Love is Too Familiar a Word (There Are No Happy Endings, Just Beginnings, Remix) (for lls_mutant)
Title: Love is Too Familiar a Word (There Are No Happy Endings, Just Beginnings, Remix)
Author: lorrainemarker
Summary: “Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbors, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.” - Samuel Butler
Timeframe: This story is an AU version of season 4.5 (Roughly covering from Sometimes a Great Notion - Blood on the Scales)
Characters: Dee, Gaeta, Hoshi
Pairing: Gaeta/Hoshi
Rating/Warnings: FRM, like the show there are adult themes & language and some sexual content
Remixed from: Ten Good Things Happen to Felix Gaeta, by lls_mutant
Notes: lls_mutant wrote her original story at a time when it wasn’t clear what Lt. Hoshi’s first name was. She used Lucas in her story. For familiarity’s sake (and because my fingers refused to type Lucas), I’m using Louis. Also, for those who love a good poem, the title is from a poem by Ellis Paul, Love is Too Familiar a Word
Word Count: ~5200
One of the marines stands guard, red-eyed from a recent bout of weeping. He’s not the only one. Half the assigned crew failed to show at shift change. There’s movement by the tactical station. Louis looks up from comms. It’s not Felix. Twenty minutes after shift change and he’s still not here. Felix Gaeta; who reported for duty four days post-amputation, failing to report for duty-failing to even call-in sick (which gods knows the man deserves) ranks somewhere between the Admiral’s drunkenness and President Roslin’s vanishing act in the list of signs of the coming apocalypse. Louis should be frantic. Instead, relief, out of place and entirely inappropriate, fills him. If Felix isn’t here, then Louis doesn’t have to go off duty.
As long as he’s on duty he can focus on confirming in precise detail the exact extent of how badly everything has gone to shit. Thus far he has determined with mathematical preciseness exactly how long Earth will remain uninhabitable. Similarly, he knows exactly when the fleet will exhaust the remaining algae-after they run out of raptor parts, but before they run out of either water or replacement filters for the air recyclers. While not entirely healthy, he considers his response better than the senior officers’ decision to hole up somewhere and get drunk. His coping methodology; intellectualizing information to prevent actual reaction, means he’s neither to the point of getting shit-faced nor ready to paint ‘Frak Earth!’ on bulkheads (although, the second option tempts him). He is, however, willing to work a double or even triple shift just for the opportunity to reduce his reaction to mathematical equations.
There’s a word for this pretense. It is odd and perhaps Louis-specific; however, his mother still would have called it ‘denial’. In the last few years, Louis had become familiar with denial; it had started as a psychological tool of survival and gradually became a way of life, possibly even a dear and trusted friend.
Felix has missed his entire shift and Dee the first thirty minutes of hers when a petty officer stands by Louis’ station to relieve him. He hesitates before acknowledging her and standing down. Fortunately, there is a new distraction from reality; Tory Foster asks for the water distribution algorithms. It’s an odd request; badly timed and useless for any current needs. Additionally, while no one has bothered to remove her from the list of people with access to vital information, they probably should have. Louis ignores all of those factors in favor of the opportunity it gives him to reduce yet another piece of reality to mathematics.
~*~
Louis can’t remember where the algorithms are filed; it’s one of many tasks Felix manages. After a few minutes (and pointed looks from several petty officers) Louis leaves CIC to look for Felix. Galactica has taken on a surreal patina. Crew members wander aimlessly, weep and rage, fight and frak all in full view of officers, and someone has painted ‘Frak Earth!’ on a bulkhead. It is that last ‘Frak Earth!’ red paint dripping down the bulkhead, which finally sends ice-water shock down his spine to leave him hyperventilating on his knees. No one pays attention, any more than he paid attention to any of the other crew as they orbited their grief.
Mentally Louis retraces his steps-Joe’s, the astrogation lab, Baltar’s old lab and quarters, Obs., the small supply room off the port sublight engines, and the main conference room, where he slipped behind the curtain separating the podium from the shelving for presentation supplies (long since depleted). All Felix’s favorite haunts. Louis knew them all, just as he knew how Felix preferred his coffee (strong, sweet, and no cream) and snacks (salty and crunchy). He makes a stop by Medical on the off-chance Felix has an appointment.
Finally, Louis makes his way to the barracks, sticks his head in the hatch hoping to find Felix. Instead, he sees Dee. She stands in front of her locker wearing a slinky black dress and heels. Louis watches her hang a locket next to her dog tags on a hook. It’s the first time he has seen her without them, yet another surreal moment in a bitterly surreal day. “Hey, Dee you know where the water distribution algorithm is?”
“Felix has it.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he filed it somewhere completely logical and rational in ‘Gaeta-filing-system’, but I can’t find it.” Normality achieved, he thinks, the ‘Gaeta-filling-system’ was one of his and Dee’s first jokes as they had sorted through Felix’s methodical, yet impenetrable computer files while he lived on New Caprica.
“He’s on duty, go ask him.” The odd toneless inflection to her voice makes him look at her curiously. “Dee?”
She looks towards him briefly, turns back to the mirror. “I’m fine.”
Like shit. No one is fine and there’s a word for the distance in her voice and the depths of grief in her eyes; it’s despair, it’s the death of all their hopes. Louis feels it, too. He clings to denial, focuses on duty and formulas instead of falling into despair. She hasn’t figured out how to live in denial yet. Or maybe she just raced through denial and Louis hasn’t caught up with her.
“Dee,” he says it slowly, because they’re not at the same place, “Felix no-showed for his shift.”
“Felix wouldn’t do that.”
“He did.”
“Felix wouldn’t do that.” She stares at him seeking reassurance he can’t give. Slowly, something replaces the despair in her eyes and voice; something more alive, something more frightened. “Oh, gods, what was I thinking.” Her voice shakes and hands tremble. “What the frak was I thinking leaving him alone?”
Belatedly, Louis begins to worry, if Felix neither reported for duty, nor wandered to one of his usual spots then where exactly is he? Understanding sets in with a stomach dropping swoop. “Would he hurt himself?”
“No, yes, maybe; he said something to Helo, but I…I wasn’t thinking. We have to find him.”
“I’ve already looked everywhere.”
He had, but they look anyway, retracing his earlier search and then retracing it again. Until, finally, they return to the barracks. Dee slumps to the deck, high heels discarded, knees pulled to her chest. She stares blankly at Felix’s empty rack. Louis can’t hang onto denial, not faced with Dee’s despair. He sits next to her and they wait.
~*~
“Hey, what’s going on?”
It takes several seconds for the voice to register-it’s Felix and he’s confused, rather than dead.
“Where the frak have you been!” Dee’s on her feet, both arms wrapped around Felix’s waist.
Felix holds her. “Uh, babysitting Hera”
Dee is laughing and then she breaks into tears. There are words; tears and laughter scramble them to something unintelligible. Either the actual words don’t matter to Felix or he understands them through the osmosis of long-time friends. He holds her, while she weeps out her despair into his shoulder. Louis watches them feeling uncomfortably intrusive as Felix whispers reassurances. He would leave, but they stand right in front of the hatch. He steps back towards his rack. Felix looks at him and mouths, ‘thank you’ and reaches a hand out towards him. Suddenly, he’s not an intruder and there’s a word for the grace that settles within easing his despair. The word is friendship. As he steps into their all-encompassing hug he feels grateful for their ability to share their frail safety line. The three of them stand together for seconds, then minutes not breaking apart until someone walks in the hatch.
