there are roads left in both of our shoes {sam/ellen}
Title: There Are Roads Left In Both Of Our Shoes
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Ellen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 590
Author's Note: This happened because I read crickets post. And yes, I realize how thin my viewing audience for this particular pairing is. And that I'm insane.
Summary: Spoilers for "No Exit". Pre-series. This has a lot to do with control, the thirst for it, the lack of it -- she's always been hungry for it. Him, not so much.
He used to go down to the ocean shore to write and strum his guitar. Something about the waves breaking, the birds above him, had his fingers moving over the strings like some kind of second nature.
Ellen used to like to come along. She liked the water, the feel of it on her skin, the way it chilled her, and she’d hum along, picking up the tune of both songs she’d heard before and some even he hadn’t - things that just came to him. She could stay in the water for hours until her fingers pruned and her hair started to fall in salty waves.
“Why don’t you ever ask Saul to take you out here?” He asks her, one day when the words just aren’t coming. It’s a love song, written for the woman he loved. She loved him back, on most days.
She shrugs, waist deep in the shallows. “You know Saul; not big on the water. He’s more concerned with what’s up there.” Ellen looks at the sky, focuses on the blue and the white, just for a moment, before diving back into the deeper waters, disappearing beneath the surface.
Sam regards the slow-fading ripples that interrupt the otherwise calm waters with a sort of curiosity - the way he looks at ordinary things for inspiration. He never worries when it’s been almost three minutes and she still hasn’t broken the surface. This is normal, as routine as the tides.
“How’s it coming along?” She asks, when she finally comes up for air, rising like a phoenix, long legs taking long strides out of the water, coming to sit down on a towel next to him. A breeze picks up and she smiles, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back. He loses himself in her for a moment before she picks the conversation back up again, eyes still closed. “Sam.”
He shakes it off. “I’m just having a hard time getting anywhere with this today.”
She lets out a sigh, and he watches the muscles in her midsection contract. Very often, Sam finds himself mesmerized by things like mechanics, be it bodies and how they’re put together or the bindings of the heavy books on the shelf in his house or the clock that hangs on his wall. He’s fascinated by these things in much the same way that he’s put off by them, because these are (for the most part) things that they’ve built, created, put together in some manner and with that comes a sort of power that he has very little interest in, the power you get from being in control. They talk of building more like them and his head spins, while Ellen thrives off of it. “If it doesn’t come naturally, maybe it’s not meant to be,” she tells him, her words open to interpretation, meaning changing depending on which way he tilts his head.
It’s the antithesis of everything they’ve been doing, so much so that he wants to laugh at her but he can’t quite bring himself to. “Like fate?” he asks, instead.
“Something like that,” she replies, looking at him now, pleasure in her eyes, clear as day.
Over time she’ll tell him a lot of things are meant to be. Comparing waves and tides to things like creation and destruction, talking of true love all the while straddling his hips, smelling of salt and sea, lips red as ruby-colored apples, eager hands, and, well, she tells him that’s something that was always going to happen too.
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Ellen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 590
Author's Note: This happened because I read crickets post. And yes, I realize how thin my viewing audience for this particular pairing is. And that I'm insane.
Summary: Spoilers for "No Exit". Pre-series. This has a lot to do with control, the thirst for it, the lack of it -- she's always been hungry for it. Him, not so much.
He used to go down to the ocean shore to write and strum his guitar. Something about the waves breaking, the birds above him, had his fingers moving over the strings like some kind of second nature.
Ellen used to like to come along. She liked the water, the feel of it on her skin, the way it chilled her, and she’d hum along, picking up the tune of both songs she’d heard before and some even he hadn’t - things that just came to him. She could stay in the water for hours until her fingers pruned and her hair started to fall in salty waves.
“Why don’t you ever ask Saul to take you out here?” He asks her, one day when the words just aren’t coming. It’s a love song, written for the woman he loved. She loved him back, on most days.
She shrugs, waist deep in the shallows. “You know Saul; not big on the water. He’s more concerned with what’s up there.” Ellen looks at the sky, focuses on the blue and the white, just for a moment, before diving back into the deeper waters, disappearing beneath the surface.
Sam regards the slow-fading ripples that interrupt the otherwise calm waters with a sort of curiosity - the way he looks at ordinary things for inspiration. He never worries when it’s been almost three minutes and she still hasn’t broken the surface. This is normal, as routine as the tides.
“How’s it coming along?” She asks, when she finally comes up for air, rising like a phoenix, long legs taking long strides out of the water, coming to sit down on a towel next to him. A breeze picks up and she smiles, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back. He loses himself in her for a moment before she picks the conversation back up again, eyes still closed. “Sam.”
He shakes it off. “I’m just having a hard time getting anywhere with this today.”
She lets out a sigh, and he watches the muscles in her midsection contract. Very often, Sam finds himself mesmerized by things like mechanics, be it bodies and how they’re put together or the bindings of the heavy books on the shelf in his house or the clock that hangs on his wall. He’s fascinated by these things in much the same way that he’s put off by them, because these are (for the most part) things that they’ve built, created, put together in some manner and with that comes a sort of power that he has very little interest in, the power you get from being in control. They talk of building more like them and his head spins, while Ellen thrives off of it. “If it doesn’t come naturally, maybe it’s not meant to be,” she tells him, her words open to interpretation, meaning changing depending on which way he tilts his head.
It’s the antithesis of everything they’ve been doing, so much so that he wants to laugh at her but he can’t quite bring himself to. “Like fate?” he asks, instead.
“Something like that,” she replies, looking at him now, pleasure in her eyes, clear as day.
Over time she’ll tell him a lot of things are meant to be. Comparing waves and tides to things like creation and destruction, talking of true love all the while straddling his hips, smelling of salt and sea, lips red as ruby-colored apples, eager hands, and, well, she tells him that’s something that was always going to happen too.