Sanctuary (Part 5 of 7)
Return to Chapter 4
A dream is not a very safe thing to be near, Bayard. I know; I had one once. It’s like a loaded pistol with a hair trigger: if it stays alive long enough, somebody is going to be hurt.
-The Unvanquished
Felix sang to himself quietly as he scraped hardened goo from the range top. He didn’t mind having kitchen cleaning duty, except right after whenever Rachel and Leah cooked. As usual, they’d left the place a mess. Tornadoes were tidier than those two.
The harder he scraped, the louder he sang. “My mother was a tailor, she sewed my new blue jeans-come on, budge-My father was a gamblin’ man, down in New-godsdamn it-oh,” Felix was startled to see Daphne leaning against the kitchen doorframe, watching him. “Hey there.”
Daphne’s eyes snapped into focus. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt you.” She didn’t move, though.
“Okay,” Felix said, awkwardly turning back to his work.
After a little silence, Daphne blurted, “I was listening to you sing.” Felix looked up. A rare hint of emotion showed through Daphne’s usual armor of annoyance-tinged indifference.
Felix didn’t answer. He simply went back to cleaning and tried to remember which verse he’d been on. “Oh mother, tell your children, not to do what I have done: spend your lives in sin and misery in the House of the Rising Sun. Funny,” Felix said, wiping away the last of the grime. “Why’d Rosie name this place after a gambling house? I assume she got the name from the song, or the place the song is about.”
“Yeah, she did, but it only doesn’t make sense because you’re singing the watered-down version,” Daphne said, finally walking into the room. “You’re obviously not from Aerilon.”
“That’s not exactly news. By the end of my first week here, you all had me pegged as being from a wealthy colony.”
Daphne sighed and pretended to be fascinated by the kitchen table’s fake wood grain. “It’s an old Aerilon folksong. But some Caprican singer was slumming it in Hebron and heard it there, then took it without credit and made it popular. The real version was ‘my sweetheart was a gambler,’ and ‘it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl,’ not ‘boy.’ The story goes that she sells herself into prostitution to bail her lover out of his debts. But then that musician switched some of the words up so it’d fit him better, and along the way, the real story got glossed over in his version.”
He could tell Daphne was cross about the cultural theft, but Felix oddly felt anger welling inside him, too. When the song had been a son singing about his father’s gambling, somehow, it had made for a pleasantly angst-ridden fantasy. Felix could imagine himself as a young boy forced to earn his keep by cleaning up the Rising Sun’s back rooms as his father-not Felix’s real father, but a make-believe man who could have been his father-lost their life savings at the smoky triad tables out front. But the story Daphne told touched too close to home to be any sort of fantasy, even a penitential one.
“What, so ‘it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl’ is what makes all the difference?” Felix snorted. He threw his dishrag on the counter much harder than necessary. “So this life doesn’t ruin boys?”
Daphne gave him an odd, defensive look and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s an old song, I guess. And that Caprican singer’s the one who changed it, not me. Gods, why are you such a bitch today? You have a bad night or something?”
He knew she really meant, “Is it Dillon?” but it wasn’t. Dillon hadn’t dropped by for a week. Felix’s best guess was that he was still going through the five stages of grief over Gaius’s not guilty verdict and had finally transitioned from denial to anger. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it, though. “Tell me, Daphne. When’s the last time you had a good night?” Felix answered.
“Fair enough.” She peered over Felix’s shoulder. “Need any help with the dishes?”
He’d rather have had a little time alone to collect himself, but Felix felt guilty for snapping at Daphne for something as foolish as a song. He nodded and shuffled to the sink.
They worked side by side in silence, Daphne washing and Felix drying. Dish washing had never been a favorite chore in the Rising Sun, but it had gotten much worse recently, even more hated than bathroom cleaning. Conservation ordinances limited how much water could be used for cleaning, and though they had a little variety in their diets-the few wise hoarders and container farmers who’d ridden out the food crisis without eating all their reserves were making a killing on the black market-most of what was still stuck on the plates was that blasted algae. Felix couldn’t help but wonder what Daphne must want from him to be willing to take over the worst of the job for him.
The way Daphne finally broke the silence was completely unexpected. “How’s Midnight doing lately?”
“Seriously?” Felix asked, pausing in his drying a mug. Daphne nodded. “Midnight’s fine. Finding things for it to eat is getting a lot harder, since canaries don’t eat algae. I thought about wringing its neck, so it won’t suffer and starve to death, but Livia would kill me if I did.”
“Gods, no, don’t kill the poor thing,” Daphne said.
Felix looked up again. “Why do you suddenly care so much about Midnight? Not only are you quite possibly the least sentimental person I’ve ever met, but you were the one campaigning the loudest for us to eat Midnight during the food crisis.”
Felix caught a glimpse of emotion flickering across Daphne’s face again, but it flitted away almost as fast as it had come. “There is bird food, or seed and bread crumbs, at least, to be had out there, and what else are you going to spend all your money on? You’ve got plenty of books already.”
“Okay,” Felix said slowly, brow furrowed.
“Everyone should have something that they enjoy spending their money on,” Daphne explained. “Livia likes clothes, Rachel and Leah have their fancy black market food, Tim has his music recordings, and you have your bird and your books. You need something to work for besides surviving.”
“What do you work for, then?” Felix asked.
Daphne paused. “It’s funny,” she began, then stopped and thought again. “Maybe you didn’t do this on the rich planets, but where I was from, parents would sometimes make their kids save up for toys, especially the really pricey ones.”
“They did that on Picon, too.”
Daphne continued almost as if she hadn’t heard Felix. “When there was a toy in the Gunders & Wade Catalog that I really wanted, my mom would cut out the picture and tape it to the fridge with a chart for how much money I’d need to save to get it-one of those things shaped like a thermometer that you color in as you go. Then I’d save and save, and when I finally got it, something about having to work for it and wait for it so long made me love those toys so much more than the ones I got for Saturnalia or my birthday.”
“I know what you mean,” Felix said.
“But that’s not it,” Daphne said, setting the sponge aside so she could talk with both hands. “When I got older, I still saved up for things, but I didn’t need that picture of something to work for in order for the saving to feel good. When I bought used clothing instead of new stuff or I drank the free office coffee instead of buying the fancy stuff down the street, I got that little burst of joy or pride just from the idea, ‘I am saving up for something good. I am saving up for something better than where I am today.’ And that was enough.
