Alphabet Meme Update
I wrote a few more ficlets for my Alphabet Meme from a while back. I'm re-posting three that were just in comments before, plus three new ones.
A is for Addiction, Cottle, Gaeta, and Tigh
B is for Barfly, Gaeta and Sam; B is also for Babysitting, Hera
C is for Cuddles, Gaeta/Hoshi
D is for Drunk off her ass, Dee
E is for Egghead, Gaius Baltar
F is for Family, Bridge Bunnies
G is for Gospel Truth, Gaeta and Pilot Eight
H is for Hostage, Gaeta/Boomer and Sweet Eight
I is for Isolated, Hoshi
J is for Jacks, Dee
K is for Kindle, Gaeta/Zarek
L is for Labor, Cally, Dee, Ishay, and Athena
M is for Mommy, Tyrol family
N is for Newcomer, Galactica!Felix and Pegasus!Felix
O is for Open, Gaeta/Hoshi
P is for Pride, Gaeta/Baltar
Q is for Quorum, Lee and/or Dee
R is for Relief, Kat and Narcho
S is for Seduction, Gaeta/Hoshi or Gaeta/Baltar
T is for Tourniquet, Gaeta and Helo
U is for Ultimatum, Kat, Bulldog, and Gaeta
V is for Victory, Kendra Shaw or Helena Cain
W is for Whisper, Gaeta/my choice
X is for Xenophobia, Kendra and Athena
Y is for Yell, Gaeta/Hoshi
Z is for Zoo, Head!Six and Baltar
Re-posted Ficlets
Because You're Worth It, Gaeta, Tigh, Cottle, and Ishay in my Picture Perfect 'Verse (PG-13)
Because You're Worth It
Ishay arched an eyebrow at Saul.
“What? Wanting your wife to stop nagging you about it isn’t exactly an odd reason to quit smoking.”
“No, it’s not,” Ishay said. “It’s just that you’re the third person today who’s come in wanting to quit for that reason. Or, you will be by the time I’m done.”
“Huh?” Saul said in response to the last part, but Ishay had already snapped into efficient medic mode.
“Strangely enough, nicotine patches are one of the few things we won’t be running out of any time soon. I suppose with the chances of dying from a Cylon attack so high, few people believe they’ll live long enough to develop lung cancer.” She led him to a curtained-off cubicle. “Wait here. I’ll be back with my third patient, the patches, and some reading material on smoking cessation in a few minutes.”
Tigh stepped inside the cubicle and was surprised to see Gaeta sitting in one of the chairs.
“Good afternoon, Colonel,” Gaeta said, as friendly as he’d ever been. Saul still got along better with Hoshi than he did Gaeta-you just don’t ever quite get over attempted murder, unless you’re Ellen-but they worked together well, and their civility toward one another wasn’t forced anymore.
“What’re you doing here?” Saul asked as he sat down in the chair beside Gaeta. “Ishay implied that Hoshi was making you quit smoking.”
“Yeah,” Gaeta said. “He keeps talking about how with the kids coming soon, we don’t want my habit to be a bad influence on them. He’s absolutely right. It just doesn’t make quitting any easier. What about you, sir?”
Saul rolled his eyes. “Ellen keeps going on about how I managed to kick the habit so easily in my past life, it should be a cinch in this one, too.”
“Ah,” Gaeta said, smiling to himself. They sat in silence for a little while, until Gaeta started up the conversation again. “At first, I tried to quit cold-turkey, no patches, nothing. But then we went to Joe’s yesterday evening to celebrate, and seeing everyone smoking, and the smell-gods I wanted a cigarette so badly.”
Saul nodded, commiserating. “Joe’s is bad. And coming off a long shift in CIC, that’s hard not to light up, too.”
“And after meals, even algae ones.”
“And after sex.”
Gaeta considered that for a moment. “I broke myself of that one, since Louis sort of hated it. But now that you mention it, gods, I know I’m going to want to tonight.”
“Sorry.”
Gaeta shrugged. “You know what’s most cruel about it?”
“The fact that they use sex as a reward for going a day without a smoke, but that reward makes you want to break your promise more’n anything else?”
“Exactly.” Gaeta said.
If someone had told Saul that he’d bond with Lieutenant Gaeta by talking about sex, he would’ve asked how the hell they’d ever gotten into the President’s secret stash of New Caprican Leaf.
“We’re sort of...whipped, aren’t we?” Gaeta said with a smile.
“You complainin’?” Saul said, trying to hold back his own smirk.
They straightened up in their seats when Doc Cottle entered the cubicle. He was in his ubiquitous white coat, grumbling, but there was something…different about him. Ishay followed, carrying a box of nicotine patches and a few brochures.
“Men,” Ishay muttered. “You won’t stop poisoning yourselves for good reasons like taking care of your bodies or not suffocating the rest of us in secondhand smoke, but threaten to cut off sex, and look at you.”
Saul and Gaeta looked at Ishay, then at each other, confused. They didn’t deserve that diatribe, or at least not from her.
Cottle stood to the side with his hands shoved in his lab coat pockets. Ishay looked at him pointedly. “Go on. Sit down.”
Saul and Gaeta turned their looks of incredulity from Ishay to Cottle as he dropped down into the chair beside Gaeta and Ishay handed him a pamphlet as well. Then she took the box to the other side of the cubicle and set to work on dividing the patches into three piles. One was almost twice the size of the others.
