BSG FIC: Five Times He Didn't Say "I Love You"
Titles: Five Times Hoshi Didn't Say "I Love You", Four of Which He Regretted, and Five Times Gaeta Didn't Say "I Love You", but Meant To
Author: lls_mutant
Rating: Maybe PG-13- there's sex but nothing explicit
Pairing: Tigh/Baltar. Seriously, I think the titles make it pretty obvious.
Spoilers: Through 4x10 and Webisode 2
Notes: These are two companion pieces, meant to go together. The first was written for ingrid_m when she grabbed me the screencap for my spiffy new icon. The second was written just because it had to be.
Five Times Hoshi Didn't Say "I Love You", Four of Which He Regretted.
The mood was rather electric in the Fleet, Louis could feel it even in the privacy of the racks. Beside him, under him, wedged next to him, Felix was slowly catching his breath.
"You all right?" Louis asked, grinning and brushing one of the curls away.
"Yeah." Felix smiled. "Just been a while."
A while, and something more. Baltar's acquittal had the entire Fleet charged, and although Louis didn't know the whole story, he suspected Felix was feeling it more than most. He ran his hand over Felix's cheek again, and almost opened his mouth to say the words that had been on his mind for a while now.
But before he could, Felix just chuckled. "Thank you," he said. He turned over slightly, snuggling himself up against Louis and pulling Louis's arm around his waist. "I needed that," he muttered, and closed his eyes.
Louis closed his mouth and decided just to focus on the moment. No reason to say the words too soon; Felix would probably end up thinking he was some crazy stalker type and he'd end up chasing him away.
That was the last thing he wanted.
***
"You're going for how long?" Louis asked incredulously.
"Three months at the most," Felix scowled. "With Starbuck."
Louis groaned. "This is crazy."
"You're telling me? The last thing I wanted was… and just when…" he looked up at Louis, flushed, and looked down again.
"Just when what?" Louis prompted.
"Well, we've been spending a lot of time together in the past few months," Felix said, trying to look like he wasn't muttering and ending up somewhat dorky, which Louis found adorable, "and then there was the whole thing that started the night of the trial, and I really… I really…"
"Yeah, I really… too," Louis agreed. He touched Felix's cheek. "Don't worry," he said. "We can pick up where we left off."
Felix's eyes widened in surprise. "It will be three months," he said.
Louis shrugged. "I know."
The smile he got for that was worth just about any price he could pay. He was about to say it when Felix leaned in and kissed him.
"Thank you," he said, gratitude overwhelming his voice. "I will be back."
"I know you will," Louis said. "Just come back in one piece."
Felix left the next morning, and the words had never been spoken. Louis really wished he'd found the courage to say them, but at least he suspected Felix knew.
***
"One dead, one wounded," Helo's voice said over the comm unit, crackly with static.
"Who?" Adama demanded.
"Sergeant Mathias is dead," Helo clarified, "Gaeta's wounded."
Louis's heart careened into his throat, but he took several deep breaths and the CIC righted itself. "Badly?" he heard Adama say.
"You'd better get a Raptor to the Demetrius quickly," was Helo's answer.
Louis rose up, ready to run down, but Tigh glanced at him and shook his head. Right. Duty. And with this Cylon baseship right there, watching for Cylons was… well, not more important, but yes, more important. And the worst was that Felix would understand.
Still, he really wished he could be down there right now, especially when Felix might be- he shook his head and trained his eyes back on the console.
Duty first. Love second. That was the way it had to be.
***
It was late. Felix was asleep, fitful and gray. "Don't wake him," Cottle cautioned him, gruffly but with an underlying kindness. "Sleep is the best thing for him right now."
Louis nodded. He sat down beside the bed, hands shaking. He reached out and touched Felix's hand. It was cold. Too cold. But the heart monitor beeped a steady, reassuring rhythm.
He had almost fallen asleep when he heard Felix say, "hey."
"Hey yourself." Louis reached out and touched his hand. "How are you?"
Felix opened his mouth to respond, and Louis knew if it had been anyone else asking there would have been a sarcastic rejoinder. But instead, there was silence, and Felix closed his eyes.
