Painted Lady (5/14)
Title: Painted Lady (5/14)
Author: tjonesy and icedteainthebag
Word Count: 2,054
Rating: MA
Pairing: Roslin/Adama
Spoilers: S2, Final Cut through LDYB II
Summary: We survived the end of worlds and we still can't tell people how we really feel.
Notes: Thanks to our amazing betas somadanne and larsfarm77, both for their invaluable skills and their patience. Thanks to melligator for the pretty icon set and again to katamaran78 for the gorgeous frakkin’ banner.
We will be posting chapters once per day (around 10 p.m. EST) until the fic is posted in its entirety.
Link to : Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7
Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Epilogue
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PEGASUS PART 2:
Nicco and I are lying on our backs in our underwear, on one of the softest beds I've ever been on. It's not even because I've been sleeping on a two-inch waterproof foam pad for months. This is some luxurious shit. The linens are identifiably Libran cotton; there's a very particular texture they have, a specific kind of artistry the Librans employ when weaving them. I used to have a set just like these back on Aquarion. They cost me an arm and a leg, but now I remember why they were worth every cubit. My stomach's physically swollen, and I'm slightly nauseated from the dinner we just finished. It took a surprisingly small amount of food to do this to me, but I don't really want to think about why as we stare at the ceiling in a daze.
"You full?" Nicco's question is more of a grunt.
"Gods, yes," I murmur, trying not to laugh. It hurts, actually. Damn, I'm going to regret this, but it was too good at the time. Way too good. "I'm full. I'm clean. And oh, my gods, this bed."
"Tell me about it." Nicco rubs his hands against the comforter. "Bet Adama'd frak the hell outta you on this bed, Brooke."
I groan and roll my eyes. "Bet he'd frak the hell outta you."
Nicco laughs until he wheezes. He may have had one too many shots of booze. I watch him wipe the tears out of his eyes. "Ohhh, I'd let him."
The bull hustler has a weakness. Nice to know I'm not the only one with a thing for Adama.
"You ever fall for one of your clients, Nicco?" I try to sound nonchalant, but I'm sure he sees right through me.
"Nope," he says without hesitation.
I turn my head to look at him. It's the one part of my body I can move right now. "You said that way too fast."
"That's 'cause it's true," he says, raising his eyebrows. "Sex is just sex to guys. You women need to make an emotional connection."
He says the last two words distastefully, like 'emotional connection' is some sort of disease you catch from a trick. Sometimes I wonder how this guy can go through life so detached.
"That's bullshit. I don't make a connection with all of my clients."
"No, but you need to make it with at least one. And then you think of him when you're with the others."
I'm horrified by how accurate that statement is. I can't fathom an appropriate response. I wonder what Adama would think if he knew I thought about him when I serviced other men?
Nicco turns on his side and snuggles closer to me. "You wanna give me any Adama pointers today?"
"What do you want to know?"
He grinds himself against my leg. He's not hard or anything, it's just typical male bullshit. "Tell me how he fraks."
I sigh. I don't know why he's suddenly convinced that I'm having sex with Bill, but I haven't the heart or the courage to tell him otherwise. "How does anybody frak, Nicco?"
"Oh, c'mon, Brooke." He straddles me and holds himself up by his arms, rubbing himself against my stomach.
"Frak, Nicco, I'm gonna puke. Get off."
He doesn't listen, merely grins down at me. "Does he like it fast or slow? Hard or soft?"
"He likes women, Nicco."
"Doesn't matter, technique will transfer. A frak is a frak, baby." To prove his point, he rotates his hips and throws back his head, drawing attention to the strong muscles in his chest and neck. This sensual display is pure male hustler, not anything a straight man would do in the sack. He is such a frakkin' idiot.
"Well, he'd never do that." I've never been with the man, but I'm fairly certain he's not into muscle worship.
Nicco sits up and runs his fingers over his smooth chest, toying with a dusky colored nipple. "He like nipple play?"
I buck my hips trying to throw him off, but he remains firmly seated on my stomach. "I'm not getting into this with you," I insist.
"I'd tell you what I do with my clients if you asked."
