(no subject)
Finally getting around to archiving the drabbles I wrote for the last ship war at epics.
Mess, Helo/Dee, PG
“Hey,” he heard a voice ask, and his head snapped up. “This seat taken?” Dee asked, mess tray in her hands, no other bridge bunnies anywhere in sight.
Starbuck didn’t answer, just leaned back in her chair and gave Helo a pointed look. Not for the first time he wished he’d found someone more discreet to be the person he confided everything to. “All yours, Dee,” Helo replied, and she sat with a gracious smile.
This really wasn’t as big a deal as Starbuck wanted to make it-with her awkward silence and her not helping this at all. Helo cleared his throat. “So-”
But she had started talking at the same time. “Did you-” They laughed. “Go ahead,” she said.
“No, ladies first,” he replied.
“Did you catch last night’s playoff scores?”
He shook his head ruefully. “Had money on the C-Bucs,” he said.
“When will you learn?” she asked, and even Starbuck laughed.
See? Totally fine. Hell, if every lieutenant on Galactica avoided people they’d had one-night stands with, no one would be able to talk to anyone.
Gossip, Helo/Dee, PG
"Did you see the new ECO?" Dee asks over her hand of cards. "I wonder who they're going to give him to, he's cute."
Starbuck smirked. "Looks like someone has a crush."
"Well, don't you think so?" Dee countered.
"Not my type," Starbuck replied.
Racetrack made a rude noise. "Starbuck, your type is 'has a pulse'."
"Her loss, more for the rest of us!" Dee said, and the other women laughed.
But the table feel silent, and Dee turned around in her seat to see why.
Of course, there he was, the new ECO, Mr. Handsome himself, leaning against the hatch.
Starbuck rose from the table and warmly embraced him, more affection than Der had seen Starbuck give...anyone, really. When they broke apart, Starbuck presented him to the table. "Guys, this is my best friend, Helo. Helo, this is Racetrack, Scarlett, and..." Starbuck grinned wickedly' "...Dee. You know, you two really should talk."
He sat on the edge if the table. He was even more handsome close up.
"Hi," he said.
She hoped she was keeping her cool. "Hi."
Solstice, Helo/Dee, G
As Helo walked into the mess hall, he reflected how sad all of the holiday tinsel looked when there was no one was around to see it. Any other meal, the hall would be bustling, people chattering, food being chewed and silverware being clattered. But most people were fasting at the morning solstice service.
Only one table was occupied, and he was surprised to see Lieutenant Dualla sitting alone. Wasn't she Sagittaron?"
"Am I disturbing you?" He asked.
"Not at all," she replied. "Not at the service?"
"I don't observe," he replied. "You? I thought..."
She shook her head. "I don't know. My dad and I fought, and..."
He nodded. "Well, doesn't mean we can't have a good day ourselves, right?"
He saw the hint of a smile. Just because the mess wasn't full, didn't mean it was empty.
Life Skills, Helo/Dee, Helo/Gaeta, PG
It was Felix's idea to take the human anatomy art class at the community center. "I think it's one of the ones where they bring in chiseled naked people," he said, a twinkle on his eyes. And Dee could hardly argue with that.
By but by their fourth class meeting, there were no chiseled naked people in sight, but Dee had several sketched of Felix's nose, his eyes, his hands. Which is why she was so pleased to walk into class to see their instructor, Kara, chatting with a man who was undoubtedly chiseled under his robe.
"Hello," Felix muttered, low enough for only Dee to hear. "Care to make this interesting?"
Dee wasn't sure what could be more interesting than staring at their model's abs for the next hour, but she was game. "What do you have in mind?"
"Twenty bucks to the other if one of us gets a date?"
"You're on."
Care Package, Helo/Dee, Helo/Sharon
"Hey," Helo heard, and these days people only talked to him to harass him about Sharon, but the voice was too soft, too tender for that, so he looked up.
Dee.
She pulled a package out from behind her back. "I don't know how you feel about taking presents from ex-girlfriends now that you and the Cy--Sharon are, you know..."
"That was a very long time ago," he said. At least, it felt like a lifetime ago, before the end of the worlds. And honestly he was glad for any friendly face.
"I guess it was," she agreed. She held out the package and he took it, wrapped in old comm logs. He peeled back the tape. "I don't know if anyone's told you, but we started doing this thing where we auction off the gear of people who don't make it back."