Louis leaned forward, drawing him into an embrace. It was awkward, tentative, and anything but romantic- Felix desperately needed a bath, and Louis couldn't quite figure out how to nestle him into his arms. But it was long and it was needed, for both of them.
I love you, Louis wanted to say. This doesn't matter, I still love you, I will still love you, and you'll always have me. But somehow, he knew that the words weren't what Felix needed, but the silence was.
So he bit his tongue and waited.
***
"We have arrived at Earth."
The words were so electric, so jarring. It had set off a night of celebration, a night of light and joy and life. They'd joined the party for as long as Felix could stand it, and then when he said he was tired, they'd both retreated to the racks.
"You should go," Felix said, but without any real conviction.
"I'm right where I want to be," Louis told him, with all the conviction in the world.
Felix smiled. "You're too good to me," he said, leaning in and kissing Louis gently.
"I know." He paused, and then opened his mouth to try to say it, because what better night than tonight? But before he could, Felix's mouth was on his.
"I'm glad you came back with me," he murmured, and kissed him- hard.
Any words, any thoughts flew away, because it had been three frakking months, and Louis wanted this more than anything. And by the time words became relevant again, there was motion outside their curtain, and Felix was almost dozing in his arms. Not how he'd pictured it.
There will be other chances, Louis told himself as he closed his eyes. Lots of other chances.
Five Times Gaeta Didn't Say "I Love You", but Meant To
Joe's was full of smoke. Felix hated that, despite the fact he was contributing to it himself more than he probably should.
"Nine ball, corner pocket," Hoshi said.
Felix leaned against his pool cue, trying to be subtle as he watched Hoshi lean over. Judging by Hot Dog's smirk he was failing miserably, but he ignored it. Hoshi might not pull the eye at first, but he really had a nice ass.
"Your shot," Hot Dog said to Felix, waggling his eyebrows.
Felix rolled his eyes. "Fifteen in the side," he said. When Louis turned away, Felix cocked his head meaningfully at Hot Dog. Get lost after this game was the unspoken message.
The gods must have been listening, because Hot Dog got it. He sunk the four, grinned at them both, and then stated that he was going to go impress the hot blonde over by the bar with his pool skills.
"I'd laugh at him," Hoshi said, "but he just kicked both our asses."
"I know." Now that they were alone, Felix's mouth dried up completely. "Do you want another drink?" he asked. "I'll buy."
Hoshi blinked and smiled. "Sure," he said. "Thanks."
A few drinks later, and Felix still couldn't get up the guts to say what he wanted to say. I want you. Frak me. Come back to my rack and stay. But he did at least learn that Hoshi's first name was Louis, and that there was at least the potential he might be interested. Maybe tomorrow.
And then tomorrow came, and with it came Baltar, and Felix's whole world was turned upside down again.
***
The clock said they had an hour before shift. Felix scrubbed at his face and pulled away from Louis, hot and sweaty in the confines of the rack. He was hung over, he was miserable, and he actually regretted this. Not because of who his partner was, but because he would have liked his first time with Louis to be something besides a drunken way to forget the trial and everything that went with it.
But he wasn't drunk now, and the anger was a lot more distant. He pushed back the covers, smiled, and decided that Louis deserved a better wakeup call than revelry or an alarm going off. He crept down the bed and began.
It didn't take long for Louis to come awake, and it didn't take long after that for him to come, arching his back and tangling his hands in Felix's hair. "Good morning," Felix said with a smile, wiping his mouth with his forearm.
"That it is," Louis agreed breathlessly.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry," Felix began.
"Sorry?"
"About last night. Not that it happened," he covered hastily, "but that it happened that way."
"It happened fine as far as I was concerned."
Felix shook his head. "It was better this morning," he insisted.
"For me, maybe," Louis said, smiling. Felix couldn't figure out if he really wasn't getting it or if he was just pretending. There was something about the way he was acting that made him suspect the latter. But then Louis wrapped his fingers around Felix's biceps and flipped him onto his back, and said, "Allow me to return the favor."