“Whoa,” Gaeta said. “If the worlds hadn’t already ended, I’d say this had to be a sign of the apocalypse.”
“Shut up,” Cottle growled. Saul mentally noted not to get sick for the next few months, since Cottle’s already peachy bedside manner was bound to get…interesting while he was in withdrawal.
“Ishay made it sound like there was a…reason for your quitting,” Saul asked quietly, leaning over Gaeta’s shoulder. “Who is it?”
Cottle almost smiled. He tipped his head in Ishay’s direction.
Gaeta’s eyes went wide. “Sign of the apocalypse number two. Make way for the swarms of locusts and rivers flowing with blood.”
Cottle grumbled, “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t speak too soon about the rivers of blood part. First person who pisses me off in this state is likely to see a little blood flowing.”
“Oh, come off it,” Ishay groaned as she thrust a pouch full of patches into Cottle’s hand. She tossed the two smaller pouches to Gaeta and Saul. “You know I’m worth it.”
The Fly, Anders and Gaeta (PG-13)
The Fly
Sam wasn’t really sure why Gaeta had sat down next to him at the bar. Kara was off working with a surveying crew, taxiing them around to some of New Caprica's more notable geographic features in a Raptor, so it was nice to have some company. But what Sam really couldn’t figure out was why Gaeta was so animatedly telling him about his old research projects with President Baltar. He seemed happy enough, so Sam just let him talk.
“So when it became obvious that that genetic test didn’t work, I told Gaius, what if we’re barking up the wrong tree?”
“So Cylon DNA looks just like ours?” Sam said distractedly. There was a fly buzzing around his head. It landed on the rim of his beer glass, and he shooed it away. It flew towards Gaeta, then returned to continue to annoy Sam.
“Yes,” Gaeta said in a tone that Sam knew meant Gaeta thought he’d just explained that quite clearly. “Anyway, I said that the only thing we know about Cylons that is completely different from humans is what Captain Thrace-er, Kara-reported in her debriefing after the Caprica mission. Super-strength.”
Gaeta took a sip of his drink and nodded like he’d just said something very clever. Sam had a feeling Gaeta had had a little to drink before he even came to the bar. He swatted at the fly again.
Gaeta continued, “Of course, we couldn’t use a strength test, because it’s easy enough to fake weakness. But I suggested to Gaius, that if I were a Cylon, able to design myself to be an enhanced man-”
Sam grinned at Gaeta’s poor word choice. The apocalypse hadn’t been so long ago that Sam had forgotten those awful, cheeky, embarrassing male enhancement ads from the wireless. One of those companies had even sponsored the Buccaneers one season. Gods, the jokes Sam had had to put up with in the bars that summer...
It took him a minute, but Gaeta finally got the reference and flushed on cue. “Oh. Yeah. Well, I guess maybe I’d do that, too, but what I meant was-oh dear gods, that’s why Gaius got that funny look on his face when I told him my theory, like he was trying not to...” Felix reflected in horror for a moment, then shook his head. “What I meant was, if I could be super-human, I’d build in super-fast reflexes to complement the super-strength.”
The fly was back again, buzzing next to Sam’s left ear. He figured it would dive for the beer again, so if he just bided his time…
“I said to Gaius, why not formulate some kind of reaction-time test? Surprise people, and maybe they wouldn’t have time to think about what they’re doing and hold back the way they would for a strength test. Maybe something like-”
The fly’s buzzing stopped as abruptly as Gaeta’s talking. Sam stared at his outstretched arm, fist clenched, fly wiggling around inside. Gaeta and Sam eyed each other cagily.
“I played pro Pyramid,” Sam explained, working as hard to convince himself as Gaeta.
“Of course,” Gaeta said. “It wasn’t that great an idea anyway. Not to mention, we hardly need a Cylon detector now, since you and your people from Caprica know what all of them look like.”
Sam smiled, and Gaeta did, too. “Yeah. Just...weirdly ironic, you know?”
“Yeah,” Gaeta said.
Sam let the fly go, and it zoomed away, probably as surprised as he and Gaeta were. They finished their drinks in silence.
Not Where the Story Ends, Hoshi and Nicky in lls_mutant's YFL/ALTLUT/STTSBYF 'Verse (PG)
Not Where the Story Ends
Louis wondered for the hundredth time how the hell he’d gotten roped into being the lifeguard at the stream today. There were so many things that needed to get done. He’d promised Kat he’d help her dig another root cellar, the irrigation ditches were in serious need of maintenance, and Tom needed help re-thatching his roof (though Louis supposed Tom could always stay at his place if it rained, and decided maybe the roof wasn’t quite as high a priority as the others). And yet here he was, stuck sitting in the grass on a hot summer day, sweat rolling down his back as he watched the village children play in the water.
He decided it was Brendan’s fault. He’d been fairly subtle, but Louis was growing more and more certain that Brendan had engineered it so he’d have an unexpected emergency at home so he could beg Louis to watch Nick and the other children for him.
Brendan meant well. He was trying to give him time to relax, and to cheer up. Tom had been trying to do the same thing for the past week and a half, surprising him with supper and asking him to go on walks down by the stream. He felt bad that he’d met so many of Tom’s kind gestures with curtness or disinterest, but he just couldn’t bring himself to enjoy anything like usual.