Even when the worlds ended, and all that money that I’d stashed away went up in a mushroom cloud, I started saving again, tucking away what I could. On New Caprica, I really felt like that ‘something better than where I am today’ was still out there. At least in the early days, I did. But a few days ago, I was adding a little something more to my stash, and when I was looking at it, it dawned on me: what am I saving any of this for anymore? There is nowhere better than where I am today to save for, and it’s not because where I am is so good.” She paused for a moment. “Hylas? Are you okay?”
Felix sniffed. He hadn’t even noticed how his eyes itched before Daphne looked at him. He was surprised at how much a mention of those better days on New Caprica-and how they had ended-could still hurt.
“Maybe you should ask Timotheos where he gets his recordings,” Felix said, desperate to change the subject. “If you’re so hard-up for good music that you like listening to me.”
He knew Daphne saw the move for what it was, and he was grateful that she let the conversation drift without comment. “I bet chores go faster when you sing,” she said in the tone of an offer.
“I’m not singing that frakking ‘Rising Sun’ song again,” Felix half-laughed, half-choked. “I think I’m permanently removing that one from my repertoire.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Daphne said. “What about that other one you sing so much? The one about the laughing rain? I like that one.” There was no mere brief flash of emotion on Daphne’s face this time. Her smile was steady and honest and deeply sad.
Felix nodded and began, “Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man, with my three wishes clutched in her hand. The first that she be spared the pain that comes from a dark and laughing rain…”
As they worked, Daphne joined in, at first quiet and tremulous but slowly building in confidence. Her voice was nothing spectacular, but it was a warm, solid alto that Felix liked very much and regretted he’d never heard before. When she was singing strongly enough, Felix let her have the melody and wove a harmony underneath her voice.
Two days later Daphne vanished without a word to Rosie or anyone else. Sora said she’d seen her leave with a client. The others couldn’t believe that sensible, grounded Daphne of all people would break the cardinal rule of never fall for a client. Rosie even considered sending Harris out looking for her, in case she’d been taken against her will.
When Felix discovered the plastic bag filled with bird food sitting on his bed later that evening, though, they all knew the truth. If anyone ever found her body, no one at the Rising Sun ever heard about it.
~~**~~**~~
It was a source of pride that, even after twenty years in prison, Tom had never taken up smoking. Other inmates had wasted most of their valuables on feeding addictions. Tom’s ability to judiciously trade or gift any cigarettes or other luxuries that came his way allowed him to build something much more valuable: influence.
He’d been surprised when he’d discovered that Felix smoked. It seemed so out of character, the way the rest of the young man’s life was so strictly regimented. Then one day when Gaius had asked for a light and Felix had one at the ready before anyone else even had a chance to reach into their pockets, that odd piece of the puzzle that was Felix Gaeta snapped neatly into place.
Somehow, it was fitting that Felix would be the reason Tom finally partook of this vice.
Felix reached over Tom to get another cigarette from the box on the bedside table. Tom took hold of his wrist and lit Felix’s cigarette with his own. Felix smiled at the intimate gesture, though Tom had mostly been thinking about how expensive matches and lighter fluid must be by now.
“Thank you,” Felix said, looking at him just a little too long, then dragging his eyes downward suggestively. He lay on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. Though Tom had the comforter pulled up to his waist as he leaned back against the headboard, Felix lay on top of the covers, positioned so Tom could run his hand down his naked back, and a little farther down, too. Tom had seen other workers in brothels pull that trick before, but he was surprised at how natural Felix made the game seem.
“Really,” Felix added. Tom wasn’t sure if Felix was grinning to himself or pretending to grin to himself. “I’m glad you got me for the whole night, because gods, that was…that bears repeating.”
Tom coughed, then stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the bed stand. “Oh, I agree. I do wonder whether you’re saying that because I was good or because it suits your purposes, though.”
There was no question about the genuineness of Felix’s smirk now. “Does it perhaps remind you of how a certain politician I know would obfuscate and prevaricate even with his closest advisors, almost as much as he did with the voting public?” Tom chuckled, and Felix took another drag. “Turnabout may be fair play, but it is a bitch, isn’t it?”
Tom laughed even louder. “As are you.”
“Thank you for noticing.” Felix reached over again to tap the ashes into the ashtray, then brought the cigarette back to his lips. It looked like he was going to smoke this one right down to the filter, just like the last one. “In all honesty, it was good.”
“Better than Gaius?” Tom heard himself asking. He did come here to get his ego stroked a bit, after all.
“Definitely. You’re larger than him, too, if you’re curious.” Again, there was something about Felix’s expression that made Tom wonder whether Felix was saying that because it was the truth or because it was what Tom wanted to hear.
He questioned it even more when Felix spoke again, because this time the sincerity was bare and unmistakable. “It’s ironic that I got involved with Gaius because I thought he was a visionary, that he really believed all those things he said about New Caprica being our chance to right all the wrongs of the old worlds and build a better tomorrow. Then, it turned out that that person was actually you, but it would have been bad form to spread my legs for both my bosses.” Felix chuckled bitterly. “It would’ve undermined the administration’s legitimacy, and people would’ve called me a whore. Considering how things turned out anyway, we should’ve done this ages ago.”
Tom had thought about sleeping with Felix back on New Caprica, although he couldn’t see himself picking up the pieces once Gaius finally shattered Felix’s heart. That would have required far more emotional work than Tom believed he was equal to. No, he had always envisioned that, if something ever did happen between them, it would have a transactional tenor to it. He’d never thought he’d purchase Felix by the hour, of course, but approaching any coupling between them as a trade would have made it easier for both of them to justify it. The most likely scenario Tom had envisioned was Felix using him to get back at Gaius, and Tom letting him, even though he knew Gaius was too depressed and drugged to work up enough concern to be jealous. Pride, jealousy, lust-all much simpler drives to deal with than affection, desire, loneliness.
That feeling that sex between them would have been transactional, no matter the circumstances, was what had made this night so much easier to accept than he’d expected, Tom told himself. However, Tom told himself a lot of things nowadays that even he didn’t quite believe. For instance, how the people would rise up in protest against the elite when the Adama aristocracy hijacked their democracy, installing Lee Adama as president for no better reason than that he got along with his father marginally better than Tom did. And then, irony of ironies, the Admiral had deserted, and his darling Apollo had made no move to abdicate the throne.
