Fic: Descant (chapter 9)
Title: Descant (Chapter 9)
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Helo, Caprica, Hera, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 2,464
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes.
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
“Gods,” Kara gasps, “gods...” She cradles his body in her arms, her fingers pressed hard against his wound even though it’s far too late to do any good. The world fades to silence around her and she can’t breathe.
A hand settles on her shoulder and Kara fights back a wail as she turns, expecting to see Helo.
Leoben stares down into her face, his eyes unlike any other two.
Now she’s crying with relief as he kneels beside her, closing his brother’s eyes and laying him straight on the floor.
“I thought,” Kara manages to say, and Leoben cups her cheek, nodding, pulls her tightly into his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he says firmly. “I’m not letting go.”
*
Leoben watches over Kara, glaring at the others to keep them away, as the allied forces regroup, taking stock and treating wounds and sending Hera back to Galactica in return for reinforcements. Leoben doesn’t pay attention to them, just guards Kara as she whispers final rites over those who have died. He’s shaken by his brother’s death as well, by the brutality of it. The finality. This is what they did.
Across the chamber, Caprica is standing with Gaius as he takes some sort of readings. When her eyes meet Leoben’s, she looks as haunted as he feels. Eventually Gaius seems to finish and Caprica approaches them. “Are you alright?” she asks softly.
Kara stands to attention beside him. “Of course.”
His sister nods slowly. “Adama and Roslin and Natalie--they’re asking if we’ve figured out what the temple means, where we should go.” She looks back and forth between them. “Do you have any idea?”
He senses Kara’s stillness beside him, and turns. She looks at him, white with fear, and Leoben holds out his hand. He nods to Caprica and she leaves.
“Do you know what will happen?” Kara asks tightly.
He hesitates, then shakes his head. “No. But something will.”
Kara lays her palm against his and lets him lead her toward the raised stone circle painted with her mandala. Leoben steps onto it, feels the sudden rush of the stream that precedes a vision, and reaches out to take both her hands and pull her up with him.
“No,” she begs for just a moment, pulling him toward her instead, and Leoben is caught by the despair in her face. But in the moment before he gives in and lets go of her, Kara nods in acquiescence and steps up beside him.
Visions storm through him, washing away any connection to the present moment except the faint sensation of Kara suddenly propelled into his arms and the knowledge that she’s sharing this with him, the stream tearing through both of their minds at once. They’re cast about on the waves of time, images flaring briefly: a child’s painting, a girl’s mural, his own crude rendering on the Gemenon Traveller, a storm, a temple, a supernova. The swirls of color explode around them, all-encompassing, as the world seems to spin. There’s power here that Leoben’s never felt before, and he trembles.
At last the waters recede, and he comes back to himself, to Kara shaking in his arms. Leoben looks over her shoulder, and startles at the five glowing figures standing around them. He blinks and they’re gone.
“Leoben?” Caprica asks softly, worriedly, from just beyond the platform.
He pants, wrapping his arms tighter around Kara. His heart is still racing. “We have to find supernova,” he tells her. “That’s where we’re going.”
*
The paint feels like blood on her fingers as she drags them urgently across the wall, blotting out the stars and the depths of space with a bright streak of pure color. The image is so familiar Kara thinks she could paint it with her eyes closed. She sees it then, too.
Leoben’s hand settles on her shoulder but she doesn’t turn, can’t now that she’s seen him dead in her arms.
“Kara,” he says softly. “It’s alright.”
She whirls on him, then, nearly screaming. “Nothing’s alright! How can you just give in to this, let it control you? I don’t want this!” She shoves at his shoulders, her fists beating at his chest. Leoben stands still beneath the onslaught of blows until suddenly his sleeve tears free of his shirt and she can see his skin, red and bruising from the force of her hands.
Kara freezes, staring at it, and starts to cry.
Leoben reaches out, trying to pull her into his arms but she moves backward, pressing herself into the paint. “Don’t,” she pleads.
“All I want is to love you,” Leoben begs hoarsely.
“You shouldn’t,” Kara says wretchedly. “You’ll only end up dead. It’s my frakking destiny.”