This time of year was always hard for Louis. It was about this time that he’d lost Felix. Noel, too-enough time had passed that he could acknowledge that pain without it feeling like he was being unfaithful to Felix. Lately, during the nights when Tom wasn’t there, Louis swore he could feel the warm weight of a different body lying next to him.
“Uncle Lou, watch this!” Nick called out. He waved his arms over his head until Louis looked at him. Then he dove under the water, and his feet emerged as he did a handstand. He lost his balance when a little wave hit his knees, and he toppled over with a splash. The blond head popped up above the water again, grinning from ear to ear. Louis clapped and smiled.
“Why don’t you come out here with us?” Nick asked as he swam towards the bank. “You can watch us in the water. That’s what Dad and Kat and Joanne and practically everybody do.”
“I just ate,” Louis lied. Nick flipped to his back and did a perfect backstroke for a few meters, then flipped to his front and bobbed in a breast stroke. That was the one thing about Nick’s upbringing Louis felt no compunctions about taking credit for. Hotdog may have been there for the lessons, but Louis was the one who’d actually taught him how to swim. He felt a small stirring of pride, seeing Nick take to water like a duck.
Nick didn’t come up on the shore. Instead, he caught hold of a strong tree limb that jutted out over the stream and dangled from it, still in the water up almost to his shoulders. “Uncle Lou, you knew my mom, right?”
Louis instantly felt out of his depth. “Yeah. A little.”
Nick did something like a chin-up with the tree limb. “And my other dad, too? You knew him?”
“Uh huh.”
“What were they like?”
“Um...” Louis wracked his brain for things Felix had said about Cally. “Your mom was a really, really good mechanic. She was very kind, but she had a tough side, too. And she loved you very much. Your dad…” When Louis thought about Chief Tyrol anymore, it wasn’t fair, but the only images that came to his mind were imagined ones: him choking Tory Foster, and him standing over Felix as he knelt in the launch tube. “He tried to do what he thought was right. Even going away like he did. Hasn’t your dad told you about them?”
Nick was trying to climb up onto the limb now. He had one arm wrapped around it and was trying to heave himself up and roll onto it at the same time. Louis knew he should probably tell Nick to stop, but he didn’t.
“Dad talks about them all the time,” Nick said. “I’ve heard all the stories again and again and again. I like them a lot. I just want new ones.”
Louis thought of Felix, and Noel, and Jurgen and Helena, and even Dee. They were always in his heart, and he did his best to honor their memories by living a good life. But what he wouldn’t give to come back to the community feast this evening with a new story about how Felix had been grumpy about getting out of bed this morning, or how the kids had good-naturedly tried to drown Noel this afternoon, or even how he and Dee had fought over where to run new irrigation channels.
He looked Nick in the eye. To be a kid and feel the way he did, and to have to feel that way about your mom... Nick had a good life, but gods, Louis's heart ached for him.
Louis sighed. “I think I know another story about your mom, from before your dad met her. I wasn’t there, either, but-has your dad ever mentioned Felix-or Gaeta?”
“Your Felix?” Nicky asked guilelessly.
The tight knot that had been in Louis’s chest for the past couple weeks finally loosened, and though it made him feel like crying, he just sniffed and looked out over the waters. “Yes. Anyway, he told me about how he met your mom. A long, long time ago, on your mom’s first day on Galactica...”
New Ficlets
Domestication, Baltar/Caprica, PG
Domestication
Caprica stared out the window over the basin as she dried the dishes. There were benefits to living with the most intelligent man left in existence, such as Gaius building their home so it had running water, an amenity very few Earthlings could boast. Of course, she knew just as much about plumbing as he did and could have done it alone-she knew more about a great many subjects than Gaius did, but she generally kept that to herself-but it was nice to not be alone anymore.
A beautiful pheasant-like bird strutted through the long grass. Caprica used to enjoy bird-watching, but now she only rolled her eyes, because she knew what would come next. The bird swiveled its head to look behind it, squawked, and picked up speed. As it passed out of sight, Gaius inevitably came into sight from the opposite direction, running half-bent over with his hands outspread.
“Come back here, you little-”
“Gaius,” Caprica said. “Seriously?”
Gaius stood up and put his hands on his hips. “I keep telling you, domesticating animals is key to any burgeoning agrarian society. So, unless you had some live chickens and cattle on your baseship and smuggled them down to the planet without Lee Adama noticing, I would appreciate it if you’d stop ridiculing my attempts to make our existence marginally more civilized.”
Caprica sighed. “Do you have to start with a species that runs so fast, then?”
Gaius looked up at her with sad puppy-dog eyes. “I suppose I could have tried beekeeping first. But I’ve already built such a lovely coop.”
Caprica laughed and set her dishrag aside. “All right, I’ll help. A pea-brained bird shouldn’t be able to out-smart the two most intelligent people in existence, should it?”
Gaius’s face split into a grin.
They spent the rest of the afternoon chasing after the dozen sleek jungle fowl that lived in the brush near the house, ending with three hens but no roosters in the coop and the two of them flopping down beside each other in the tall grass, exhausted and laughing and kissing as the setting sun lit their skin with rich oranges and pinks.
Burgeoning agriculture and civilization and all those things were quite nice, Caprica decided as Gaius ran his thumb across her cheek, but afternoons and evenings like these were what made striving towards them worth it.
Onesies, Dee and Hera, PG
Onesies
“This is ‘onesies.’ Can you say ‘onesies,’ Hera?”