And, of course, he hasn't made it back, dead for all those months, for all Galactica knew.
He finished unwrapping the package, and what he found made him laugh. A bag of lollipops. The same bag of lollipops he'd gotten in a care package right before the attacks. A care package from his mom. And before he knew it, his laughter had turned to tears, and he was crying for all of it: for his family, for his way of life, for everything he had never known, had been too busy trying to be strong to grieve for until now.
Dee didn't tell him it was all going to be okay. Because they both knew it wasn't. But she sat with him while he cried, and later, she helped him get the rest of it back.
Shoreleave, Helo/Dee, PG
Karl finished throwing the last of his gear in the duffle. For just a week's shoreleave on Scorpia, he didn't need to take all of his gear, just anything he'd need for the beach and anything he didn't want Starbuck to convince the cook to put in the freezer.
He ran to catch the shuttle, bag swinging against his side. Dee'd kill him if he missed it, especially considering the trip had been his idea in the first place. Just for fun, for friends, he'd claimed, but he wasn't sure if she knew it was all to help her avoid going home to her increasingly hostile family.
He made it in time, breathless as he reached the hanger deck. She leaned out the side of the raptor, her ass in those civilian jeans as fine as he'd ever seen it. And it was then, he realized, that he'd had an ulterior motive all along.
Sometime this week, he was definitely going to kiss her.
Shoreleave pt. 2, Helo/Dee, pg-13
"I have to admit," she said, "I thought I knew exactly why you did this."
"Oh?" he asked.
"Making sure I had somewhere other to go than Sagittaron. But this was your plan all along, you sneak."
He ran his hands along the curve of her hip, his lips brushing her neck. She turned her head and their lips met: soft, warm. She could still taste the salt water on his skin from their moonlit dip in the bay. He pulled the covers up over them and she snuggled in close for sleep.
"Believe me," he whispered as she closed her eyes, his arm protective around her waist, "if this had been my plan all along, I wouldn't have paid for two rooms."
Scout, Helo/Dee, G
Helo spotted her at almost the same time she spotted him, and they both cracked a smile.
"Should have guessed you'd be the Eagle Scout volunteer," she said.
"I could say the same for you, Gold Scout," he said as he held the hatch to the commander's open, and she walked through with a grateful smile. "Lieutenant Dualla, Lieutenant Agathon," Adama said as they saluted him. "At ease. Please, have a seat."
Half an hour later, full of forms and dry details for the upcoming Scout Visit day. But the real fun was yet to come. "Want to meet in the mess later to brainstorm activities?" she asked.
"It's a date," he replied, and she felt an unexpected thrill at his smile. Community service had never come with so many dashing benefits.
Missed Connection pt. 2, Helo/Dee, PG (part 1 by wicked_sassy, here)
Date: 2013-02-02, 4:32pm
From: adualla@colfacad.cf.mil
To: jd2ts-3160003069@pers.craigslist.org
Subj: Missed Connection
Hi! I am so sorry to have taken so long to get back to you. I had no idea about this post until I was off-base last night with a friend from town and she asked me if I'd seen the missed connection for a Sagittaron at the Academy. I...am pretty sure you're looking for me? Yes, I am from Sagittaron, and last term I had three classes with a really good looking guy who borrowed my pen once but I haven't seen around lately.
When he borrowed my pen, I teased him about the against-regs braided string he had on his wrist, which he told me was a "friendship covenant" his niece tied on the last time he was home. I remember the words "friendship covenant" specifically, because he was so serious and it was very cute. Familiar? Is this you?
(and yes, I'd love to get some sushi.)
How About We, Helo/Dee, PG
Dee loved her best friend Felix very much, but she had certain ideas about where he could shove his opinions about her doing online dating. Smug marrieds who met their soulmate on the first day of freshman orientation really weren't allowed to play the judgement game about how other people got their dating on.
("But Louis and I are still fun!" Felix would always kinda-whine when she called him a "smug married." And she'd pat his hand reassuringly but inwardly roll her eyes.)