He did, because in the morning it was about them, not about Gaius Frakking Baltar. And when Louis smiled up at him, Felix touched his cheek and smiled back. The words occurred to him then, but they didn't come to his lips, because he wasn't sure if he meant them or not.
***
He couldn't send the letters, of course, but he wrote them anyway. It served two purposes; it helped him remember the days, and it was like having Louis here to talk to.
"Writing a novel?" Helo asked, sitting down across from him.
Felix flashed a grin. "You got it," he said. "A riveting tale of jump coordinates and FTL drives."
"Future best seller."
"Great Picon novel."
Helo grinned. "Can I read it?"
"Over my dead body."
Of course, on a ship with nothing else to do, those words were a challenge, not a threat. Helo moved fast- faster than Felix realized he could move- and snatched the papers away.
"Come and get them," he taunted, dangling them above Felix's head.
"Give them back, you frakker!" Felix shouted, half angry and half laughing as Helo jumped up in the table. He jumped up on a chair and lunged for the letters, overbalancing.
"So," Helo shouted, leaping from one table to another, "shall we read Mr. Gaeta's fascinating new work?" The others in the room began to laugh and cheer him on. "I find myself thinking of you often," he said, placing a hand over his heart. "Probably not the most flattering thing on a sewer ship, but it's true. I miss you. Why, Felix, this isn't a novel- this is a letter."
"How are you going to send it, Gaeta?" Pike demanded. "Put it in a bottle and space it?"
"Very funny," Felix said. Fortunately, Athena walked in at that moment and that distracted Helo enough that Felix could snatch the letters back.
"I'm sorry," Helo told him later. "I didn't realize it was something private."
Felix shrugged. "No harm done."
"I saw the name, you know. I didn't know you and Hoshi were together."
"Yeah, well, you know. We're keeping it quiet until we know what’s going on for sure."
Helo nodded. "I understand." He looked at the letters and grinned a little. "Do you love him?"
"Are you twelve?" Felix demanded. Helo chuckled and backed off.
He did, or at least, he was pretty sure he did. But he wasn't going to tell Helo before he told Louis himself.
***
The leg was gone. The pain wrung him dry, not only physically but constricting his soul. Half a man, that's all he could think. And this was in absolutely no way fair.
The morpha kept him on a cloud, when the pain didn't scream too loudly, anyway. A floating, lovely cloud where nothing could touch him, where he felt nothing. It didn't last nearly long enough and he was jerked back into grim, agonizing reality, but when it was there it was good.
Louis came, of course. He'd known he'd be there when he could, when he wasn't working. And yet, even after three months apart, it felt strange. Like there was a wall between them, a thick glass wall where they could see each other but couldn't quite touch. He told himself it was the morpha but he knew it was the leg. They both knew it.
They should cry together; grieve together. But Felix couldn't bring himself to do that, because to do it would be to admit his leg was gone and life was never going to be the same again. He could do that on an intellectual level, but deeper, down in his core….
And yet, despite the fact he couldn't let him in, Louis still came. Patiently. Lovingly. Openly.
It was a gift- a gift he didn't deserve and didn't dare hope for, but a gift all the same. He desperately hoped one day he'd be able to return it.
***
"You should go," Felix told Louis, meaning the parties. But there was no real conviction in his voice, and he wasn't surprised when Louis shook his head.
"I'm right where I want to be."
The thing was, he knew Louis wasn't expecting anything. It was too soon, in theory. They both knew he'd undergone extreme physical trauma. But Felix was terrified. Terrified that if he didn't do something, that glass wall would be between them forever, and he'd lose the one thing he had left to treasure.
"You're too good to me," he said, teasing Louis's mouth.
"I know," Louis began, but Felix kissed him, hard.
It was gentle and slow, cautious and considerate. And yet it was still painful. But Felix turned his face away and didn't let Louis see it, because he wanted this- needed this connection. It had to work… it had to bring them back to where they'd been, bring him back to who he'd been. And when it was over, he lay in Louis's arms, Louis's heart beating beneath his ear.
There were no words in the silence, although their arms were tight around each other. The wall hadn't shattered like Felix had hoped. But as he reached out he felt cracks in the glass, and that was enough. One day it would break, and one day it would be normal again, and one day, he'd be able to say the words.