“Unsies.”
“Good.” Dee bounced the ball and scooped up two jacks. “That’s ‘twosies.’”
“Tootsies.”
“No, ‘twosies,’ like ‘two’-close enough.”
“Can I play?” Hera asked.
Dee’s face lit up as she handed Hera the bouncy ball. It had taken her forever to track one down, since of course there hadn’t been one with the jacks she’d found in the sand.
Hera bounced the ball, but it bounced a second and third time and started rolling under her parents’ rack before she even went for the jack. She looked up at Dee, disappointed.
“It’s okay. Try again.”
Hera tried it again, and again, with no better results. “Don’t like jacks,” she said quietly, as if she was afraid she’d make Dee mad.
Dee winced. “It takes some time to get the hang of it.” But Dee didn’t have time. She didn’t want time. She’d known it since she found the jacks and washed them off in the dead ocean.
An idea came to Dee. “Why don’t we play team jacks? You bounce the ball and catch it, and I’ll go for the jacks. How does that sound?”
Hera nodded. She bounced the ball, Dee grabbed a jack, Hera caught the ball again, and they both recited “onesies.” They repeated it all the way up to “eightsies,” when Hera missed the ball. Dee pretended to have only scooped up seven jacks, but they were both laughing.
They were still laughing when Athena opened the hatch. “Did Aunt Dee teach you a new game, Hera?” Hera nodded and smiled. “Give Aunt Dee her game back, and maybe she’ll bring it so you can play with it next time, okay?”
Dee almost told Hera to keep it, but she couldn’t quite give them up, not yet. Hera helped Dee scoop up the jacks, and Dee held them in her fist, drawn close to her heart.
As Dee left, she said to Athena in a low voice, “The jacks are for Hera’s birthday. Be sure to tell Lee that I was saving them for her birthday.”
Athena’s brow furrowed, but Dee slipped past her to the hatch. Dee heard her say, “That’s very nice of you, but why would I tell Lee-”
Dee closed the hatch before she had to answer.
Terms of Endearment, Gaeta/Hoshi, PG-13
Terms of Endearment
Felix distantly felt Louis kiss his cheek and smooth his hand across his ribs as he slowly came down from…gods, Felix didn’t know where he’d been. Somewhere very, very high that he definitely wouldn’t mind visiting again.
Felix had had quite a few wow moments that weekend. He’d figured he’d get a few when Louis had first swung them three days of concurrent R&R and a private room on the Space Park. Even though they’d come with the intent of taking advantage of the ship’s theatre, restaurant, and marketplace, they’d ended up only spending an hour at the bar when they first arrived, then racking up a spectacular room service bill. There were just too many tempting ways to take advantage of a private room with a private shower, a private desk and chair, private walls, and of course, a private queen-sized bed with nice sheets and a headboard (gods, what Felix wouldn’t give to have a headboard on his rack after that one).
But none of those times had been as body-and-mind shattering as this one. The position hadn’t been anything special or crazy, just Felix on his back with his legs hooked over Louis’s shoulders. The difference was how Louis had traced his finger across Felix’s lower lip, looked at him with an expression mixing sincere desire and shyness born of reverence, and said, “This time, I want to hear you.”
Felix hadn’t even known he’d been holding back until that moment, but it made sense now. He realized all his past sexual relationships had an overriding element of covertness to them: teenage fumblings in the very back row of movie theatres, silent fraks in cramped battlestar bunks, surreptitious blowjobs and couplings with Gaius that could have been overheard by half the government staff if Felix hadn’t been so adept at being discreet. He’d never had the chance to simply and completely let go before.
He was about to tell Louis all this when he turned his head and saw Louis biting back laughter.
“What? Wasn’t I any good?” Felix asked, genuinely concerned.
“You were amazing, baby,” Louis reassured, though the laughter didn’t dissipate. “It’s just...you don’t even remember what you said, do you?”
Felix thought for a moment. He was a little drunk, and frankly, he'd been much more interested in what Louis had been doing to pay attention to what he himself had been babbling between moans. “What’d I say?”
“For one, I have never heard you swear that much and that loud before.”
“Yeah?”
Louis nodded. “I think the neighbors may have pounded on the wall at one point.” Felix blushed and turned away, but Louis caught his chin and gently turned him back. “It’s fine, Felix. You were just enjoying yourself. The interesting part, though, is after that impressive string of profanity, when you came, you called me-”
“Oh my gods, I didn’t call out the wrong name, did I?”
Louis grinned. “Not unless you used to date someone named ‘Pookie.’”
“I-what? Oh dear gods.” Felix blushed even more fiercely.
“Felix, don’t be embarrassed. I just thought it was funny. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.” He cupped Felix’s cheek again. “It doesn’t matter. You can call me anything from stud-muffin to snookie-bear, for as long as I can call you mine.”
Even more than being able to yell out loud if he felt like it, that right there was what made Felix feel so comfortable and free with Louis. Felix smiled and added, “Maybe we should stick to ‘baby’ and ‘honey’ in public, though. I'd hate to think of what the pilots could do with something like ‘Pookie.’”
Louis kissed him. “Sounds good. I don’t know about you, but I’m about to crash. Shall we call it a night?”
“All right,” Felix said, pulling up the sheets and switching off the light. He tried not to giggle as he said, “Good night, snuggle-bunny.”