"Yes, you would." I try to roll onto my side. Nicco grabs my hands and pulls them over my head, pinning them there. "He do this with you? Is that what he's into, the bondage shit? Oh, Commander Adama, I've been so naughty."
When I think about it, I can't imagine him putting up with this nonsense for a Virgon second. "No, he's not into this," I say definitively. Although … it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he'd let a woman do this to him. Beg her to do it to him even. It's a sobering thought.
"Get off me, Nicco," I say wearily, and he knows I'm not playing anymore because he obediently flops down beside me.
"Just trying to take your mind off things."
I roll on my side and look him over. "Seriously, why do you keep bringing him up? I think you're more hung up on him than I am."
"He's an interesting guy," Nicco admits. "He reminds me of one of the designers I used to model for back in the day."
This simple revelation catches me off guard, though I try to hide it with a half-smile. Nicco rarely talks about his life before the attacks, like the rest of us.
"He was an old dude, like Adama. Not really good looking or anything, but he had … something. You know what I mean?"
I know exactly what he means. "Were you seeing him when the attacks happened?"
"No, he died a long time before that. Some freak showed up at his summer home on Picon and shot him to death by the swimming pool."
I suddenly know who he's talking about. Salari had been one of my favorite designers and I suddenly wonder if I ever saw Nicco before the attacks, gracing the pages of a fashion magazine. The murder was the top story on the news for weeks. "I didn't realize." I reach over and stroke his hair.
Nicco wipes at his eyes again, and I realize these tears have nothing to do with his previous laughing fit. "The point is, I started dating a bunch of guys who looked like him after it happened, only they weren't him. You get what I'm saying, Brooke?"
"Then you can relax." I pat his cheek. "He doesn't look like anyone I've ever been with before."
"Oh baby, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about him. I’ve seen this before," he says.
"What are you, a frakkin' oracle?" I smack his arm. "Tell me, oh wise one, when will my rugged prince come rescue me from this hellhole?"
"About that." Nicco lets out a deep sigh. "Yeah. He's not it, honey."
"Who?"
"Adama. Who the hell have we been talking about here? Are you that drunk?"
I feel myself getting defensive and I roll onto my back again. "I never said he was."
"Rugged prince?"
Godsdamn it.
"You know what you are to him?"
The boy doesn't know when to quit. I'm not sure I'm ready to hear this. At the same time, maybe I need a dose of reality. Nicco's always been good for that.
"His whore?" I ask tentatively. That's all I'm supposed to be. Frak, I'm not even really that.
"Her replacement."
"Whose?"
"Roslin's."
"Nicco!"
He withers slightly under my glare. "Hold on just … just hear me out here, Brooke. Gods, I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it was true, you know?"
"You're morbid." I swallow the peculiar lump in my throat. "You're frakkin' sick."
"He comes down here looking for what, Brooke? Not just any old whore. He's looking for the presidential whore."
"So what?" I say testily. "You could say the same thing about all my other clients."
"But they get their rocks off, and then they leave."
"Yes."
"But he doesn't. Your man Adama 'talks' to you instead. Tells you all of his shit. Wants to know about you. Falls asleep in your rack, without frakking you. Pulls all sorts of frakkin' strings for a hotel room for you, just because."
I squeeze my eyes shut and groan Nicco's name. I'm suddenly more nauseated.
"Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that the chick he really wants to be with is dying. Like, dying, Brooke. And you look just like her."
"Quit being an ass," I snap, rolling off the bed. I stand up and feel immediately dizzy. Probably a lot of reasons for that. I don't want to believe what he's saying, even though some of it actually makes a hell of a lot of sense. I turn to address him with the angriest expression I can muster. "You know what, Nicco? He's the best thing to happen to me-to us-since we got dumped on this ship. I think you forget that sometimes."
"So you think he's doing this out of the kindness of his heart?" Nicco asks, propping himself up on his elbow.
I bite the inside of my cheek, staring at him even as my eyes begin to burn. "Yes."
There's a moment of silence in which he shakes his head and gives me a sad smile. "You're lying to yourself."
I resist the urge to send Nicco packing. I hate what he's saying, but he's one of the only people I have left in my life, and the only one who's willing to be completely honest with me.
