Fic: Perspectives
Fandom: BSG
Pairing: Gaeta/Dualla, Baltar/Six
Rating: Adult.
Word Count: 2440
Warning: Spoilers through "Flight of the Phoenix".
Summary: There’s more up the sleeve than just the arm.
Previously
I.
…I’ve been having…headaches, dreams…
“What do you suppose he dreams, Gaius?” Her voice is like a
knife of silk; it slides in almost softly, unnoticed, but everything in him
tightens around it. Her hands have a similar effect, gliding familiar around
his waist and clasping over his navel. Her chin settles into the curve of
his shoulder so he can feel the soft and heated puff of her breath.
His mind puzzles at that for a moment. Does he remember her breath, or is
that merely a detail he’s fills in on his own, a sensory illusion that
exists simply because he thinks it must. Do Cylons—even the humanistic
ones—breathe? Is she, this electrical ghost, truly a Cylon?
In any case, she fits against him, perfect as a well-fitted glove. He always
found the difference in their height rather sexy. He closes his eyes, feels
it.
“I suppose I wouldn’t know,” he answers after some thought.
“Don’t you?” Her voice teases; the tone she uses when
she’s being cryptic and amused by it. He hates these little games,
but he puts up with them, if it keeps him in her good graces and away from
such unpleasantness as the Shelley Godfrey incident. “I would think
you’d keep better tabs on your little neophyte than that. You’re
a very…intelligent man, Gaius.”
He rises a little on tiptoe as her hands slide downward from his navel,
wakening pleasure and goose bumps in equal measure. “Intelligence
has nothing to do with it,” he replies, a little stung. His head falls
back onto her shoulder as she molds him through his trousers. He hopes she’ll
give him the chance to undress this time; their last romp, he’d had
to sit through one of Roslin’s interminable meetings drying tackily
to his own thigh. “And he’s not my neophyte.”
“Oh, Gaius…” she sighs, disappointed, and at once she—and
her wicked hands—are gone.
“What?”
When he turns, she’s sprawled in the chair, legs crossed over the
arm. The scarlet satin of her gown gapes invitingly, a near irresistible
temptation even though nothing is quite visible. Only luscious hints…which
could describe all of her. “Our dreams are how God talks to us,”
she answers, as if it should be obvious. And to her, he supposes it is.
He, on the other hand, has no insight into the inner workings of either
her or her God’s mind, and he frequently suspects she makes it up as
she goes along.
“And God—your God—talks to Lieutenant Gaeta, is that what
you’re telling me?” He crosses his arms over his chest, irritated—as
he always is—by her insistence on dragging God into every conversation.
It was one thing when he thought she was merely a rather head-blind scientist.
It’s quite another—and most disconcerting—for her to be
a Cylon, an artificial and presumably superior intelligence, and still so
fanatically stuck on fantastical notions of religiosity. It’s tedious,
and it’s disappointing.
She shakes her head sadly, the expression that makes him want to knock her
silly, if he were ever so inclined to hit a woman. Which he isn’t.
He might have shot Crashdown, but there are some lines even Gaius Baltar
will not cross, by gods. He’s a gentleman. “God talks to everyone,
Gaius. It’s only that not everyone listens. If you could ever
stop nattering on for one moment, maybe He would talk to you.”
“Well, I’d really like that, actually,” he says, letting
the sarcasm ooze from his voice finally, “because then I might have
some evidence that he actually exists.”
Her eyes narrow, dangerous slits, but what she says is, “But as it
so happens, Gaius, it’s not God talking to poor little
Felix Gaeta.” She crosses her legs, making sure to flash him in the
process, slim muscled thigh that goes to Elysium and beyond. Her smirk is
hateful and beautiful at the same time. “We are. The Cylons.”
II.
Dee dances back and forth on her toes, fists cocked and striving for lightness.
“Doc Cottle cleared me,” she tells Lee. “Feel like hitting
something.”
And she does. Oh, does she.
The warmth of her dreams quickly shredded in the face of real life issues.
Like exhaustion; twelve hours abed sounds like a lot until you understand
that it includes Cottle waking you up every hour on the hour because you’re
concussed. Like the bruise the size of a Raptor on her side that insists
on reminding her of its presence at every inadvertent movement, not to mention
its constellation of smaller friends. Like playing hopscotch in the showers
because the temperature mix control is on the fritz too, and you’re
alternately scalding or freezing with shampoo dripping in your eyes. Like
being unable to get clean fatigues out of the locker because the ship decides
to quadruple the power of the magnets that hold it closed. Like having to
refigure the port counts six times, because the numbers on the screen keep
changing.
