Fic: We'll Always Have Yesterday (Monster 'Verse)
Title: We’ll Always Have Yesterday
Author: kappamaki33
Characters: Cylon!Felix, Hoshi, Gina, Ellen, Saul, OC Two
Pairing: Gaeta/Hoshi, Cain/Gina, Gaeta/Two
Summary: The Felix on Pegasus modifies the Cylon plan the day before the attack on the Colonies.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: This belongs in my Monster 'verse, between "Tin Soldiers" and "Monster." It's the last piece that I plan to write for this 'verse.
We’ll Always Have Yesterday
“Oh Gods!” is the first thing Felix screams when his lungs are free of the viscous liquid that burns his throat as brightly as it glows. The two women are there, the older one urging him to breathe through it, the younger one glaring at him darkly. Even in his panic, her face reminds him that he’s done wrong, crying out to the humans’ many false gods instead of his one real God.
“What happened?” the older one asks, running fingers soothingly through his hair even though it must be disgusting with goo. He should be able to remember her name by now-it’s so close, he can feel it...
“Two. We fought, and there was something sharp, and...”
Felix gripped the storage locker shelving tightly to steady himself and took deep breaths. The memories were seeping through the blocks in his mind more clearly and completely each day. The stronger they became, the less predictable the staggering moments of breakthrough became as well. He’d thought of his Defective brother now stationed on the Galactica many times over the past two years with new pity and respect. Mostly, though, he thought of him with wonder at how he hadn’t gone insane, if his brother’s memories had bubbled up the same way his were now.
Felix knew that, according to the mission rules, he should abort and hand the entire operation over to his partner. He wasn’t going to, though, not unless it got a lot worse. Gina was as well trained as he was, but he still didn’t trust that she could complete the mission on her own. Plus, he was worried about what might happen if the others asked why he’d aborted when he downloaded.
These were good reasons, but deep down, he knew they weren’t the real reason.
Those kind of thoughts weren’t useful, so Felix pushed them away. He concentrated more of his mind than was really necessary on unlacing and removing his shoes, taking off his socks, then his jacket, then his tanks. He folded them all and set them on a shelf at the back of the closet. Just as he was unbuckling his belt, the hatch creaked open and shut.
Felix heard a sharp intake of breath that he recognized very well. Then he heard a hoarse, “Don’t turn around.”
Felix smiled and braced his hands against one of the lower shelves, facing the wall. A few moments later, he felt broad, warm hands slipping around his waist.
“Gods, what a sight to be greeted with after a long shift,” Louis whispered into the crook of Felix’s neck between kisses. Felix felt the soft material of Louis’s tank was barely damp with sweat as Louis pressed his chest to Felix’s back.
He tipped his head back against Louis’s shoulder to get a proper kiss. “Would’ve been an even better view if I’d had thirty more seconds,” he said, leading one of Louis’s hands down to the waistband of his pants.
Given the way life was on baseships, there should have been nothing new to Felix when it came to sex. What with thirty years (that he can remember fully, at least) without much else by way of recreation available, he’d tried pretty much everything-every position, every combination of available partners, every kink. And yet, this, here, felt new. Technically, sex with Louis was very good, but far from the very best he’d ever had. Yet as he peaked and then slowly came down with Louis’s arm around his chest and his quiet laughter in his ear, he knew this was something different, something equal parts incredible and terrifying.
“Mm, I can’t wait to take you to Silver Bay,” Louis said later, pausing in his dressing long enough to kiss Felix one more time. “It’s just as pretty as Argentum Bay, but far less overrun by tourists.”
Felix kept his smile plastered on. “Sounds great. I like all these perks of being with a Scorpia native, like knowing how to avoid the tourist traps.”
“And that evening, we’re having dinner with my sisters-if that’s okay,” Louis said, looking up a little hesitantly as he tied his boots. Felix nodded, and Louis grinned. “Good. And after that, I am going to take you to Elana, where my friend has a cabin right on the lake,” he said, slipping his arms around Felix and pulling him in close, “where I can have you all to myself.”
They kissed again, slow and easy.
“I can’t wait, either,” Felix hummed. “Gods, I wish I didn’t have to pull a double-shift while we’re docked.”
“It does suck. When are you heading down to the planet? I figured I’d borrow Hannah’s car and pick you up at the spaceport.”
Felix’s stomach iced over. “You don’t have to work, too?”
“No. Petty Officer Van Islen miscalculated how many more hours she needed to get her comms certification. I happily gave up my last shift so she could complete her training. What?” Louis said, grin faltering.