~*~
“I need to speak with Galactica actual now,” Lee Adama demands.
Louis looks at Felix, “Its Lee Adama he wants to speak with ‘actual’.”
“He means the Admiral, not me.”
Louis gave Felix another look, eyes narrowed and demanding. “The Admiral isn’t here.”
“Probably because he’s drunk and I’m not telling Lee Adama that.”
“President Roslin has chemo this morning.” Dee gives Felix a disappointed look as she picks up the handset. “This is Actual.” There’s a pause, Dee’s expression goes from impatient to worried. She sets the handset down with a vehement, “Frak.”
“What’s going on?” Felix asked.
“Zarek just pulled a coup.”
“What?” Louis asks.
“Turn on the wireless,” she snarls, “I have to tell the Admiral.”
Louis flips the appropriate switch on his board. At the first words, “…no confidence vote passed seven to five…” he switches to the CIC PA. He might as well; undoubtedly every off-duty crew member has already heard the news. “In a surprise move Representative Reza Chronides moved for a no confidence vote over President Roslin’s leadership.”
Felix snorts. “Somebody’s surprised?” Louis nods in agreement and they share a grin.
“The motion, seconded by Sagittarian Representative Jacob Cantrell, passed seven to five. In a ten-two vote, the Quorum elected Vice-President Tom Zarek as the acting President until a general election can be held.”
“Representative Adama requests permission to land,” Louis relays. At Felix’s nod, he responds, “LSO, permission granted.”
“Zarek’s not going to hole up on Colonial One, so have someone clean up the formal conference room and brew some coffee.” A hoarded luxury, coffee shows up only at the most serious times of crisis.
Dee returns in time to hear Felix’s order and add, “Admiral Adama wants a communications blackout, nothing but priority”-which Louis translates to military-“communications.” A communications blackout while not under attack violates any number of the Articles of Confederation. Wincing, he exchanges glances with Dee and Felix at their nods, he pulls the plug. Within seconds both his and Dee’s boards light up with furious ship’s captains and reporters.
An hour later, Zarek, both Adamas, Roslin (in a wheelchair and attached to an IV stand), Sonja, Tigh, and Galen are in the formal conference room with marine and secret service contingents glaring at each other from opposite ends of the room. More marines guard the corridor and hatch. Reporters have been herded into the pilots’ briefing room with yet another contingent of marine guards making sure they stay put. It means pulling marines out of Dogville and off of Baltar’s cult. The resulting chaos-a small riot (triggered by a confrontation between Sons of Ares and Baltar Cultists, but eventually pulling in every splinter cult represented in Dogville)-allows Baltar to slip his leash and show up at the conference room. Felix nixes throwing him in the brig, Louis’ first inclination. He also nixes Dee’s alternative, throwing him out an airlock. Given Felix’s history with Baltar; some mishmash of crush, affair, and a few attempts to kill him, Felix’s decision, “Tell the marines to let Dr. Baltar into the conference room,” strikes him as bizarre.
There’s a word for the way everything and everyone breaks down to their most base: Zarek’s need for power; Admiral Adama’s for control; the clamor from ship captains and reporters for information to fill the gaps, even if the information is suspect or dead wrong. He knows the word for this; it’s panic. Everyone is panicking, some are doing it with a bit more outward smoothness, but internally they’re all spinning in circles.
Louis wonders why he doesn’t feel the same brain-scrambling panic. He certainly understands both the extent and possible consequences of the current crisis. The likelihood of President Roslin accepting Zarek as her replacement hoovers somewhere close to zero. Mathematically, a probability matrix can’t delve into the negatives. Notwithstanding the math, Louis knows the odds of Admiral Adama range in those hypothetically impossible negatives. Zarek is equally unlikely to give up power now that the Quorum has literally handed it to him on a plate. He doesn’t need to calculate odds to know Adama will declare martial law resulting in the fleet going to Tartarus in a hand basket. And that’s without the added problems of the Cylon alliance. Which brings him back to direct consideration of his failure to panic; he considers the possibility he has simply become inured to crisis. However, Dee and Felix aren’t panicking either. Dee at least looks a worried. Felix does not look worried, if anything, he looks amused. In fact, Louis detects a hint of smugness hovering at the corners of his mouth.
The comm to comm private mode has to be useful for something. “Why aren’t we panicking?” he asks Dee and Felix.
“Laura Roslin is not going to let Bill Adama and Tom Zarek start a shooting war over their on-going pissing contest,” Dee answers.
“Gaius Baltar managed to push his way into the conference room ten minutes ago.”
“So?”
“While his ego greatly overstates his accomplishments, I think we can rely on his two true skills: his fine-tuned survival instinct and his ability to make everyone in a room despise him more than they dislike anyone else in the room. They’ll reach some sort agreement just to get rid of Baltar.”
~*~
Three hours later, Roslin officially becomes a private citizen, Zarek is sworn in as president, and Lee Adama is sworn in as vice-president. Felix continues to look smug right up until they announce the planned installation of Cylon jump drives.
“Oh, we are so frakked,” he says vehemently.
Dee laughs, “Astral Queen.”
“Not funny!”
“Yes it is. You boys have fun. I’ve got CIC.”
Louis looks between them in confusion.
“Who do you think is going to have to convince the Colonial software to play nice with Cylon hardware?” Dee asks, still grinning.
“Oh frak.”
Felix grabs his crutches and stands swaying a little bit. “Tell you what, I’ll do the rest of the ships if you do Astral Queen.”
Dee shook her head vigorously. “Felix, you’re my best friend, but Louis, that deal sucks.”
Louis closes down his console and follows Felix towards the workroom. “I think I’ll pass. Um, why am I passing?”
“Because Astral Queen was a prison transport ship and they really didn’t want the prisoners hijacking her,” Felix says.
They stand at the worktable, flipping through the prints. The worktable, like the CIC command station is made to stand over, not sit at. After a few frustrating minutes of trying to balance on his crutches, turn pages, talk and write at the same time, Felix abandons his crutches to lean, somewhat precariously, against the table. Louis’ initial response; hyperawareness of Felix’s amputation, vanishes in face of his competency. A welcome sense of normalcy pervades the workroom. Astral Queen’s schematics covered with marginalia so thick it overwrites the printed text draws them into a lengthy discussion. Dee sometimes stands at the hatch watching them with a pleased smile on her face. Louis supposes she feels as grateful as he for the renewed sense of normal.
An enlisted crewman brings in coffee, the last of the pot from the conference room. Felix smiles when he sees the four sugar packets folded into a napkin labeled ‘Gaeta’ in the Admiral’s handwriting. Felix’s smiles turns into rueful laughter when he flips the napkin open. Shaking his head, he pours the packets into a cup adding coffee.
Louis can’t stop watching Felix. Laughter looks good on him. Wondering what set it off, Louis slides the napkin around so he can read it: Lt. Gaeta, please stop trying to kill Dr. Baltar, Adm. B. Adama. “Your CO knows you well.”
