Random much? Oh, yes. BSG ficlet: Given (Hot Dog, Sharon)
Title: Given
Characters: Hot Dog, Sharon
Rating: PG
Summary: Hot Dog reflects on giving Sharon her callsign. 400 words.
Given
What bothers him, if only just a little, and only that night as he slips into his rack to pass out: he honestly didn't think about it before he said it. Everybody was calling out names, and it never occurred to him not to.
But now, it occurs to him. She is Athena, and he made her so.
It's not like he's ever had a problem with Sharon Agathon. Sure, she's a Cylon, and that's more than a little complicated, for her and for them. He has what he assumes is the typical static in his head about her. He tries to keep all the evidence at the front of his mind, all the brave and loyal things he's known her to do, sometimes seen with his own eyes. But sometimes her face on the flight deck or her voice over the comm still registers the same frakking anger and paranoia, the kind he tamps down and stuffs into that organ inside him that sends him out to fly against the toasters.
But, no, he doesn't dislike Sharon. He secretly admires her ability to be cool no matter what crazy thing is happening in the air group. Rationally, he knows it's a coolness that comes from the chrome in her veins, but things aren't rational when you're flying a mission and someone saves your ass. More than once. Sharon has always been a good pilot. He can admit that much. But she is not one of them. Or at least was not.
Now, after the small celebration after she accepted her callsign-a thing given, not taken-he realizes that maybe he had preferred that she remain an outsider, welcome but always positioned so she could be cast out again. But it's too late now. She belongs to them, not to the Cylons. He will face down the toasters to protect her if he has to, just like he does all the rest of them, with callsigns of their own. He could remember receiving his, but he'd never given one before. Nobody else had been in so obvious need. She's been risking her life for them for a long time now.
As he begins to drift off to a troubled, half-drunk sleep, he wonders if it's any easier for her to risk her life knowing she has infinitely more to live. And all of them, now, as Athena.
It makes his stomach turn a flip. But since he can't imagine that dying is ever easy, he wills himself to sleep.
~
Characters: Hot Dog, Sharon
Rating: PG
Summary: Hot Dog reflects on giving Sharon her callsign. 400 words.
Given
What bothers him, if only just a little, and only that night as he slips into his rack to pass out: he honestly didn't think about it before he said it. Everybody was calling out names, and it never occurred to him not to.
But now, it occurs to him. She is Athena, and he made her so.
It's not like he's ever had a problem with Sharon Agathon. Sure, she's a Cylon, and that's more than a little complicated, for her and for them. He has what he assumes is the typical static in his head about her. He tries to keep all the evidence at the front of his mind, all the brave and loyal things he's known her to do, sometimes seen with his own eyes. But sometimes her face on the flight deck or her voice over the comm still registers the same frakking anger and paranoia, the kind he tamps down and stuffs into that organ inside him that sends him out to fly against the toasters.
But, no, he doesn't dislike Sharon. He secretly admires her ability to be cool no matter what crazy thing is happening in the air group. Rationally, he knows it's a coolness that comes from the chrome in her veins, but things aren't rational when you're flying a mission and someone saves your ass. More than once. Sharon has always been a good pilot. He can admit that much. But she is not one of them. Or at least was not.
Now, after the small celebration after she accepted her callsign-a thing given, not taken-he realizes that maybe he had preferred that she remain an outsider, welcome but always positioned so she could be cast out again. But it's too late now. She belongs to them, not to the Cylons. He will face down the toasters to protect her if he has to, just like he does all the rest of them, with callsigns of their own. He could remember receiving his, but he'd never given one before. Nobody else had been in so obvious need. She's been risking her life for them for a long time now.
As he begins to drift off to a troubled, half-drunk sleep, he wonders if it's any easier for her to risk her life knowing she has infinitely more to live. And all of them, now, as Athena.
It makes his stomach turn a flip. But since he can't imagine that dying is ever easy, he wills himself to sleep.
~