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"I can tell Harper to come out and meet you," Rommie said.
"Actually, the whole point of this depends on you not telling him that," Dylan answered as he finished his crawl through the access tunnels and sat down in front of his plugged-in and oblivious engineer.
"Yes, Dylan." But he heard a hint of conflicting loyalties in her voice and didn't know quite how he felt about that. Did she think he would do something to harm Harper? Besides, as her captain and the only High Guard member on the ship, a large part of him felt that her loyalties should rest primarily with him and she shouldn't have a moment's doubt about him.
They would have rested exclusively with him, and she wouldn't have had any questions about his motives, once. Once he wouldn't have worried if it made him petty to want that. They'd both changed during their new lives with their new and often insubordinate crew.
Possibly the most irreverent member of their new crew sat against the wall slightly sprawled, only partially illuminated in the dimness by the light from the machinery around them, in front of Dylan. Eyes closed, smiling sweetly, head turned to the side and resting against the panel, Harper looked like he could have been sleeping. Plugged in, but sleeping, and as close to motionless as he'd ever been in Dylan's presence. He hadn't reacted at all to Dylan settling down nearby.
When Dylan had communed with the Pax Magellanic's matrix, he hadn't been aware of anything going on in the physical world. Only later did he learn that all mayhem had broken loose around him: Beka and Tyr firing on homicidal Magellanic androids, Harper protecting Dylan and Rommie's insensate bodies from Dutch with a pipe and his tenacity, Wagner being piped in as a battle soundtrack. Once the goggles had come off, Dylan had finally seen the android bodies and smelled the ozone and char.
And that was using goggles. Harper plugged his mind directly in.
Lately Tyr had been mentioning a desire to see how deeply entranced deep communion left Harper. Dylan could all too clearly see an aggrieved Tyr protesting that it was perfectly reasonable to test whether shooting Harper would bring him out and that he'd only grazed the engineer, who was far too useful to kill. That would have been unacceptable, not least because Beka--and Harper, if he hadn't been too badly injured--would try to tear the Nietzschean apart. They might get hurt trying it.
And Dylan wouldn't be able to argue against their violent reaction.
But if Dylan did and announced his own testing, Tyr would be far less likely to sneak off to try something like that.
It felt wrong sitting here watching Harper like this, while he was vulnerable and unaware and looked so young and defenseless. Still, it would be good to know how much protection he'd need if he had to go in while a battle raged around him.
Harper mmmmed and did a sensuous little wiggle that only made Dylan feel more uncomfortable, leaving him with an odd twisting in his stomach. "Rommie, was that in reaction to anything he did in your matrix?" Dylan asked, surprised by how dry-mouthed he felt. He didn't want to know if Harper was... excited.
"He seems to have been pleased with his progress so far, no more and no less right now. I can't say that anything just happened to produce the elevated heart rate, respiration, and endorphin levels I'm detecting in his body. His virtual self hasn't reacted along with his body."
"Endorphins.... Can you tell if his implants are stimulating endorphin production?"
"I can't, not with the diagnostic equipment here. You'd have to take him to med deck. Should I be worried?"
"It's just a theory." Harper's internal gear had to hook into his brain and nervous system, so perhaps it had been designed to produce neurotransmitters that would reward usage. Or hide any pain the process caused. After all, Harper winced every time he inserted or pulled the plug out of his neck. Dylan didn't know enough about how Harper's hardware worked, but Harper hadn't volunteered much, and he'd felt uncomfortable prying into something that might be seen as deeply personal.
Dylan put his hand, palm open, millimeters away from Harper's closed left eye. No reaction. He slowly moved it closer and closer. No reaction. Suddenly Harper moved his head to rest his face against Dylan's palm, and Dylan couldn't tell if that had been a random restless movement or a response. His skin felt very warm....
Dylan quickly moved his hand away. No reaction.
It made him feel loathsome doing this, and he was very glad that Beka would never find out about this one, but.... He snapped a punch at Harper's head, again ending it millimeters away from warm skin... Harper's nose. He never would have tried it if he hadn't known he could control it that well. No reaction to the sound or the rush of air, when usually Harper's reflexes would have sent him across the room.
Creepy. Very creepy. Yet Dylan had come too far to stop now. He knew that Harper could be moved a bit, and he saw the give in the long cord, so he put his hands on Harper's arms, ignoring the slide of slick fabric and smooth skin beneath his palms and fingers, and gently pulled him forward. He could imagine what his engineer would have to say about this if he came to now, but Harper remained limp, pliant, and oblivious, his head descending to rest on Dylan's shoulder of its own weight. With Harper's fine blond hair brushing his face and cord humming against his neck, Dylan managed to think through all the distractions that it looked like they could move Harper around a bit if necessary.
Though they couldn't unplug him, not without risking brain damage.
Dylan put his hand to the cord to feel it vibrate against his fingertips. But then Harper's head moved, and the cord started to pull.... Dylan clapped his hand to the plug at Harper's neck to keep it in, only to be followed by Harper's fingers over his doing the same. He could feel consciousness returning to Harper's body in a rush, but Harper's fingers stayed clamped over his own.
Harper turned his head on Dylan's shoulder, his open and dazed eyes starting to focus again, and murmured, "Nice." At least he finally let Dylan's fingers go, though he did it with a little caress.
"Uhm," Dylan said.
"I have nothing to be embarrassed about. I'm not the guy who pulled some insensate person into his lap for probably nefarious purposes."
Harper was in his lap. Was staying in his lap. And made a disturbingly cuddly lapful. "I was running a test. For your own safety."
Harper raised an eyebrow. "That's a new one." Then let him off the hook. "If you want to know, I was coming out on my own just as the plug started to pull out. Being nearly unplugged didn't bring me out." At Dylan's look, he shrugged. "I heard Tyr talking. I told him that if he tried anything he'd find out just what kind of hell it is to live on a ship when you have its engineer pissed off at you. I should have guessed that you, as tactical soldier guy, would have to investigate yourself."
"You won't use Andromeda against me."
"Nah, Boss. I'm not upset. As long as nothing tries to electrocute me, I always feel really good coming out. Too good to be upset." Harper put his mouth to Dylan's ear. "Besides, I like your idea of testing much more than I like Tyr's." Then he pushed back, out of Dylan's lap, into a crouch and unplugged himself with the usual wince. He tilted his head and looked at Dylan, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded, his mouth....
Dylan remembered the neurotransmitters, even if his cock seemed to have no problem with the thought of taking advantage of Harper's altered state. "I'll... see myself out."
"You don't have to."
"I think I do."
As he crawled out, Dylan heard Harper say, "If you have any more tests you want to do, please feel free to look me up."