“He used to invite junior officers for breakfast; he always knew how we took our coffee. I never figured out how he did it.”
Felix obviously did not want to discuss Baltar. Dee, once more standing in the hatch behind Felix, shook her head no mouthing, ‘anything but Baltar.’
Now he really wants to know what had happened between Felix and Baltar. Stifling his curiosity, Louis switches to a more general comment, “Cain did the same thing, dinner not breakfast, and coffee after. She always knew how we took it. Maybe it’s some mysterious senior officer leadership technique.”
“Know your people’s favorites,” Dee says, “It’s something he told me when I got my promotion.”
Felix pivots to respond. He immediately begins to topple. Louis lunges, catching him with both hands around his waist.
“I forgot,” Felix says, “How frakking embarrassing.”
“Your proprioception hasn’t corrected for the amputation yet,” Louis replies, “It’s perfectly normal.”
Even after Felix reclaims his crutches, Louis feels reluctant to let go of Felix. Lean muscles glide under his hands and heat radiates through Felix’s jacket. They’re of a height, standing close his arms wrapped around Felix brings Louis into kissing distance. Felix’s lips draw his eyes. Louis wants to close the slight space between his lips and Felix’s. There’s a word for the rush of understanding, the flashing ‘ah-ha,’ and accompanying re-ordering of reality. But now is not the time for an epiphany, particularly not this epiphany. It is not the time to abruptly see his co-worker as sexual, attractive, and possibly available.
Louis backs away, grateful for Felix’s focus on regaining his composure. He feels eyes watching him. Dee, unlike Felix, focuses completely on him. She smiles, liking what she sees. Not now, he begs in the unspoken language of a man utterly unprepared to deal with epiphanies of any sort today. She acknowledges, a slight incline of her chin joined with a smile just the right side of predatory to prevent him from fleeing. A short reprieve before she presses him to deal with his epiphany.
~*~
For a few days, meetings become the new normal. Scheduling meetings, planning meetings, work groups and problem solving sessions-the meetings went by a myriad of names-each of which translated to ‘make those frakking drives work.’ Eventually, Felix and Louis have done everything they can to work through the software problems. Installation is Tyrol and the Cylons’ headache.
During the jump drive installation they circle the wastelands of Earth giving CIC staff nothing but time. Louis still can’t seem to find a chance to test the waters with Felix. He avoids the issue for three days before Dee schedules overlapping shifts. “If not now, then when?” she asks.
And there’s a word for this feeling. There’s absolutely a word to describe his complete and utter inability to string words together in a coherent sentence and just ask the Felix out on a date. It’s just that Louis hasn’t actually had the word apply to him in years, possibly decades.
“You have a crush on Felix,” Dee sing-songs under her breath.
Gods if she wasn’t the most irritating woman. “It’s not a crush.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“I’m too old-”
“You’re not that much older.”
“I was going to say -to have a crush, but there is that too. I’m old enough to be his father.”
“Only if you started really young.” She pushes a pad into his hand. “Foster still wants the water distribution algorithms. She thinks the Cylon basestar can share water distribution duties. Go ask.” A shove sends him on his way.
It’s exactly as awkward as he thought it would be. When he has the equation, he says, "Great. Thank you," trying to think of a smooth segue into asking him out.
"You're welcome," Felix answers, his attention already back on the DRADIS blips.
Louis doesn’t leave, shifting from foot to foot. Felix doesn’t seem to even notice him and Louis’ heart drops. "Haven't seen you around much off duty," he says.
"Yeah, well." Felix shrugs.
From the corner of his eye he sees Dee’s mouthed, ‘ask him already.’ He takes a deep breath in and on the exhale blurts, “I'd like to."
Felix looks up and Louis continues. “Listen, I was wondering. Would you like to go to Joe's and get a drink after this shift?” The words come out in a rush making Louis cringe at the awkwardness of it all. Twenty-five years of dating and it doesn’t get easier.
But Felix smiles. “Sure, I'd like that a lot.”
The tension bursts, Louis grins. “Great, I'll see you after.” He walks back to his station, sees Dee’s thumbs up, realizes that Felix is looking at them and sees it too.
They’re both blushing now.
~*~
After two dates Louis no longer feels awkward. Actually, five minutes into the first date the awkwardness vanished into laughter. The joke was terrible, the punch line-but what kind of flower was she-worse. Louis didn’t care. Felix’s grin of sheer delight at Hot Dog’s appalled look made it worth the embarrassment of telling the worst joke he knew.
“You know, Racetrack still cracks up when anyone says ‘flower,’” Dee calls from her rack. She looks at Louis and frowns. “Your hair is terrible.”
He backs away not liking the gleam in her eye.
She stalks over and musses it with a quick brush of her hands. “Better.” She swats away his hands when he tries to fix his hair. “Trust me on this your hair looks much better a little messy.” Dee steps back with an approving nod. “Take good care of Felix.”
“Thanks.”
“For hair advice?”
“No for kicking me in the ass until I asked him out. We’re good together.” There was a word his mother used for how well he and Felix fit-simpatico. It meant compatible, an understated way to express how he felt with Felix. Louis hadn’t really understood what she meant until now. Suddenly, simpatico made sense: values, taste and experience melding with attraction to create the indefinable sense of ‘this is the one.’
~*~
They walk back to the barracks. Louis’ steps keep time to Felix’s pace naturally. His hands stay in his pockets, because otherwise they would be all over Felix. He wants him, and yeah there’s a word for this too. A word just as inadequate as crush and simpatico-desire. He wants Felix. He wants to touch his skin, tangle fingers in his hair, taste his sweat, and swallow his gasps in kisses. He wants everything with a physical ache so overwhelming he can barely carry his side of the conversation. Felix seems interested, but Louis feels enough uncertainty to not leave his boots outside the hatch.
There are more drinks and cards, and the growing realization that Felix is right there with him. He leans over for a kiss, their first kiss. Lips barely press together before the hatch opens ending their evening. All he can think is ‘your timing sucks’ as a group walks in complaining about the food. Matching irritation echoes in Felix’s eyes. Louis funnels everything he desires into a single caress of Felix’s cheek. Felix nods and they smile together. Both know they’ll make another chance.
~*~
The fleet starts jumping again, leaving Earth behind. The press of jump calculations normally would have left them short of time. The myriad of problems the conflicts between the Cylon jump drives and Colonial navigation systems create leaves them in continuous crisis mode. Their glances simmer across consoles. Kisses, stolen in odd corners of space and time, are never quite enough to satisfy their growing desire. The few times they have off-shift time together are brief unscheduled coincidences, meaning the other is either sleeping or at Joe’s-and they never have long enough to do more than split a drink or share a stolen kiss before another crisis calls one or both back to duty.
There’s a word for the pace: frenetic. The word doesn’t entirely capture the frustration of not having time to do more than look and wait impatiently for another chance.
Louis doesn’t get enough time with Felix, but he gets the chance to see who Felix’s friends are. Helo checks on him at least a couple of times a day. Zarek, who Dee can’t stand, stops by Felix’s tactical station every time he comes into CIC. A few pilots, Skulls, Racetrack, and Hot Dog, make a point to ask how Felix is doing when they see him. The list of Felix’s true friends is short. A list Louis can keep in his head.
