears and narrowing vision that heralded blackout.

His Nietzschean bedmate pulled him over 'til he lay sprawled on the dark muscles of Tyr's chest. Unable to speak or move his own muscles he hoped the smile in his eyes and effort not to dribble on his bedmate was all the appreciation Tyr needed at that moment.

Tyr was happy to lay spread out on Harper's bed. One still oily hand caressing his head the other palming cooling buttocks. Seeing the warmth in Harper's eyes he smiled lazily and kissed his nose before lifting his head to reach slack , dry lips.

Harper started in surprise pulling back and licking his lips. Tyr was aware that they had never kissed, nuzzling, licking, sucking on various bits of each others anatomy but a lip to lip kiss was a new experience. And one that now Harper's lips were moist he wanted to continue. Pulling Harper's head back into range he brushed his mouth against his lower lip, reaching to suck gently on the soft flesh. In return the shocked Engineer wriggled upwards on his living pillow and looking down into deep brown eyes before swooping in to devour the bigger mans mouth.

Without the need for words, indeed it was likely that neither of them had the breath for it, they lay exchanging promises 'til sleep claimed Harper, still nestled on the chest of the larger man. Tyr lay awake trying to make sense of the very human feelings of protectiveness he felt until he too slept.

The end - for now