StarTrek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount. No infringement intended, no profit made.

Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom I am, as always, indebted.

Author's Note: Dedicated to J, who knows why!

There was something between him and Sato, once. Maybe in another universe it might have been love, but here there is only survival and the opportunities of a captain's bed. He still watches her sometimes, with grey eyes blank as glass, behind which he thinks his own thoughts.

Archer tolerates him, liking the feeling of having two vicious attack dogs at his beck and call. The crew dreads the human predator even more than the canine one, and the knowledge of the terror he inspires is the only thing that can touch the icy core of Major Malcolm Reed with pleasure. Even sex would now be incomplete for him without fear.

Sato would know what he is, even now. She knows that he watches her. She flaunts her body and her power. Maybe for her this is the game, the walk balanced constantly on the tightrope above the waiting teeth below; she rarely looks at him, but he knows she's aware of him. Sometimes, as he watches her plying her trade, he catches a sliding glance towards the camera – usually when she's at her most beautiful, seductive, naked. On such nights, whoever he has in his bed will bleed. There's an astonishing beauty in the perfection of each shining, garnet drop as it appears on the blade of his knife; he watches each one spring into being, and doesn't think of anything at all….

The commander touched him once. They were in Decon, going through standard safety procedure after a particularly satisfying conclusion to negotiations for a surrender by a nest of rebels. He'd bent forward on the bench, idly studying the flexion of his foot – he'd stamped down on a prisoner's fingers, intending to break them, but the edge of the weapon the fool had been trying to seize had been under his boot too, jarring his ankle a little. An inconvenience, no more, though it had been added to the reckoning, and paid for in full. And suddenly there was a hand on the small of his naked back.

Normally anyone touching him without his express permission stands to have the offending limb snapped in short order. His commander, however, could not fall into that category. So he'd simply frozen, awaiting developments, while his eyes took on the icy blueness of the walls and his mind screamed, stretched across the infinity between paradise and hell.

One touch. That was all. No explanation was ever offered or asked. Now and again he wonders, usually as he's killing something. He's seen Archer with women often enough, but never men. Idle curiosity? Momentary lust? Pure mischief?

He fantasises about it sometimes – what would have happened if Archer had continued. The thoughts send hormones crashing through his body. Aggression, excitement, lust – all the sensations that torture sessions provide him, feeding the black void at his core. On such occasions, woe betide any crewmember who offers him the slightest provocation.

The turbo-lift door hisses open at the rear of the Bridge, interrupting his reflections. His eyes cut sharply, his hand dropping to the phase pistol.

Hatred surges. Across the space, blue, as blue as the walls in Decon. Blazing blue in a disfigured, once-handsome face, crossing his with a ring like that of swords meeting. Perfect beads of blood weep along the blades in his mind. One day...

Brown. Cool, calculating, veiled. A long, lithe body that moves like water, drawing men's eyes, but for all the desert heat of Vulcan she was cold when he had her, enduring and ignoring him as the surface of a dust-desert on the Moon endures and ignores a meteor-strike: briefly the debris bursts across the face of it, and afterwards the airless wastes are as dry and lifeless as before.

Hazel. A sullen, smouldering gleam above a lipless slash of a mouth, and the long stride curbed carefully so as not to provoke suspicion untimely. Not even a hint of a glance towards the comm station, where Sato balances her exquisite rear end to display its perfections to best effect. He was a handhold in her upward climb, and may be again if the wheel of fortune spins; as it does regularly, here in the Empire. The captain's chair has the additional benefits of the captain's bed and the captain's woman to warm it, and Sato is singularly talented in that respect. As her previous protector will certainly not have forgotten.

Chocolate-coloured, heavy-lidded but ceaselessly observant. The face is smooth, betraying nothing, but the brain behind it works constantly. Discount him at your peril, for all he's a mere sergeant. There's a clever schemer behind that impassive front, and for all that he stands silent in the background, his presence is massive. So far, he's been careful not to put a foot wrong – a rare achievement in a world where the minefield of existence changes on a daily basis. When he does, it will be interesting to see how he withstands the embrace of the ship's latest technological innovation. Definitely ... interesting. That repulsive Denobulan in Sickbay fairly salivated at the thought when they discussed it once during the design stage.

And in the captain's chair, Forrest sits complacently ignoring the fact that these four are behind him.

The smallest hint of a smirk runs across Reed's face, so that he has to glance downwards, pretending to check the weapons status. All of these have their hands on the wheel of fortune. It only needs someone willing to give it a push...

And who knows who will be where, when it comes to rest?

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