Felix gets a prosthetic leg and a promotion and they still haven’t managed to get enough time and privacy to do anything about the simmering sexual tension between them. Louis starts to believe the gods hate him when finally there’s a bit of breathing room gained when a civilian ship’s drive completely locks down. For once it’s a hardware compatibility problem, not a software compatibility problem making it Laird and Tyrol’s problem.
~*~
“Joe’s?” Louis asks.
“Barracks,” Felix answers.
A shiver of anticipation runs up Louis’ spine-finally-after what feels like weeks of foreplay it’s time. His hands tremble with urgency as he leaves boots outside the hatch and pulls off his jacket and tanks. When he turns around, Felix sits on his rack, pants leg rolled up. As he unstraps his prosthesis, Felix’s eyes dart uncertainly to Louis.
For a few seconds Louis doesn’t understand. He just sees Felix-intelligent, attractive, and so very strong. The amputation and prosthesis make up so little of how he sees Felix it had never occurred to him Felix might worry about something so unimportant. He wishes for better words to explain. His mother spun phrases like ‘gracing a room with your glory’ to describe his father. Louis suspects ‘gracing’ and ‘glory’ would result in giggles, rather than understanding. Simple truth guides him. “When we walk, I don’t slow my pace because you use a prosthetic leg; I slow my pace because I want to walk with you.”
A delighted smile rewards truth. Felix’s prosthesis clangs to the deck. There’s some sort of sock and elastic bandage to unwind. Louis’ kneels to help him. “You don’t....”
“I like undressing you.” Louis’ hands move from stump sock and bandage to Felix’s waist pulling underwear and pants off. He drops their clothes in a tangled pile by the prosthesis, too impatient for neatness.
His hands glide over skin. They both pant for breath by the time Felix lays on top of him. Kisses accompany their caresses. Skin, dry and only slightly warm one second, turns sweat damp and blazing hot the next. Desire, keen and sharp, prevents lingering exploration. They move together peaking quickly. Only in the aftershocks can they slow, take their time, and explore.
During their lovemaking, Louis discovers scars, not the ones from the surgery, still inflamed and too sensitive both literally and metaphorically to touch. He finds other ones, older scars, so faint they nearly vanish into skin. A fall off his bike marked into a knee. A small mark on his right eyelid from walking into a shelf while reading a book (‘it was a good book,’ Felix explains and Louis understands perfectly).
Their exploration grows more passionate, more certain. Focus narrows to skin under fingers, tongue over sweat, taste and scent, the sound of gasps and moans of passion, the heat in Felix’s eyes and the arch of his body at the end.
“That was…that was amazing.”
“I agree.” Amazing isn’t actually the word. There’s a word for this sort of lovemaking, for their changing relationship and what they are becoming together. There’s a word, but Louis isn’t ready to name them yet. For now he’ll use Felix’s. “You are amazing.”
“Thank you,” he Felix says hesitantly.
Louis reassures him, “Any time.” They settle on the bed shifting to something vaguely comfortable in the confines of Felix’s rack. Felix still has a slightly uncertain look, as if he expects anything good to be snatched away. Given the last few years, Louis supposes it’s not unwarranted. Louis clears his throat. “Just so we're clear you know that this isn't just a one-time thing for me, right? That it's not just a bit of fun?”
“Yes,” Felix says. “It's not a one-time thing for me, either.” Felix kisses his check.
A hard knot of tension releases in Louis’ chest. He has his own fears, matching Felix’s. Since the attacks, everything good does vanish. Their families, their homes, their hopes all had vanished in the space of hours. Not just once, the good in their lives vanishes like a terrifying chorus in a song set on repeat. Louis feels an urgent need to find the right word to give their joy solidity. The need competes with his fear to call anything good, believe anything lasting.
Yet, he knows the word for what they’ve become. They’re lovers. Like all the other words it’s not enough to describe this amazing perfection where bodies speak to souls. Utterly inadequate ‘lover’ rings in his mind and hovers unspoken. Louis turns his head, their lips meet, and their bodies meld together again. Deep in the night, Louis whispers to a sleeping Felix, “Please don’t go.”
~*~
“You guys have fun last night?” Dee teases Louis. They’re in the washroom, both striped to tanks and doing a quick wipe down before the party.
“Gods, Dee, do you have to live vicariously through us?”
“Yep,” she answers, “Earth is another nuked planet, Roslin is dying, Zarek is president, Lee is vice-president, and the Cylons are saving humanity. Living vicariously through you two is the only reason I can think of to not blow my head off.”
Louis gives her a sharp look. However lightly, you did not joke about suicide, not after the rash of suicides that had occurred right after they had found Earth. “Dee?”
“I’m good.” She neatly folds the towel and lays it back on the counter. “It was close, but…you walked in.”
Her ‘what was I thinking’ came into entirely new focus. “Shit, Dee.” He shakes his head wondering how he had possibly missed her meaning; that it wasn’t Felix who had been suicidal (or at least not only Felix), but Dee. “And now?”
“And now, everyone has lost so much. It wouldn’t be right to make them lose anyone else, especially not Felix. Besides,” she caught his eye and grinned, “I want to stand up at your wedding and stick around to surrogate some children for you.”
There’s a new note in her voice and gleam in her eye. It takes a second to identify them. There’s a word for the frail thread they cling to as they jump further and further into unknown space seeking a new home. Hope isn’t much, but if they can just hang onto it today and then again tomorrow and the next day and the next it just might see them through to the end.
Dee smiles. “Just get Felix back to the racks ungroped.”
~*~
Felix grins at the banner, ‘Congratulations, Captain Gaeta,’ block print (Dee’s work) colored with purple (Hera’s). Hera runs to hug him as soon as Helo puts her down. “You have two legs. Did you find the other one?” She looks up at him in amazement.
There’s a moment of dear gods, children, before Felix laughs, scoops her up and hugs her back. “I guess I did.” Then everything is fine, it’s better than fine. The word perfect flits through Louis’ mind, to go with hope and amazing and lovers and friendship. All they have left to combat despair. Athena, Helo, and Hera all hug Felix multiple times that night. Cottle leaves early, but Ishay stays longer. Zarek and Dee manage to talk to each other without starting a small war.
That night lying in bed Louis tries to find the word for what he’s feeling. The word is love, but love is too familiar a word. Love is a one-size-fits-all sort of word used by parents towards their children and to describe how much someone likes chocolate ice cream. Couples married for decades share it with newlyweds and casual hookups alike. Felix sleeps half on top of Louis. It’s hot, it’s sweaty, and they will undoubtedly wake in the morning with numb arms and someone’s knee pressing into someone else’s bladder. It still feels right-a crush, a bit of simpatico, a bit of desire, becomes lovers who turn into a too familiar word called love.
Louis reaches out to comb his fingers through Felix’s hair, not to wake him just to feel his hair tangle across his fingers. He sighs shifting into the touch. “Are you awake?”