His hand brushes across my back when I sit down on the edge of the bed. "I wanna believe that this is something … " I falter. I can't even get the frakkin' words out right.
"We're all looking for a way out."
I fight my tears, my throat constricted. At least he can't see me with my back turned as a few of them slip down my cheeks. "If I wasn't who I was now, it would be different. If I was myself, I'd have a chance with him. Gods, he doesn't even know. I used to be just as good as her."
"You're still just as good as her," Nicco insists. "But you're not her."
I'm quiet, my mind whirring. "So what's so bad about being her replacement?"
"Because you need to find someone who loves Brooke. Not who Brooke looks like, acts like, or generally reminds him of."
He could love me, though. A little more time, maybe when she's gone, and he's grieved …
"Frak," I groan. "I hate it when you're right. Which rarely happens, by the way." I look over my shoulder, then flop backward onto him. I can't take this introspective shit any more. He curses and pretends to struggle under my weight.
"You're just a whore, baby," he teases loudly through his laughter. "You and I are just dirty little Fleet whores."
I rest my head against his firm chest and he strokes my hair. Sometimes I wish Nicco was into chicks. We'd be a disaster, but I seem to be drawn to that sort of thing.
"You know what we need to do?" I say, turning my head to look at him.
"Mmmmm, what?" He waggles his eyebrows at me. Godsdamn it, all the men in my life are frakking teases.
"Sleep." I sit up and push his body, nudging him off the bed so I can turn the sheets down. "I haven't had a good night of sleep in … frak, I don't even wanna think about it."
He rolls off the bed with a groan and I kill the lights. We crawl under the blankets, the cool, soft sheets sliding over my bare skin. I'm the first to sigh. His follows shortly. It feels good. I turn my back to him and bite my cheek at the thought that crosses my mind. As if on cue, I feel the mattress shift as he moves behind me and then the weight of his arm as it slides around my waist. I close my eyes, his chest warm against my back.
"You can pretend I'm him if you need to," he whispers into the darkness.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Continued in Chapter 6...
Author: tjonesy and icedteainthebag
Word Count: 2,054
Rating: MA
Pairing: Roslin/Adama
Spoilers: S2, Final Cut through LDYB II
Summary: We survived the end of worlds and we still can't tell people how we really feel.
Notes: Thanks to our amazing betas somadanne and larsfarm77, both for their invaluable skills and their patience. Thanks to melligator for the pretty icon set and again to katamaran78 for the gorgeous frakkin’ banner.
We will be posting chapters once per day (around 10 p.m. EST) until the fic is posted in its entirety.
Link to : Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7
Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Epilogue
____________________________________________________________
PEGASUS PART 2:
Nicco and I are lying on our backs in our underwear, on one of the softest beds I've ever been on. It's not even because I've been sleeping on a two-inch waterproof foam pad for months. This is some luxurious shit. The linens are identifiably Libran cotton; there's a very particular texture they have, a specific kind of artistry the Librans employ when weaving them. I used to have a set just like these back on Aquarion. They cost me an arm and a leg, but now I remember why they were worth every cubit. My stomach's physically swollen, and I'm slightly nauseated from the dinner we just finished. It took a surprisingly small amount of food to do this to me, but I don't really want to think about why as we stare at the ceiling in a daze.
"You full?" Nicco's question is more of a grunt.
"Gods, yes," I murmur, trying not to laugh. It hurts, actually. Damn, I'm going to regret this, but it was too good at the time. Way too good. "I'm full. I'm clean. And oh, my gods, this bed."
"Tell me about it." Nicco rubs his hands against the comforter. "Bet Adama'd frak the hell outta you on this bed, Brooke."
I groan and roll my eyes. "Bet he'd frak the hell outta you."
Nicco laughs until he wheezes. He may have had one too many shots of booze. I watch him wipe the tears out of his eyes. "Ohhh, I'd let him."
The bull hustler has a weakness. Nice to know I'm not the only one with a thing for Adama.
"You ever fall for one of your clients, Nicco?" I try to sound nonchalant, but I'm sure he sees right through me.