Leoben shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”
She folds her arms, closes her eyes, remembering. “The hybrid.” She looks up at him, tense. “She told me...she said I’m the harbinger of death. That I’ll lead you all to your end.”
He stares at her, not even breathing. And more than anything else, that terrifies her. “It’s true, isn’t it?” Kara whispers. “It’s all I’ve ever done. My mother died, and Zak, and Sam--” her voice breaks. “Everyone who gets too close.”
“No.” He cuts her off urgently, reaching out to lay his hands on her shoulders. Leoben shakes his head as he speaks, his eyes frantic. “I’ve never seen that. The hybrids speak in riddles and false logic. They see the stream even more abstractly than I can--”
“She said my name,” Kara says mournfully.
“You brought death to all the Cylons, Kara,” Leoben says urgently. “Because of you we destroyed resurrection. That’s over already.”
Kara takes a shaky breath. She’s not sure she believes him, but it’s the first thing that’s offered any hope in days. “But you still think I have a destiny. You believe your God is controlling everything and it doesn’t matter what we want.”
His thumbs rub soothing circles against her collarbones, but when he looks at her his eyes are lost. “I always have...” Leoben takes a slow breath. “I see the stream, Kara. I feel the cycles in the beat of my heart, and yours. I was made to be more than a man. I’m compelled to do the work of God, whether I understand or not.”
Kara smiles oddly. “I remember thinking about my mother that way, when I was a little girl.”
He’s silent for a long moment.
“When I was seven my dad left, you know?” She waits for him to nod. “And after a little while I realized he was really never coming back. And he was the only one of them who’d ever even really liked me.” She chokes out something between a laugh and sob, staring off into the distance. “Mama used to tell me to clean my room, or do my homework, and however well I did it she’d find something wrong and beat me, or burn me...Once I played a prank and she broke all my fingers.” Kara swallows hard, meeting his gaze. “And I was terrified, every minute, not that she’d hurt me but that she’d finally give up and leave me, too.” Leoben strokes his thumb across her cheek and she winces. Her voice goes flat. “But it didn’t really matter, because what I got from her was never love. And if your God is so much about love, Leoben, he wouldn’t hurt you.”
His face falls before her eyes; he looks more broken than she’s ever seen him. His hands drop to her shoulders, clutching her as if to keep himself upright. “We were made to do God’s will, Kara.”
She shakes her head, smiling with peace, with brilliance. “We were made to be free.”
His breath stutters out in a gasp and Kara presses forward, wrapping her arms around him as hard as she can. Leoben’s tears are hot on her neck. “I love you,” she whispers into his ear. She presses her lips to his throat, kisses up the side of his jaw. His skin tastes like salt, smells like sweat; his pulse beats strong beneath her lips.
Kara pulls back to see him, and Leoben smiles.
“I love you, too, Kara,” he answers.
She nods, awe in her eyes. “I know.” She kisses him then, softly, tenderly. Leoben’s lips tremble against hers and she presses herself into his arms, sighing into his mouth.
The violence and urgency that was between them before is gone now, and they come together slowly, reverently, wiping away the tracks of tears and yellow paint as they undress each other. Kara aches at the way Leoben watches her every reaction, the way he smiles suddenly when he finds a caress that makes her gasp in pleasure. She does the same in turn, searching out the most ticklish spot on his side, the noises he makes when she runs her tongue over his nipple. There’s time this way for her to marvel at every imperfection: a mole on his shoulder blade, the bend of his cock, the finest wrinkles around his eyes.
And then she finally settles over him and he thrusts into her, filling her completely, and it’s so perfect she can’t breathe.
“Like that?” Leoben whispers, and the slight hesitation of his words catches her.
Kara looks at him in wonderment. “Yeah,” she murmurs, breathless with pleasure. She tightens around him, watches his face clench at the sensation. “Is that good for you?” she teases.
And he grins, lazily, gorgeously, and pulls her down for a kiss.
They lose themselves in each other for hours, and when they’re finally worn out they fall asleep, wrapped together in Kara’s bed, safe.
*
He’s in the eye of the storm and he can see them, glowing around him, the light of them blurring brighter and brighter until he can’t see anything at all--
“Leoben!”
He opens his eyes and Kara’s staring at him in concern.
“What did you see?” she asks after a moment.
