duty is an excuse you want to believe (bsg, dee/billy, dee/lee).
late, i know, i suck! i couldn't find a beta! and then the new song went up, so there was no beta. hah. but i decided we needed a little more fandom variety, so, yeah.
Title: Duty is an Excuse You Want to Believe.
Author: furies.
Fandom: bsg.
Pairing: dee/billy, dee/lee.
Rating: g
Words: ~1200
Notes: for the nothing_hip inaugural challenge. mostly because i wanted to write something other than “the office” for the challenge, and the irony of the song with dee and billy just cracked me the hell up. (i am twisted, i know, but it was all about weird inspiration from the song, right?) which in this case was kelly clarkson’s classic, “since u been gone”. not beta'ed, more by-the-seat-of-your-pants style.
Summary: duty calls.
Duty is something that Dee has always understood, always stood behind. It led to her most important decisions - decisions she maybe regrets, maybe doesn’t. Decisions that had to be made, in the wake of her eyes spotting contact on DRADIS, in the wake of a genocide, a holocaust, in the wake of a death, in the wake of a marriage, in the wake of a second chance of life in the air.
What she did was out of duty. She didn’t love Billy. She doesn’t know why, really, as he’s everything she could want - principled, cute, born with a sense of duty, an innate sense of right and wrong.
Billy grabbed her in hallways, held her hand, made her feel wanted. He appealed to her sense of, yes, duty, but it wasn’t duty that she wanted in the end.
In the end, Anastasia Dualla wanted lust, love that would never manifest in a debate team ring and clumsy proposal. In the end, Dee wanted sex that felt like fireworks, didn’t want what Starbuck derisively called “love-making”.
Dee started out the clean, young kid in communications. The non-pacifist from Sagittaron who believed war was sometimes necessary, who didn’t like leaving things up to the gods. She coordinated FTL jumps, she worked on a ship about the decommissioned, she looked up to the men around her - men she respected more than her father (in the end, she wonders if she’s tried to marry her father).
She says no to Billy out of a sense of duty, she tells herself. (She doesn’t think about her duty to reproduce, to populate the fleet, to return the love another. She doesn’t think about anything that would ruin the black and white of her desire.) She tells Billy no because she wants him to have someone that loves him, someone that would finger his ring and think how lucky she was.
She says no to Billy, and then he dies. And in his death he gives her everything she could have wanted. There is guilt, but not in the way she wants. Because Lee’s right beside her, Lee’s recovering in sick bay, there’s an election to fix (she refuses to think of what Billy would have thought, what Billy would have done), there’s a new colonization on a new planet, there’s another escape, another rescue, another time she’s saving Starbuck’s ass.
It’s only late at night, when Lee is softly snoring next to her, that she remembers the look the President gave her the first time they saw each other after Billy’s death. The thing Dee remembers most is the sadness in the woman’s eyes, her glasses hiding nothing, the way her looked for some sort of shared understanding, a similar, same pain.
Dee gave a small smile, and then turned away, before Roslin could see what was really there - a sense of relief. Dee doesn’t have to worry about running into Billy in the hallways, seeing him in the CIC. She doesn’t have to think about how to hide her growing relationship with Lee, how to sneak off the ship in a dress borrowed from one of the civilians on her way for some RR on Cloud 9. She doesn’t have to see Billy’s hand, the one that wears the ring, the one that held her own, the one she let go of. Because Billy is dead. He died on a ship that doesn’t exist anymore, and sometimes she wonders if all the people they’ve left behind will cease to exist when they are forgotten. She concentrates on remembering his smile.
Billy taught her how to feel desirable, how to feel like something special, something wanted. Billy was the first, and she’ll never forget him. She knows that, even as she says her vows to become an Adama woman, even when she sees Starbuck with her husband.
Not that she compares Lee to Billy. That wouldn’t be fair, wouldn’t be right. She made her choice, and Billy died for it, and it’s too bad because he was a good boy, an honest boy, and someone would have loved him the way he wanted. Instead he’s buried on the crap-ass planet of New Caprica, and only Roslin goes to visit his grave. Dee stays in the sky where she’s safe, where she feels free, where she thinks she can always leave.