"Nope," he says without hesitation.
I turn my head to look at him. It's the one part of my body I can move right now. "You said that way too fast."
"That's 'cause it's true," he says, raising his eyebrows. "Sex is just sex to guys. You women need to make an emotional connection."
He says the last two words distastefully, like 'emotional connection' is some sort of disease you catch from a trick. Sometimes I wonder how this guy can go through life so detached.
"That's bullshit. I don't make a connection with all of my clients."
"No, but you need to make it with at least one. And then you think of him when you're with the others."
I'm horrified by how accurate that statement is. I can't fathom an appropriate response. I wonder what Adama would think if he knew I thought about him when I serviced other men?
Nicco turns on his side and snuggles closer to me. "You wanna give me any Adama pointers today?"
"What do you want to know?"
He grinds himself against my leg. He's not hard or anything, it's just typical male bullshit. "Tell me how he fraks."
I sigh. I don't know why he's suddenly convinced that I'm having sex with Bill, but I haven't the heart or the courage to tell him otherwise. "How does anybody frak, Nicco?"
"Oh, c'mon, Brooke." He straddles me and holds himself up by his arms, rubbing himself against my stomach.
"Frak, Nicco, I'm gonna puke. Get off."
He doesn't listen, merely grins down at me. "Does he like it fast or slow? Hard or soft?"
"He likes women, Nicco."
"Doesn't matter, technique will transfer. A frak is a frak, baby." To prove his point, he rotates his hips and throws back his head, drawing attention to the strong muscles in his chest and neck. This sensual display is pure male hustler, not anything a straight man would do in the sack. He is such a frakkin' idiot.
"Well, he'd never do that." I've never been with the man, but I'm fairly certain he's not into muscle worship.
Nicco sits up and runs his fingers over his smooth chest, toying with a dusky colored nipple. "He like nipple play?"
I buck my hips trying to throw him off, but he remains firmly seated on my stomach. "I'm not getting into this with you," I insist.
"I'd tell you what I do with my clients if you asked."
"Yes, you would." I try to roll onto my side. Nicco grabs my hands and pulls them over my head, pinning them there. "He do this with you? Is that what he's into, the bondage shit? Oh, Commander Adama, I've been so naughty."
When I think about it, I can't imagine him putting up with this nonsense for a Virgon second. "No, he's not into this," I say definitively. Although … it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he'd let a woman do this to him. Beg her to do it to him even. It's a sobering thought.
"Get off me, Nicco," I say wearily, and he knows I'm not playing anymore because he obediently flops down beside me.
"Just trying to take your mind off things."
I roll on my side and look him over. "Seriously, why do you keep bringing him up? I think you're more hung up on him than I am."
"He's an interesting guy," Nicco admits. "He reminds me of one of the designers I used to model for back in the day."
This simple revelation catches me off guard, though I try to hide it with a half-smile. Nicco rarely talks about his life before the attacks, like the rest of us.
"He was an old dude, like Adama. Not really good looking or anything, but he had … something. You know what I mean?"
I know exactly what he means. "Were you seeing him when the attacks happened?"
"No, he died a long time before that. Some freak showed up at his summer home on Picon and shot him to death by the swimming pool."
I suddenly know who he's talking about. Salari had been one of my favorite designers and I suddenly wonder if I ever saw Nicco before the attacks, gracing the pages of a fashion magazine. The murder was the top story on the news for weeks. "I didn't realize." I reach over and stroke his hair.
Nicco wipes at his eyes again, and I realize these tears have nothing to do with his previous laughing fit. "The point is, I started dating a bunch of guys who looked like him after it happened, only they weren't him. You get what I'm saying, Brooke?"
"Then you can relax." I pat his cheek. "He doesn't look like anyone I've ever been with before."
"Oh baby, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about him. I’ve seen this before," he says.
"What are you, a frakkin' oracle?" I smack his arm. "Tell me, oh wise one, when will my rugged prince come rescue me from this hellhole?"
"About that." Nicco lets out a deep sigh. "Yeah. He's not it, honey."
"Who?"
"Adama. Who the hell have we been talking about here? Are you that drunk?"