Leoben leans back against the pillows, savoring the softness of Kara’s skin against his own even as his mind drifts back into the dream. “I saw the last image from the temple yesterday. The five hooded figures made of light.”
“What?” she’s startled. “What are you talking about?”
He stares back at her. “What did you see in the temple, Kara?”
She shrugs. “My painting. The same colors, a half dozen times over. And I heard the music.”
“The music?” Leoben shakes his head in confusion, in wonder.
“You didn’t hear it?” Now she sounds scared.
He runs his fingers through her hair, not answering. “The stream is different every time,” he finally says. “Even my brothers and I have never seen exactly the same thing. I thought since we were there together--but it’s never entirely clear.”
“But you see the world like that all the time?” Kara asks softly.
He takes a slow breath. “I see time differently. I see the foreshadowing of every moment, I see the future and the past as one. But not always their meaning.”
“Why?” she shakes her head, marveling.
“It’s the way my model has always been. It’s--” he clenches his jaw around the words, “It’s part of our connection to God.”
Kara sighs, and then answers slowly. “I can see how that would make you believe in destiny.”
He strokes his hand up and down her arm. “It’s more than that, Kara. And less. I have seen you glorious, and I believe it will be real. But all I know is that I’m supposed to help you.”
“Because God wants you to?” Kara’s eyes meet his, and he can see her sudden insecurity in her nakedness.
He reaches out to cup her cheek. “I want to.”
She smiles shyly, presses a kiss to his palm. Then she pulls away, her face drawn again. “So who was it that you saw?”
And he’s confused then too, because the truth is he doesn’t know.
*
Caprica and Athena stare at them in confusion as Leoben tries to describe his vision.
“Are you sure they were people?” Caprica presses.
Leoben frowns. “I thought so...” He shakes his head impatiently. “Who could they be?”
“Gods?” Kara asks, teasing faintly. She paces. “Animal or mineral?”
The others look at her. Only Athena grins, getting the joke. “Human or Cylon?”
Leoben’s eyes flare. Understanding is almost there. He can’t quite push past it, but Kara catches sight of his face.
“Cylons?” she asks. “Aren’t there supposed to be twelve of you?”
He’s straining against something he can’t see in the darkness. He has a sudden, sharp headache.
“There are,” Caprica says quickly. “But we’re not allowed...”
“Not allowed by who?” Kara presses.
Leoben shakes his head free of the pain, free of understanding. He looks worriedly between his sisters. “I can’t reach it.” He reaches for Kara’s hand. “We need to ask the hybrid.”
*
He feels Kara’s nervousness, the way she hangs back. He smiles at her, then dips his hand into the water, takes hold of the hybrid.
Her eyes turn to him, her incoherent mumbling breaking off. “He sees,” she whispers. “He sees them.”
“Who are they?” Leoben asks softly. “Who did I see?”
“Life support,” the hybrid answers. She starts to turn away. “Five lights of apocalypse and rebirth shine the way home.”
He frowns. He closes his eyes, tries to follow the hybrid into the stream. He glimpses Cavil, seems almost to see something else, and then a door slams shut in his mind. Leoben gasps for breath, staring down at the hybrid.
“What is it?” Kara asks, kneeling beside him, her hand on his shoulder.
He shakes his head slowly, looks back and forth between Caprica and Athena. “There’s something wrong.”
Leoben is lost in thought as they head down the corridor. Kara walks beside him, shoulder to shoulder. It’s the best she has to offer.
She doesn’t speak until he finally slows down. “What does it mean?” she asks quietly.
He looks at her uncertainly. “We don’t know who they are. What he took from us.”
Kara nods. “Are we going to go look for them? Do we have to figure it out?”
Leoben shrugs. “It’s connected to Earth. I can feel it.”
Kara steps closer, resting her hands on his chest. “We could just go back to New Caprica. Build a house and a life and...be happy. No gods or destinies or visions, just...”
Leoben lays his hands over hers. “It’s not about being happy.”
She tries to jerk her hands away. “Maybe it should be.”
“But Kara.” He waits for her eyes, laces his fingers through hers. “I am.” And he smiles shyly, wonderously. Like it’s an epiphany.