Felix could shove it, because this one...this one was going really well. Helo1981 ("You can call me Karl," he said, when they did that awkward oh-hey-I-think-you're-the-one-I'm-waiting-for-ahhhh-do-we-hug-or-shake-hands-or-what greeting dance.) had suggested the local children's museum, and despite Felix's protestations that that was a serial killer suggestion, she thought it was cute. She thought he was cute, too. Stopping at the geology exhibit to tell her about the rock formations his dad would stop the car for for "teachable moments" on family road trips, getting drawn in with her at the dinosaur skeletons, and once, she'd turned around for just a second, and when she looked back he was helping a little kid put the capstone into a six-foot-tall arch.
They were stopped at an exciting-looking experiment about electricity. Her hands fit the controls just fine, but a side-glance revealed that he was struggling, his hands comically too large. Their eyes met.
"You could put yours over mine, if it helped," she suggested, hoping her tone was striking the right balance between sweet and come hither. He smiled and moved behind her, his arms around her, his hands on hers, his chin just barely not resting on her head.
"Okay?" he asked, and it was more than okay. She tried to get the light bulb to light up, but the closeness was pleasantly distracting. His smell was nice, muted, maybe a little bit of vanilla, even.
"The museum will be closing in five minutes," an announcement came over the loudspeaker, and he moved away, though he left one hand with her, and laced his fingers.
"I know we only planned on the children's museum," he said, "but what would you think about dinner?"
Orbit, Helo/Dee, PG
The Adamas fight incessantly about whether they made the right call by leaving New Caprica. Every executive meeting between the two Battlestars bristles with the tension between father and son, this weird mix of self-loathing and mutual distaste.
So it's a losing battle Dee's fighting, to try to keep these meetings on task, on focus, not spiraling downward into useless despair. She had thought that all of the responsibility was hers, but in the last few months, she's gained real respect for Helo. Before the attacks, they'd only had passing acquaintance, a few words spoken on the wireless here and there when his Raptor was requesting landing clearance, the way that flight crew and CIC officers tended to keep their distances, back when the human race wasn't limited to fifty thousand people. And then after, since he's got back, his defining characteristic to everyone was his relationship with the Cylon--
But these meetings. They've become allies. Helo is just as helpful at keeping the Admiral on task as she is with Lee. Always smiling, always cheerful, even though she's heard his wife is still in the brig, and he has just as many people he loves left on the planet as she does. A quick glance from him across the table, the way his eyes crinkle warmly as their gazes meet, does more to lift her spirits these days than anything else.
The Pegasus officers are filing out of the Admiral's office when she hears his voice behind her. "Dee, do you have a second?"
"Sure," she says, and they duck into the hatch of his office.
He doesn't pull out paperwork or anything, like she's expecting. Just takes a hand, gently. "I wanted to make sure you're taking care of yourself over there, too."
Her eyes well up with tears she didn't know she'd been holding in, and she leans against his chest. He says nothing as she cries, stroking her hair.
Crimes Against Humanity, Helo/Dee, PG-13
MAKE A HOLE!" he yells, pushing people out of the way, down the ladder, through the crowded corridors of Dogsville. He's never had a problem moving through groups of people, but this morning even the slightest pause seems like an agonizing lifetime.
Dualla. Dualla. Dee. He'll see every Sagittaron face when he closes his eyes, but he know Dee would hurt the most. Sweet Dee, the voice who always called him home. How can Sharon be cold to that? How can anyone look into another hurting face and deny them care? Some days he doesn't get the human race anymore. Some days he's not sure he wants to.
He finds Dee, lying on the medical bed, paler than he's ever seen her, like a corpse. Like Sharon after he shot her, the blood pooled out of her body and onto the floor. No. No.
He fumbles for her pulse and can't find it. "Dualla!" he yells. "Dualla! Dee!"
Frakking racist son of a bitch. He might kill Robert. That'll be the final straw for sure, the killing stroke, the last entry on the List of Captain Karl Cyrus Agathon's Crimes Against Humanity, but he's never regretted a single decision he's made and he won't regret this. He steps away from her, clenching his fists.
But then Dee coughs weakly and he can feel the relief down to the tips of his fingers. "Dualla," he says, moving so when she opens her eyes she sees a friendly face. "Dee. Hey. What are you doing down here?"
"Dr. Robert gave me something," she mumbles. "Kicked the frak out of me. Where's Lee?"
Lee. Yes. He helps her up. He can get Dee to Lee.