She hasn’t even seen Felix; he’s off somewhere with Baltar,
trying to figure it all out, and she tells herself that she isn’t jealous,
and she tells herself she isn’t mad, but here and now, she’d
really like to punch the frak out of something. Hard.
“Okay.” Lee’s got a weird little grin on his face as he
edges up on her. The classes are a new thing, now that combat’s a
real possibility again, but she hasn’t been able to get off-shift in
time to make one before. “Okay. Don't square up.” Lee steps
in, grabs her shoulders. “Don't square up. Rotate.” He turns
her. “And just drop the knee.” His voice drops at the same
time, and who knew Lee Adama could sound so sexy?
“Attention on Galactica. Power outage reported on deck 12.”
She’s momentarily distracted by the sound of Felix’s voice,
a stupid knee-jerk reaction, and he doesn’t sound in the least sexy,
but it doesn’t stop it from going straight to the crotch. To cover
it, she punches and drops the knee.
“That's nice.”
She flushes hot, hearing in Lee’s tone that his appreciation doesn’t
extend to just her execution. “Now.” He grabs her again and
she turns her head to look at him. “If you want to throw them, I'll
be you.” He comes around her. She cocks her head, trying to see it
in her mind. Her fingernails graze over his arm, and she feels his skin erupt
in goose flesh. “Head in a lock. Grab the wrist.” He demonstrates.
She flexes her wrist a little, experimentally, testing the grip. “Secure
the arm. And I'm just going to drop the knee, rotate 45.”
“Okay.”
Lee drops her, not real hard. It still jolts through every one of her bruises.
“Are you all right?” The lights sizzle and flash.
This is getting a little weird. Lee’s never treated her like she was
made of glass before. He’s never treated her as more than a comrade
in arms. She gives him a dubious grin and gently guides his arm to the side.
“Yeah. Just like we did in basic.”
Lee nods and hands her up to her feet. She bites back a wince and skips
back and forth on the balls of her feet to shake it out.
“Let's bring a live opponent into the mix.” Lee brings out
a fake knife and smirks a little. Dee takes a breath and bounces, fists
at the ready and watching him carefully. He waits until she blinks to lunge
at her. Even so, she steps in. Wrist. Deflect. Twist. One hand on the
back of his neck…and down.
She gets a “nice” from the sidelines, and she can’t help
a pleased grin.
She can’t read the expression in Lee’s eyes; she blames it on
the lights that dim and catch yet again. She’s glad the door’s
been carefully chocked open.
“And strip the knife,” Lee instructs. She peels it from his hand
and tosses it aside. He’s making this too easy. Is it because she
was hurt?
Then, unexpectedly, he pushes her supporting leg out from under her. She
drops onto his chest. Dammit, she thinks. Her breath snags in her throat
as bruises again make their presence known.
It comes to her slowly, when she looks into Lee’s eyes that they’re
entirely too close. Their noses nearly touch, and she can tell he
had something minty and sweet not that long ago. She also sees that same
weird light; something more than the ordinary friendliness she’s come
to expect, and more than simple male-female appreciation. His face is softened
and yet somehow more stark. Pared down. His hand hovers around her shoulder
like he wants to touch, but doesn’t quite dare to.
Heat flushes through her; she’s all keyed up anyway. It’s just
not really about him. She feels it rise from him too, radiating out into
the cold and slightly dry air. Her throat feels like it’s on fire,
she’s blushing like hell, and worst, nipples are hard as diamond.
She’s not quite sure how to gracefully extricate herself as his finger
curls light as feather over the curve of her ear.
There’s a tap on the bulkhead. It breaks the moment, and Dee gulps
in a breath. “Oh,” she says inadequately, and pushes herself
up and away.
What was that about? she wonders and looks sheepish towards
the hatch. Billy stands a little off-center, his head bent at an angle to
watch. It ratchets up the embarrassment factor just that much higher.
“Billy.” He waves. She hops up and hopes it doesn’t look
like fleeing.