Tom had also told himself he’d come to the Rising Sun that night to talk to Felix, not to frak him. He’d known where Felix was for months. The Guatrau, who basically ran this part of the Prometheus, had recommended a new rent boy at the Rising Sun to him, based on the reviews she’d heard from some of her men who used him regularly. Tom had known better than to take her up on the offer-the Guatrau had a streak of pointless cruelty that made Tom nervous, so she was not the kind of person he wanted to be any more indebted to than absolutely necessary-but the similarity of the new boy’s physical description to that of Felix had piqued Tom’s curiosity enough for him to send one of his own men to do a little reconnaissance.
Tom had always told himself he investigated because Felix might prove useful to him someday. Maybe someone would accuse him of wrongdoing from his days in the Baltar administration, and he’d need Felix as a witness to bail him out. Maybe he’d have to pull a regime change on the current Guatrau if she pissed off the Sagittaron syndicate on Prometheus any more, and Felix might have all sorts of information on her top henchmen from his liaisons.
When Tom cleared away the what-ifs and the bullshit, though, he knew he’d wanted to find Felix for a day like this one. Felix had been able to hold on to hope on New Caprica longer than anyone else, even Tom. Back then, Tom had found his naiveté frustrating. Now, with his own faith crumbling again, he needed to see that kind of boundless idealism and hope, to know that New Caprica and the Circle hadn’t ultimately killed it.
Tom’s plan had been to purchase Felix’s time for the whole night, then come up to his room and force him to talk to him. Tom feared that if he went about it any other way, Felix would brush him off or bawl him out before he had the chance to make some kind of apology or justification for the Circle. What he hadn’t planned on was Felix crossing the room in a few swift steps and kissing him before Tom even had a chance to shut the door. Clearly, the madam hadn’t honored his instruction not to tell Felix who his client was. He didn’t have time to be irritated, though, as Felix kissed him even more insistently and removed Tom’s tie.
At one point, Tom had almost stopped it. As soon as he tried to speak, though, Felix muffled him with another kiss and shoved him against the now-shut door. He grabbed Felix, a chorus of half-forgotten instincts reminding him that he did not like to be pushed around by anyone, and that being held against a wall was not a safe position to be in. Then he looked at Felix’s face. Felix wasn’t scared, but his expression was vulnerable and impossibly innocent for a man who’d lived the life he had.
Adrenaline still coursed through Tom’s veins, but his instincts turned in a completely different direction. He shoved Felix across the room, pushed him down on the bed, and stripped off his clothes. They frakked, rough and a little frantic, Felix crying out Tom’s name again and again.
It was only after, when Felix drew Tom to lounge with him in bed and offered him the cigarette that Tom figured out what had happened. Somewhere in his speech, Tom had planned on pressing Felix as to why he’d taken up residence in the Rising Sun, believing that there was no good answer and hoping that guilt might be useful to him. Now, it was Tom who was the one with reason to feel guilty, paying to frak his former colleague and friend. Felix had once said that he knew Tom was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a hypocrite. Thus, Tom found himself out-maneuvered, a rather rare occurrence.
Well played, Felix, Tom admitted to himself.
Felix reached over Tom one last time to discard his cigarette. “I forgave you for the Circle a long time ago, you know,” he said abruptly. He looked down as soon as Tom met his eyes, watching his own fingers trace light patterns on Tom’s chest. “I would have done the same thing myself if I’d been in your position.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Tom said. Felix’s fingers stopped. “You still believe in the rule of law. You may have wanted to tweak the system on New Caprica to make it more just, but you believe in that ideal.”
“Not anymore. Not since Gaius’s trial.” Felix shifted so his head rested against Tom’s shoulder. “Deep down, I know it wouldn’t have made a difference, because the judges couldn’t have been looking at the evidence objectively if they could acquit him. Even so, I still feel a little guilty for not having come forward to offer to testify. I actually expected to get a subpoena, or a mention in the paper that I was being looked for, something. I just figured I’d wait until then to come forward, and then before I realized it, I’d waited too long. I guess the prosecution’s investigators were as bad as her closing argument was, huh?”
Tom shifted. He’d told the prosecutor about Felix and his whereabouts in one of the few strategy sessions Roslin had let him attend.
“Frankly, I’d be more willing to call one of Baltar’s ‘interns,’” the prosecutor had said without apology.
“He is a hero for getting us all off New Caprica,” Tom had argued. “He was probably the cleanest member of the entire Baltar administration as well. That has to lend to his credibility as a witness.”
“He’s also since become a whore. He wouldn’t be where he is if he wasn’t guilty of something. Not to mention, even you obviously thought he was guilty of something when you ordered his execution.
Felix was staring at Tom. He was trying and failing to hide his emotion, so Tom knew this wasn’t part of the game.
“They knew where I was all along, didn’t they?” he asked. Tom tried to lie, but he couldn’t form the words. Felix fell back against the headboard. “Gods, I’m an idiot.”
Tom struggled to change the subject. “Are you getting enough rations here? Medical supplies?”
Felix shrugged. “We’re better off than a lot of people.”
“I may not have much power as the perpetual Vice President, but I can make sure that this place gets its fair share.”
Felix snorted. “‘The perpetual Vice President’? You sound much more resigned than you did when you gave that speech on the wireless. That really has to burn.”
Tom tried to joke. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”
“You’re welcome to bitch about it here, if you like. Not like there’s going to be any political fallout from what you say to me.”
Tom shook his head, then thought about it for a moment.
“Go ahead,” Felix encouraged when he saw Tom debating with himself.
Tom sighed and said, “All right. I can’t believe that Lee Adama, of all people, flagrantly flouted the Articles and crowned himself president. I can’t believe the Quorum went along with it. I can’t believe that the Adama-Roslin regime somehow managed to get a tighter stranglehold on democracy after they’d been left for dead. One would think they would lose a bit of their sway over people, but no, everyone from Colonel Tigh down to that little frak Hoshi gave me the runaround, no matter what I was asking about.”
To Tom’s surprise, Felix looked offended. Felix had had a healthy skepticism of all things Adama after the election, and he couldn’t imagine what would have changed that since New Caprica. “What? You said I could complain openly here.”