Better she's not still around when he finds Robert.
Mail Call, Helo/Dee, PG
There was a polite knock from outside the CIC officer's duty locker before the hatch swung open. Dee looked up from her rack to see one of the flight team standing in in the hatchway, a rangler by the patch on his jacket. She wasn't not sure which one; she didn't know them on sight.
"Hi," he said. "Sorry, um, I'm looking for Lieutenant Dualla?"
She could place him now, by his voice, callsign Helo. Raptor 312's ECO. She liked him. His pilot, Boomer, always sounded frantic in landings, like she was constantly three seconds away from total disaster, but she'd never heard Helo raise his voice, smooth, calm. Even just over the comm, she knew exactly why those two were paired.
"That's me," she said, sitting up and swinging her legs onto the sole.
He smiled. "Nice to finally meet face-to-face," he said.
"Likewise," she replied. "What brings you down here, Helo?" She was addressing him too familiarly, considering her non-pilot status, but frankly, she didn't know what his family name was. Besides, if her assumptions were right, Helo wasn't the kind of guy who'd mind.
And she was right, judging by his smile, pleased she could connect the voice to the man. "I think I got this in my mail delivery by mistake," he said, holding out a package.
Wrapped in brown paper, a return address from Sagittaron, reeking of incense and natural herbs. When she accepted it, she could hear little bells tingling inside. Ugh. Mother. "Sorry," she said, blushing a little. "It's kind of embarrassing. My parents want to make sure I don't have to use Fleet medicine..."
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," he said, his voice as warm as always. "Just wanted to make sure it got to the right place."
"Well thanks, Helo."
"Anytime," he replied. "I've got rotation this afternoon, so I'll be talking to you later."
She smiled. "Looking forward to it, sir."
After the hatch closed, Felix snorted from in his rack. "Looking forward to it, sir," he repeated, and Dee threw a sock at him.
Guns, Helo/Dee, R
Dee ran her fingers across Helo's well-muscled back, the slick sheen of sweat allowing for easy gliding. She drifted, fingertips over skin to his upper arms, locked and firm, supporting his upper body above her. He teased her, sometimes (when he had words to talk and wasn't putting that impressively sized cock to work) about how much she liked his arms, but she didn't see how anyone couldn't. He thrust into her and she moaned, holding on tight for support, The rest of her felt boneless, drifting away into pleasure, but her fingers kept their grip on the warm, firm resistance of his muscles.
Alliance, Gaeta/Hoshi, PG
By the time Pegasus arrives, Felix is just as tired of most of the other gay men on Galactica as they are of him. Sucking off Truss, frakking Gilman, it’s really no different from eating the small handful of MRE flavors they’ve gotten down to: day in, day out. It’s been all the scuttlebutt recently, among their somewhat loosely connected but well-informed group, that both Morrison from the Marines and Zinn down in the engine room have actually been taking leaves to sleep with civvies. Must be nice to have the time, Felix thinks to himself sometimes, when a battle eats into half of his down-watch, or he has to devote a mess period to drawing a diagram so that the XO will understand a calculation.
But, today, on the hangar deck…
“Lieutenant Gaeta,” he says. “Senior Officer of the Watch.”
“Lieutenant Hoshi,” the other man replies. “Communications officer.” His handshake is firm, and Felix catches the unmistakable flicker of eyes as Hoshi looks him up and down. Well, is that so?
“Seems like we’ll be speaking often over the wireless,” Felix replies, and Hoshi smiles. Oh yes, it is so.
“I look forward to it.”
Felix can hear Admiral Cain speaking. Though it’s too hard to make out what she's saying over the din of the crowd, Hoshi’s head snaps up, as if programmed to listen to her every word. She’s smiling, just like everyone else, but there’s something to her: a coldness, a hardness. Something about her that’s very different from Commander Adama.
“Our bosses are quite different,” Hoshi comments, as if reading his thoughts.
“It’s going to be a difficult adjustment period for everyone,” Felix replies.
“Good thing we have an alliance,” Hoshi says.
“Oh, do we now?” Felix asked.
"I think we do."
Fifteen minutes later, in an empty storage closet off the hangar deck, as Hoshi fumbles with the buttons on his dress uniform, Felix feels more electrified than he has since the attacks.
