Fic: "Divided Minds"; Babylon 5, Susan/Talia

[strangerian.livejournal.com]

Fandom: Babylon 5, Susan Ivanova/Talia Winters
Rating: Adult for sexuality
Notes: I'm somewhat prompted to post by liviapenn's great B5 icons, but it was written about a decade ago, after the 2nd year of B5. Many thanks to beta-reader Elaine Lazarov.
For those familiar with B5: this fills a very obvious gap in "Divided Loyalties" in one very obvious way. It's probably no better than it should be.
For readers who don't know Babylon 5: Talia Winters is a professional telepath on the B5 space station and Susan Ivanova is the station's second-in-command. Ivanova's fear and distrust of the Psi Corps, the human telepaths' controlling guild, is extreme and mostly justified after Psi Corp drove her mother to suicide. Talia has recently started working against Psi Corps, and she and Susan are developing a friendship. But these are dangerous times...
Formula disclaimer: The characters and background in this were created by J. Michael Straczynski. Whoever owns Babylon 5 now, it isn't me.

# # #

DIVIDED MINDS

Ivanova lay back on her bed and spared a thought for her guest on the hastily-requisitioned cot in the main room. Talia should be fine. It was only for one night. She had time to make three routine decisions for reference in the morning, but she was very nearly asleep, when she heard -- or rather, felt in the air of the room -- the presence of another person beside her bed.

It was Talia, of course. That was the logical conclusion, and she recognized Talia's breathing and faint scent. Also, she wanted it to be Talia.

Half-asleep, she waved a hand without opening her eyes to show she was aware of the other woman's presence. "G'night."

Talia sat on the bed beside her. "I'll say good night if you like, Susan. But do you mind if I sit with you for a moment?" A hand touched hers. Talia's. Bare.

Eyes still closed, Ivanova said crisply, "Is this a personal question?"

She heard something not quite a laugh, an unvoiced hiss of amusement. Talia's affectedly hesitant voice said, "Yes."

After an instant Susan said, "How personal?"

Talia's fingers were stroking over the back of her hand. "Very."

It wasn't the word or even the touch, but the tone of voice that made Susan's mouth and eyes open wide. With a volition of its own her hand had already grasped Talia's and clenched around it. Talia didn't move. After one quick inhalation, Susan said, not crisply, "Don't you know that good Russians don't seduce their houseguests?"

"They don't?" The voice was still carefully amused. "Never?"

"It violates hospitality. You have eaten my bread and salt."

Talia looked down at her, eyes huge in the near-dark. "I'll tell you a secret."

The telepath's face was all sculpted cheekbones and jaw line. One of the outer room's lamps was still on. "Yours or mine?" Susan asked.

"Mine. All mine." Talia might be smiling a little.

"Well?"

"I'm not a good Russian guest."

"Now she tells me," muttered Ivanova, sotto voce.

"Now I'm telling you," returned Talia, perfectly calm, her free hand stroking Susan's that was clenched around her trapped hand.

"Oh, God... Cancel that. I don't think I want to explain this to God yet."

"Explain what?"

"This," said Susan, pulling the captured hand so that Talia -- who did not resist -- came into her arms. Talia didn't resist kissing her either, or perhaps it was Susan who didn't resist.

It was several minutes later before Susan said, "This is very nice. I want you to know that. Very nice. Do you know that you can go back to that wretched cot if you really want to?"

"Is that a suggestion?"

"No. It's an option."

"I like this option." Talia's hands slipped down over Susan's nightgown, stroking the satin and the flesh under it.

Susan felt her body push into the contact, which quickly became a circling massage. She liked it. Of course she liked it. "You've been wanting to do that for a long time?" she asked. It was difficult to keep the light tone of voice with all her hormones going into overdrive. It was like hitting a jump point perfectly -- no sensation of changes, but changes happened. It felt good. So did the skin on Talia's arms, and the skin inside the sleep-tunic she wore.

"Mmm-hmmm." Talia went on stroking her, as if Susan were a cat. "You move like a panther when I touch you."

"Where did you ever see a panther?"

"Old vids," said Talia. "The big cats were all so fierce and," she groped for a word, "sinuous, like you are." She started a gentle scratching down Susan's ribs, hard enough not to tickle.

Susan stretched against the hands and pulled Talia's head down for another kiss, feeling... feeling... She broke away. "Hey!"

It came out sharper than she'd meant it to, but not sharper than she felt. Talia's hands stopped moving, but she did not pull away. "Yes?"