There’s a sleepy noise and a slight nod. Louis kisses his head. It’s too familiar a word, shared with too many people for too many reasons, but it’s the only word that fits. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Everything is ass backwards, their homes gone, they’re jumping through empty space with nowhere left to run, their enemies have become allies, and everything good vanishes. But there are friends, there are families, and there are the small celebrations of what they have left. And mostly, there is love, a too familiar word that encompasses all the joy Louis feels when Felix, whispers back, “I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”
Author: lorrainemarker
Summary: “Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbors, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.” - Samuel Butler
Timeframe: This story is an AU version of season 4.5 (Roughly covering from Sometimes a Great Notion - Blood on the Scales)
Characters: Dee, Gaeta, Hoshi
Pairing: Gaeta/Hoshi
Rating/Warnings: FRM, like the show there are adult themes & language and some sexual content
Remixed from: Ten Good Things Happen to Felix Gaeta, by lls_mutant
Notes: lls_mutant wrote her original story at a time when it wasn’t clear what Lt. Hoshi’s first name was. She used Lucas in her story. For familiarity’s sake (and because my fingers refused to type Lucas), I’m using Louis. Also, for those who love a good poem, the title is from a poem by Ellis Paul, Love is Too Familiar a Word
Word Count: ~5200
One of the marines stands guard, red-eyed from a recent bout of weeping. He’s not the only one. Half the assigned crew failed to show at shift change. There’s movement by the tactical station. Louis looks up from comms. It’s not Felix. Twenty minutes after shift change and he’s still not here. Felix Gaeta; who reported for duty four days post-amputation, failing to report for duty-failing to even call-in sick (which gods knows the man deserves) ranks somewhere between the Admiral’s drunkenness and President Roslin’s vanishing act in the list of signs of the coming apocalypse. Louis should be frantic. Instead, relief, out of place and entirely inappropriate, fills him. If Felix isn’t here, then Louis doesn’t have to go off duty.
As long as he’s on duty he can focus on confirming in precise detail the exact extent of how badly everything has gone to shit. Thus far he has determined with mathematical preciseness exactly how long Earth will remain uninhabitable. Similarly, he knows exactly when the fleet will exhaust the remaining algae-after they run out of raptor parts, but before they run out of either water or replacement filters for the air recyclers. While not entirely healthy, he considers his response better than the senior officers’ decision to hole up somewhere and get drunk. His coping methodology; intellectualizing information to prevent actual reaction, means he’s neither to the point of getting shit-faced nor ready to paint ‘Frak Earth!’ on bulkheads (although, the second option tempts him). He is, however, willing to work a double or even triple shift just for the opportunity to reduce his reaction to mathematical equations.
There’s a word for this pretense. It is odd and perhaps Louis-specific; however, his mother still would have called it ‘denial’. In the last few years, Louis had become familiar with denial; it had started as a psychological tool of survival and gradually became a way of life, possibly even a dear and trusted friend.
Felix has missed his entire shift and Dee the first thirty minutes of hers when a petty officer stands by Louis’ station to relieve him. He hesitates before acknowledging her and standing down. Fortunately, there is a new distraction from reality; Tory Foster asks for the water distribution algorithms. It’s an odd request; badly timed and useless for any current needs. Additionally, while no one has bothered to remove her from the list of people with access to vital information, they probably should have. Louis ignores all of those factors in favor of the opportunity it gives him to reduce yet another piece of reality to mathematics.
~*~
Louis can’t remember where the algorithms are filed; it’s one of many tasks Felix manages. After a few minutes (and pointed looks from several petty officers) Louis leaves CIC to look for Felix. Galactica has taken on a surreal patina. Crew members wander aimlessly, weep and rage, fight and frak all in full view of officers, and someone has painted ‘Frak Earth!’ on a bulkhead. It is that last ‘Frak Earth!’ red paint dripping down the bulkhead, which finally sends ice-water shock down his spine to leave him hyperventilating on his knees. No one pays attention, any more than he paid attention to any of the other crew as they orbited their grief.
Mentally Louis retraces his steps-Joe’s, the astrogation lab, Baltar’s old lab and quarters, Obs., the small supply room off the port sublight engines, and the main conference room, where he slipped behind the curtain separating the podium from the shelving for presentation supplies (long since depleted). All Felix’s favorite haunts. Louis knew them all, just as he knew how Felix preferred his coffee (strong, sweet, and no cream) and snacks (salty and crunchy). He makes a stop by Medical on the off-chance Felix has an appointment.
Finally, Louis makes his way to the barracks, sticks his head in the hatch hoping to find Felix. Instead, he sees Dee. She stands in front of her locker wearing a slinky black dress and heels. Louis watches her hang a locket next to her dog tags on a hook. It’s the first time he has seen her without them, yet another surreal moment in a bitterly surreal day. “Hey, Dee you know where the water distribution algorithm is?”
“Felix has it.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he filed it somewhere completely logical and rational in ‘Gaeta-filing-system’, but I can’t find it.” Normality achieved, he thinks, the ‘Gaeta-filling-system’ was one of his and Dee’s first jokes as they had sorted through Felix’s methodical, yet impenetrable computer files while he lived on New Caprica.
“He’s on duty, go ask him.” The odd toneless inflection to her voice makes him look at her curiously. “Dee?”
She looks towards him briefly, turns back to the mirror. “I’m fine.”
Like shit. No one is fine and there’s a word for the distance in her voice and the depths of grief in her eyes; it’s despair, it’s the death of all their hopes. Louis feels it, too. He clings to denial, focuses on duty and formulas instead of falling into despair. She hasn’t figured out how to live in denial yet. Or maybe she just raced through denial and Louis hasn’t caught up with her.
“Dee,” he says it slowly, because they’re not at the same place, “Felix no-showed for his shift.”
“Felix wouldn’t do that.”
“He did.”
“Felix wouldn’t do that.” She stares at him seeking reassurance he can’t give. Slowly, something replaces the despair in her eyes and voice; something more alive, something more frightened. “Oh, gods, what was I thinking.” Her voice shakes and hands tremble. “What the frak was I thinking leaving him alone?”
Belatedly, Louis begins to worry, if Felix neither reported for duty, nor wandered to one of his usual spots then where exactly is he? Understanding sets in with a stomach dropping swoop. “Would he hurt himself?”
“No, yes, maybe; he said something to Helo, but I…I wasn’t thinking. We have to find him.”
“I’ve already looked everywhere.”
He had, but they look anyway, retracing his earlier search and then retracing it again. Until, finally, they return to the barracks. Dee slumps to the deck, high heels discarded, knees pulled to her chest. She stares blankly at Felix’s empty rack. Louis can’t hang onto denial, not faced with Dee’s despair. He sits next to her and they wait.
~*~
“Hey, what’s going on?”
It takes several seconds for the voice to register-it’s Felix and he’s confused, rather than dead.
“Where the frak have you been!” Dee’s on her feet, both arms wrapped around Felix’s waist.
Felix holds her. “Uh, babysitting Hera”
Dee is laughing and then she breaks into tears. There are words; tears and laughter scramble them to something unintelligible. Either the actual words don’t matter to Felix or he understands them through the osmosis of long-time friends. He holds her, while she weeps out her despair into his shoulder. Louis watches them feeling uncomfortably intrusive as Felix whispers reassurances. He would leave, but they stand right in front of the hatch. He steps back towards his rack. Felix looks at him and mouths, ‘thank you’ and reaches a hand out towards him. Suddenly, he’s not an intruder and there’s a word for the grace that settles within easing his despair. The word is friendship. As he steps into their all-encompassing hug he feels grateful for their ability to share their frail safety line. The three of them stand together for seconds, then minutes not breaking apart until someone walks in the hatch.