Somewhere deep down he knew he already meant them, if he could just find that part of himself again.
Author: lls_mutant
Rating: Maybe PG-13- there's sex but nothing explicit
Pairing: Tigh/Baltar. Seriously, I think the titles make it pretty obvious.
Spoilers: Through 4x10 and Webisode 2
Notes: These are two companion pieces, meant to go together. The first was written for ingrid_m when she grabbed me the screencap for my spiffy new icon. The second was written just because it had to be.
Five Times Hoshi Didn't Say "I Love You", Four of Which He Regretted.
The mood was rather electric in the Fleet, Louis could feel it even in the privacy of the racks. Beside him, under him, wedged next to him, Felix was slowly catching his breath.
"You all right?" Louis asked, grinning and brushing one of the curls away.
"Yeah." Felix smiled. "Just been a while."
A while, and something more. Baltar's acquittal had the entire Fleet charged, and although Louis didn't know the whole story, he suspected Felix was feeling it more than most. He ran his hand over Felix's cheek again, and almost opened his mouth to say the words that had been on his mind for a while now.
But before he could, Felix just chuckled. "Thank you," he said. He turned over slightly, snuggling himself up against Louis and pulling Louis's arm around his waist. "I needed that," he muttered, and closed his eyes.
Louis closed his mouth and decided just to focus on the moment. No reason to say the words too soon; Felix would probably end up thinking he was some crazy stalker type and he'd end up chasing him away.
That was the last thing he wanted.
***
"You're going for how long?" Louis asked incredulously.
"Three months at the most," Felix scowled. "With Starbuck."
Louis groaned. "This is crazy."
"You're telling me? The last thing I wanted was… and just when…" he looked up at Louis, flushed, and looked down again.
"Just when what?" Louis prompted.
"Well, we've been spending a lot of time together in the past few months," Felix said, trying to look like he wasn't muttering and ending up somewhat dorky, which Louis found adorable, "and then there was the whole thing that started the night of the trial, and I really… I really…"
"Yeah, I really… too," Louis agreed. He touched Felix's cheek. "Don't worry," he said. "We can pick up where we left off."
Felix's eyes widened in surprise. "It will be three months," he said.
Louis shrugged. "I know."
The smile he got for that was worth just about any price he could pay. He was about to say it when Felix leaned in and kissed him.
"Thank you," he said, gratitude overwhelming his voice. "I will be back."
"I know you will," Louis said. "Just come back in one piece."
Felix left the next morning, and the words had never been spoken. Louis really wished he'd found the courage to say them, but at least he suspected Felix knew.
***
"One dead, one wounded," Helo's voice said over the comm unit, crackly with static.
"Who?" Adama demanded.
"Sergeant Mathias is dead," Helo clarified, "Gaeta's wounded."
Louis's heart careened into his throat, but he took several deep breaths and the CIC righted itself. "Badly?" he heard Adama say.
"You'd better get a Raptor to the Demetrius quickly," was Helo's answer.
Louis rose up, ready to run down, but Tigh glanced at him and shook his head. Right. Duty. And with this Cylon baseship right there, watching for Cylons was… well, not more important, but yes, more important. And the worst was that Felix would understand.
Still, he really wished he could be down there right now, especially when Felix might be- he shook his head and trained his eyes back on the console.
Duty first. Love second. That was the way it had to be.
***
It was late. Felix was asleep, fitful and gray. "Don't wake him," Cottle cautioned him, gruffly but with an underlying kindness. "Sleep is the best thing for him right now."
Louis nodded. He sat down beside the bed, hands shaking. He reached out and touched Felix's hand. It was cold. Too cold. But the heart monitor beeped a steady, reassuring rhythm.
He had almost fallen asleep when he heard Felix say, "hey."
"Hey yourself." Louis reached out and touched his hand. "How are you?"
Felix opened his mouth to respond, and Louis knew if it had been anyone else asking there would have been a sarcastic rejoinder. But instead, there was silence, and Felix closed his eyes.