“Hoshi’s just doing his job, I’m sure,” Felix said shortly.
That took Tom aback. “I bad-mouth the Admiral and every high-ranking government official, and you’re upset because I say something not nice about a switchboard operator?”
Felix gave him an odd look, then said, “Louis. Remember, on New Caprica before the Cylons came, how I would talk about-of course you wouldn’t remember. Why would you?”
“I’m sorry I impugned his honor,” Tom said in the half-apologetic, half-pretentious way he had of expressing how stupid he thought it was that he had to apologize for what he’d said.
“I’m not saying he’s a saint. I’m just saying he’s a good soldier, and a good man.”
Tom still couldn’t remember anything about anyone named Louis, but the look on Felix’s face gave him a decent hint. “A better man than me?” Tom asked.
“A better man than me.” Felix winced, then shifted the conversation quickly. “Lee was right. We really are nothing more than a gang on the run. There’s no system left to break anymore. I’m surprised that he of all people would piss on democracy’s grave so gleefully, though.”
“Me, too.”
“Well, at least we have an amazing First Lady,” Felix offered in mild consolation. Tom furrowed his brow. Felix explained, “I worked with Dee back when I was in CIC. We were very good friends.”
“There is no First Lady.”
Felix shook his head. “Maybe she’s not on Colonial One-I imagine she’s still serving on Galactica-but she is First Lady, technically. I gave her away at her wedding on New Caprica.”
“Lee Adama’s marriage has been over for a long time. His wife dumped him sometime during the Baltar trial, I think.”
“Oh.” Felix sat silent, processing that. “Well, then at least…at least you don’t have to worry about him having the moral high ground, if you want to come back here again. Word is that when the going gets tough, Lee gets a hooker. I give him a week with the pressures of the presidency before he’s making secret trips to the Prometheus. You’ll want to come back, won’t you?” Felix pressed up against Tom, eyes a little too desperate to be calculated. Tom almost felt guilty as he grew hard again.
Felix continued, “It doesn’t really matter anyway, does it? Don’t get me wrong-you deserve the presidency, and I hate what Lee did. But even if you had all the power at the president’s disposal, what could you have done, really? You couldn’t change the fact that the Fleet is just a few thousand hungry, scared, miserable bodies huddled in space-faring tin cans. If ‘building a better tomorrow’ wasn’t just a hollow catchphrase on New Caprica, then it certainly is now. So let’s just enjoy this.”
Hearing Felix Gaeta without hope sounded like a death knell for the civilian fleet to Tom’s ears. It was tempting to do what Felix said, to give up and just enjoy the moment, but responsibility for that hopelessness weighed a little too heavily on Tom’s shoulders for him to relent just yet.
“Young men make too many assumptions about how quickly an old fart like me can ‘just enjoy’ that again,” Tom said, at a loss for how else to stall.
“You’re not old. And I’ve always had a thing for older men, so I’m not completely clueless.” Felix reached under the covers. “I can fix that with a little-” He leered when he discovered the lie; Tom tipped his head back in pleasure. “False modesty doesn’t suit you.”
Felix rubbed against him in the same rhythm as the movements of his hand. “What do you want?” Felix whispered in his ear. “I saw the way you looked at me after you walked in on me blowing Gaius in the President’s Office that one time. You tried to pretend you weren’t fazed by it, but you were jealous. You want that?”
Tom shook his head.
“Then how about New Caprica, before it went to hell? Pretend I left Galactica for you, that I never coddled or ran interference for Gaius. We’ve come back from the groundbreaking party early, knowing no one else would be here. Tomorrow, we’ll have to deal with Cottle grumbling about the new hospital’s roof leaking, and Roslin wants us to move constructing the second school up on the priority list, and we need to find more glass for the third greenhouse. But tonight, this is all that matters.”
Tom rolled them so he was on top of Felix, then pinned his wrists to the mattress and kissed him hard. He only let go long enough to grab the lube off the bedside table and prepare himself.
“Just promise me you’ll come back,” Felix whispered.
Tom hated that even now, he couldn’t quite be sure whether Felix wanted him or a regular client. But Felix had called out his name that first time, and he was doing it again as Tom moved in him now. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but none of the others he’d had in brothels had ever done that. Ellen Tigh and the handful of groupies that came his way instead of Gaius’s hadn’t. It certainly wasn’t something that happened in prison. As for before that, Tom couldn’t remember back that far.
“I promise,” he lied after they’d both come, Felix still breathing hard and clinging to Tom’s shoulders.
It wasn’t that Tom didn’t want to come back. In fact, something about Felix made Tom want to play the white knight for once in his life. He wanted to pick Felix up and carry him out of this place and settle him into a safer, more suitable existence on Colonial One. As much as he would like that new life to include Felix settling into Tom’s bed, too, that wasn’t what it was really about.
It was that Felix was the opposite of a canary in a mineshaft: even living in these circumstances, if Felix of all people had so little left to live for that all he had to cling to were daydreams of the way New Caprica might have been, then the average person in the Fleet had nothing left. Tom had failed his people one too many times. He wasn’t going to fail them again.
Galactica and Colonial One were the key ships. He knew Colonial One and its security detail well enough to handle it on his own, but he’d need to find inside help for Galactica. If he could wrest those two ships from the stranglehold of what remained of the Adama-Roslin administration, the people of the other ships wouldn’t fear throwing their lot in with him.
He knew it would cost him Felix. If Tom didn’t succeed, he’d die, but at least he might die a martyr. If he did succeed…Tom could tell Felix wasn’t as jaded as he pretended to be. Some of his conceptions of right and wrong were so ingrained and unbending that not even despair and disillusionment could change them. Worse yet, Tom knew he’d be responsible for the deaths of many of Felix’s old friends and crewmates, no matter what. Felix could forgive Tom for ordering his own death, but not for that.
Even as Tom dressed and kissed Felix good-bye the next morning, the lie of “I will come back” fresh on his lips, Tom didn’t flinch at the cost to himself or to Felix. Felix was just one of thousands of souls crying out for help and hope and something that looked like a future.
Tom looked back at Felix once more before he closed the door. He was still curled up in bed, clearly exhausted but with a hint of a genuine smile playing at the corners of his lips. He was also blissfully unaware that he’d just started a revolution.