This is going to be the best alliance ever.
Mess, Helo/Dee, PG
“Hey,” he heard a voice ask, and his head snapped up. “This seat taken?” Dee asked, mess tray in her hands, no other bridge bunnies anywhere in sight.
Starbuck didn’t answer, just leaned back in her chair and gave Helo a pointed look. Not for the first time he wished he’d found someone more discreet to be the person he confided everything to. “All yours, Dee,” Helo replied, and she sat with a gracious smile.
This really wasn’t as big a deal as Starbuck wanted to make it-with her awkward silence and her not helping this at all. Helo cleared his throat. “So-”
But she had started talking at the same time. “Did you-” They laughed. “Go ahead,” she said.
“No, ladies first,” he replied.
“Did you catch last night’s playoff scores?”
He shook his head ruefully. “Had money on the C-Bucs,” he said.
“When will you learn?” she asked, and even Starbuck laughed.
See? Totally fine. Hell, if every lieutenant on Galactica avoided people they’d had one-night stands with, no one would be able to talk to anyone.
Gossip, Helo/Dee, PG
"Did you see the new ECO?" Dee asks over her hand of cards. "I wonder who they're going to give him to, he's cute."
Starbuck smirked. "Looks like someone has a crush."
"Well, don't you think so?" Dee countered.
"Not my type," Starbuck replied.
Racetrack made a rude noise. "Starbuck, your type is 'has a pulse'."
"Her loss, more for the rest of us!" Dee said, and the other women laughed.
But the table feel silent, and Dee turned around in her seat to see why.
Of course, there he was, the new ECO, Mr. Handsome himself, leaning against the hatch.
Starbuck rose from the table and warmly embraced him, more affection than Der had seen Starbuck give...anyone, really. When they broke apart, Starbuck presented him to the table. "Guys, this is my best friend, Helo. Helo, this is Racetrack, Scarlett, and..." Starbuck grinned wickedly' "...Dee. You know, you two really should talk."
He sat on the edge if the table. He was even more handsome close up.
"Hi," he said.
She hoped she was keeping her cool. "Hi."
Solstice, Helo/Dee, G
As Helo walked into the mess hall, he reflected how sad all of the holiday tinsel looked when there was no one was around to see it. Any other meal, the hall would be bustling, people chattering, food being chewed and silverware being clattered. But most people were fasting at the morning solstice service.
Only one table was occupied, and he was surprised to see Lieutenant Dualla sitting alone. Wasn't she Sagittaron?"
"Am I disturbing you?" He asked.
"Not at all," she replied. "Not at the service?"
"I don't observe," he replied. "You? I thought..."
She shook her head. "I don't know. My dad and I fought, and..."
He nodded. "Well, doesn't mean we can't have a good day ourselves, right?"
He saw the hint of a smile. Just because the mess wasn't full, didn't mean it was empty.
Life Skills, Helo/Dee, Helo/Gaeta, PG
It was Felix's idea to take the human anatomy art class at the community center. "I think it's one of the ones where they bring in chiseled naked people," he said, a twinkle on his eyes. And Dee could hardly argue with that.
By but by their fourth class meeting, there were no chiseled naked people in sight, but Dee had several sketched of Felix's nose, his eyes, his hands. Which is why she was so pleased to walk into class to see their instructor, Kara, chatting with a man who was undoubtedly chiseled under his robe.
"Hello," Felix muttered, low enough for only Dee to hear. "Care to make this interesting?"
Dee wasn't sure what could be more interesting than staring at their model's abs for the next hour, but she was game. "What do you have in mind?"
"Twenty bucks to the other if one of us gets a date?"
"You're on."
Care Package, Helo/Dee, Helo/Sharon
"Hey," Helo heard, and these days people only talked to him to harass him about Sharon, but the voice was too soft, too tender for that, so he looked up.
Dee.
She pulled a package out from behind her back. "I don't know how you feel about taking presents from ex-girlfriends now that you and the Cy--Sharon are, you know..."
"That was a very long time ago," he said. At least, it felt like a lifetime ago, before the end of the worlds. And honestly he was glad for any friendly face.
"I guess it was," she agreed. She held out the package and he took it, wrapped in old comm logs. He peeled back the tape. "I don't know if anyone's told you, but we started doing this thing where we auction off the gear of people who don't make it back."