Felix could barely think over the voice in his head screaming, no, no, no, this isn’t the plan at all! “I just thought... Stay. Please.”
“What?”
“The racks, they’ll be empty,” Felix said, scrambling for something that made sense. “I’ve got an hour break between my shifts. You’ve said you’ve always wanted to frak in there, all by ourselves.”
Louis was both amused and confused. “Well, yeah, but more in the sense that a rack would be nicer than a supply closet, and how it’d be nice if the Admiral looked the other way and let people put boots outside the hatch, like they do on most ships.”
“It’s the perfect opportunity. Almost everyone will be down on the planet, and the handful still working up here won’t bother us.”
“Well, yeah, but we’re going to have an even better opportunity to be alone in a day and a half. I kind of want to have lunch with my sisters before you show up, too.” Felix didn’t let up at all on his pleading expression. Louis stared at him questioningly and added, “This doing it in the racks idea...is this something you want a lot?”
Felix nodded enthusiastically.
He saw Louis debate with himself for a minute, then sigh and smile and shake his head. “Okay, fine. If you really want this, staying on this frakking ship an extra eight hours won’t kill me, and we can live out your fantasy.”
“Thank you.” Felix tried to say it smugly, but his gratefulness and relief leaked through. Thankfully, Louis apparently didn’t notice and just kissed him good-bye and left, promising to meet him in the bunkroom at the appointed time.
As soon as Louis shut the hatch behind him, Felix heaved a big sigh. He knew he was in deep trouble, but the fact that Louis would be safe overshadowed his fears for himself. That in and of itself was proof of what deep shit he was in.
As he dressed, Felix couldn’t help but wonder if he’d figured out what it was that his counterpart on Galactica remembered. It had to be something that made him both so different and so tortured that he couldn’t hide his brokenness the way any smart Defective would have. Now, he suspected the other Felix had remembered loving someone.
~~**~~**~~
Felix lay in his rack in the empty bunkroom, naked, sheets drawn up just past his waist. Waiting had always been the hardest part of his mission, so he supposed it shouldn’t surprise him that it was the most difficult part of his modification of the plan, too. He knew when the first missiles would hit the Scorpia shipyards, when the first bombs would fall on the cities sleeping below them. Waiting for a known, set time was one thing, and hard enough.
He also knew when Louis promised he’d come back to the racks for the hour between Felix’s shifts before catching a shuttle down to Celeste. According to the plan, Louis would never get to the hangar deck, though; the attack would come while they were alone together, and they’d head up to CIC when the alarm sounded, together. But unlike the Cylons, Felix didn’t trust humans to follow plans. One of the things he’d learned about humans in his years on Pegasus was their amazing ability to adapt. It had even rubbed off on him a little. It was a very valuable evolutionary trait, but it caused so many problems as well.
Worrying wasn’t useful, though. Felix tried to push those thoughts aside, but they were too resilient. They wouldn’t go away unless replaced with something else, something strong. He knew what was strong enough to assuredly keep that anxiety away, but it wasn’t a very enticing option. After several minutes of casting about in his mind for something else, he sighed and gave in.
Felix focused on trying to remember those times of which none of the Cylons would speak. He was afraid of what those memories contained and would honestly rather never recall any of them, but maybe purposefully reaching back would keep them from bubbling up on their own, he reasoned. If there was such a thing as a good time to try, this was a good one, too, since the rush of sensations and adrenaline that came with frakking always drowned the memories out.
His eyes blinked open. He remembered a word he’d never heard before, among humans or Cylons: fucking.
“They were simply acting on a natural impulse,” the blonde woman who was beside him when he was in the tub says. The younger woman isn’t there anymore. She’s talking to an older man. They’re standing very close, much closer than they should be, given how loud they’re speaking. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“They were fucking. They’re barely five months old, and they were fucking.” His voice is distinctive to begin with, but the growl in it is even more pronounced when he’s mad. He’s very mad now.
Felix looks to his side, where Two is sitting. His eyes are as wide as Felix’s, and wet, too. They hold hands and watch the fight, heads bowed. Two’s hand trembles in Felix’s grasp.
“They were exploring their new bodies,” the woman says. “They’re not children. They’re highly intelligent beings experiencing the world in a completely new way, without the limits of circuitry and metal.”
The man snorts. “Exactly. They have no frame of reference for how to handle their bodies and their environment. That’s what a child is, Ellen!”