And she laughs, and presses herself into his arms.
Chapter 10
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Helo, Caprica, Hera, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 2,464
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes.
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
“Gods,” Kara gasps, “gods...” She cradles his body in her arms, her fingers pressed hard against his wound even though it’s far too late to do any good. The world fades to silence around her and she can’t breathe.
A hand settles on her shoulder and Kara fights back a wail as she turns, expecting to see Helo.
Leoben stares down into her face, his eyes unlike any other two.
Now she’s crying with relief as he kneels beside her, closing his brother’s eyes and laying him straight on the floor.
“I thought,” Kara manages to say, and Leoben cups her cheek, nodding, pulls her tightly into his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he says firmly. “I’m not letting go.”
*
Leoben watches over Kara, glaring at the others to keep them away, as the allied forces regroup, taking stock and treating wounds and sending Hera back to Galactica in return for reinforcements. Leoben doesn’t pay attention to them, just guards Kara as she whispers final rites over those who have died. He’s shaken by his brother’s death as well, by the brutality of it. The finality. This is what they did.
Across the chamber, Caprica is standing with Gaius as he takes some sort of readings. When her eyes meet Leoben’s, she looks as haunted as he feels. Eventually Gaius seems to finish and Caprica approaches them. “Are you alright?” she asks softly.
Kara stands to attention beside him. “Of course.”
His sister nods slowly. “Adama and Roslin and Natalie--they’re asking if we’ve figured out what the temple means, where we should go.” She looks back and forth between them. “Do you have any idea?”
He senses Kara’s stillness beside him, and turns. She looks at him, white with fear, and Leoben holds out his hand. He nods to Caprica and she leaves.
“Do you know what will happen?” Kara asks tightly.
He hesitates, then shakes his head. “No. But something will.”
Kara lays her palm against his and lets him lead her toward the raised stone circle painted with her mandala. Leoben steps onto it, feels the sudden rush of the stream that precedes a vision, and reaches out to take both her hands and pull her up with him.
“No,” she begs for just a moment, pulling him toward her instead, and Leoben is caught by the despair in her face. But in the moment before he gives in and lets go of her, Kara nods in acquiescence and steps up beside him.
Visions storm through him, washing away any connection to the present moment except the faint sensation of Kara suddenly propelled into his arms and the knowledge that she’s sharing this with him, the stream tearing through both of their minds at once. They’re cast about on the waves of time, images flaring briefly: a child’s painting, a girl’s mural, his own crude rendering on the Gemenon Traveller, a storm, a temple, a supernova. The swirls of color explode around them, all-encompassing, as the world seems to spin. There’s power here that Leoben’s never felt before, and he trembles.
At last the waters recede, and he comes back to himself, to Kara shaking in his arms. Leoben looks over her shoulder, and startles at the five glowing figures standing around them. He blinks and they’re gone.
“Leoben?” Caprica asks softly, worriedly, from just beyond the platform.
He pants, wrapping his arms tighter around Kara. His heart is still racing. “We have to find supernova,” he tells her. “That’s where we’re going.”
*
The paint feels like blood on her fingers as she drags them urgently across the wall, blotting out the stars and the depths of space with a bright streak of pure color. The image is so familiar Kara thinks she could paint it with her eyes closed. She sees it then, too.
Leoben’s hand settles on her shoulder but she doesn’t turn, can’t now that she’s seen him dead in her arms.
“Kara,” he says softly. “It’s alright.”
She whirls on him, then, nearly screaming. “Nothing’s alright! How can you just give in to this, let it control you? I don’t want this!” She shoves at his shoulders, her fists beating at his chest. Leoben stands still beneath the onslaught of blows until suddenly his sleeve tears free of his shirt and she can see his skin, red and bruising from the force of her hands.
Kara freezes, staring at it, and starts to cry.
Leoben reaches out, trying to pull her into his arms but she moves backward, pressing herself into the paint. “Don’t,” she pleads.
“All I want is to love you,” Leoben begs hoarsely.
“You shouldn’t,” Kara says wretchedly. “You’ll only end up dead. It’s my frakking destiny.”
Leoben shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”
She folds her arms, closes her eyes, remembering. “The hybrid.” She looks up at him, tense. “She told me...she said I’m the harbinger of death. That I’ll lead you all to your end.”