~*~
“I need to speak with Galactica actual now,” Lee Adama demands.
Louis looks at Felix, “Its Lee Adama he wants to speak with ‘actual’.”
“He means the Admiral, not me.”
Louis gave Felix another look, eyes narrowed and demanding. “The Admiral isn’t here.”
“Probably because he’s drunk and I’m not telling Lee Adama that.”
“President Roslin has chemo this morning.” Dee gives Felix a disappointed look as she picks up the handset. “This is Actual.” There’s a pause, Dee’s expression goes from impatient to worried. She sets the handset down with a vehement, “Frak.”
“What’s going on?” Felix asked.
“Zarek just pulled a coup.”
“What?” Louis asks.
“Turn on the wireless,” she snarls, “I have to tell the Admiral.”
Louis flips the appropriate switch on his board. At the first words, “…no confidence vote passed seven to five…” he switches to the CIC PA. He might as well; undoubtedly every off-duty crew member has already heard the news. “In a surprise move Representative Reza Chronides moved for a no confidence vote over President Roslin’s leadership.”
Felix snorts. “Somebody’s surprised?” Louis nods in agreement and they share a grin.
“The motion, seconded by Sagittarian Representative Jacob Cantrell, passed seven to five. In a ten-two vote, the Quorum elected Vice-President Tom Zarek as the acting President until a general election can be held.”
“Representative Adama requests permission to land,” Louis relays. At Felix’s nod, he responds, “LSO, permission granted.”
“Zarek’s not going to hole up on Colonial One, so have someone clean up the formal conference room and brew some coffee.” A hoarded luxury, coffee shows up only at the most serious times of crisis.
Dee returns in time to hear Felix’s order and add, “Admiral Adama wants a communications blackout, nothing but priority”-which Louis translates to military-“communications.” A communications blackout while not under attack violates any number of the Articles of Confederation. Wincing, he exchanges glances with Dee and Felix at their nods, he pulls the plug. Within seconds both his and Dee’s boards light up with furious ship’s captains and reporters.
An hour later, Zarek, both Adamas, Roslin (in a wheelchair and attached to an IV stand), Sonja, Tigh, and Galen are in the formal conference room with marine and secret service contingents glaring at each other from opposite ends of the room. More marines guard the corridor and hatch. Reporters have been herded into the pilots’ briefing room with yet another contingent of marine guards making sure they stay put. It means pulling marines out of Dogville and off of Baltar’s cult. The resulting chaos-a small riot (triggered by a confrontation between Sons of Ares and Baltar Cultists, but eventually pulling in every splinter cult represented in Dogville)-allows Baltar to slip his leash and show up at the conference room. Felix nixes throwing him in the brig, Louis’ first inclination. He also nixes Dee’s alternative, throwing him out an airlock. Given Felix’s history with Baltar; some mishmash of crush, affair, and a few attempts to kill him, Felix’s decision, “Tell the marines to let Dr. Baltar into the conference room,” strikes him as bizarre.
There’s a word for the way everything and everyone breaks down to their most base: Zarek’s need for power; Admiral Adama’s for control; the clamor from ship captains and reporters for information to fill the gaps, even if the information is suspect or dead wrong. He knows the word for this; it’s panic. Everyone is panicking, some are doing it with a bit more outward smoothness, but internally they’re all spinning in circles.
Louis wonders why he doesn’t feel the same brain-scrambling panic. He certainly understands both the extent and possible consequences of the current crisis. The likelihood of President Roslin accepting Zarek as her replacement hoovers somewhere close to zero. Mathematically, a probability matrix can’t delve into the negatives. Notwithstanding the math, Louis knows the odds of Admiral Adama range in those hypothetically impossible negatives. Zarek is equally unlikely to give up power now that the Quorum has literally handed it to him on a plate. He doesn’t need to calculate odds to know Adama will declare martial law resulting in the fleet going to Tartarus in a hand basket. And that’s without the added problems of the Cylon alliance. Which brings him back to direct consideration of his failure to panic; he considers the possibility he has simply become inured to crisis. However, Dee and Felix aren’t panicking either. Dee at least looks a worried. Felix does not look worried, if anything, he looks amused. In fact, Louis detects a hint of smugness hovering at the corners of his mouth.
The comm to comm private mode has to be useful for something. “Why aren’t we panicking?” he asks Dee and Felix.
“Laura Roslin is not going to let Bill Adama and Tom Zarek start a shooting war over their on-going pissing contest,” Dee answers.
“Gaius Baltar managed to push his way into the conference room ten minutes ago.”
“So?”
“While his ego greatly overstates his accomplishments, I think we can rely on his two true skills: his fine-tuned survival instinct and his ability to make everyone in a room despise him more than they dislike anyone else in the room. They’ll reach some sort agreement just to get rid of Baltar.”
~*~
Three hours later, Roslin officially becomes a private citizen, Zarek is sworn in as president, and Lee Adama is sworn in as vice-president. Felix continues to look smug right up until they announce the planned installation of Cylon jump drives.
“Oh, we are so frakked,” he says vehemently.
Dee laughs, “Astral Queen.”
“Not funny!”
“Yes it is. You boys have fun. I’ve got CIC.”
Louis looks between them in confusion.
“Who do you think is going to have to convince the Colonial software to play nice with Cylon hardware?” Dee asks, still grinning.
“Oh frak.”
Felix grabs his crutches and stands swaying a little bit. “Tell you what, I’ll do the rest of the ships if you do Astral Queen.”
Dee shook her head vigorously. “Felix, you’re my best friend, but Louis, that deal sucks.”
Louis closes down his console and follows Felix towards the workroom. “I think I’ll pass. Um, why am I passing?”
“Because Astral Queen was a prison transport ship and they really didn’t want the prisoners hijacking her,” Felix says.
They stand at the worktable, flipping through the prints. The worktable, like the CIC command station is made to stand over, not sit at. After a few frustrating minutes of trying to balance on his crutches, turn pages, talk and write at the same time, Felix abandons his crutches to lean, somewhat precariously, against the table. Louis’ initial response; hyperawareness of Felix’s amputation, vanishes in face of his competency. A welcome sense of normalcy pervades the workroom. Astral Queen’s schematics covered with marginalia so thick it overwrites the printed text draws them into a lengthy discussion. Dee sometimes stands at the hatch watching them with a pleased smile on her face. Louis supposes she feels as grateful as he for the renewed sense of normal.
An enlisted crewman brings in coffee, the last of the pot from the conference room. Felix smiles when he sees the four sugar packets folded into a napkin labeled ‘Gaeta’ in the Admiral’s handwriting. Felix’s smiles turns into rueful laughter when he flips the napkin open. Shaking his head, he pours the packets into a cup adding coffee.
Louis can’t stop watching Felix. Laughter looks good on him. Wondering what set it off, Louis slides the napkin around so he can read it: Lt. Gaeta, please stop trying to kill Dr. Baltar, Adm. B. Adama. “Your CO knows you well.”
“He used to invite junior officers for breakfast; he always knew how we took our coffee. I never figured out how he did it.”
