Fic: Were It Not That I Have Bad Dreams
I don't know how I feel about this. It's not quite what I envisioned. Be
kind. Well, not too kind.
Fandom: BSG
Rating: Language. Sexual references.
Character: Gaeta
Word Count: 1579
Warnings: None, really. Could happen any time within S2.
"I could be bounded by a nutshell...were it not that I have bad
dreams." --Hamlet, Act I Scene I
I.
“Mr. Gaeta!”
In a world of soft, melting and blurred edges, Tigh’s voice is always
razor clear. It’s like the sharp jolt of a wiring short down his spine
and snaps him to attention. “Sir!”
“Go grab some rack time, Mr. Gaeta, before I have to have you carried
out.”
He looks stupidly at the bundle of colored wires in his hand, not quite
sure anymore what he’d even been doing with them. Still… “Sir,
I’m almost finished…”
“That’s an order, Lieutenant!”
“Sir. Yes, sir.” He shoves the bundle back into the panel
and drills the screws back in with cold and shaking hands. Across the CIC,
he feels Dualla’s sympathetic look, but he just can’t face it.
Under his uniform, his tattoo itches. He doesn’t scratch. A little
pain is instructive, his father always said. Keeps your mind focused.
Away from the CIC, he stops and sags into the bulkhead. It’s not an
uncommon sight; no one looks at him sideways. The cold washes from his fingertips
into the rest of his body and the shaking gets worse.
He should have logged off duty a long time ago, even given the double and
triple shifts everybody was working just to keep the fleet moving.
But he hadn’t. And no one knew the difference. Until Tigh. Man
was a sloppy drunk, but an eagle-eyed martinet in the CIC, damn him.
Frak. He was tired. More than tired; everything’s starting
to take on the washed out and soft-textured unreality he knows is about a
half-step from going face down in his MREs. He’s dangerously
exhausted. And yet he wonders if he can find a Triad game going somewhere
in the back halls, or who’s hanging out in the break room.
You should sleep, Felix, he thinks, the indefatigable voice of duty.
Why won’t you sleep?
Because you don’t want to, another more venomous voice whispers
from the back of his mind.
Felix scrapes his hands over his aching face. No. He really doesn’t
want to. Because if he sleeps, he might dream.
II.
He doesn’t remember when the dream started. Because it is just the
one. Everything BC (before Cylons) seems hazy and unbelievably distant.
Hell, a week ago seems like ancient frakking history. He doesn’t
think it’s been that long though. It’s hard to say.
When it gets down to it, it’s not like he remembers much about the
dream anyway. Flashes of long pale limbs twined around his. Fingers—cold—against
his lips. Fingers—warm—wrapped around his cock. Blonde hair
fine as cornsilk—not that he actually knows what cornsilk feels like
(Mama Gaeta’s son’s a city boy). When he does sleep, he wakes
up with his own spunk drying sticky on his belly, which would make it seem
like the dream is good, one that brings him pleasure.
But instead, he only feels dirty. Violated. Sick to his stomach and raped,
like something’s been stolen from him in his sleep. The purring croon
of her voice still echoes in his ears. Usually, it’s a race to the
head to throw up increasingly bloody bile, because he can’t hardly
eat, either.
Felix…. Felix….
Even now, the thought of the break room, the smell of food—or what’s
passing for food these days—turns him a little sick. Instead, he staggers
for the showers, thinking dimly that if he gets under the spray, maybe he
can buy back a few more hours.
He starts off with hot, really hot, scrubbing. It hurts, but it’s
good. It’s…instructive. Can’t be too clean, right?
He nods out for a second in the rinse, but he dials it all the way down to
cold—frigid—and stands there shivering until everything is crisp
again.
Don’t sleep, Felix. Don’t sleep…
Felix…
His whole body aches as he drags his uniform back on. Sometimes it feels
like it’s strangling him. Other times, it feels like all that’s
holding him together. In the morning, he brushes it out and pretends he
doesn’t want to burn it to ash. This was what he wanted. What he’d
scraped, starved and broken himself to be. Since the dream, sometimes, the
fabric feels like hair. Soft, blonde hair, sliding through his fingers.
He catches himself rubbing the sleeve of his jacket.
His stomach gurgles. Twists. And…it’s another run to the lav.
III.
He ends up finding that Triad game after all.
Cally, Kat, Hotdog, and another one of the pit crew—Fellis? Fallon?—sitting
around the table trading the same greasy cards back and forth. The fleet’s
bad luck seems to have extended even to the cards; their hands are the worst
he’s ever seen. It’s only about ten minutes before Hotdog drops
out, cursing the whole time.