The guilt that’s turned her every meal to acid bites a little harder,
but she’s never felt quite so happy to see Billy. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he says in reply. She leaves the mat, Apollo, and all
attendant confusion and gives him a hug. It was a spontaneous gesture, believe
it or not. After a moment’s hesitation, he returns it, surprised and
pleased. I’m going to hell for this, she thinks. A special
hell, just for me. “How long have you been on board?”
“I just arrived.” He sounds glad to see her; he shouldn’t
sound so glad to see her. A special hell, she thinks again.
Dee gives a fast glance back towards Apollo, who’s gone back to the
class. Her sense of uneasiness doesn’t dissipate, however, as she
leads Billy off deeper into the ship.
III.
He dreams in lines of code.
It is, he supposes, a relief after his other dreams—or it should be.
But it’s not.
Everything is insubstantial and hazy, as if he is the only real thing.
He walks among, on, amidst and through ghosts, and those ghosts are made
of numbers and light. They are cold, insubstantial, and they hurt.
But lately, it seems like everything hurts.
Sharon rears up before him, a specter of sickly and translucent green and
yellow, trailing prime numbers like chains. You shouldn’t be here,
Felix, she says, It’s not safe. We have other plans for you.
He jerks awake, face down on his console. His face aches. He scrapes his
hands over the skin, and feels the indentations left by the levers and knobs.
“Hey.” The sound of Dee’s voice and the touch of her hand
on his shoulder makes him startle and yelp.
“Frak!”
“Sorry.” She covers her smile with her hand, but her eyes dance.
“Didn’t mean to scare you. Sir.”
“You didn’t scare me. I’m not scared,” he avers
quickly.
“Really?” Dee asks, folding her arms. She eyes him doubtfully.
“Because I don’t remember you ever making a noise like that
before. Maybe I just haven’t been trying hard enough.” After
a cautious glance at the hatch door, she bends and brushes her mouth over
his. It’s barely a whisper of breath and skin, but almost immediately,
her hand goes to the back of his head and it deepens, warm and wet and sloppy.
She tips his head back and nibbles his bottom lip slowly and sensuously
until he groans.
Dee’s eyes open and she pulls a little away, the pink curl of her tongue
dabbing wetness from her own mouth. “No… That’s not it,”
she murmurs. “Guess I’ll have to keep trying.”
“Dee…” A part of him would really like to continue
this, he knots his hand in her sleeve and holds her away. And that hurts
too. “What…what are you doing here?”
She blinks, a little taken aback. “Oh.” She settles back on
the console’s edge…which puts her breasts at a rather interesting
level, “Amara said you hadn’t been down to the mess, and I figured
you were doing your usual thing and forgetting to eat.” She gestures
behind him to where she left a tray near the door.
“My usual thing, huh?” he mutters, and his stomach chooses that
moment to growl noisily. Traitor. Dee raises an eyebrow and puts her tongue
in her cheek. He reaches and grabs her hand, tracing his thumb across the
knuckles. “Thank you.”
Dee looks down and aside, strangely embarrassed. “It’s only
rations,” she says briskly. “It’s not like I got you caviar
from Cloud Nine or anything.”
“Right now, anything would taste like caviar. Well,” he considers.
“If I actually liked caviar. Something about all those tiny eggs…”
He shivers.
Dee smiles and pushes off the console to grab the tray and bring it back.
“Just eat,” she says.
“I really don’t have time,” he confesses, scraping a hand
through his hair. The lights flicker and the air scrubbers grind in reminder
of how little time they have. “I think I might actually be getting
somewhere…”
“Felix.” Dee’s tone brooks no argument as she grabs the
bowl and shoves it into his hands. “Eat.”
She shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be so happy to have her
here. He’s not trustworthy; even his dreams tell him that. His options
have gone beyond getting them both court-martialed and into the realms of
getting them both killed.
His stomach scrapes and cries, but he puts the bowl clumsily back on the
tray. “You have to go,” he says abruptly, without preamble.
Dee’s eyebrows hike again, and it makes him abruptly, furiously angry.
“Felix—“
“That’s an order , Petty Officer,” he snaps and
shoves away from the console. She’s too close and she smells too good;
if he stays where he is, he’s going to bend. He’s going to weaken,
to relent, and that can’t happen.
He thinks the tone is what does it; Dee shoots to her feet, even though her
face is angry. That’s okay; he can deal with angry.
Much better than he can deal with dead.
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