***Hands caressed him from neck to knee. He moaned, turning eagerly into his lover's embrace, feeling the passion burning brightly within both of them. A warm mouth sought his, and he pulled his love closer, closer—eager to feel every inch of that magnificent body against his own, reaching down to grasp firmly the straining cock—***

Apollo woke with a hoarse cry. No! No. He refused to have that dream again. No, no, and no.

But try though he would, he couldn't deny the fact that he was hard, harder than any woman ever made him. Although his guts twisted with disgust and self-loathing, there was no denying the longing in his very bones—the ache within his heart that had him fighting the need to reach out and press the comm button—the need to talk to the man who had put him in this mess in the first place.

But that was out of the question. So he did as he usually did, as he had done whenever the dreams troubled him—an increasing phenomenon, of late. He turned his thoughts towards work, to sorting through the duty roster with an eye towards performance, to planning out the scheduling for the next several sectons, to...

Once, he'd tried to deal with his problem in a different way. He'd grabbed hold of himself and thought desperately of Sheba, dreaming up a fantasy scenario which solved his problem in an entirely unexpected way: by killing all traces of desire within him. That was the night when he realized that he had a serious problem. When he'd first met Sheba, she had seemed lovely, desirable—someone whose company he sought out above most others. But then, that had changed gradually. So gradually, in fact, that he hadn't even been aware of the change at first. Only when his father commented on the fact had Apollo noticed that he hadn't spent much time with Sheba at all in sectons. That had been well after the start of the dreams, and had, in fact, precipitated the dreadful discovery that he found Sheba as sexually attractive as a trained daggit.

Apollo fell back into a shallow, uneasy sleep, still thinking of the maintenance schedule for Vipers. This time, his dreams did not involve any sexual content at all, merely a feeling—that of teetering on the edge, knowing that he walked a vast precipice, with an infinite dropoff to either side, and hearing a howling wind rising in the distance, getting closer and closer and closer...

"Anybody got any idea what crawled up the Captain's butt and died?"

Boomer nearly choked in the attempt to not spew ale all over the table, as Starbuck slid into his accustomed seat at the Officer's Club.

"Thanks, Bucko," he commented acidly, once finished with his coughing fit. "I really needed a lungful of ale."

Starbuck grinned. "Hey, Boom-boom, it's not my fault you're still surprised by the things I say."

"Not surprised, just..." Boomer shook his head. "And no, I've got no idea what's got the Captain's knickers in a knot."

"Knickers in a knot, huh?" Starbuck repeated thoughtfully. "Not too shabby, Boomer, not too shabby at all. There may be hope for you yet."

Boomer grunted.

"So what did you do, eh, Bucko?" Jolly nudged him with an elbow, grinning.

"Me?" Starbuck put on an expression of injured innocence. "I would never do anything to our esteemed Captain!"

"Felgercarb," Jolly dismissed that notion with a wave of his hand. "You're always doing something to piss off Apollo, and you know it. Problem is, you just generally arrange for the rest of us to take the heat for you."

"Unfair!" Starbuck reeled back in his seat dramatically, clutching his chest as though injured. "I would never—" then his sharp eyes caught sight of a familliar face. "Hey! There he is now!"

He smiled and waved. Apollo saw him and a look of sheer panic crossed his face, to be replaced by a closed, controlled expression as welcoming as a granite wall. The Captain turned abruptly and left. He'd never made it more than two feet into the room.

"What the frack?" The three men stared at the doorway in bewilderment.

"Looks like it really is something you've done, Starbuck," Boomer observed.

"Yeah, well," Starbuck shoved his chair away from the table and rose. "Looks that way, and I'm gonna go find out what in all the holy hells I did this time. Save me a seat, 'case I come back with my tail on fire?"

"Sure thing, Bucko. Just don't let him shoot you down."

"As if he could!" Starbuck tossed that last comment over his shoulder as he wove through the crowd with the grace of long practice. He kept his unease concealed behind his habitual cocky grin, unwilling to let anyone see a hint of the worry he was feeling. This was just too weird. Apollo had never run from him before. True, lately the Captain had been acting strangely, but never had he panicked and run like a scalded daggit.

The corridor outside was empty, offering no trace of the elusive Captain. Starbuck considered for a moment—how upset was he? How determined was he not to be found? Probably pretty bad...

Starbuck shrugged and set off for the celestial dome. It was a pain in the ass to get to, but from the look on Apollo's face, he'd wager any amount that was where the Captain was going.