One day, when she’s getting ready for duty, standing in the officer’s quarters with her hair straightener, she stops for a minute and looks herself in the eye. She never used to care so much about how she looked, was never one for primping in front of a mirror. But her hair - she always took the time to do her hair. Dee figures it’s probably the one thing her mother taught her that has stuck, but then she wonders if it’s something a bit more. If she does her hair everyday like it might be the last time anyone sees her, because it might be. She might die, and vain as it is, she wants to die like a goddess, long dark hair spilling everywhere, blood mixing with steel, iron and wine. She does her hair because she remembers the way Billy’s hair looked, his head in her lap, and some days it’s the only thing she can remember, other than the weight of that frakking debate ring.
Now she’s in a marriage consisting entirely of the word “duty” and she thinks it’s proper punishment for her decision to want passion instead of stability, to want hard edges and muscle instead of soft eyes and compassion. It isn’t that Lee doesn’t understand her, or that Billy would understand her any better, it’s just that Billy would never have loved anyone like he loved Dee. As long as he loved Dee, Dee held his heart in her hands. And because of that, because she was careless and young and in love, she dropped it, and he died. No matter what anyone says, Dee knows she has his blood on her hands.
But it’s not protocol to mourn when there are things to be done, and there’s always something to be done when you’re a ragtag fleet FTL-jumping across the universe in what may turn out to be a wild goose chase for your life. Dee finds solace in the military protocols, in the way the buttons on her blouse shine, in the way she addresses the people higher than her, in the way she’s earned respect. Dee calls out to the other ships and relays their existence. Sometimes Dee is the only connection to each other that they all have.
And so she strives to live up to that duty, to that responsibility, to what she signed up for and what she said she could do. She lives with Lee and she does her job, and she conspires to steal the presidency and she doesn’t feel remorse. She knows her husband loves another woman, and she suspects it’s much like the way she felt about Lee in the beginning, and she’s glad Billy didn’t have to witness any of it.
In her own way, Dee is glad Billy died, because even with his blood on her hands, her life is easier. It’s easier to play pretend.
Title: Duty is an Excuse You Want to Believe.
Author: furies.
Fandom: bsg.
Pairing: dee/billy, dee/lee.
Rating: g
Words: ~1200
Notes: for the nothing_hip inaugural challenge. mostly because i wanted to write something other than “the office” for the challenge, and the irony of the song with dee and billy just cracked me the hell up. (i am twisted, i know, but it was all about weird inspiration from the song, right?) which in this case was kelly clarkson’s classic, “since u been gone”. not beta'ed, more by-the-seat-of-your-pants style.
Summary: duty calls.
Duty is something that Dee has always understood, always stood behind. It led to her most important decisions - decisions she maybe regrets, maybe doesn’t. Decisions that had to be made, in the wake of her eyes spotting contact on DRADIS, in the wake of a genocide, a holocaust, in the wake of a death, in the wake of a marriage, in the wake of a second chance of life in the air.
What she did was out of duty. She didn’t love Billy. She doesn’t know why, really, as he’s everything she could want - principled, cute, born with a sense of duty, an innate sense of right and wrong.
Billy grabbed her in hallways, held her hand, made her feel wanted. He appealed to her sense of, yes, duty, but it wasn’t duty that she wanted in the end.
In the end, Anastasia Dualla wanted lust, love that would never manifest in a debate team ring and clumsy proposal. In the end, Dee wanted sex that felt like fireworks, didn’t want what Starbuck derisively called “love-making”.
Dee started out the clean, young kid in communications. The non-pacifist from Sagittaron who believed war was sometimes necessary, who didn’t like leaving things up to the gods. She coordinated FTL jumps, she worked on a ship about the decommissioned, she looked up to the men around her - men she respected more than her father (in the end, she wonders if she’s tried to marry her father).
She says no to Billy out of a sense of duty, she tells herself. (She doesn’t think about her duty to reproduce, to populate the fleet, to return the love another. She doesn’t think about anything that would ruin the black and white of her desire.) She tells Billy no because she wants him to have someone that loves him, someone that would finger his ring and think how lucky she was.