And, of course, he hasn't made it back, dead for all those months, for all Galactica knew.
He finished unwrapping the package, and what he found made him laugh. A bag of lollipops. The same bag of lollipops he'd gotten in a care package right before the attacks. A care package from his mom. And before he knew it, his laughter had turned to tears, and he was crying for all of it: for his family, for his way of life, for everything he had never known, had been too busy trying to be strong to grieve for until now.
Dee didn't tell him it was all going to be okay. Because they both knew it wasn't. But she sat with him while he cried, and later, she helped him get the rest of it back.
Shoreleave, Helo/Dee, PG
Karl finished throwing the last of his gear in the duffle. For just a week's shoreleave on Scorpia, he didn't need to take all of his gear, just anything he'd need for the beach and anything he didn't want Starbuck to convince the cook to put in the freezer.
He ran to catch the shuttle, bag swinging against his side. Dee'd kill him if he missed it, especially considering the trip had been his idea in the first place. Just for fun, for friends, he'd claimed, but he wasn't sure if she knew it was all to help her avoid going home to her increasingly hostile family.
He made it in time, breathless as he reached the hanger deck. She leaned out the side of the raptor, her ass in those civilian jeans as fine as he'd ever seen it. And it was then, he realized, that he'd had an ulterior motive all along.
Sometime this week, he was definitely going to kiss her.
Shoreleave pt. 2, Helo/Dee, pg-13
"I have to admit," she said, "I thought I knew exactly why you did this."
"Oh?" he asked.
"Making sure I had somewhere other to go than Sagittaron. But this was your plan all along, you sneak."
He ran his hands along the curve of her hip, his lips brushing her neck. She turned her head and their lips met: soft, warm. She could still taste the salt water on his skin from their moonlit dip in the bay. He pulled the covers up over them and she snuggled in close for sleep.
"Believe me," he whispered as she closed her eyes, his arm protective around her waist, "if this had been my plan all along, I wouldn't have paid for two rooms."
Scout, Helo/Dee, G
Helo spotted her at almost the same time she spotted him, and they both cracked a smile.
"Should have guessed you'd be the Eagle Scout volunteer," she said.
"I could say the same for you, Gold Scout," he said as he held the hatch to the commander's open, and she walked through with a grateful smile. "Lieutenant Dualla, Lieutenant Agathon," Adama said as they saluted him. "At ease. Please, have a seat."
Half an hour later, full of forms and dry details for the upcoming Scout Visit day. But the real fun was yet to come. "Want to meet in the mess later to brainstorm activities?" she asked.
"It's a date," he replied, and she felt an unexpected thrill at his smile. Community service had never come with so many dashing benefits.
Missed Connection pt. 2, Helo/Dee, PG (part 1 by wicked_sassy, here)
Date: 2013-02-02, 4:32pm
From: adualla@colfacad.cf.mil
To: jd2ts-3160003069@pers.craigslist.org
Subj: Missed Connection
Hi! I am so sorry to have taken so long to get back to you. I had no idea about this post until I was off-base last night with a friend from town and she asked me if I'd seen the missed connection for a Sagittaron at the Academy. I...am pretty sure you're looking for me? Yes, I am from Sagittaron, and last term I had three classes with a really good looking guy who borrowed my pen once but I haven't seen around lately.
When he borrowed my pen, I teased him about the against-regs braided string he had on his wrist, which he told me was a "friendship covenant" his niece tied on the last time he was home. I remember the words "friendship covenant" specifically, because he was so serious and it was very cute. Familiar? Is this you?
(and yes, I'd love to get some sushi.)
How About We, Helo/Dee, PG
Dee loved her best friend Felix very much, but she had certain ideas about where he could shove his opinions about her doing online dating. Smug marrieds who met their soulmate on the first day of freshman orientation really weren't allowed to play the judgement game about how other people got their dating on.
("But Louis and I are still fun!" Felix would always kinda-whine when she called him a "smug married." And she'd pat his hand reassuringly but inwardly roll her eyes.)