Starbuck's arrival startled him badly. Apollo jumped up when he heard the other man enter the dome, ready to run for it again, but found his only exit blocked by the person he wanted least—and most—to see.

"All right, Apollo—out with it." Starbuck stood, intentionally blocking the closed door, with arms folded across his chest. Apollo swallowed hard.

"Out with what?"

"Don't give me that felgercarb, old buddy—there's something wrong, it involves me, and you're not leaving until you tell me what it is."

"There's nothing wrong." Apollo hoped he had the right tone—firm, uncompromising—convinced that there was indeed nothing wrong.

"Frack that. There is so."

Apollo sighed. Okay, so Starbuck was in stubborn mode today. How to get out of this one? "What makes you say so?"

Starbuck's mouth twisted, a parody of a wry grin. "How often do you run like a first year cadet with a flight of Raiders on his tail, just 'cause you catch sight of me in the OC?"

"How do you know I even saw you?" Apollo countered desperately.

"Okay, then—explain why, if I were to move aside, you'd be out this door like a shot."

Apollo forced his body to sit on the edge of the astrogator's platform. "No, I wouldn't," he lied.

That provoked a real smile, although a fleeting one. "Nice try, Pol, but you're a miserable liar. Now are you going to tell me the problem, or are we going to be up here all night playing guessing games?"

Frack. Frackety-frack. Now what? Sorry, Lieutenant, but I've been having some really hot sex dreams lately? And they just happen to star you? Nah, that would never work. How about wanna fuck? Yeah, right.

"I'm waiting."

"You know, Starbuck, that attitude looks really bad on you."

"Excuse me?"

"Trying to play the responsible one, trying to take charge of a situation—trying to bully your Captain into confessing some imaginary sin—"

"Hey!" Starbuck interrupted, one hand raised. Anger glinted in his eyes. "I didn't come up here for you to try and start a fight. There's something eating at you, it involves me, and I have a right to know what the hell your problem is."

"You are, Bucko," he said, before he could stop himself. A flash of pain shot through the anger on his friend's face. "You're the problem. Now can I go?"

"Not without an explanation." The pain was buried under that protective Starbuck shell. "What the hell have I done to become such a problem?"

Done? You haven't done anything. It's me, I'm the one who's done something sick and twisted and— "Nothing. Everything. I don't know. Now would you go away and leave me alone?" Apollo covered his eyes with his hand. There was an insistent little demon pounding inside his left temple, trying to break through to the surface.

"No." Face set into stubborn lines, Starbuck continued to block the doorway.

"Why are you being so difficult?" Apollo glared at his best friend, torn by strongly conflicting emotions. First and foremost was confusion. Hard on its heels followed terror, lust, the desire to confess everything and get it all out in the open, and the ultimate fear—that he'd lose Starbuck if the other man knew what a pervert he'd become.

"Apollo," Starbuck shook his head, "I'm not the one being difficult here. You are. There's something been eating at you for sectons now, and I want to know what it is. First you're spending every waking moment with Sheba, then you drop her like a hot rock and surgically attach yourself to my side, then you drift away and start ignoring me, and now you freak out and run like hell when you see me—what is your problem, man? And don't give me that 'it's you' felgercarb."

Those pleading blue eyes were undoing him. He felt them eating away at his resolve, eroding his control until he was nearly ready to tell the secret—no. "It's true," he said, in a flat tone, devoid of all emotion. "You are the cause of the problem. Nothing you did, nothing you said—just you. Now, you will let me pass, right now."

He rose and took two steps, then was brought up short by Starbuck's immobile form.

"No." Seen at close range, the pain was even more obvious. "You are not going to pull this shit on me—"

Apollo shut the thought of how much he was hurting his friend out of his mind and made a try to get past the Lieutenant. It didn't work. He found himself slammed up against the wall with his arm twisted above his head in a most uncomfortable position. Angry blue eyes glared into his own.

"Not so fast, Captain," Starbuck growled. "I will have answers."

"You know," Apollo remarked, in a calm and conversational tone, every bit as though he spent part of all his days immobilized by junior officers, "you could wind up doing some serious time behind a physical attack on your Captain."

"Right now, Captain, I don't give a shit." Starbuck couldn't quite match the casual tone—vhis was marred by rough emotion.

"I could make you give a shit."

Starbuck's eyes took on a dangerous glint. Uh-oh. Maybe he'd actually pushed the man too far?

"You will tell me what all this is about now, Captain."