Felix obviously did not want to discuss Baltar. Dee, once more standing in the hatch behind Felix, shook her head no mouthing, ‘anything but Baltar.’
Now he really wants to know what had happened between Felix and Baltar. Stifling his curiosity, Louis switches to a more general comment, “Cain did the same thing, dinner not breakfast, and coffee after. She always knew how we took it. Maybe it’s some mysterious senior officer leadership technique.”
“Know your people’s favorites,” Dee says, “It’s something he told me when I got my promotion.”
Felix pivots to respond. He immediately begins to topple. Louis lunges, catching him with both hands around his waist.
“I forgot,” Felix says, “How frakking embarrassing.”
“Your proprioception hasn’t corrected for the amputation yet,” Louis replies, “It’s perfectly normal.”
Even after Felix reclaims his crutches, Louis feels reluctant to let go of Felix. Lean muscles glide under his hands and heat radiates through Felix’s jacket. They’re of a height, standing close his arms wrapped around Felix brings Louis into kissing distance. Felix’s lips draw his eyes. Louis wants to close the slight space between his lips and Felix’s. There’s a word for the rush of understanding, the flashing ‘ah-ha,’ and accompanying re-ordering of reality. But now is not the time for an epiphany, particularly not this epiphany. It is not the time to abruptly see his co-worker as sexual, attractive, and possibly available.
Louis backs away, grateful for Felix’s focus on regaining his composure. He feels eyes watching him. Dee, unlike Felix, focuses completely on him. She smiles, liking what she sees. Not now, he begs in the unspoken language of a man utterly unprepared to deal with epiphanies of any sort today. She acknowledges, a slight incline of her chin joined with a smile just the right side of predatory to prevent him from fleeing. A short reprieve before she presses him to deal with his epiphany.
~*~
For a few days, meetings become the new normal. Scheduling meetings, planning meetings, work groups and problem solving sessions-the meetings went by a myriad of names-each of which translated to ‘make those frakking drives work.’ Eventually, Felix and Louis have done everything they can to work through the software problems. Installation is Tyrol and the Cylons’ headache.
During the jump drive installation they circle the wastelands of Earth giving CIC staff nothing but time. Louis still can’t seem to find a chance to test the waters with Felix. He avoids the issue for three days before Dee schedules overlapping shifts. “If not now, then when?” she asks.
And there’s a word for this feeling. There’s absolutely a word to describe his complete and utter inability to string words together in a coherent sentence and just ask the Felix out on a date. It’s just that Louis hasn’t actually had the word apply to him in years, possibly decades.
“You have a crush on Felix,” Dee sing-songs under her breath.
Gods if she wasn’t the most irritating woman. “It’s not a crush.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“I’m too old-”
“You’re not that much older.”
“I was going to say -to have a crush, but there is that too. I’m old enough to be his father.”
“Only if you started really young.” She pushes a pad into his hand. “Foster still wants the water distribution algorithms. She thinks the Cylon basestar can share water distribution duties. Go ask.” A shove sends him on his way.
It’s exactly as awkward as he thought it would be. When he has the equation, he says, "Great. Thank you," trying to think of a smooth segue into asking him out.
"You're welcome," Felix answers, his attention already back on the DRADIS blips.
Louis doesn’t leave, shifting from foot to foot. Felix doesn’t seem to even notice him and Louis’ heart drops. "Haven't seen you around much off duty," he says.
"Yeah, well." Felix shrugs.
From the corner of his eye he sees Dee’s mouthed, ‘ask him already.’ He takes a deep breath in and on the exhale blurts, “I'd like to."
Felix looks up and Louis continues. “Listen, I was wondering. Would you like to go to Joe's and get a drink after this shift?” The words come out in a rush making Louis cringe at the awkwardness of it all. Twenty-five years of dating and it doesn’t get easier.
But Felix smiles. “Sure, I'd like that a lot.”
The tension bursts, Louis grins. “Great, I'll see you after.” He walks back to his station, sees Dee’s thumbs up, realizes that Felix is looking at them and sees it too.
They’re both blushing now.
~*~
After two dates Louis no longer feels awkward. Actually, five minutes into the first date the awkwardness vanished into laughter. The joke was terrible, the punch line-but what kind of flower was she-worse. Louis didn’t care. Felix’s grin of sheer delight at Hot Dog’s appalled look made it worth the embarrassment of telling the worst joke he knew.
“You know, Racetrack still cracks up when anyone says ‘flower,’” Dee calls from her rack. She looks at Louis and frowns. “Your hair is terrible.”
He backs away not liking the gleam in her eye.
She stalks over and musses it with a quick brush of her hands. “Better.” She swats away his hands when he tries to fix his hair. “Trust me on this your hair looks much better a little messy.” Dee steps back with an approving nod. “Take good care of Felix.”
“Thanks.”
“For hair advice?”
“No for kicking me in the ass until I asked him out. We’re good together.” There was a word his mother used for how well he and Felix fit-simpatico. It meant compatible, an understated way to express how he felt with Felix. Louis hadn’t really understood what she meant until now. Suddenly, simpatico made sense: values, taste and experience melding with attraction to create the indefinable sense of ‘this is the one.’
~*~
They walk back to the barracks. Louis’ steps keep time to Felix’s pace naturally. His hands stay in his pockets, because otherwise they would be all over Felix. He wants him, and yeah there’s a word for this too. A word just as inadequate as crush and simpatico-desire. He wants Felix. He wants to touch his skin, tangle fingers in his hair, taste his sweat, and swallow his gasps in kisses. He wants everything with a physical ache so overwhelming he can barely carry his side of the conversation. Felix seems interested, but Louis feels enough uncertainty to not leave his boots outside the hatch.
There are more drinks and cards, and the growing realization that Felix is right there with him. He leans over for a kiss, their first kiss. Lips barely press together before the hatch opens ending their evening. All he can think is ‘your timing sucks’ as a group walks in complaining about the food. Matching irritation echoes in Felix’s eyes. Louis funnels everything he desires into a single caress of Felix’s cheek. Felix nods and they smile together. Both know they’ll make another chance.
~*~
The fleet starts jumping again, leaving Earth behind. The press of jump calculations normally would have left them short of time. The myriad of problems the conflicts between the Cylon jump drives and Colonial navigation systems create leaves them in continuous crisis mode. Their glances simmer across consoles. Kisses, stolen in odd corners of space and time, are never quite enough to satisfy their growing desire. The few times they have off-shift time together are brief unscheduled coincidences, meaning the other is either sleeping or at Joe’s-and they never have long enough to do more than split a drink or share a stolen kiss before another crisis calls one or both back to duty.
There’s a word for the pace: frenetic. The word doesn’t entirely capture the frustration of not having time to do more than look and wait impatiently for another chance.
Louis doesn’t get enough time with Felix, but he gets the chance to see who Felix’s friends are. Helo checks on him at least a couple of times a day. Zarek, who Dee can’t stand, stops by Felix’s tactical station every time he comes into CIC. A few pilots, Skulls, Racetrack, and Hot Dog, make a point to ask how Felix is doing when they see him. The list of Felix’s true friends is short. A list Louis can keep in his head.