She says no to Billy, and then he dies. And in his death he gives her everything she could have wanted. There is guilt, but not in the way she wants. Because Lee’s right beside her, Lee’s recovering in sick bay, there’s an election to fix (she refuses to think of what Billy would have thought, what Billy would have done), there’s a new colonization on a new planet, there’s another escape, another rescue, another time she’s saving Starbuck’s ass.
It’s only late at night, when Lee is softly snoring next to her, that she remembers the look the President gave her the first time they saw each other after Billy’s death. The thing Dee remembers most is the sadness in the woman’s eyes, her glasses hiding nothing, the way her looked for some sort of shared understanding, a similar, same pain.
Dee gave a small smile, and then turned away, before Roslin could see what was really there - a sense of relief. Dee doesn’t have to worry about running into Billy in the hallways, seeing him in the CIC. She doesn’t have to think about how to hide her growing relationship with Lee, how to sneak off the ship in a dress borrowed from one of the civilians on her way for some RR on Cloud 9. She doesn’t have to see Billy’s hand, the one that wears the ring, the one that held her own, the one she let go of. Because Billy is dead. He died on a ship that doesn’t exist anymore, and sometimes she wonders if all the people they’ve left behind will cease to exist when they are forgotten. She concentrates on remembering his smile.
Billy taught her how to feel desirable, how to feel like something special, something wanted. Billy was the first, and she’ll never forget him. She knows that, even as she says her vows to become an Adama woman, even when she sees Starbuck with her husband.
Not that she compares Lee to Billy. That wouldn’t be fair, wouldn’t be right. She made her choice, and Billy died for it, and it’s too bad because he was a good boy, an honest boy, and someone would have loved him the way he wanted. Instead he’s buried on the crap-ass planet of New Caprica, and only Roslin goes to visit his grave. Dee stays in the sky where she’s safe, where she feels free, where she thinks she can always leave.
One day, when she’s getting ready for duty, standing in the officer’s quarters with her hair straightener, she stops for a minute and looks herself in the eye. She never used to care so much about how she looked, was never one for primping in front of a mirror. But her hair - she always took the time to do her hair. Dee figures it’s probably the one thing her mother taught her that has stuck, but then she wonders if it’s something a bit more. If she does her hair everyday like it might be the last time anyone sees her, because it might be. She might die, and vain as it is, she wants to die like a goddess, long dark hair spilling everywhere, blood mixing with steel, iron and wine. She does her hair because she remembers the way Billy’s hair looked, his head in her lap, and some days it’s the only thing she can remember, other than the weight of that frakking debate ring.
Now she’s in a marriage consisting entirely of the word “duty” and she thinks it’s proper punishment for her decision to want passion instead of stability, to want hard edges and muscle instead of soft eyes and compassion. It isn’t that Lee doesn’t understand her, or that Billy would understand her any better, it’s just that Billy would never have loved anyone like he loved Dee. As long as he loved Dee, Dee held his heart in her hands. And because of that, because she was careless and young and in love, she dropped it, and he died. No matter what anyone says, Dee knows she has his blood on her hands.
But it’s not protocol to mourn when there are things to be done, and there’s always something to be done when you’re a ragtag fleet FTL-jumping across the universe in what may turn out to be a wild goose chase for your life. Dee finds solace in the military protocols, in the way the buttons on her blouse shine, in the way she addresses the people higher than her, in the way she’s earned respect. Dee calls out to the other ships and relays their existence. Sometimes Dee is the only connection to each other that they all have.
And so she strives to live up to that duty, to that responsibility, to what she signed up for and what she said she could do. She lives with Lee and she does her job, and she conspires to steal the presidency and she doesn’t feel remorse. She knows her husband loves another woman, and she suspects it’s much like the way she felt about Lee in the beginning, and she’s glad Billy didn’t have to witness any of it.
In her own way, Dee is glad Billy died, because even with his blood on her hands, her life is easier. It’s easier to play pretend.