"No." Apollo winced and struggled as the grip on his arm tightened.

"Fuck that. You owe me an explanation. You seem to want to throw fifteen yahrens of friendship away, you want to destroy the only family I have, and you owe me an explanation."

Uh-oh... he really had pushed Starbuck too far. There wasn't too much sanity left in his eyes at the moment. Frack. "Look, Starbuck—I don't want to throw your friendship away, I don't want to destroy your family—I just want you to let go of me, so I can be alone."

"I don't believe you."

Apollo wished there was some way he could get free. Although the situation was highly inappropriate, his body was reacting to Starbuck's close proximity. Heart pounding, adrenaline rush, lust singing through his entire nervous system... frack. "It's true, though. Please?"

Starbuck's grip loosened for a fraction of a micron, then tightened again before Apollo could react. "No. If you go out that door with this mess unresolved, you're just going to hide away and ruin everything. I love you too much to allow that. Now what the frack is your problem?"

Apollo felt as though he was back on the precipice of his dream, with the wind howling and buffeting at him. He didn't just say that. He didn't mean that the way it sounded. Oh sweet Lords I am not going to cry...

But his eyes had other ideas and got rather damp and prickly. Instantly, his mood switched from desperation to a sharp, stabbing guilt. "I don't deserve that," he whispered. He closed his eyes tightly, fighting himself now. "In no way do I deserve you as a friend. You shouldn't care about me, you should just let me go and be happy to be free of me before anything happens."

"Pol... Apollo." He felt a hesitant touch on his cheek, wiping away a stray tear that had escaped his control. "There is nothing you could do or say that would make me glad to lose you. What makes you think you don't deserve... well, me? As if I'm all that much of a prize."

"Don't do this to me, Starbuck!" Apollo cried, with another attempt to free himself. This time he managed it, breaking free and retreating rapidly across the tiny chamber, rubbing his shoulder.

"Frack." Starbuck gave him a disgusted look. "So—here we are, back where we started—you over there, me not letting you out, and you refusing to make a goddamn bit of sense. Only now there's something new—you've switched your story. Now I'm not the problem, you are. Would you just fucking tell me what the deal is? 'Cause I promise you, you ain't going out of this room until this is cleared up unless you shoot me."

"Fucking hell."

"Quit glaring at me like that. This situation is your fault, dammit."

Apollo threw himself down on the floor. So he wanted to be like that, huh? Well, two could play at that game. He'd just sit here and keep his mouth shut, while his ass went dead and his legs fell asleep and Starbuck got bored and went away.

"Lords, man—what would the rest of the fleet do if they knew their greatest, most popular warrior was nothing but a spoiled little brat?" Starbuck rolled his eyes in a long-suffering expression.

"Fuck you."

"Unless that's a serious proposition, I'm not interested."

Apollo's jaw dropped, and he felt an icy chill. "What?"

"Well, would you look at that? I got a reaction out of you!" Starbuck grinned, that typical old insouciant grin. But it didn't reach his eyes.

Holy fracking hell, Apollo thought faintly. The ice was replaced by fire, then back to ice, then fire then ice, whirling around and through him until he just wanted to howl and scream, anything to make it stop...

...it was a joke, it had to be a joke, it was a joke... whispered a faint voice of reason, somewhere beneath the ice and firestorm.

"Apollo?"

He drew his knees up against his chest and clenched his fingers in his hair. He was falling, falling, and there was no end to it—shivers wracked his body as he tried to get control of himself again. But the concern in Starbuck's voice was enough to send him deeper into torment, falling further into the howling abyss.

And then there was something warm, solid, safe—an arm around his shoulders, a hand undoing his fierce grip on his hair and pulling his head to rest on a strong shoulder, a quiet and reassuring murmur in his ears... Somewhere, deep within, Apollo felt the last of his resistance crumble and he gave in to the gentle pressure, turning into the comforting embrace.

The chaos within Apollo slowly subsided. He returned to coherent thought gradually, feeling the last of the tremors still wracking his body subside. His head was on Starbuck's shoulder. Starbuck's arms were around him. Fear spasmed through his guts and his muscles tensed, preparatory to pulling away.

"Oh no you don't." Starbuck's voice was quiet, but uncompromising. "I've got you now, and you aren't getting away from me this time. We are going to work this out, and I won't take no for an answer. Too much is riding on this."

"You must hate me," Apollo whispered. He tried to pull away again, only to feel Starbuck holding him closer.