Louis snorted. “Good night, tootsie-pie.”
Can you tell I'm procrastinating this weekend?
A is for Addiction, Cottle, Gaeta, and Tigh
B is for Barfly, Gaeta and Sam; B is also for Babysitting, Hera
C is for Cuddles, Gaeta/Hoshi
D is for Drunk off her ass, Dee
E is for Egghead, Gaius Baltar
F is for Family, Bridge Bunnies
G is for Gospel Truth, Gaeta and Pilot Eight
H is for Hostage, Gaeta/Boomer and Sweet Eight
I is for Isolated, Hoshi
J is for Jacks, Dee
K is for Kindle, Gaeta/Zarek
L is for Labor, Cally, Dee, Ishay, and Athena
M is for Mommy, Tyrol family
N is for Newcomer, Galactica!Felix and Pegasus!Felix
O is for Open, Gaeta/Hoshi
P is for Pride, Gaeta/Baltar
Q is for Quorum, Lee and/or Dee
R is for Relief, Kat and Narcho
S is for Seduction, Gaeta/Hoshi or Gaeta/Baltar
T is for Tourniquet, Gaeta and Helo
U is for Ultimatum, Kat, Bulldog, and Gaeta
V is for Victory, Kendra Shaw or Helena Cain
W is for Whisper, Gaeta/my choice
X is for Xenophobia, Kendra and Athena
Y is for Yell, Gaeta/Hoshi
Z is for Zoo, Head!Six and Baltar
Re-posted Ficlets
Because You're Worth It, Gaeta, Tigh, Cottle, and Ishay in my Picture Perfect 'Verse (PG-13)
Because You're Worth It
Ishay arched an eyebrow at Saul.
“What? Wanting your wife to stop nagging you about it isn’t exactly an odd reason to quit smoking.”
“No, it’s not,” Ishay said. “It’s just that you’re the third person today who’s come in wanting to quit for that reason. Or, you will be by the time I’m done.”
“Huh?” Saul said in response to the last part, but Ishay had already snapped into efficient medic mode.
“Strangely enough, nicotine patches are one of the few things we won’t be running out of any time soon. I suppose with the chances of dying from a Cylon attack so high, few people believe they’ll live long enough to develop lung cancer.” She led him to a curtained-off cubicle. “Wait here. I’ll be back with my third patient, the patches, and some reading material on smoking cessation in a few minutes.”
Tigh stepped inside the cubicle and was surprised to see Gaeta sitting in one of the chairs.
“Good afternoon, Colonel,” Gaeta said, as friendly as he’d ever been. Saul still got along better with Hoshi than he did Gaeta-you just don’t ever quite get over attempted murder, unless you’re Ellen-but they worked together well, and their civility toward one another wasn’t forced anymore.
“What’re you doing here?” Saul asked as he sat down in the chair beside Gaeta. “Ishay implied that Hoshi was making you quit smoking.”
“Yeah,” Gaeta said. “He keeps talking about how with the kids coming soon, we don’t want my habit to be a bad influence on them. He’s absolutely right. It just doesn’t make quitting any easier. What about you, sir?”
Saul rolled his eyes. “Ellen keeps going on about how I managed to kick the habit so easily in my past life, it should be a cinch in this one, too.”
“Ah,” Gaeta said, smiling to himself. They sat in silence for a little while, until Gaeta started up the conversation again. “At first, I tried to quit cold-turkey, no patches, nothing. But then we went to Joe’s yesterday evening to celebrate, and seeing everyone smoking, and the smell-gods I wanted a cigarette so badly.”
Saul nodded, commiserating. “Joe’s is bad. And coming off a long shift in CIC, that’s hard not to light up, too.”
“And after meals, even algae ones.”
“And after sex.”
Gaeta considered that for a moment. “I broke myself of that one, since Louis sort of hated it. But now that you mention it, gods, I know I’m going to want to tonight.”
“Sorry.”
Gaeta shrugged. “You know what’s most cruel about it?”
“The fact that they use sex as a reward for going a day without a smoke, but that reward makes you want to break your promise more’n anything else?”
“Exactly.” Gaeta said.
If someone had told Saul that he’d bond with Lieutenant Gaeta by talking about sex, he would’ve asked how the hell they’d ever gotten into the President’s secret stash of New Caprican Leaf.
“We’re sort of...whipped, aren’t we?” Gaeta said with a smile.
“You complainin’?” Saul said, trying to hold back his own smirk.
They straightened up in their seats when Doc Cottle entered the cubicle. He was in his ubiquitous white coat, grumbling, but there was something…different about him. Ishay followed, carrying a box of nicotine patches and a few brochures.
“Men,” Ishay muttered. “You won’t stop poisoning yourselves for good reasons like taking care of your bodies or not suffocating the rest of us in secondhand smoke, but threaten to cut off sex, and look at you.”
Saul and Gaeta looked at Ishay, then at each other, confused. They didn’t deserve that diatribe, or at least not from her.
Cottle stood to the side with his hands shoved in his lab coat pockets. Ishay looked at him pointedly. “Go on. Sit down.”
Saul and Gaeta turned their looks of incredulity from Ishay to Cottle as he dropped down into the chair beside Gaeta and Ishay handed him a pamphlet as well. Then she took the box to the other side of the cubicle and set to work on dividing the patches into three piles. One was almost twice the size of the others.