Felix wants to chime in that it’s okay, it only hurt a little at first, and mostly it felt so, so good, so there’s no need for them to be angry. He’s afraid to be punished, yes, but he’s more afraid that they’ll take Two away. He and Two have been friends for far longer than they’d been in these new bodies, far longer than they’d even known the Five.
But Felix doesn’t speak up. The man is still talking. “Just because you’ll fuck anything that moves doesn’t mean it’s okay for them to take after their mother,” he says.
“What the-how dare you make this about me! That’s just pathetic, Saul. And like you never-”
Felix closed his eyes. It hurt that he couldn’t remember which Two of the thousands on the baseships was the one who sat beside him and held his hand in the memory. He would probably never know. That was enough of that memory.
He took a deep breath and decided with no little trepidation to reach back once more to the memory that scared him most. It came much more easily than he’d expected.
He is in the tub. The older woman wipes his face with a white towel and strokes his hair.
“What happened?” she asks quietly.
He takes a greedy gulp of air. “Two. We fought, and there was something sharp, and...”
And oh God, it comes back to him in a rush, the angry words between them, the shoves. Two pushes back much harder this time, and Felix falls backwards. He lands not on the floor, but on something sharp, and oh, it rips through him, his skin, his muscles, his stomach, and it hurts more, stronger than any feeling, good or bad, he’s ever felt. Two is above him. The pain is too intense for Felix to understand his words, but he can read the utter horror on his face.
His first death, Felix realized. He understood why the Cylons would vote to voluntarily forget that. Death was traumatic, even now, but that first time... He tried to not think of the crewmates he’d just wished farewell a few hours ago when they’d departed for shore leave, or the millions snug in their beds in the city below. But Felix wasn’t very good at trying to not think about things.
The claxons blared as Cain set Condition One throughout the ship. Felix felt terror rising within him, not because of the alert-that was right on time-but because Louis wasn’t there yet like he was supposed to be. Felix pulled on his uniform. His plan was already going awry, and it had only just begun.
~~**~~**~~
In her heyday, there had been no such thing as a quiet, out-of-the-way corridor on the Pegasus. After the previous day’s losses, almost all the halls besides those around the barracks and critical areas like CIC were empty. That was the only reason Gina could sneak up on him out in public and dare bring the subject up.
“Where are you going?” she asked, sidling up to him as he walked.
He didn’t look at her. “Visiting Louis in the infirmary. They’re keeping him for observation because of the concussion, but Donnelly says they think he’ll be all right.”
“Hmm,” Gina said noncommittally. They walked in silence for a while. Just when Felix was starting to feel comfortable, she said, “The only job you had was to get up to CIC and sabotage the FTL drives so they couldn’t jump away.”
Felix had been trained for this, though he’d never thought he’d have to use it against his partner: he remained cool and calm, kept his face still and emotionless. “We didn’t account for Shaw. She was just too good for me to trick that quickly.”
He flicked his gaze briefly, just long enough to assess Gina’s expression. She had a good poker face herself, but not perfect. He could tell she wasn’t buying it. “If she was too good to trick, why not take more...extreme measures? It didn’t matter if you blew your cover at that point, so long as you succeeded.”
Felix didn’t answer.
“I know why you did it. Why you failed,” she said.
Felix took two more steps, then turned on his heel and faced her. “If you blow my cover, I blow yours. It’s not a threat; it’s just a statement of reality. I know the reverse applies with just as much force.” He leaned in and lowered his voice, even though there was no one around to hear. “As if you really wanted to see us succeed any more than I did. It’s stupid for us to pretend we don’t have the same...issue.”
Gina’s shoulders sank, and that gesture spoke more eloquently of what was going on between her and Cain than any words could have.
Felix took his position at Gina’s side again, and they continued walking, their pace much slower this time.
Before they reached the main, busy corridor, Gina whispered to him, “You know they won’t make it. They’ll die eventually. It’s only a matter of time.”
“I know.” Felix closed his eyes. “But not yet.”
~~**~~**~~
Felix found Louis sitting on his bunk, the white patch of gauze still on his temple.
“I didn’t know they’d released you from the infirmary,” Felix said.
Louis looked up at the noise of the hatch closing, but his eyes were hollow. “Hell of a way to get the racks to ourselves. Almost everyone else had already left for shore leave when the attack happened.”
Louis looked so small and fragile in the empty room, words that Felix never would have imagined describing him with before. It scared Felix. He didn’t know what to do. He stepped closer, reached out and ran his fingers through Louis’s hair.