"Why, Apollo? Is there a reason I should hate you for caring?"

"It's wrong," Apollo tried to speak normally, but his voice was harsh and his throat hurt as though he'd been howling aloud, rather than just in his mind.

"What's wrong, Apollo? The fact that you just went off the deep end over a chance comment?" Starbuck's hand stroked his hair, a comforting feeling. Surely he couldn't be too upset...

"You don't understand, do you?" He swallowed against the pain and lowered his voice. "You're a man. That's just wrong."

Starbuck sighed. "I think I understand better than you, old friend. Look—would it help any if I told you I've been to bed with nearly as many men as women?"

"What???" Apollo tried to jerk away, but Starbuck had anticipated this and tightened his grip. "But that's—that's sick, unclean—"

Another deep and heartfelt sigh. "And I hear your father talking. Even the Holy Writ doesn't come down as hard on some things as your father does, and this is one of 'em."

Apollo was torn again, by the need to get away from Starbuck, and the need to listen to what he was saying with every fiber of his existence.

"Look, I'm not saying I jump in bed with anyone who wiggles their hips at me, but I recognized a long time ago that guys do it for me just as much as chicks do, okay? And when I figured that out—well. It was a bit of a shock, at first, 'cause I'd had so many of your father's prejudices stuffed down my throat, too. But then—then, I got smart. Yeah, that's right, I said I got smart. And I found out it wasn't just me. I found out that it's a perfectly normal and healthy variation of human sexuality and religion be damned."

"Uhhh..."

"Y'know, Apollo, when someone drops something unexpected on you, you look really funny."

"Quit laughing at me. You just put me through hell and dragged me back, and now you're laughing at me? That's hardly fair."

Starbuck tightened his arms and pressed his lips to the top of Apollo's head. "I'm allowed to laugh. You just put me through nine kinds of hell, too. Or don't you remember?"

Apollo shivered. The fire was back. He didn't want to move, didn't know what to do—he could feel his heart trying to burst from overexertion.

"And all because you couldn't bring yourself to admit that you find me irresistable..."

"Watch it, Lieutenant," Apollo growled. But a smile teased at the corners of his mouth, and he raised his head from Starbuck's shoulder to look into the familiar blue eyes, so close to his own. His breath caught in his throat at the open, honest expression there. Written clearly across the man's face were acceptance, joy... love.

"Watch what, Captain?" Starbuck smiled, raising a hand to touch Apollo's face gently, stroking along one cheek. "Watch you deciding to believe me, that there's nothing wrong with you? Or watch you deciding that it doesn't matter if it's wrong, that you want me anyway?"

"Starbuck..." Apollo shook his head, an uncertain smile working its way from somewhere deep within him to spread across his face. Hesitantly, he put his arms around Starbuck. "You're sure there's nothing wrong with me? 'cause I'm scared pissless right now."

"Oh, Pol..." Starbuck blinked against a sudden mist in his eyes. "Don't be scared, okay? Just—just be you. There is nothing wrong with you, there is nothing wrong with me, and if you doubt my word—well, go look it up in the medical texts, under human sexuality. Didja know there's twenty-four different variations of human sexuality?"

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Now can I ask a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Can we get out of here now, without you freaking out and running away from me? I love holding you, but my ass has gone dead as a doornail."

It started with his eyes, widening incredulously. Then it worked its way down to his mouth and a wide smile, then finally turned into a real laugh. "Starbuck," he gasped at last, "sometimes I just can't believe you!"

"What's wrong now?" Starbuck's eyes crinkled with humor and he tweaked Apollo's nose, which only made Apollo laugh harder. "Don't you ever take me seriously?"

Apollo's laughter stopped abruptly. "As a matter of fact, yes, I do take you seriously sometimes, and of course we can go somewhere else. But first..." Apollo took a deep breath, settling the last of his fears, then kissed Starbuck. For a brief moment, all he felt was panic, then it faded away into a feeling of rightness and pure pleasure. Now that's more like it, he thought.

When the kiss ended, Starbuck sighed happily. Then he struggled to his feet and offered Apollo a hand up. "Your place or mine?"

Apollo hesitated, fingers idly toying with Starbuck's hand. "Mine, I think—but you know what?"

"What's that?"

"You have a hell of a lot of expectation to live up to."

"Huh?"

"You'd just better be as good as my dreams, that's all." With an unrepentant grin, Apollo turned away from Starbuck, who spluttered indignantly, and made his way out the door at last.