Felix could shove it, because this one...this one was going really well. Helo1981 ("You can call me Karl," he said, when they did that awkward oh-hey-I-think-you're-the-one-I'm-waiting-for-ahhhh-do-we-hug-or-shake-hands-or-what greeting dance.) had suggested the local children's museum, and despite Felix's protestations that that was a serial killer suggestion, she thought it was cute. She thought he was cute, too. Stopping at the geology exhibit to tell her about the rock formations his dad would stop the car for for "teachable moments" on family road trips, getting drawn in with her at the dinosaur skeletons, and once, she'd turned around for just a second, and when she looked back he was helping a little kid put the capstone into a six-foot-tall arch.
They were stopped at an exciting-looking experiment about electricity. Her hands fit the controls just fine, but a side-glance revealed that he was struggling, his hands comically too large. Their eyes met.
"You could put yours over mine, if it helped," she suggested, hoping her tone was striking the right balance between sweet and come hither. He smiled and moved behind her, his arms around her, his hands on hers, his chin just barely not resting on her head.
"Okay?" he asked, and it was more than okay. She tried to get the light bulb to light up, but the closeness was pleasantly distracting. His smell was nice, muted, maybe a little bit of vanilla, even.
"The museum will be closing in five minutes," an announcement came over the loudspeaker, and he moved away, though he left one hand with her, and laced his fingers.
"I know we only planned on the children's museum," he said, "but what would you think about dinner?"
Orbit, Helo/Dee, PG
The Adamas fight incessantly about whether they made the right call by leaving New Caprica. Every executive meeting between the two Battlestars bristles with the tension between father and son, this weird mix of self-loathing and mutual distaste.
So it's a losing battle Dee's fighting, to try to keep these meetings on task, on focus, not spiraling downward into useless despair. She had thought that all of the responsibility was hers, but in the last few months, she's gained real respect for Helo. Before the attacks, they'd only had passing acquaintance, a few words spoken on the wireless here and there when his Raptor was requesting landing clearance, the way that flight crew and CIC officers tended to keep their distances, back when the human race wasn't limited to fifty thousand people. And then after, since he's got back, his defining characteristic to everyone was his relationship with the Cylon--
But these meetings. They've become allies. Helo is just as helpful at keeping the Admiral on task as she is with Lee. Always smiling, always cheerful, even though she's heard his wife is still in the brig, and he has just as many people he loves left on the planet as she does. A quick glance from him across the table, the way his eyes crinkle warmly as their gazes meet, does more to lift her spirits these days than anything else.
The Pegasus officers are filing out of the Admiral's office when she hears his voice behind her. "Dee, do you have a second?"
"Sure," she says, and they duck into the hatch of his office.
He doesn't pull out paperwork or anything, like she's expecting. Just takes a hand, gently. "I wanted to make sure you're taking care of yourself over there, too."
Her eyes well up with tears she didn't know she'd been holding in, and she leans against his chest. He says nothing as she cries, stroking her hair.
Crimes Against Humanity, Helo/Dee, PG-13
MAKE A HOLE!" he yells, pushing people out of the way, down the ladder, through the crowded corridors of Dogsville. He's never had a problem moving through groups of people, but this morning even the slightest pause seems like an agonizing lifetime.
Dualla. Dualla. Dee. He'll see every Sagittaron face when he closes his eyes, but he know Dee would hurt the most. Sweet Dee, the voice who always called him home. How can Sharon be cold to that? How can anyone look into another hurting face and deny them care? Some days he doesn't get the human race anymore. Some days he's not sure he wants to.
He finds Dee, lying on the medical bed, paler than he's ever seen her, like a corpse. Like Sharon after he shot her, the blood pooled out of her body and onto the floor. No. No.
He fumbles for her pulse and can't find it. "Dualla!" he yells. "Dualla! Dee!"
Frakking racist son of a bitch. He might kill Robert. That'll be the final straw for sure, the killing stroke, the last entry on the List of Captain Karl Cyrus Agathon's Crimes Against Humanity, but he's never regretted a single decision he's made and he won't regret this. He steps away from her, clenching his fists.
But then Dee coughs weakly and he can feel the relief down to the tips of his fingers. "Dualla," he says, moving so when she opens her eyes she sees a friendly face. "Dee. Hey. What are you doing down here?"
"Dr. Robert gave me something," she mumbles. "Kicked the frak out of me. Where's Lee?"
Lee. Yes. He helps her up. He can get Dee to Lee.