I feel myself getting defensive and I roll onto my back again. "I never said he was."
"Rugged prince?"
Godsdamn it.
"You know what you are to him?"
The boy doesn't know when to quit. I'm not sure I'm ready to hear this. At the same time, maybe I need a dose of reality. Nicco's always been good for that.
"His whore?" I ask tentatively. That's all I'm supposed to be. Frak, I'm not even really that.
"Her replacement."
"Whose?"
"Roslin's."
"Nicco!"
He withers slightly under my glare. "Hold on just … just hear me out here, Brooke. Gods, I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it was true, you know?"
"You're morbid." I swallow the peculiar lump in my throat. "You're frakkin' sick."
"He comes down here looking for what, Brooke? Not just any old whore. He's looking for the presidential whore."
"So what?" I say testily. "You could say the same thing about all my other clients."
"But they get their rocks off, and then they leave."
"Yes."
"But he doesn't. Your man Adama 'talks' to you instead. Tells you all of his shit. Wants to know about you. Falls asleep in your rack, without frakking you. Pulls all sorts of frakkin' strings for a hotel room for you, just because."
I squeeze my eyes shut and groan Nicco's name. I'm suddenly more nauseated.
"Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that the chick he really wants to be with is dying. Like, dying, Brooke. And you look just like her."
"Quit being an ass," I snap, rolling off the bed. I stand up and feel immediately dizzy. Probably a lot of reasons for that. I don't want to believe what he's saying, even though some of it actually makes a hell of a lot of sense. I turn to address him with the angriest expression I can muster. "You know what, Nicco? He's the best thing to happen to me-to us-since we got dumped on this ship. I think you forget that sometimes."
"So you think he's doing this out of the kindness of his heart?" Nicco asks, propping himself up on his elbow.
I bite the inside of my cheek, staring at him even as my eyes begin to burn. "Yes."
There's a moment of silence in which he shakes his head and gives me a sad smile. "You're lying to yourself."
I resist the urge to send Nicco packing. I hate what he's saying, but he's one of the only people I have left in my life, and the only one who's willing to be completely honest with me.
His hand brushes across my back when I sit down on the edge of the bed. "I wanna believe that this is something … " I falter. I can't even get the frakkin' words out right.
"We're all looking for a way out."
I fight my tears, my throat constricted. At least he can't see me with my back turned as a few of them slip down my cheeks. "If I wasn't who I was now, it would be different. If I was myself, I'd have a chance with him. Gods, he doesn't even know. I used to be just as good as her."
"You're still just as good as her," Nicco insists. "But you're not her."
I'm quiet, my mind whirring. "So what's so bad about being her replacement?"
"Because you need to find someone who loves Brooke. Not who Brooke looks like, acts like, or generally reminds him of."
He could love me, though. A little more time, maybe when she's gone, and he's grieved …
"Frak," I groan. "I hate it when you're right. Which rarely happens, by the way." I look over my shoulder, then flop backward onto him. I can't take this introspective shit any more. He curses and pretends to struggle under my weight.
"You're just a whore, baby," he teases loudly through his laughter. "You and I are just dirty little Fleet whores."
I rest my head against his firm chest and he strokes my hair. Sometimes I wish Nicco was into chicks. We'd be a disaster, but I seem to be drawn to that sort of thing.
"You know what we need to do?" I say, turning my head to look at him.
"Mmmmm, what?" He waggles his eyebrows at me. Godsdamn it, all the men in my life are frakking teases.
"Sleep." I sit up and push his body, nudging him off the bed so I can turn the sheets down. "I haven't had a good night of sleep in … frak, I don't even wanna think about it."
He rolls off the bed with a groan and I kill the lights. We crawl under the blankets, the cool, soft sheets sliding over my bare skin. I'm the first to sigh. His follows shortly. It feels good. I turn my back to him and bite my cheek at the thought that crosses my mind. As if on cue, I feel the mattress shift as he moves behind me and then the weight of his arm as it slides around my waist. I close my eyes, his chest warm against my back.
"You can pretend I'm him if you need to," he whispers into the darkness.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Continued in Chapter 6...