Susan took a deep breath and plucked both of Talia's hands from her nightgown and held them, not far away but not otherwise touching her. "Talia. Now. Before this goes any further."

Talia's eyes opened and she didn't smile. She was listening.

"No mind games." She tightened her fingers on Talia's. "I mean it."

"No mind games, Susan. No peeking. That's not... friendly. And this is." She tilted her head, indicating their bodies. "Truly."

Susan sighed. "I believe you. I just had to say it."

"I understand." Talia's body sagged closer until it was pressed into Susan's. Her skin was cool, but her body's presence was warm. "There's a kind of feeling I get from anyone this close: no thoughts, just general emotions. I can't really stop that."

"Like what?" asked Susan, suspicious again.

"Like you might want me to, ummmm, scratch your back. Is that what you feel right now?"

"Not quite." She wriggled, feeling her back suddenly itchy, and let herself smile. Suggestion. "Body games, huh?"

"Why not?"

"Why not get naked and find out?" said Susan, just before Talia kissed her again. It still felt good. Her warning instincts were quiet. Other instincts were demanding attention, in places where Talia had been stroking, and in legs and abdomen and between.

"Mmm. That's friendly..." said Talia, at last.

"Here." The next minutes were a confusion of satin nightgown and rumpled sleeping tunic and one too many bedcovers.

Talia chuckled from behind Susan while she tossed the nightgown off the foot of the bed. "From here, I can't even begin any mind games. I can't see your eyes."

"Is that why you're back there? To reassure me?"

Slim-fingered hands stroked up her ribs and cupped her breasts. "I just like the opportunities." Talis's fingertips searched for sensitive areas and found them.

"Uuh, I..." The pressure decreased a little, then shifted to circle each nipple. Perfectly. "How do you know that?"

Another chuckle, rich and warm. "The way you tense up. The way you breathe. It's a body game."

It was getting harder not to move, impossible to breathe as if nothing were happening. "I... you..."

"Do you like it?" Talia's words drifted from behind her ear, punctuated by a nibble on the outer edge of it. Susan didn't try to answer, but put her hands over Talia's, urging her to continue.

"I feel like talking," said Talia, softly, between moments of licking Susan's ear, which was merely pleasant, and hard little kisses down her neck, which threatened to take her attention away from the clever fingers circling and circling and stroking and circling. "Your breasts are so soft and smooth to touch, except of course..." another caress over her nipples, and Susan sighed. And squirmed. There was a tiny fusion flare between her legs, getting hotter.

"Ummm," Susan leaned back, head on Talia's shoulder. "What did you expect?"

"You sound so harsh, sometimes. I know you have to, but it makes this," one hand curled tenderly over a breast, and the other slipped down her body, rubbing open-palmed, "a surprise."

"It doesn't seem to bother you." She shifted again, half-facing Talia now, able to see the slim, gone-to-thin figure. She was close enough to lean down and kiss Talia's near collarbone, and wondered if she should go upward or downward from there, when the searching hand stroked over the fusion flare and compressed it into greater heat. "Oh, ah..."

Talia mmm'd in a breathy, sensuous tone. "I like that you like it."

It was too soon. It wasn't too soon. "Yessss."

"You're like a seashell. You're even the right color," said Talia, and her tongue slid over the hollow of Susan's throat and down one breast before she said, meditatively, "I think the ocean must be pink..."

Susan giggled before she could stop herself, and relaxed, one arm around Talia, one knee raised to make herself open to the exploring hand, head angled to stare down Talia's shallow curves and her own rounder ones to the place where, abruptly, sensation was wet as well as hot.

Things happened after that. It wasn't as if she'd never heard of any of them, or even tried them at times. It was just more interesting than she remembered, with Talia's clever fingers exploring how wet she was and where -- Is this what she likes? Will she feel like this? Susan thought, while it was possible to think. Then it wasn't.

Not much later, when Susan began to investigate how Talia might react to the same maneuvers, Talia was more than cooperative. She squeaked and said it felt like a sunrise when she was touched, and panted and said it was delicious when she was licked, and when she finally stopped talking it was perfectly obvious why.

"Oh!" she said, afterward.

Susan slithered up the bed. "Oh, yeah. And if you don't shut up, I'll have to do it again."

"Is that a promise?"

"If you like."

"Later. I'll think of something to remind you." Talia's chuckle in the dark was a promise in itself.

"Okay." Susan fished for one of the discarded bedcovers and pulled it up over them, welcoming the sweaty warmth that snuggled up to her back. "You know..."

"Mmm, what?"

"I hope you don't wear lipstick to bed."