Louis’s gaze dropped to the floor as he said, “I don’t know whether to thank you or to hate you for keeping me here.”
Felix dropped to the mattress beside Louis like a puppet whose strings had been cut. They clung to each other so hard he could barely breathe. Neither of them cried. Felix imagined the shock of it all made it too big for Louis to really deal with yet, but as for Felix, fear overwhelmed every other emotion. I don’t know whether to thank you or to hate you. He knew Louis didn’t mean it like that, but...he knew Louis would never find out, but if he did learn the truth, Felix knew what the answer would be.
The sex that followed was awkward, frantic, and mainly just rutting against each other to cling to a warm body and to prove to themselves they were still alive; getting off was little more than a byproduct. They lay in bed afterwards, and Louis talked. Felix only listened to the sound of his voice, not the words, as he thought. He felt Louis’s fingers running through his hair.
Felix had learned a few things about himself in the past couple years living among humans. Felix knew he was a god. Not God, of course, but a god in the Colonial sense. He was an immortal, looking down at the throngs of humanity and playing with their lives. He chose who lived and who died (and he knew that with one word to Cylon-phobic Cain, he could have saved them all today-he didn’t deny that he was a petty and capricious god, either). But most importantly, he knew he was a young god. He was a god who still looked at the prospect of forever with a kind of horror, because as he listened to another heart beating under his ear, he couldn’t imagine how long the future would feel once loss began to take its toll. He knew no matter what he did, he would lose everything, eventually, but his soul was young enough that it still knew how to cry out, not yet.
He looked up when he heard Louis sob. He was crying, finally. “I was the oldest of my siblings,” he said, his eyes far away. “We were always really close. When Abby got engaged, all four of us got together to meet her husband-to-be, and we joked that she wasn’t really engaged until he passed our test. We did the same thing for Hannah, and then for Sylvie. They always joked that maybe the reason I was still single was the prospect of a grilling from the three of them scared guys off...” Louis laughed weakly. Felix didn’t think his heart could hurt any more, but it somehow found a way to take on even more pain.
Louis continued, “It almost seems silly now. ‘‘Til death do us part’ probably wouldn’t be that long at all anymore.”
Felix couldn’t meet his eyes, but he grabbed Louis’s hand and buried his face in his shoulder.
“But it’s not yet,” he murmured into the warm skin. “Not yet.”
Author: kappamaki33
Characters: Cylon!Felix, Hoshi, Gina, Ellen, Saul, OC Two
Pairing: Gaeta/Hoshi, Cain/Gina, Gaeta/Two
Summary: The Felix on Pegasus modifies the Cylon plan the day before the attack on the Colonies.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: This belongs in my Monster 'verse, between "Tin Soldiers" and "Monster." It's the last piece that I plan to write for this 'verse.
We’ll Always Have Yesterday
“Oh Gods!” is the first thing Felix screams when his lungs are free of the viscous liquid that burns his throat as brightly as it glows. The two women are there, the older one urging him to breathe through it, the younger one glaring at him darkly. Even in his panic, her face reminds him that he’s done wrong, crying out to the humans’ many false gods instead of his one real God.
“What happened?” the older one asks, running fingers soothingly through his hair even though it must be disgusting with goo. He should be able to remember her name by now-it’s so close, he can feel it...
“Two. We fought, and there was something sharp, and...”
Felix gripped the storage locker shelving tightly to steady himself and took deep breaths. The memories were seeping through the blocks in his mind more clearly and completely each day. The stronger they became, the less predictable the staggering moments of breakthrough became as well. He’d thought of his Defective brother now stationed on the Galactica many times over the past two years with new pity and respect. Mostly, though, he thought of him with wonder at how he hadn’t gone insane, if his brother’s memories had bubbled up the same way his were now.
Felix knew that, according to the mission rules, he should abort and hand the entire operation over to his partner. He wasn’t going to, though, not unless it got a lot worse. Gina was as well trained as he was, but he still didn’t trust that she could complete the mission on her own. Plus, he was worried about what might happen if the others asked why he’d aborted when he downloaded.
These were good reasons, but deep down, he knew they weren’t the real reason.
Those kind of thoughts weren’t useful, so Felix pushed them away. He concentrated more of his mind than was really necessary on unlacing and removing his shoes, taking off his socks, then his jacket, then his tanks. He folded them all and set them on a shelf at the back of the closet. Just as he was unbuckling his belt, the hatch creaked open and shut.
Felix heard a sharp intake of breath that he recognized very well. Then he heard a hoarse, “Don’t turn around.”