ON TO CHAPTER 6
A dream is not a very safe thing to be near, Bayard. I know; I had one once. It’s like a loaded pistol with a hair trigger: if it stays alive long enough, somebody is going to be hurt.
-The Unvanquished
Felix sang to himself quietly as he scraped hardened goo from the range top. He didn’t mind having kitchen cleaning duty, except right after whenever Rachel and Leah cooked. As usual, they’d left the place a mess. Tornadoes were tidier than those two.
The harder he scraped, the louder he sang. “My mother was a tailor, she sewed my new blue jeans-come on, budge-My father was a gamblin’ man, down in New-godsdamn it-oh,” Felix was startled to see Daphne leaning against the kitchen doorframe, watching him. “Hey there.”
Daphne’s eyes snapped into focus. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt you.” She didn’t move, though.
“Okay,” Felix said, awkwardly turning back to his work.
After a little silence, Daphne blurted, “I was listening to you sing.” Felix looked up. A rare hint of emotion showed through Daphne’s usual armor of annoyance-tinged indifference.
Felix didn’t answer. He simply went back to cleaning and tried to remember which verse he’d been on. “Oh mother, tell your children, not to do what I have done: spend your lives in sin and misery in the House of the Rising Sun. Funny,” Felix said, wiping away the last of the grime. “Why’d Rosie name this place after a gambling house? I assume she got the name from the song, or the place the song is about.”
“Yeah, she did, but it only doesn’t make sense because you’re singing the watered-down version,” Daphne said, finally walking into the room. “You’re obviously not from Aerilon.”
“That’s not exactly news. By the end of my first week here, you all had me pegged as being from a wealthy colony.”
Daphne sighed and pretended to be fascinated by the kitchen table’s fake wood grain. “It’s an old Aerilon folksong. But some Caprican singer was slumming it in Hebron and heard it there, then took it without credit and made it popular. The real version was ‘my sweetheart was a gambler,’ and ‘it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl,’ not ‘boy.’ The story goes that she sells herself into prostitution to bail her lover out of his debts. But then that musician switched some of the words up so it’d fit him better, and along the way, the real story got glossed over in his version.”
He could tell Daphne was cross about the cultural theft, but Felix oddly felt anger welling inside him, too. When the song had been a son singing about his father’s gambling, somehow, it had made for a pleasantly angst-ridden fantasy. Felix could imagine himself as a young boy forced to earn his keep by cleaning up the Rising Sun’s back rooms as his father-not Felix’s real father, but a make-believe man who could have been his father-lost their life savings at the smoky triad tables out front. But the story Daphne told touched too close to home to be any sort of fantasy, even a penitential one.
“What, so ‘it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl’ is what makes all the difference?” Felix snorted. He threw his dishrag on the counter much harder than necessary. “So this life doesn’t ruin boys?”
Daphne gave him an odd, defensive look and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s an old song, I guess. And that Caprican singer’s the one who changed it, not me. Gods, why are you such a bitch today? You have a bad night or something?”
He knew she really meant, “Is it Dillon?” but it wasn’t. Dillon hadn’t dropped by for a week. Felix’s best guess was that he was still going through the five stages of grief over Gaius’s not guilty verdict and had finally transitioned from denial to anger. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it, though. “Tell me, Daphne. When’s the last time you had a good night?” Felix answered.
“Fair enough.” She peered over Felix’s shoulder. “Need any help with the dishes?”
He’d rather have had a little time alone to collect himself, but Felix felt guilty for snapping at Daphne for something as foolish as a song. He nodded and shuffled to the sink.
They worked side by side in silence, Daphne washing and Felix drying. Dish washing had never been a favorite chore in the Rising Sun, but it had gotten much worse recently, even more hated than bathroom cleaning. Conservation ordinances limited how much water could be used for cleaning, and though they had a little variety in their diets-the few wise hoarders and container farmers who’d ridden out the food crisis without eating all their reserves were making a killing on the black market-most of what was still stuck on the plates was that blasted algae. Felix couldn’t help but wonder what Daphne must want from him to be willing to take over the worst of the job for him.
The way Daphne finally broke the silence was completely unexpected. “How’s Midnight doing lately?”
“Seriously?” Felix asked, pausing in his drying a mug. Daphne nodded. “Midnight’s fine. Finding things for it to eat is getting a lot harder, since canaries don’t eat algae. I thought about wringing its neck, so it won’t suffer and starve to death, but Livia would kill me if I did.”
“Gods, no, don’t kill the poor thing,” Daphne said.
Felix looked up again. “Why do you suddenly care so much about Midnight? Not only are you quite possibly the least sentimental person I’ve ever met, but you were the one campaigning the loudest for us to eat Midnight during the food crisis.”
Felix caught a glimpse of emotion flickering across Daphne’s face again, but it flitted away almost as fast as it had come. “There is bird food, or seed and bread crumbs, at least, to be had out there, and what else are you going to spend all your money on? You’ve got plenty of books already.”
“Okay,” Felix said slowly, brow furrowed.
“Everyone should have something that they enjoy spending their money on,” Daphne explained. “Livia likes clothes, Rachel and Leah have their fancy black market food, Tim has his music recordings, and you have your bird and your books. You need something to work for besides surviving.”
“What do you work for, then?” Felix asked.
Daphne paused. “It’s funny,” she began, then stopped and thought again. “Maybe you didn’t do this on the rich planets, but where I was from, parents would sometimes make their kids save up for toys, especially the really pricey ones.”
“They did that on Picon, too.”
Daphne continued almost as if she hadn’t heard Felix. “When there was a toy in the Gunders & Wade Catalog that I really wanted, my mom would cut out the picture and tape it to the fridge with a chart for how much money I’d need to save to get it-one of those things shaped like a thermometer that you color in as you go. Then I’d save and save, and when I finally got it, something about having to work for it and wait for it so long made me love those toys so much more than the ones I got for Saturnalia or my birthday.”
“I know what you mean,” Felix said.
“But that’s not it,” Daphne said, setting the sponge aside so she could talk with both hands. “When I got older, I still saved up for things, but I didn’t need that picture of something to work for in order for the saving to feel good. When I bought used clothing instead of new stuff or I drank the free office coffee instead of buying the fancy stuff down the street, I got that little burst of joy or pride just from the idea, ‘I am saving up for something good. I am saving up for something better than where I am today.’ And that was enough.