That got another chuckle. "Not to anyone else's bed. It could be so embarrassing."

"Good."

They lay breathing together for a few minutes. "Talia?"

"Mmm." Sleepy, but not asleep.

"This is nice."

Talia's foot wiggled against her ankle. "Yes it is. You too."

Susan's mind drifted. Instincts that never stopped made going to sleep a different process when she was with someone else. Anyone. Talia was warm skin against her, a quiet, reserved presence now... a feeling beyond feeling...

Susan jerked awake and pushed up onto one elbow, hearing Talia gasp as she was bumped back to the mattress, and gulp a breath before she said, "I felt... I've been asleep. What is it?"

"It wasn't you," said Susan dully, and felt terror make her helpless against the upwelling tears that trembled in her eyelids. "Mother."

"You're remembering her?"

Susan nodded, weeping now without sound. Perhaps the feeling had been the start of a dream, but it was the feeling she knew -- should know -- only from her mother. That feeling had been between the two of them alone. If she felt something like it with Talia, how could Talia help but know it?

"Susan, it's natural. You remember your mother. There's no reason you shouldn't." Talia's arms went around her. "Lie down. I'm sure you need your rest. You'll go to sleep soon."

"What are you going to do?"

"What should I do? You were exposed to your mother's talent as a child, and you remember it. Anyone would, with a mother who loved her. Maybe I remind you... I don't mean to pry, truly, but if you're crying, maybe you need some comfort. I'm not your mother. I'm... a friend? Will that do?"

"Maybe," said Susan, swept by unnamable emotions, the kind she never let touch her on duty. She'd stopped crying. Good.

Talia settled her back on the bed and sat beside her for a moment, a looming outline in the again-damped lighting of the bed alcove. "You're beautiful, Susan. I'm glad you let me this close."

Susan couldn't think of anything to say, too surprised at being called beautiful by the always-perfect Talia. Talia went on, "And I promise, it's only this --" Talia stroked a bare finger down Susan's neck, over curves and smooth planes of skin to a pubic hairline that twitched at the touch, sensitive from recent pleasure, "-- this close. Bodies. Yours and mine and what we like."

"Close enough."

"For many things," said Talia, and Susan thought she was smiling.

"Not tonight. You're right that I need some sleep."

"Not tonight, but later..."

Eyes closed again, Susan smiled. "You're a woman of many talents. I think I can like some of them."

"Go to sleep, darling." Talia lay down next to her, close but no longer touching. "Sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

# # #

Ivanova woke. Without prompting: no alarm siren, no too-cheerful voice of the computer with her 0430 wakeup call, no sound at all. Why was she awake? Talia slept in a relaxed bundle beside her, breathing evenly.

Susan was up from the bed, moving quietly but smoothly, dressed in pull-on pants and shirt and her handlink almost before she bothered to think about it. She had to go someplace Talia Winters wasn't, to think about... herself. She needed distance: something like a sight of the B5 garden and a little extra natural oxygen in the air to help her think.

Even so, her mind began turning over the situation immediately, letting her ignore the quiet corridors she walked through, and the mundane transport tube car. What was she getting into with Talia? The Russian sector on Earth was a touch conservative about relationships compared to EarthForce in general. She hadn't minded EarthForce's easier atmosphere -- for others. For herself...

Face it, Susich, you like sex fine, but it gets people too close to you and then they turn into something you didn't expect. Or you do.

She passed the stone benches at the garden entrance, and glumly considered the mess Malcolm had left in her soul. He'd been the worst, the most humiliating, but others had been almost as unsettling. Nobody was what he or she seemed at first.

It was night everywhere in the station at this hour, even the garden. The overhead vista was a dark landscape gridded with marker lights. This thing with Talia might not be a disaster. Malcolm had been an unknown, a time bomb. She already knew what Talia was: merely a telepath. Merely a reminder of her worst fear, her first real loss, her mother... herself.

You wanted to let her in, she scolded herself. You wanted to let her know we could share minds. Not just touch, but share. She's good in bed and you like her -- God help me, I do like her -- and you want to trust her because you want to love her because she's that little bit more like Mama.

How Oedipal.

You'll never know how she feels in your mind if you don't let her in. She snapped back at herself: Oh, shut up, you.

She'd made her way to the center of the hedge maze without paying much attention, and now she sat on a bench and stared up at the squared-off sparks of light on the station's opposite wall. If she'd gone to the observation dome, she could have seen real stars, but that would have taken her too near her duty station and into corridors that weren't restful. It would wake more unsettling thoughts, which woke anyway. Susan supposed it was inevitable. God had arranged for her to live in interesting times, and while she was grateful, the thought of having anyone touch her mind -- maybe even Talia, and definitely anyone else -- made her skin crawl.