He stares at her, not even breathing. And more than anything else, that terrifies her. “It’s true, isn’t it?” Kara whispers. “It’s all I’ve ever done. My mother died, and Zak, and Sam--” her voice breaks. “Everyone who gets too close.”
“No.” He cuts her off urgently, reaching out to lay his hands on her shoulders. Leoben shakes his head as he speaks, his eyes frantic. “I’ve never seen that. The hybrids speak in riddles and false logic. They see the stream even more abstractly than I can--”
“She said my name,” Kara says mournfully.
“You brought death to all the Cylons, Kara,” Leoben says urgently. “Because of you we destroyed resurrection. That’s over already.”
Kara takes a shaky breath. She’s not sure she believes him, but it’s the first thing that’s offered any hope in days. “But you still think I have a destiny. You believe your God is controlling everything and it doesn’t matter what we want.”
His thumbs rub soothing circles against her collarbones, but when he looks at her his eyes are lost. “I always have...” Leoben takes a slow breath. “I see the stream, Kara. I feel the cycles in the beat of my heart, and yours. I was made to be more than a man. I’m compelled to do the work of God, whether I understand or not.”
Kara smiles oddly. “I remember thinking about my mother that way, when I was a little girl.”
He’s silent for a long moment.
“When I was seven my dad left, you know?” She waits for him to nod. “And after a little while I realized he was really never coming back. And he was the only one of them who’d ever even really liked me.” She chokes out something between a laugh and sob, staring off into the distance. “Mama used to tell me to clean my room, or do my homework, and however well I did it she’d find something wrong and beat me, or burn me...Once I played a prank and she broke all my fingers.” Kara swallows hard, meeting his gaze. “And I was terrified, every minute, not that she’d hurt me but that she’d finally give up and leave me, too.” Leoben strokes his thumb across her cheek and she winces. Her voice goes flat. “But it didn’t really matter, because what I got from her was never love. And if your God is so much about love, Leoben, he wouldn’t hurt you.”
His face falls before her eyes; he looks more broken than she’s ever seen him. His hands drop to her shoulders, clutching her as if to keep himself upright. “We were made to do God’s will, Kara.”
She shakes her head, smiling with peace, with brilliance. “We were made to be free.”
His breath stutters out in a gasp and Kara presses forward, wrapping her arms around him as hard as she can. Leoben’s tears are hot on her neck. “I love you,” she whispers into his ear. She presses her lips to his throat, kisses up the side of his jaw. His skin tastes like salt, smells like sweat; his pulse beats strong beneath her lips.
Kara pulls back to see him, and Leoben smiles.
“I love you, too, Kara,” he answers.
She nods, awe in her eyes. “I know.” She kisses him then, softly, tenderly. Leoben’s lips tremble against hers and she presses herself into his arms, sighing into his mouth.
The violence and urgency that was between them before is gone now, and they come together slowly, reverently, wiping away the tracks of tears and yellow paint as they undress each other. Kara aches at the way Leoben watches her every reaction, the way he smiles suddenly when he finds a caress that makes her gasp in pleasure. She does the same in turn, searching out the most ticklish spot on his side, the noises he makes when she runs her tongue over his nipple. There’s time this way for her to marvel at every imperfection: a mole on his shoulder blade, the bend of his cock, the finest wrinkles around his eyes.
And then she finally settles over him and he thrusts into her, filling her completely, and it’s so perfect she can’t breathe.
“Like that?” Leoben whispers, and the slight hesitation of his words catches her.
Kara looks at him in wonderment. “Yeah,” she murmurs, breathless with pleasure. She tightens around him, watches his face clench at the sensation. “Is that good for you?” she teases.
And he grins, lazily, gorgeously, and pulls her down for a kiss.
They lose themselves in each other for hours, and when they’re finally worn out they fall asleep, wrapped together in Kara’s bed, safe.
*
He’s in the eye of the storm and he can see them, glowing around him, the light of them blurring brighter and brighter until he can’t see anything at all--
“Leoben!”
He opens his eyes and Kara’s staring at him in concern.
“What did you see?” she asks after a moment.