“Whoa,” Gaeta said. “If the worlds hadn’t already ended, I’d say this had to be a sign of the apocalypse.”
“Shut up,” Cottle growled. Saul mentally noted not to get sick for the next few months, since Cottle’s already peachy bedside manner was bound to get…interesting while he was in withdrawal.
“Ishay made it sound like there was a…reason for your quitting,” Saul asked quietly, leaning over Gaeta’s shoulder. “Who is it?”
Cottle almost smiled. He tipped his head in Ishay’s direction.
Gaeta’s eyes went wide. “Sign of the apocalypse number two. Make way for the swarms of locusts and rivers flowing with blood.”
Cottle grumbled, “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t speak too soon about the rivers of blood part. First person who pisses me off in this state is likely to see a little blood flowing.”
“Oh, come off it,” Ishay groaned as she thrust a pouch full of patches into Cottle’s hand. She tossed the two smaller pouches to Gaeta and Saul. “You know I’m worth it.”
The Fly, Anders and Gaeta (PG-13)
The Fly
Sam wasn’t really sure why Gaeta had sat down next to him at the bar. Kara was off working with a surveying crew, taxiing them around to some of New Caprica's more notable geographic features in a Raptor, so it was nice to have some company. But what Sam really couldn’t figure out was why Gaeta was so animatedly telling him about his old research projects with President Baltar. He seemed happy enough, so Sam just let him talk.
“So when it became obvious that that genetic test didn’t work, I told Gaius, what if we’re barking up the wrong tree?”
“So Cylon DNA looks just like ours?” Sam said distractedly. There was a fly buzzing around his head. It landed on the rim of his beer glass, and he shooed it away. It flew towards Gaeta, then returned to continue to annoy Sam.
“Yes,” Gaeta said in a tone that Sam knew meant Gaeta thought he’d just explained that quite clearly. “Anyway, I said that the only thing we know about Cylons that is completely different from humans is what Captain Thrace-er, Kara-reported in her debriefing after the Caprica mission. Super-strength.”
Gaeta took a sip of his drink and nodded like he’d just said something very clever. Sam had a feeling Gaeta had had a little to drink before he even came to the bar. He swatted at the fly again.
Gaeta continued, “Of course, we couldn’t use a strength test, because it’s easy enough to fake weakness. But I suggested to Gaius, that if I were a Cylon, able to design myself to be an enhanced man-”
Sam grinned at Gaeta’s poor word choice. The apocalypse hadn’t been so long ago that Sam had forgotten those awful, cheeky, embarrassing male enhancement ads from the wireless. One of those companies had even sponsored the Buccaneers one season. Gods, the jokes Sam had had to put up with in the bars that summer...
It took him a minute, but Gaeta finally got the reference and flushed on cue. “Oh. Yeah. Well, I guess maybe I’d do that, too, but what I meant was-oh dear gods, that’s why Gaius got that funny look on his face when I told him my theory, like he was trying not to...” Felix reflected in horror for a moment, then shook his head. “What I meant was, if I could be super-human, I’d build in super-fast reflexes to complement the super-strength.”
The fly was back again, buzzing next to Sam’s left ear. He figured it would dive for the beer again, so if he just bided his time…
“I said to Gaius, why not formulate some kind of reaction-time test? Surprise people, and maybe they wouldn’t have time to think about what they’re doing and hold back the way they would for a strength test. Maybe something like-”
The fly’s buzzing stopped as abruptly as Gaeta’s talking. Sam stared at his outstretched arm, fist clenched, fly wiggling around inside. Gaeta and Sam eyed each other cagily.
“I played pro Pyramid,” Sam explained, working as hard to convince himself as Gaeta.
“Of course,” Gaeta said. “It wasn’t that great an idea anyway. Not to mention, we hardly need a Cylon detector now, since you and your people from Caprica know what all of them look like.”
Sam smiled, and Gaeta did, too. “Yeah. Just...weirdly ironic, you know?”
“Yeah,” Gaeta said.
Sam let the fly go, and it zoomed away, probably as surprised as he and Gaeta were. They finished their drinks in silence.
Not Where the Story Ends, Hoshi and Nicky in lls_mutant's YFL/ALTLUT/STTSBYF 'Verse (PG)
Not Where the Story Ends
Louis wondered for the hundredth time how the hell he’d gotten roped into being the lifeguard at the stream today. There were so many things that needed to get done. He’d promised Kat he’d help her dig another root cellar, the irrigation ditches were in serious need of maintenance, and Tom needed help re-thatching his roof (though Louis supposed Tom could always stay at his place if it rained, and decided maybe the roof wasn’t quite as high a priority as the others). And yet here he was, stuck sitting in the grass on a hot summer day, sweat rolling down his back as he watched the village children play in the water.
He decided it was Brendan’s fault. He’d been fairly subtle, but Louis was growing more and more certain that Brendan had engineered it so he’d have an unexpected emergency at home so he could beg Louis to watch Nick and the other children for him.
Brendan meant well. He was trying to give him time to relax, and to cheer up. Tom had been trying to do the same thing for the past week and a half, surprising him with supper and asking him to go on walks down by the stream. He felt bad that he’d met so many of Tom’s kind gestures with curtness or disinterest, but he just couldn’t bring himself to enjoy anything like usual.