Even when the worlds ended, and all that money that I’d stashed away went up in a mushroom cloud, I started saving again, tucking away what I could. On New Caprica, I really felt like that ‘something better than where I am today’ was still out there. At least in the early days, I did. But a few days ago, I was adding a little something more to my stash, and when I was looking at it, it dawned on me: what am I saving any of this for anymore? There is nowhere better than where I am today to save for, and it’s not because where I am is so good.” She paused for a moment. “Hylas? Are you okay?”
Felix sniffed. He hadn’t even noticed how his eyes itched before Daphne looked at him. He was surprised at how much a mention of those better days on New Caprica-and how they had ended-could still hurt.
“Maybe you should ask Timotheos where he gets his recordings,” Felix said, desperate to change the subject. “If you’re so hard-up for good music that you like listening to me.”
He knew Daphne saw the move for what it was, and he was grateful that she let the conversation drift without comment. “I bet chores go faster when you sing,” she said in the tone of an offer.
“I’m not singing that frakking ‘Rising Sun’ song again,” Felix half-laughed, half-choked. “I think I’m permanently removing that one from my repertoire.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Daphne said. “What about that other one you sing so much? The one about the laughing rain? I like that one.” There was no mere brief flash of emotion on Daphne’s face this time. Her smile was steady and honest and deeply sad.
Felix nodded and began, “Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man, with my three wishes clutched in her hand. The first that she be spared the pain that comes from a dark and laughing rain…”
As they worked, Daphne joined in, at first quiet and tremulous but slowly building in confidence. Her voice was nothing spectacular, but it was a warm, solid alto that Felix liked very much and regretted he’d never heard before. When she was singing strongly enough, Felix let her have the melody and wove a harmony underneath her voice.
Two days later Daphne vanished without a word to Rosie or anyone else. Sora said she’d seen her leave with a client. The others couldn’t believe that sensible, grounded Daphne of all people would break the cardinal rule of never fall for a client. Rosie even considered sending Harris out looking for her, in case she’d been taken against her will.
When Felix discovered the plastic bag filled with bird food sitting on his bed later that evening, though, they all knew the truth. If anyone ever found her body, no one at the Rising Sun ever heard about it.
~~**~~**~~
It was a source of pride that, even after twenty years in prison, Tom had never taken up smoking. Other inmates had wasted most of their valuables on feeding addictions. Tom’s ability to judiciously trade or gift any cigarettes or other luxuries that came his way allowed him to build something much more valuable: influence.
He’d been surprised when he’d discovered that Felix smoked. It seemed so out of character, the way the rest of the young man’s life was so strictly regimented. Then one day when Gaius had asked for a light and Felix had one at the ready before anyone else even had a chance to reach into their pockets, that odd piece of the puzzle that was Felix Gaeta snapped neatly into place.
Somehow, it was fitting that Felix would be the reason Tom finally partook of this vice.
Felix reached over Tom to get another cigarette from the box on the bedside table. Tom took hold of his wrist and lit Felix’s cigarette with his own. Felix smiled at the intimate gesture, though Tom had mostly been thinking about how expensive matches and lighter fluid must be by now.
“Thank you,” Felix said, looking at him just a little too long, then dragging his eyes downward suggestively. He lay on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. Though Tom had the comforter pulled up to his waist as he leaned back against the headboard, Felix lay on top of the covers, positioned so Tom could run his hand down his naked back, and a little farther down, too. Tom had seen other workers in brothels pull that trick before, but he was surprised at how natural Felix made the game seem.
“Really,” Felix added. Tom wasn’t sure if Felix was grinning to himself or pretending to grin to himself. “I’m glad you got me for the whole night, because gods, that was…that bears repeating.”
Tom coughed, then stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the bed stand. “Oh, I agree. I do wonder whether you’re saying that because I was good or because it suits your purposes, though.”
There was no question about the genuineness of Felix’s smirk now. “Does it perhaps remind you of how a certain politician I know would obfuscate and prevaricate even with his closest advisors, almost as much as he did with the voting public?” Tom chuckled, and Felix took another drag. “Turnabout may be fair play, but it is a bitch, isn’t it?”
Tom laughed even louder. “As are you.”
“Thank you for noticing.” Felix reached over again to tap the ashes into the ashtray, then brought the cigarette back to his lips. It looked like he was going to smoke this one right down to the filter, just like the last one. “In all honesty, it was good.”
“Better than Gaius?” Tom heard himself asking. He did come here to get his ego stroked a bit, after all.
“Definitely. You’re larger than him, too, if you’re curious.” Again, there was something about Felix’s expression that made Tom wonder whether Felix was saying that because it was the truth or because it was what Tom wanted to hear.
He questioned it even more when Felix spoke again, because this time the sincerity was bare and unmistakable. “It’s ironic that I got involved with Gaius because I thought he was a visionary, that he really believed all those things he said about New Caprica being our chance to right all the wrongs of the old worlds and build a better tomorrow. Then, it turned out that that person was actually you, but it would have been bad form to spread my legs for both my bosses.” Felix chuckled bitterly. “It would’ve undermined the administration’s legitimacy, and people would’ve called me a whore. Considering how things turned out anyway, we should’ve done this ages ago.”
Tom had thought about sleeping with Felix back on New Caprica, although he couldn’t see himself picking up the pieces once Gaius finally shattered Felix’s heart. That would have required far more emotional work than Tom believed he was equal to. No, he had always envisioned that, if something ever did happen between them, it would have a transactional tenor to it. He’d never thought he’d purchase Felix by the hour, of course, but approaching any coupling between them as a trade would have made it easier for both of them to justify it. The most likely scenario Tom had envisioned was Felix using him to get back at Gaius, and Tom letting him, even though he knew Gaius was too depressed and drugged to work up enough concern to be jealous. Pride, jealousy, lust-all much simpler drives to deal with than affection, desire, loneliness.
That feeling that sex between them would have been transactional, no matter the circumstances, was what had made this night so much easier to accept than he’d expected, Tom told himself. However, Tom told himself a lot of things nowadays that even he didn’t quite believe. For instance, how the people would rise up in protest against the elite when the Adama aristocracy hijacked their democracy, installing Lee Adama as president for no better reason than that he got along with his father marginally better than Tom did. And then, irony of ironies, the Admiral had deserted, and his darling Apollo had made no move to abdicate the throne.