Leoben leans back against the pillows, savoring the softness of Kara’s skin against his own even as his mind drifts back into the dream. “I saw the last image from the temple yesterday. The five hooded figures made of light.”
“What?” she’s startled. “What are you talking about?”
He stares back at her. “What did you see in the temple, Kara?”
She shrugs. “My painting. The same colors, a half dozen times over. And I heard the music.”
“The music?” Leoben shakes his head in confusion, in wonder.
“You didn’t hear it?” Now she sounds scared.
He runs his fingers through her hair, not answering. “The stream is different every time,” he finally says. “Even my brothers and I have never seen exactly the same thing. I thought since we were there together--but it’s never entirely clear.”
“But you see the world like that all the time?” Kara asks softly.
He takes a slow breath. “I see time differently. I see the foreshadowing of every moment, I see the future and the past as one. But not always their meaning.”
“Why?” she shakes her head, marveling.
“It’s the way my model has always been. It’s--” he clenches his jaw around the words, “It’s part of our connection to God.”
Kara sighs, and then answers slowly. “I can see how that would make you believe in destiny.”
He strokes his hand up and down her arm. “It’s more than that, Kara. And less. I have seen you glorious, and I believe it will be real. But all I know is that I’m supposed to help you.”
“Because God wants you to?” Kara’s eyes meet his, and he can see her sudden insecurity in her nakedness.
He reaches out to cup her cheek. “I want to.”
She smiles shyly, presses a kiss to his palm. Then she pulls away, her face drawn again. “So who was it that you saw?”
And he’s confused then too, because the truth is he doesn’t know.
*
Caprica and Athena stare at them in confusion as Leoben tries to describe his vision.
“Are you sure they were people?” Caprica presses.
Leoben frowns. “I thought so...” He shakes his head impatiently. “Who could they be?”
“Gods?” Kara asks, teasing faintly. She paces. “Animal or mineral?”
The others look at her. Only Athena grins, getting the joke. “Human or Cylon?”
Leoben’s eyes flare. Understanding is almost there. He can’t quite push past it, but Kara catches sight of his face.
“Cylons?” she asks. “Aren’t there supposed to be twelve of you?”
He’s straining against something he can’t see in the darkness. He has a sudden, sharp headache.
“There are,” Caprica says quickly. “But we’re not allowed...”
“Not allowed by who?” Kara presses.
Leoben shakes his head free of the pain, free of understanding. He looks worriedly between his sisters. “I can’t reach it.” He reaches for Kara’s hand. “We need to ask the hybrid.”
*
He feels Kara’s nervousness, the way she hangs back. He smiles at her, then dips his hand into the water, takes hold of the hybrid.
Her eyes turn to him, her incoherent mumbling breaking off. “He sees,” she whispers. “He sees them.”
“Who are they?” Leoben asks softly. “Who did I see?”
“Life support,” the hybrid answers. She starts to turn away. “Five lights of apocalypse and rebirth shine the way home.”
He frowns. He closes his eyes, tries to follow the hybrid into the stream. He glimpses Cavil, seems almost to see something else, and then a door slams shut in his mind. Leoben gasps for breath, staring down at the hybrid.
“What is it?” Kara asks, kneeling beside him, her hand on his shoulder.
He shakes his head slowly, looks back and forth between Caprica and Athena. “There’s something wrong.”
Leoben is lost in thought as they head down the corridor. Kara walks beside him, shoulder to shoulder. It’s the best she has to offer.
She doesn’t speak until he finally slows down. “What does it mean?” she asks quietly.
He looks at her uncertainly. “We don’t know who they are. What he took from us.”
Kara nods. “Are we going to go look for them? Do we have to figure it out?”
Leoben shrugs. “It’s connected to Earth. I can feel it.”
Kara steps closer, resting her hands on his chest. “We could just go back to New Caprica. Build a house and a life and...be happy. No gods or destinies or visions, just...”
Leoben lays his hands over hers. “It’s not about being happy.”
She tries to jerk her hands away. “Maybe it should be.”
“But Kara.” He waits for her eyes, laces his fingers through hers. “I am.” And he smiles shyly, wonderously. Like it’s an epiphany.
And she laughs, and presses herself into his arms.
Chapter 10