Story Time!

sansets

A Thought:

There is no logical reason why Chief Tyrol should be jealous of Karl Agathon’s relationship with Sharon Valerii. For starters, they don’t have one. Sharon has assured him of this, and so has Helo. Multiple times. And if you can’t trust your girlfriend (who was the girl of your dreams), and you can’t trust the guy you play cards with (who was probably your best friend), then who can you trust, right?

But sometimes when Sharon and Helo are out on a long mission, alone, together in their Raptor, he drinks alone. And after the third or fourth drink (which he knows is never a good idea when drinking alone) his thoughts turn to what they might be doing in that ship while they are alone. And even though he knows that this is insanity, and they would have absolutely no time to do anything other than their jobs, and even if they did, they were not doing anything (they told him themselves) and he should just trust them. But that fourth drink (or fifth … OK, if he was being honest with himself, seventh) made his mind do treacherous things. That seventh drink made him imagine Sharon and Helo kissing, embracing. Helo’s hands running up and down her lovely skin. Helo’s hands on her neck, his hands caressing her soft face … And it occurs to him that for a man who is supposedly in love with the woman of his dreams, he is spending entirely too much time thinking about another man’s hands. Which leads to some really uncomfortable thoughts, so he takes one last shot of ambrosia to guarantee that he will not have any uncomfortable dreams (because that one time was more than enough) and rolls over for a night of restless sleep.

A Mistake:

The first time that the Chief and Helo frak, it was a mistake. Helo had joined Sharon and Tyrol to go out to a club while they were on leave on Geminon. It was more Sharon’s idea than his (entirely, if Chief was being completely honest) and he didn’t want to be there in the first place. But Sharon wanted to be around people who were not from Galactica, and it was simpler to just agree rather than have the same argument that they had every time their planet leave coincided. So when Helo asked what they had planned for the evening, Tyrol immediately asked him along. He would much rather be drinking in the back with Helo than pretending to dance and have a good time on the dance floor. And Helo had no problems with Sharon and his relationship, so there would be no problems ditching him at the end of the night so that Sharon and he could find a hotel room.

Helo and he were actually having a pretty good time, despite the fact that the club was crowded and trendy and everything that they were not. Chief had just won Helo’s entire wallet in poker and Karl had just beat Tyrol at a drinking game, so they were feeling nicely drunk and happy. Then (because they were drunk and happy) they both thought that it would be a marvelous idea to defend Sharon’s honor from the drunken investor who was flirting with her. This marvelous idea ended in the investor requiring 15 stitches in the head, about 600 worth of damages to the club, and Sharon storming off in a huff to go find Starbuck and finish the rest of the weekend with her.

They managed to drunkenly stumble to the hotel room that Tyrol had reserved for him and Sharon. When they finally figured out how to unlock the door, they walked into the room, looked at the single, solitary bed and then stared at each other. “Frak it,” Helo said, pulling off his shoes. “I’m going to bed.” Tyrol hesitated and then pulled off his shoes and climbed into bed next to Helo. He expected to fall right asleep, given that he had drunk enough to sink the Galactica. But Helo’s presence kept distracting him. Perhaps it was because he was drunk or perhaps it was Helo’s cologne, but no matter how hard he tried, his thoughts kept drifting to those images that he had of Helo’s hands. Only now in his thoughts, those hands were stroking his skin, caressing his face. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the months of envisioning those hands since he became involved with Sharon, but suddenly he couldn’t resist. He reached over and grabbed Helo’s hands. Helo seemed confused, but soon enough he was as enthusiastic about the Chief’s hands as the Chief was about his.

In the morning they awkwardly dressed and agreed that it was a mistake and that it would never happen again.

A Wish:

After the first time, they promised each other that it would never happen again. And it didn’t. Until the next time. And the time after that.

There is always the inevitable argument about who is going to be on top, which is resolved by a very carefully kept-to system of taking turns. It occurs to them both that they are really much too alpha to be doing this. But this thought never really stops them. And they know that they should do this as fast as possible and then leave. Preferably never to have it happen again. But after they are finished and are lying spent and sweaty on the sheets, neither wants to be the first to make a move to leave. Chief would hesitate to use the phrase “soul mate” to describe his relationship with Helo, would actually adamantly deny it if anyone else used it.

But who else would put up with being the second best? Put up with being second to a woman that you were half in love with yourself? Tyrol knew that he was pretty lucky to find someone who was willing to put up with playing second best to Sharon (and usually only when he was drunk). It wasn’t like Helo didn’t get anything out of this either. He knew that he didn’t have a Cylon’s chance in Kobol of being with Sharon, and the Chief was a pretty good second. And when Tyrol was being really honest with himself, he knew that he was second in his relationship with Sharon. Second to her flying, second to her job, which she loved in a way that he couldn’t even begin to touch. Helo understood that in a way that no one else could. That was why he was reluctant to leave after they finished their drunken fraks. That was why he was willing to risk getting caught frakking not only an officer, but a superior male officer. Because no one else could get what it was like to be in love with Sharon Valerii. No one else could understand the ache that was the want for her to fully love you in return. And Helo made the pain go away for awhile. So instead of leaving and sneaking back to the other hotel room that he had rented for this planet-side leave, he curled up to go to sleep. Because the world might end tomorrow, and he wanted this tonight.