This time of year was always hard for Louis. It was about this time that he’d lost Felix. Noel, too-enough time had passed that he could acknowledge that pain without it feeling like he was being unfaithful to Felix. Lately, during the nights when Tom wasn’t there, Louis swore he could feel the warm weight of a different body lying next to him.
“Uncle Lou, watch this!” Nick called out. He waved his arms over his head until Louis looked at him. Then he dove under the water, and his feet emerged as he did a handstand. He lost his balance when a little wave hit his knees, and he toppled over with a splash. The blond head popped up above the water again, grinning from ear to ear. Louis clapped and smiled.
“Why don’t you come out here with us?” Nick asked as he swam towards the bank. “You can watch us in the water. That’s what Dad and Kat and Joanne and practically everybody do.”
“I just ate,” Louis lied. Nick flipped to his back and did a perfect backstroke for a few meters, then flipped to his front and bobbed in a breast stroke. That was the one thing about Nick’s upbringing Louis felt no compunctions about taking credit for. Hotdog may have been there for the lessons, but Louis was the one who’d actually taught him how to swim. He felt a small stirring of pride, seeing Nick take to water like a duck.
Nick didn’t come up on the shore. Instead, he caught hold of a strong tree limb that jutted out over the stream and dangled from it, still in the water up almost to his shoulders. “Uncle Lou, you knew my mom, right?”
Louis instantly felt out of his depth. “Yeah. A little.”
Nick did something like a chin-up with the tree limb. “And my other dad, too? You knew him?”
“Uh huh.”
“What were they like?”
“Um...” Louis wracked his brain for things Felix had said about Cally. “Your mom was a really, really good mechanic. She was very kind, but she had a tough side, too. And she loved you very much. Your dad…” When Louis thought about Chief Tyrol anymore, it wasn’t fair, but the only images that came to his mind were imagined ones: him choking Tory Foster, and him standing over Felix as he knelt in the launch tube. “He tried to do what he thought was right. Even going away like he did. Hasn’t your dad told you about them?”
Nick was trying to climb up onto the limb now. He had one arm wrapped around it and was trying to heave himself up and roll onto it at the same time. Louis knew he should probably tell Nick to stop, but he didn’t.
“Dad talks about them all the time,” Nick said. “I’ve heard all the stories again and again and again. I like them a lot. I just want new ones.”
Louis thought of Felix, and Noel, and Jurgen and Helena, and even Dee. They were always in his heart, and he did his best to honor their memories by living a good life. But what he wouldn’t give to come back to the community feast this evening with a new story about how Felix had been grumpy about getting out of bed this morning, or how the kids had good-naturedly tried to drown Noel this afternoon, or even how he and Dee had fought over where to run new irrigation channels.
He looked Nick in the eye. To be a kid and feel the way he did, and to have to feel that way about your mom... Nick had a good life, but gods, Louis's heart ached for him.
Louis sighed. “I think I know another story about your mom, from before your dad met her. I wasn’t there, either, but-has your dad ever mentioned Felix-or Gaeta?”
“Your Felix?” Nicky asked guilelessly.
The tight knot that had been in Louis’s chest for the past couple weeks finally loosened, and though it made him feel like crying, he just sniffed and looked out over the waters. “Yes. Anyway, he told me about how he met your mom. A long, long time ago, on your mom’s first day on Galactica...”
New Ficlets
Domestication, Baltar/Caprica, PG
Domestication
Caprica stared out the window over the basin as she dried the dishes. There were benefits to living with the most intelligent man left in existence, such as Gaius building their home so it had running water, an amenity very few Earthlings could boast. Of course, she knew just as much about plumbing as he did and could have done it alone-she knew more about a great many subjects than Gaius did, but she generally kept that to herself-but it was nice to not be alone anymore.
A beautiful pheasant-like bird strutted through the long grass. Caprica used to enjoy bird-watching, but now she only rolled her eyes, because she knew what would come next. The bird swiveled its head to look behind it, squawked, and picked up speed. As it passed out of sight, Gaius inevitably came into sight from the opposite direction, running half-bent over with his hands outspread.
“Come back here, you little-”
“Gaius,” Caprica said. “Seriously?”
Gaius stood up and put his hands on his hips. “I keep telling you, domesticating animals is key to any burgeoning agrarian society. So, unless you had some live chickens and cattle on your baseship and smuggled them down to the planet without Lee Adama noticing, I would appreciate it if you’d stop ridiculing my attempts to make our existence marginally more civilized.”
Caprica sighed. “Do you have to start with a species that runs so fast, then?”
Gaius looked up at her with sad puppy-dog eyes. “I suppose I could have tried beekeeping first. But I’ve already built such a lovely coop.”
Caprica laughed and set her dishrag aside. “All right, I’ll help. A pea-brained bird shouldn’t be able to out-smart the two most intelligent people in existence, should it?”
Gaius’s face split into a grin.
They spent the rest of the afternoon chasing after the dozen sleek jungle fowl that lived in the brush near the house, ending with three hens but no roosters in the coop and the two of them flopping down beside each other in the tall grass, exhausted and laughing and kissing as the setting sun lit their skin with rich oranges and pinks.
Burgeoning agriculture and civilization and all those things were quite nice, Caprica decided as Gaius ran his thumb across her cheek, but afternoons and evenings like these were what made striving towards them worth it.
Onesies, Dee and Hera, PG
Onesies
“This is ‘onesies.’ Can you say ‘onesies,’ Hera?”
“Unsies.”