Louis leaned forward, drawing him into an embrace. It was awkward, tentative, and anything but romantic- Felix desperately needed a bath, and Louis couldn't quite figure out how to nestle him into his arms. But it was long and it was needed, for both of them.
I love you, Louis wanted to say. This doesn't matter, I still love you, I will still love you, and you'll always have me. But somehow, he knew that the words weren't what Felix needed, but the silence was.
So he bit his tongue and waited.
***
"We have arrived at Earth."
The words were so electric, so jarring. It had set off a night of celebration, a night of light and joy and life. They'd joined the party for as long as Felix could stand it, and then when he said he was tired, they'd both retreated to the racks.
"You should go," Felix said, but without any real conviction.
"I'm right where I want to be," Louis told him, with all the conviction in the world.
Felix smiled. "You're too good to me," he said, leaning in and kissing Louis gently.
"I know." He paused, and then opened his mouth to try to say it, because what better night than tonight? But before he could, Felix's mouth was on his.
"I'm glad you came back with me," he murmured, and kissed him- hard.
Any words, any thoughts flew away, because it had been three frakking months, and Louis wanted this more than anything. And by the time words became relevant again, there was motion outside their curtain, and Felix was almost dozing in his arms. Not how he'd pictured it.
There will be other chances, Louis told himself as he closed his eyes. Lots of other chances.
Five Times Gaeta Didn't Say "I Love You", but Meant To
Joe's was full of smoke. Felix hated that, despite the fact he was contributing to it himself more than he probably should.
"Nine ball, corner pocket," Hoshi said.
Felix leaned against his pool cue, trying to be subtle as he watched Hoshi lean over. Judging by Hot Dog's smirk he was failing miserably, but he ignored it. Hoshi might not pull the eye at first, but he really had a nice ass.
"Your shot," Hot Dog said to Felix, waggling his eyebrows.
Felix rolled his eyes. "Fifteen in the side," he said. When Louis turned away, Felix cocked his head meaningfully at Hot Dog. Get lost after this game was the unspoken message.
The gods must have been listening, because Hot Dog got it. He sunk the four, grinned at them both, and then stated that he was going to go impress the hot blonde over by the bar with his pool skills.
"I'd laugh at him," Hoshi said, "but he just kicked both our asses."
"I know." Now that they were alone, Felix's mouth dried up completely. "Do you want another drink?" he asked. "I'll buy."
Hoshi blinked and smiled. "Sure," he said. "Thanks."
A few drinks later, and Felix still couldn't get up the guts to say what he wanted to say. I want you. Frak me. Come back to my rack and stay. But he did at least learn that Hoshi's first name was Louis, and that there was at least the potential he might be interested. Maybe tomorrow.
And then tomorrow came, and with it came Baltar, and Felix's whole world was turned upside down again.
***
The clock said they had an hour before shift. Felix scrubbed at his face and pulled away from Louis, hot and sweaty in the confines of the rack. He was hung over, he was miserable, and he actually regretted this. Not because of who his partner was, but because he would have liked his first time with Louis to be something besides a drunken way to forget the trial and everything that went with it.
But he wasn't drunk now, and the anger was a lot more distant. He pushed back the covers, smiled, and decided that Louis deserved a better wakeup call than revelry or an alarm going off. He crept down the bed and began.
It didn't take long for Louis to come awake, and it didn't take long after that for him to come, arching his back and tangling his hands in Felix's hair. "Good morning," Felix said with a smile, wiping his mouth with his forearm.
"That it is," Louis agreed breathlessly.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry," Felix began.
"Sorry?"
"About last night. Not that it happened," he covered hastily, "but that it happened that way."
"It happened fine as far as I was concerned."
Felix shook his head. "It was better this morning," he insisted.
"For me, maybe," Louis said, smiling. Felix couldn't figure out if he really wasn't getting it or if he was just pretending. There was something about the way he was acting that made him suspect the latter. But then Louis wrapped his fingers around Felix's biceps and flipped him onto his back, and said, "Allow me to return the favor."
He did, because in the morning it was about them, not about Gaius Frakking Baltar. And when Louis smiled up at him, Felix touched his cheek and smiled back. The words occurred to him then, but they didn't come to his lips, because he wasn't sure if he meant them or not.