When it was an impersonal middle-school test, she could dodge. When it was a casual sweep by someone who knew he shouldn't be prying, she could block it and distract him. When it was an untrained child even more frightened of the talent than she was, she could dismiss the threat and bury the loathing in pity.

When it had been a piece of bureaucratic fallout from someone else's vendetta, she'd have run if running were the only way to avoid it.

When Lyta Alexander said a mind-touch was the only way to discover a hidden traitor and ensure safety for the project that might save what Ivanova prized most in EarthForce itself; when it was a functional necessity and not someone's cockeyed idea of a loyalty test... it still made her skin crawl.

Wouldn't that be a great defense? Be someone who won't let a telepath near her, who hides even the real reason for avoiding them.

Oh, God, I don't want to be that interesting, please! I don't want to lose myself to some psychic construct. She wrapped her hands around the edge of the bench, as if the station had stopped spinning and only her grip could prevent her from floating into the huge inner volume of empty air.

It was impossible.

It might be: the natural personality, the mole's carrier, wouldn't know a thing.

It wasn't possible, surely?

Ivanova, executive officer of B5 and very much in the middle of things, known as forthrightly inimical to Psi Corps, would be the perfect mole.

It could be possible, she supposed, mouth drying in terror. Who knew what happened when you were unconscious? Even in some medlabs? She'd been to a few medlabs a few times during her career. Could it even be disguised as a night's sleep, sometime after she'd been assigned to B5 and before she'd arrived here?

How long would the thing take to be done?

And was it part of what drew her to Talia?

Coldly, Ivanova reasoned: If something hidden in her mind... her skin crawled at the thought but she shuddered and went on reasoning... If something needed to keep her from encountering a telepathic trigger word, why should that something make her invite a telepath -- any telepath -- to bed just when the danger became known? She thought she could trust Talia, but the situation was nothing if not risky about mental contact. I even almost want it. No, she didn't.

It wasn't conclusive, but it didn't look like her less-conscious urges were trying to avoid telepaths. Unfortunately, the only conclusive proof would be to let Lyta go ahead, and Ivanova still didn't want to.

What about Talia?

Talia hadn't asked to share her mind.

On Talia, I wait. Warmth spread through her: perhaps relief, perhaps the memory of motherlove, perhaps anticipation of something else. The current crisis would blow up or blow over very soon. After that she could think about Talia and everything Talia offered.

The way back to her apartment was just as long and far more annoying, now that Ivanova was impatient to be there, but anything was endurable if she wasn't carrying a traitor in her mind. Besides me, she reminded herself. The two years on B5 had been so educational and inspiring. She was a conspirator, a mutineer, a coffee-addict with a lousy temper... but she knew about all of it.

Talia was still sleeping, having completely rearranged the bedding with most of it pulled around her. Susan shucked off the clothes and handlink and slid in, tugging one blanket loose enough to cover herself on the side not pressed against Talia's sheet-wrapped form.

# # #

She woke again. There was no alarm, only the brush of smooth, silky hair on her shoulder and warm lips on the back of her neck. "Morning," said Talia, a moment later.

"Is it?" Ivanova's internal clock said she'd slept about four hours. Total.

"Near enough. Isn't your comm set is going to wake you up sometime soon?"

It was the middle of the night. It was always the middle of the night, in space. Ivanova considered this depressing fact briefly and turned over to face her companion. "No, it won't."

"Oh?"

"Not," said Susan, "if we're in the shower when it calls."

"Yes?" Talia said, as if contemplating a particularly appetizing tidbit.

Four hours' sleep was enough to live on, or fight on. Or... "Last one in," said Susan sweetly, "is a rotten egg."

She made sure she was first.

# # #

Comments

[geekturnedvamp.livejournal.com]

Yay! There can never be enough Susan/Talia.

[strangerian.livejournal.com]

Yay also! It's a pity they have such a short window. They should have an AU.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

Oh! This has made me grin so hard this morning! What a delightful surprise! There is far too little Susan/Talia, and I adore them so very much. Thanks for this!

[strangerian.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for stopping by. I was afraid nobody but me remembered B5, and it was so really, really good (and would have been better with Ivanova in 5th season).

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

This was lovely. I'm just catching up with all the fic and recs here. I'm actually relatively new to B5, and love that there's still some new stuff being done.