Tom had also told himself he’d come to the Rising Sun that night to talk to Felix, not to frak him. He’d known where Felix was for months. The Guatrau, who basically ran this part of the Prometheus, had recommended a new rent boy at the Rising Sun to him, based on the reviews she’d heard from some of her men who used him regularly. Tom had known better than to take her up on the offer-the Guatrau had a streak of pointless cruelty that made Tom nervous, so she was not the kind of person he wanted to be any more indebted to than absolutely necessary-but the similarity of the new boy’s physical description to that of Felix had piqued Tom’s curiosity enough for him to send one of his own men to do a little reconnaissance.
Tom had always told himself he investigated because Felix might prove useful to him someday. Maybe someone would accuse him of wrongdoing from his days in the Baltar administration, and he’d need Felix as a witness to bail him out. Maybe he’d have to pull a regime change on the current Guatrau if she pissed off the Sagittaron syndicate on Prometheus any more, and Felix might have all sorts of information on her top henchmen from his liaisons.
When Tom cleared away the what-ifs and the bullshit, though, he knew he’d wanted to find Felix for a day like this one. Felix had been able to hold on to hope on New Caprica longer than anyone else, even Tom. Back then, Tom had found his naiveté frustrating. Now, with his own faith crumbling again, he needed to see that kind of boundless idealism and hope, to know that New Caprica and the Circle hadn’t ultimately killed it.
Tom’s plan had been to purchase Felix’s time for the whole night, then come up to his room and force him to talk to him. Tom feared that if he went about it any other way, Felix would brush him off or bawl him out before he had the chance to make some kind of apology or justification for the Circle. What he hadn’t planned on was Felix crossing the room in a few swift steps and kissing him before Tom even had a chance to shut the door. Clearly, the madam hadn’t honored his instruction not to tell Felix who his client was. He didn’t have time to be irritated, though, as Felix kissed him even more insistently and removed Tom’s tie.
At one point, Tom had almost stopped it. As soon as he tried to speak, though, Felix muffled him with another kiss and shoved him against the now-shut door. He grabbed Felix, a chorus of half-forgotten instincts reminding him that he did not like to be pushed around by anyone, and that being held against a wall was not a safe position to be in. Then he looked at Felix’s face. Felix wasn’t scared, but his expression was vulnerable and impossibly innocent for a man who’d lived the life he had.
Adrenaline still coursed through Tom’s veins, but his instincts turned in a completely different direction. He shoved Felix across the room, pushed him down on the bed, and stripped off his clothes. They frakked, rough and a little frantic, Felix crying out Tom’s name again and again.
It was only after, when Felix drew Tom to lounge with him in bed and offered him the cigarette that Tom figured out what had happened. Somewhere in his speech, Tom had planned on pressing Felix as to why he’d taken up residence in the Rising Sun, believing that there was no good answer and hoping that guilt might be useful to him. Now, it was Tom who was the one with reason to feel guilty, paying to frak his former colleague and friend. Felix had once said that he knew Tom was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a hypocrite. Thus, Tom found himself out-maneuvered, a rather rare occurrence.
Well played, Felix, Tom admitted to himself.
Felix reached over Tom one last time to discard his cigarette. “I forgave you for the Circle a long time ago, you know,” he said abruptly. He looked down as soon as Tom met his eyes, watching his own fingers trace light patterns on Tom’s chest. “I would have done the same thing myself if I’d been in your position.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Tom said. Felix’s fingers stopped. “You still believe in the rule of law. You may have wanted to tweak the system on New Caprica to make it more just, but you believe in that ideal.”
“Not anymore. Not since Gaius’s trial.” Felix shifted so his head rested against Tom’s shoulder. “Deep down, I know it wouldn’t have made a difference, because the judges couldn’t have been looking at the evidence objectively if they could acquit him. Even so, I still feel a little guilty for not having come forward to offer to testify. I actually expected to get a subpoena, or a mention in the paper that I was being looked for, something. I just figured I’d wait until then to come forward, and then before I realized it, I’d waited too long. I guess the prosecution’s investigators were as bad as her closing argument was, huh?”
Tom shifted. He’d told the prosecutor about Felix and his whereabouts in one of the few strategy sessions Roslin had let him attend.
“Frankly, I’d be more willing to call one of Baltar’s ‘interns,’” the prosecutor had said without apology.
“He is a hero for getting us all off New Caprica,” Tom had argued. “He was probably the cleanest member of the entire Baltar administration as well. That has to lend to his credibility as a witness.”
“He’s also since become a whore. He wouldn’t be where he is if he wasn’t guilty of something. Not to mention, even you obviously thought he was guilty of something when you ordered his execution.
Felix was staring at Tom. He was trying and failing to hide his emotion, so Tom knew this wasn’t part of the game.
“They knew where I was all along, didn’t they?” he asked. Tom tried to lie, but he couldn’t form the words. Felix fell back against the headboard. “Gods, I’m an idiot.”
Tom struggled to change the subject. “Are you getting enough rations here? Medical supplies?”
Felix shrugged. “We’re better off than a lot of people.”
“I may not have much power as the perpetual Vice President, but I can make sure that this place gets its fair share.”
Felix snorted. “‘The perpetual Vice President’? You sound much more resigned than you did when you gave that speech on the wireless. That really has to burn.”
Tom tried to joke. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”
“You’re welcome to bitch about it here, if you like. Not like there’s going to be any political fallout from what you say to me.”
Tom shook his head, then thought about it for a moment.
“Go ahead,” Felix encouraged when he saw Tom debating with himself.
Tom sighed and said, “All right. I can’t believe that Lee Adama, of all people, flagrantly flouted the Articles and crowned himself president. I can’t believe the Quorum went along with it. I can’t believe that the Adama-Roslin regime somehow managed to get a tighter stranglehold on democracy after they’d been left for dead. One would think they would lose a bit of their sway over people, but no, everyone from Colonel Tigh down to that little frak Hoshi gave me the runaround, no matter what I was asking about.”
To Tom’s surprise, Felix looked offended. Felix had had a healthy skepticism of all things Adama after the election, and he couldn’t imagine what would have changed that since New Caprica. “What? You said I could complain openly here.”