***
He couldn't send the letters, of course, but he wrote them anyway. It served two purposes; it helped him remember the days, and it was like having Louis here to talk to.
"Writing a novel?" Helo asked, sitting down across from him.
Felix flashed a grin. "You got it," he said. "A riveting tale of jump coordinates and FTL drives."
"Future best seller."
"Great Picon novel."
Helo grinned. "Can I read it?"
"Over my dead body."
Of course, on a ship with nothing else to do, those words were a challenge, not a threat. Helo moved fast- faster than Felix realized he could move- and snatched the papers away.
"Come and get them," he taunted, dangling them above Felix's head.
"Give them back, you frakker!" Felix shouted, half angry and half laughing as Helo jumped up in the table. He jumped up on a chair and lunged for the letters, overbalancing.
"So," Helo shouted, leaping from one table to another, "shall we read Mr. Gaeta's fascinating new work?" The others in the room began to laugh and cheer him on. "I find myself thinking of you often," he said, placing a hand over his heart. "Probably not the most flattering thing on a sewer ship, but it's true. I miss you. Why, Felix, this isn't a novel- this is a letter."
"How are you going to send it, Gaeta?" Pike demanded. "Put it in a bottle and space it?"
"Very funny," Felix said. Fortunately, Athena walked in at that moment and that distracted Helo enough that Felix could snatch the letters back.
"I'm sorry," Helo told him later. "I didn't realize it was something private."
Felix shrugged. "No harm done."
"I saw the name, you know. I didn't know you and Hoshi were together."
"Yeah, well, you know. We're keeping it quiet until we know what’s going on for sure."
Helo nodded. "I understand." He looked at the letters and grinned a little. "Do you love him?"
"Are you twelve?" Felix demanded. Helo chuckled and backed off.
He did, or at least, he was pretty sure he did. But he wasn't going to tell Helo before he told Louis himself.
***
The leg was gone. The pain wrung him dry, not only physically but constricting his soul. Half a man, that's all he could think. And this was in absolutely no way fair.
The morpha kept him on a cloud, when the pain didn't scream too loudly, anyway. A floating, lovely cloud where nothing could touch him, where he felt nothing. It didn't last nearly long enough and he was jerked back into grim, agonizing reality, but when it was there it was good.
Louis came, of course. He'd known he'd be there when he could, when he wasn't working. And yet, even after three months apart, it felt strange. Like there was a wall between them, a thick glass wall where they could see each other but couldn't quite touch. He told himself it was the morpha but he knew it was the leg. They both knew it.
They should cry together; grieve together. But Felix couldn't bring himself to do that, because to do it would be to admit his leg was gone and life was never going to be the same again. He could do that on an intellectual level, but deeper, down in his core….
And yet, despite the fact he couldn't let him in, Louis still came. Patiently. Lovingly. Openly.
It was a gift- a gift he didn't deserve and didn't dare hope for, but a gift all the same. He desperately hoped one day he'd be able to return it.
***
"You should go," Felix told Louis, meaning the parties. But there was no real conviction in his voice, and he wasn't surprised when Louis shook his head.
"I'm right where I want to be."
The thing was, he knew Louis wasn't expecting anything. It was too soon, in theory. They both knew he'd undergone extreme physical trauma. But Felix was terrified. Terrified that if he didn't do something, that glass wall would be between them forever, and he'd lose the one thing he had left to treasure.
"You're too good to me," he said, teasing Louis's mouth.
"I know," Louis began, but Felix kissed him, hard.
It was gentle and slow, cautious and considerate. And yet it was still painful. But Felix turned his face away and didn't let Louis see it, because he wanted this- needed this connection. It had to work… it had to bring them back to where they'd been, bring him back to who he'd been. And when it was over, he lay in Louis's arms, Louis's heart beating beneath his ear.
There were no words in the silence, although their arms were tight around each other. The wall hadn't shattered like Felix had hoped. But as he reached out he felt cracks in the glass, and that was enough. One day it would break, and one day it would be normal again, and one day, he'd be able to say the words.
Somewhere deep down he knew he already meant them, if he could just find that part of himself again.