“Frak, Cally; I though you were bluffing,” he growls, throwing
down his cards.
“I never bluff,” Cally says calmly, raking her winnings across
the table. “You in, Gaeta?”
“Yeah,” he says, and slips into Hotdog’s seat. It’s
hot, like the kid’s been sweating.
“Want a drink?” Kat offers him something clear and vile-smelling
in a not-so-clean glass.
“Nah. Got duty in a couple of hours.” The lie passes unnoticed;
no one knows who’s working what shift any more. If he can hang on
for a few hands, he can probably go straight back to the CIC and no one will
be the wiser. He yawns. Well, after some coffee, anyway.
Play goes slow. Cally thinks too much about her hand, and Kat doesn’t
think at all, but she’s lucky, which sort of makes up for it. Fellis,
he just plain doesn’t know. He wins a hand, then loses four. Under
the table, a smooth, slightly cool foot slides under his trouser leg; tiny
ticklish toes walk their way up his shin.
He jerks, knocking the table hard with his knee and realizing only then
that the toes weren’t real at all. He’s starting to nod again.
“You look thrashed,” Kat observes with her usual tact. Cally
nods.
“When’s the last time you even saw your bunk?” The Specialist’s
eyes are uncomfortably perceptive.
“I’m not so tired I can’t kick your ass,” he says,
and lays out his hand.
”Oh!” Kat crows. “The LT lays a bombshell!”
“Damn right.” He pulls in his chips. His shin still tingles.
He and Cally systematically shut down Kat. Hanover, Beck, and Reed—Laundry,
Maintenance, and Crewman Second Class, respectively—come off duty around
that time, and Beck buys in. Fellis—or is it Fallon?—who apparently
is damn near mute, for all he’s said..tonight? this morning?, starts
coming quietly up from behind. With the addition of Beck—another unknown—he’s
knocked out in six hands.
Smartasses sing him a chorus of “We’re So Sorry to See You Go”,
a Geminon pop song he absolutely hates…except now it makes
him sort of nostalgic. He stretches and checks the chrono. Still too early
to head back up to CIC.
Hands, gliding over his shoulders, down his arms, around his waist, cupping
his balls…
Felix… Felix… Come here, Felix…
He startles and realizes he’s nodding out on his feet. Frak. Caffeine.
He needs a heavy dose of caffeine.
“You all right?” Cally comes up behind him, startles him again.
He rakes a hand through his hair, even though he hates it when it’s
messy. “Yeah. I’m good.” He looks back at the table.
Hanover’s taken Cally’s seat. “What happened?”
“Frakking Beck.” He notices she swears a lot more now. “I
thought he was bluffing.”
“I never bluff,” Beck calls out, toasting in Cally’s direction
with his glass of rotgut.
IV.
Coffee.
Gaeta inhales deeply. Steam opens his pores, but he’s reached the
point of tired where he can’t smell or taste much of anything. It
all tastes like wet cardboard. Which is what the coffee normally tastes
like, so it’s not like he’s missing much.
Are the lights brighter than normal? He puts his coffee on the table and
presses his fingers against his aching eyes.
You don’t have to be afraid, Felix. It’s okay. Let go.
Sleep…
Sleep…
No, he thinks, without effect. Darkness enfolds him, soft and pliable and
shapeless. He’s sinking. No…
Sleep…
His tattoo itches, sudden and sharp. He grabs onto the pain and uses it
to drag himself up and out again, dreamlike limbs clutching at him all the
way. When he comes to, he’s sweating and shaking again.
Frak. Frak. He wonders if he can score some stims from one of the
pilots. Kat’s got some for sure. But that will create questions,
ones he’d rather not answer. Maybe… Maybe if he set a wake-up…
Fifteen minutes. He couldn’t get deep enough to dream in fifteen
minutes, could he?
Felix, I’m waiting…
Frak.
He nearly falls, getting up from the table.
It’s a long way down to his bunk. He feels like he’s going to
rattle apart the whole way. Just fifteen minutes, he thinks.
He’s already hard.
V.
“Cally, are you going on duty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Great. Can you tell the Chief I need…” Lee pauses,
his head cocked. “Do you hear that?”
“It’s Lieutenant Gaeta, sir.”
Lee takes another couple of steps until he can see him. Gaeta is huddled
on top of his blanket, still in uniform, a tiny, uncomfortable ball. As Lee’s
watching, he twitches hard and makes a noise in the back of his throat.
“Is…” Lee fumbles with what to say. “Is he okay?”
“Having bad dreams, I guess.” Cally shrugs.
Lee’s back stiffens. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah,
aren’t we all.”
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