“Good.” Dee bounced the ball and scooped up two jacks. “That’s ‘twosies.’”
“Tootsies.”
“No, ‘twosies,’ like ‘two’-close enough.”
“Can I play?” Hera asked.
Dee’s face lit up as she handed Hera the bouncy ball. It had taken her forever to track one down, since of course there hadn’t been one with the jacks she’d found in the sand.
Hera bounced the ball, but it bounced a second and third time and started rolling under her parents’ rack before she even went for the jack. She looked up at Dee, disappointed.
“It’s okay. Try again.”
Hera tried it again, and again, with no better results. “Don’t like jacks,” she said quietly, as if she was afraid she’d make Dee mad.
Dee winced. “It takes some time to get the hang of it.” But Dee didn’t have time. She didn’t want time. She’d known it since she found the jacks and washed them off in the dead ocean.
An idea came to Dee. “Why don’t we play team jacks? You bounce the ball and catch it, and I’ll go for the jacks. How does that sound?”
Hera nodded. She bounced the ball, Dee grabbed a jack, Hera caught the ball again, and they both recited “onesies.” They repeated it all the way up to “eightsies,” when Hera missed the ball. Dee pretended to have only scooped up seven jacks, but they were both laughing.
They were still laughing when Athena opened the hatch. “Did Aunt Dee teach you a new game, Hera?” Hera nodded and smiled. “Give Aunt Dee her game back, and maybe she’ll bring it so you can play with it next time, okay?”
Dee almost told Hera to keep it, but she couldn’t quite give them up, not yet. Hera helped Dee scoop up the jacks, and Dee held them in her fist, drawn close to her heart.
As Dee left, she said to Athena in a low voice, “The jacks are for Hera’s birthday. Be sure to tell Lee that I was saving them for her birthday.”
Athena’s brow furrowed, but Dee slipped past her to the hatch. Dee heard her say, “That’s very nice of you, but why would I tell Lee-”
Dee closed the hatch before she had to answer.
Terms of Endearment, Gaeta/Hoshi, PG-13
Terms of Endearment
Felix distantly felt Louis kiss his cheek and smooth his hand across his ribs as he slowly came down from…gods, Felix didn’t know where he’d been. Somewhere very, very high that he definitely wouldn’t mind visiting again.
Felix had had quite a few wow moments that weekend. He’d figured he’d get a few when Louis had first swung them three days of concurrent R&R and a private room on the Space Park. Even though they’d come with the intent of taking advantage of the ship’s theatre, restaurant, and marketplace, they’d ended up only spending an hour at the bar when they first arrived, then racking up a spectacular room service bill. There were just too many tempting ways to take advantage of a private room with a private shower, a private desk and chair, private walls, and of course, a private queen-sized bed with nice sheets and a headboard (gods, what Felix wouldn’t give to have a headboard on his rack after that one).
But none of those times had been as body-and-mind shattering as this one. The position hadn’t been anything special or crazy, just Felix on his back with his legs hooked over Louis’s shoulders. The difference was how Louis had traced his finger across Felix’s lower lip, looked at him with an expression mixing sincere desire and shyness born of reverence, and said, “This time, I want to hear you.”
Felix hadn’t even known he’d been holding back until that moment, but it made sense now. He realized all his past sexual relationships had an overriding element of covertness to them: teenage fumblings in the very back row of movie theatres, silent fraks in cramped battlestar bunks, surreptitious blowjobs and couplings with Gaius that could have been overheard by half the government staff if Felix hadn’t been so adept at being discreet. He’d never had the chance to simply and completely let go before.
He was about to tell Louis all this when he turned his head and saw Louis biting back laughter.
“What? Wasn’t I any good?” Felix asked, genuinely concerned.
“You were amazing, baby,” Louis reassured, though the laughter didn’t dissipate. “It’s just...you don’t even remember what you said, do you?”
Felix thought for a moment. He was a little drunk, and frankly, he'd been much more interested in what Louis had been doing to pay attention to what he himself had been babbling between moans. “What’d I say?”
“For one, I have never heard you swear that much and that loud before.”
“Yeah?”
Louis nodded. “I think the neighbors may have pounded on the wall at one point.” Felix blushed and turned away, but Louis caught his chin and gently turned him back. “It’s fine, Felix. You were just enjoying yourself. The interesting part, though, is after that impressive string of profanity, when you came, you called me-”
“Oh my gods, I didn’t call out the wrong name, did I?”
Louis grinned. “Not unless you used to date someone named ‘Pookie.’”
“I-what? Oh dear gods.” Felix blushed even more fiercely.
“Felix, don’t be embarrassed. I just thought it was funny. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.” He cupped Felix’s cheek again. “It doesn’t matter. You can call me anything from stud-muffin to snookie-bear, for as long as I can call you mine.”
Even more than being able to yell out loud if he felt like it, that right there was what made Felix feel so comfortable and free with Louis. Felix smiled and added, “Maybe we should stick to ‘baby’ and ‘honey’ in public, though. I'd hate to think of what the pilots could do with something like ‘Pookie.’”
Louis kissed him. “Sounds good. I don’t know about you, but I’m about to crash. Shall we call it a night?”
“All right,” Felix said, pulling up the sheets and switching off the light. He tried not to giggle as he said, “Good night, snuggle-bunny.”
Louis snorted. “Good night, tootsie-pie.”
Can you tell I'm procrastinating this weekend?