“Hoshi’s just doing his job, I’m sure,” Felix said shortly.
That took Tom aback. “I bad-mouth the Admiral and every high-ranking government official, and you’re upset because I say something not nice about a switchboard operator?”
Felix gave him an odd look, then said, “Louis. Remember, on New Caprica before the Cylons came, how I would talk about-of course you wouldn’t remember. Why would you?”
“I’m sorry I impugned his honor,” Tom said in the half-apologetic, half-pretentious way he had of expressing how stupid he thought it was that he had to apologize for what he’d said.
“I’m not saying he’s a saint. I’m just saying he’s a good soldier, and a good man.”
Tom still couldn’t remember anything about anyone named Louis, but the look on Felix’s face gave him a decent hint. “A better man than me?” Tom asked.
“A better man than me.” Felix winced, then shifted the conversation quickly. “Lee was right. We really are nothing more than a gang on the run. There’s no system left to break anymore. I’m surprised that he of all people would piss on democracy’s grave so gleefully, though.”
“Me, too.”
“Well, at least we have an amazing First Lady,” Felix offered in mild consolation. Tom furrowed his brow. Felix explained, “I worked with Dee back when I was in CIC. We were very good friends.”
“There is no First Lady.”
Felix shook his head. “Maybe she’s not on Colonial One-I imagine she’s still serving on Galactica-but she is First Lady, technically. I gave her away at her wedding on New Caprica.”
“Lee Adama’s marriage has been over for a long time. His wife dumped him sometime during the Baltar trial, I think.”
“Oh.” Felix sat silent, processing that. “Well, then at least…at least you don’t have to worry about him having the moral high ground, if you want to come back here again. Word is that when the going gets tough, Lee gets a hooker. I give him a week with the pressures of the presidency before he’s making secret trips to the Prometheus. You’ll want to come back, won’t you?” Felix pressed up against Tom, eyes a little too desperate to be calculated. Tom almost felt guilty as he grew hard again.
Felix continued, “It doesn’t really matter anyway, does it? Don’t get me wrong-you deserve the presidency, and I hate what Lee did. But even if you had all the power at the president’s disposal, what could you have done, really? You couldn’t change the fact that the Fleet is just a few thousand hungry, scared, miserable bodies huddled in space-faring tin cans. If ‘building a better tomorrow’ wasn’t just a hollow catchphrase on New Caprica, then it certainly is now. So let’s just enjoy this.”
Hearing Felix Gaeta without hope sounded like a death knell for the civilian fleet to Tom’s ears. It was tempting to do what Felix said, to give up and just enjoy the moment, but responsibility for that hopelessness weighed a little too heavily on Tom’s shoulders for him to relent just yet.
“Young men make too many assumptions about how quickly an old fart like me can ‘just enjoy’ that again,” Tom said, at a loss for how else to stall.
“You’re not old. And I’ve always had a thing for older men, so I’m not completely clueless.” Felix reached under the covers. “I can fix that with a little-” He leered when he discovered the lie; Tom tipped his head back in pleasure. “False modesty doesn’t suit you.”
Felix rubbed against him in the same rhythm as the movements of his hand. “What do you want?” Felix whispered in his ear. “I saw the way you looked at me after you walked in on me blowing Gaius in the President’s Office that one time. You tried to pretend you weren’t fazed by it, but you were jealous. You want that?”
Tom shook his head.
“Then how about New Caprica, before it went to hell? Pretend I left Galactica for you, that I never coddled or ran interference for Gaius. We’ve come back from the groundbreaking party early, knowing no one else would be here. Tomorrow, we’ll have to deal with Cottle grumbling about the new hospital’s roof leaking, and Roslin wants us to move constructing the second school up on the priority list, and we need to find more glass for the third greenhouse. But tonight, this is all that matters.”
Tom rolled them so he was on top of Felix, then pinned his wrists to the mattress and kissed him hard. He only let go long enough to grab the lube off the bedside table and prepare himself.
“Just promise me you’ll come back,” Felix whispered.
Tom hated that even now, he couldn’t quite be sure whether Felix wanted him or a regular client. But Felix had called out his name that first time, and he was doing it again as Tom moved in him now. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but none of the others he’d had in brothels had ever done that. Ellen Tigh and the handful of groupies that came his way instead of Gaius’s hadn’t. It certainly wasn’t something that happened in prison. As for before that, Tom couldn’t remember back that far.
“I promise,” he lied after they’d both come, Felix still breathing hard and clinging to Tom’s shoulders.
It wasn’t that Tom didn’t want to come back. In fact, something about Felix made Tom want to play the white knight for once in his life. He wanted to pick Felix up and carry him out of this place and settle him into a safer, more suitable existence on Colonial One. As much as he would like that new life to include Felix settling into Tom’s bed, too, that wasn’t what it was really about.
It was that Felix was the opposite of a canary in a mineshaft: even living in these circumstances, if Felix of all people had so little left to live for that all he had to cling to were daydreams of the way New Caprica might have been, then the average person in the Fleet had nothing left. Tom had failed his people one too many times. He wasn’t going to fail them again.
Galactica and Colonial One were the key ships. He knew Colonial One and its security detail well enough to handle it on his own, but he’d need to find inside help for Galactica. If he could wrest those two ships from the stranglehold of what remained of the Adama-Roslin administration, the people of the other ships wouldn’t fear throwing their lot in with him.
He knew it would cost him Felix. If Tom didn’t succeed, he’d die, but at least he might die a martyr. If he did succeed…Tom could tell Felix wasn’t as jaded as he pretended to be. Some of his conceptions of right and wrong were so ingrained and unbending that not even despair and disillusionment could change them. Worse yet, Tom knew he’d be responsible for the deaths of many of Felix’s old friends and crewmates, no matter what. Felix could forgive Tom for ordering his own death, but not for that.
Even as Tom dressed and kissed Felix good-bye the next morning, the lie of “I will come back” fresh on his lips, Tom didn’t flinch at the cost to himself or to Felix. Felix was just one of thousands of souls crying out for help and hope and something that looked like a future.
Tom looked back at Felix once more before he closed the door. He was still curled up in bed, clearly exhausted but with a hint of a genuine smile playing at the corners of his lips. He was also blissfully unaware that he’d just started a revolution.
ON TO CHAPTER 6