Better she's not still around when he finds Robert.
Mail Call, Helo/Dee, PG
There was a polite knock from outside the CIC officer's duty locker before the hatch swung open. Dee looked up from her rack to see one of the flight team standing in in the hatchway, a rangler by the patch on his jacket. She wasn't not sure which one; she didn't know them on sight.
"Hi," he said. "Sorry, um, I'm looking for Lieutenant Dualla?"
She could place him now, by his voice, callsign Helo. Raptor 312's ECO. She liked him. His pilot, Boomer, always sounded frantic in landings, like she was constantly three seconds away from total disaster, but she'd never heard Helo raise his voice, smooth, calm. Even just over the comm, she knew exactly why those two were paired.
"That's me," she said, sitting up and swinging her legs onto the sole.
He smiled. "Nice to finally meet face-to-face," he said.
"Likewise," she replied. "What brings you down here, Helo?" She was addressing him too familiarly, considering her non-pilot status, but frankly, she didn't know what his family name was. Besides, if her assumptions were right, Helo wasn't the kind of guy who'd mind.
And she was right, judging by his smile, pleased she could connect the voice to the man. "I think I got this in my mail delivery by mistake," he said, holding out a package.
Wrapped in brown paper, a return address from Sagittaron, reeking of incense and natural herbs. When she accepted it, she could hear little bells tingling inside. Ugh. Mother. "Sorry," she said, blushing a little. "It's kind of embarrassing. My parents want to make sure I don't have to use Fleet medicine..."
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," he said, his voice as warm as always. "Just wanted to make sure it got to the right place."
"Well thanks, Helo."
"Anytime," he replied. "I've got rotation this afternoon, so I'll be talking to you later."
She smiled. "Looking forward to it, sir."
After the hatch closed, Felix snorted from in his rack. "Looking forward to it, sir," he repeated, and Dee threw a sock at him.
Guns, Helo/Dee, R
Dee ran her fingers across Helo's well-muscled back, the slick sheen of sweat allowing for easy gliding. She drifted, fingertips over skin to his upper arms, locked and firm, supporting his upper body above her. He teased her, sometimes (when he had words to talk and wasn't putting that impressively sized cock to work) about how much she liked his arms, but she didn't see how anyone couldn't. He thrust into her and she moaned, holding on tight for support, The rest of her felt boneless, drifting away into pleasure, but her fingers kept their grip on the warm, firm resistance of his muscles.
Alliance, Gaeta/Hoshi, PG
By the time Pegasus arrives, Felix is just as tired of most of the other gay men on Galactica as they are of him. Sucking off Truss, frakking Gilman, it’s really no different from eating the small handful of MRE flavors they’ve gotten down to: day in, day out. It’s been all the scuttlebutt recently, among their somewhat loosely connected but well-informed group, that both Morrison from the Marines and Zinn down in the engine room have actually been taking leaves to sleep with civvies. Must be nice to have the time, Felix thinks to himself sometimes, when a battle eats into half of his down-watch, or he has to devote a mess period to drawing a diagram so that the XO will understand a calculation.
But, today, on the hangar deck…
“Lieutenant Gaeta,” he says. “Senior Officer of the Watch.”
“Lieutenant Hoshi,” the other man replies. “Communications officer.” His handshake is firm, and Felix catches the unmistakable flicker of eyes as Hoshi looks him up and down. Well, is that so?
“Seems like we’ll be speaking often over the wireless,” Felix replies, and Hoshi smiles. Oh yes, it is so.
“I look forward to it.”
Felix can hear Admiral Cain speaking. Though it’s too hard to make out what she's saying over the din of the crowd, Hoshi’s head snaps up, as if programmed to listen to her every word. She’s smiling, just like everyone else, but there’s something to her: a coldness, a hardness. Something about her that’s very different from Commander Adama.
“Our bosses are quite different,” Hoshi comments, as if reading his thoughts.
“It’s going to be a difficult adjustment period for everyone,” Felix replies.
“Good thing we have an alliance,” Hoshi says.
“Oh, do we now?” Felix asked.
"I think we do."
Fifteen minutes later, in an empty storage closet off the hangar deck, as Hoshi fumbles with the buttons on his dress uniform, Felix feels more electrified than he has since the attacks.
This is going to be the best alliance ever.