Felix gets a prosthetic leg and a promotion and they still haven’t managed to get enough time and privacy to do anything about the simmering sexual tension between them. Louis starts to believe the gods hate him when finally there’s a bit of breathing room gained when a civilian ship’s drive completely locks down. For once it’s a hardware compatibility problem, not a software compatibility problem making it Laird and Tyrol’s problem.
~*~
“Joe’s?” Louis asks.
“Barracks,” Felix answers.
A shiver of anticipation runs up Louis’ spine-finally-after what feels like weeks of foreplay it’s time. His hands tremble with urgency as he leaves boots outside the hatch and pulls off his jacket and tanks. When he turns around, Felix sits on his rack, pants leg rolled up. As he unstraps his prosthesis, Felix’s eyes dart uncertainly to Louis.
For a few seconds Louis doesn’t understand. He just sees Felix-intelligent, attractive, and so very strong. The amputation and prosthesis make up so little of how he sees Felix it had never occurred to him Felix might worry about something so unimportant. He wishes for better words to explain. His mother spun phrases like ‘gracing a room with your glory’ to describe his father. Louis suspects ‘gracing’ and ‘glory’ would result in giggles, rather than understanding. Simple truth guides him. “When we walk, I don’t slow my pace because you use a prosthetic leg; I slow my pace because I want to walk with you.”
A delighted smile rewards truth. Felix’s prosthesis clangs to the deck. There’s some sort of sock and elastic bandage to unwind. Louis’ kneels to help him. “You don’t....”
“I like undressing you.” Louis’ hands move from stump sock and bandage to Felix’s waist pulling underwear and pants off. He drops their clothes in a tangled pile by the prosthesis, too impatient for neatness.
His hands glide over skin. They both pant for breath by the time Felix lays on top of him. Kisses accompany their caresses. Skin, dry and only slightly warm one second, turns sweat damp and blazing hot the next. Desire, keen and sharp, prevents lingering exploration. They move together peaking quickly. Only in the aftershocks can they slow, take their time, and explore.
During their lovemaking, Louis discovers scars, not the ones from the surgery, still inflamed and too sensitive both literally and metaphorically to touch. He finds other ones, older scars, so faint they nearly vanish into skin. A fall off his bike marked into a knee. A small mark on his right eyelid from walking into a shelf while reading a book (‘it was a good book,’ Felix explains and Louis understands perfectly).
Their exploration grows more passionate, more certain. Focus narrows to skin under fingers, tongue over sweat, taste and scent, the sound of gasps and moans of passion, the heat in Felix’s eyes and the arch of his body at the end.
“That was…that was amazing.”
“I agree.” Amazing isn’t actually the word. There’s a word for this sort of lovemaking, for their changing relationship and what they are becoming together. There’s a word, but Louis isn’t ready to name them yet. For now he’ll use Felix’s. “You are amazing.”
“Thank you,” he Felix says hesitantly.
Louis reassures him, “Any time.” They settle on the bed shifting to something vaguely comfortable in the confines of Felix’s rack. Felix still has a slightly uncertain look, as if he expects anything good to be snatched away. Given the last few years, Louis supposes it’s not unwarranted. Louis clears his throat. “Just so we're clear you know that this isn't just a one-time thing for me, right? That it's not just a bit of fun?”
“Yes,” Felix says. “It's not a one-time thing for me, either.” Felix kisses his check.
A hard knot of tension releases in Louis’ chest. He has his own fears, matching Felix’s. Since the attacks, everything good does vanish. Their families, their homes, their hopes all had vanished in the space of hours. Not just once, the good in their lives vanishes like a terrifying chorus in a song set on repeat. Louis feels an urgent need to find the right word to give their joy solidity. The need competes with his fear to call anything good, believe anything lasting.
Yet, he knows the word for what they’ve become. They’re lovers. Like all the other words it’s not enough to describe this amazing perfection where bodies speak to souls. Utterly inadequate ‘lover’ rings in his mind and hovers unspoken. Louis turns his head, their lips meet, and their bodies meld together again. Deep in the night, Louis whispers to a sleeping Felix, “Please don’t go.”
~*~
“You guys have fun last night?” Dee teases Louis. They’re in the washroom, both striped to tanks and doing a quick wipe down before the party.
“Gods, Dee, do you have to live vicariously through us?”
“Yep,” she answers, “Earth is another nuked planet, Roslin is dying, Zarek is president, Lee is vice-president, and the Cylons are saving humanity. Living vicariously through you two is the only reason I can think of to not blow my head off.”
Louis gives her a sharp look. However lightly, you did not joke about suicide, not after the rash of suicides that had occurred right after they had found Earth. “Dee?”
“I’m good.” She neatly folds the towel and lays it back on the counter. “It was close, but…you walked in.”
Her ‘what was I thinking’ came into entirely new focus. “Shit, Dee.” He shakes his head wondering how he had possibly missed her meaning; that it wasn’t Felix who had been suicidal (or at least not only Felix), but Dee. “And now?”
“And now, everyone has lost so much. It wouldn’t be right to make them lose anyone else, especially not Felix. Besides,” she caught his eye and grinned, “I want to stand up at your wedding and stick around to surrogate some children for you.”
There’s a new note in her voice and gleam in her eye. It takes a second to identify them. There’s a word for the frail thread they cling to as they jump further and further into unknown space seeking a new home. Hope isn’t much, but if they can just hang onto it today and then again tomorrow and the next day and the next it just might see them through to the end.
Dee smiles. “Just get Felix back to the racks ungroped.”
~*~
Felix grins at the banner, ‘Congratulations, Captain Gaeta,’ block print (Dee’s work) colored with purple (Hera’s). Hera runs to hug him as soon as Helo puts her down. “You have two legs. Did you find the other one?” She looks up at him in amazement.
There’s a moment of dear gods, children, before Felix laughs, scoops her up and hugs her back. “I guess I did.” Then everything is fine, it’s better than fine. The word perfect flits through Louis’ mind, to go with hope and amazing and lovers and friendship. All they have left to combat despair. Athena, Helo, and Hera all hug Felix multiple times that night. Cottle leaves early, but Ishay stays longer. Zarek and Dee manage to talk to each other without starting a small war.
That night lying in bed Louis tries to find the word for what he’s feeling. The word is love, but love is too familiar a word. Love is a one-size-fits-all sort of word used by parents towards their children and to describe how much someone likes chocolate ice cream. Couples married for decades share it with newlyweds and casual hookups alike. Felix sleeps half on top of Louis. It’s hot, it’s sweaty, and they will undoubtedly wake in the morning with numb arms and someone’s knee pressing into someone else’s bladder. It still feels right-a crush, a bit of simpatico, a bit of desire, becomes lovers who turn into a too familiar word called love.
Louis reaches out to comb his fingers through Felix’s hair, not to wake him just to feel his hair tangle across his fingers. He sighs shifting into the touch. “Are you awake?”
There’s a sleepy noise and a slight nod. Louis kisses his head. It’s too familiar a word, shared with too many people for too many reasons, but it’s the only word that fits. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Everything is ass backwards, their homes gone, they’re jumping through empty space with nowhere left to run, their enemies have become allies, and everything good vanishes. But there are friends, there are families, and there are the small celebrations of what they have left. And mostly, there is love, a too familiar word that encompasses all the joy Louis feels when Felix, whispers back, “I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”