Felix smiled and braced his hands against one of the lower shelves, facing the wall. A few moments later, he felt broad, warm hands slipping around his waist.
“Gods, what a sight to be greeted with after a long shift,” Louis whispered into the crook of Felix’s neck between kisses. Felix felt the soft material of Louis’s tank was barely damp with sweat as Louis pressed his chest to Felix’s back.
He tipped his head back against Louis’s shoulder to get a proper kiss. “Would’ve been an even better view if I’d had thirty more seconds,” he said, leading one of Louis’s hands down to the waistband of his pants.
Given the way life was on baseships, there should have been nothing new to Felix when it came to sex. What with thirty years (that he can remember fully, at least) without much else by way of recreation available, he’d tried pretty much everything-every position, every combination of available partners, every kink. And yet, this, here, felt new. Technically, sex with Louis was very good, but far from the very best he’d ever had. Yet as he peaked and then slowly came down with Louis’s arm around his chest and his quiet laughter in his ear, he knew this was something different, something equal parts incredible and terrifying.
“Mm, I can’t wait to take you to Silver Bay,” Louis said later, pausing in his dressing long enough to kiss Felix one more time. “It’s just as pretty as Argentum Bay, but far less overrun by tourists.”
Felix kept his smile plastered on. “Sounds great. I like all these perks of being with a Scorpia native, like knowing how to avoid the tourist traps.”
“And that evening, we’re having dinner with my sisters-if that’s okay,” Louis said, looking up a little hesitantly as he tied his boots. Felix nodded, and Louis grinned. “Good. And after that, I am going to take you to Elana, where my friend has a cabin right on the lake,” he said, slipping his arms around Felix and pulling him in close, “where I can have you all to myself.”
They kissed again, slow and easy.
“I can’t wait, either,” Felix hummed. “Gods, I wish I didn’t have to pull a double-shift while we’re docked.”
“It does suck. When are you heading down to the planet? I figured I’d borrow Hannah’s car and pick you up at the spaceport.”
Felix’s stomach iced over. “You don’t have to work, too?”
“No. Petty Officer Van Islen miscalculated how many more hours she needed to get her comms certification. I happily gave up my last shift so she could complete her training. What?” Louis said, grin faltering.
Felix could barely think over the voice in his head screaming, no, no, no, this isn’t the plan at all! “I just thought... Stay. Please.”
“What?”
“The racks, they’ll be empty,” Felix said, scrambling for something that made sense. “I’ve got an hour break between my shifts. You’ve said you’ve always wanted to frak in there, all by ourselves.”
Louis was both amused and confused. “Well, yeah, but more in the sense that a rack would be nicer than a supply closet, and how it’d be nice if the Admiral looked the other way and let people put boots outside the hatch, like they do on most ships.”
“It’s the perfect opportunity. Almost everyone will be down on the planet, and the handful still working up here won’t bother us.”
“Well, yeah, but we’re going to have an even better opportunity to be alone in a day and a half. I kind of want to have lunch with my sisters before you show up, too.” Felix didn’t let up at all on his pleading expression. Louis stared at him questioningly and added, “This doing it in the racks idea...is this something you want a lot?”
Felix nodded enthusiastically.
He saw Louis debate with himself for a minute, then sigh and smile and shake his head. “Okay, fine. If you really want this, staying on this frakking ship an extra eight hours won’t kill me, and we can live out your fantasy.”
“Thank you.” Felix tried to say it smugly, but his gratefulness and relief leaked through. Thankfully, Louis apparently didn’t notice and just kissed him good-bye and left, promising to meet him in the bunkroom at the appointed time.
As soon as Louis shut the hatch behind him, Felix heaved a big sigh. He knew he was in deep trouble, but the fact that Louis would be safe overshadowed his fears for himself. That in and of itself was proof of what deep shit he was in.
As he dressed, Felix couldn’t help but wonder if he’d figured out what it was that his counterpart on Galactica remembered. It had to be something that made him both so different and so tortured that he couldn’t hide his brokenness the way any smart Defective would have. Now, he suspected the other Felix had remembered loving someone.
~~**~~**~~
Felix lay in his rack in the empty bunkroom, naked, sheets drawn up just past his waist. Waiting had always been the hardest part of his mission, so he supposed it shouldn’t surprise him that it was the most difficult part of his modification of the plan, too. He knew when the first missiles would hit the Scorpia shipyards, when the first bombs would fall on the cities sleeping below them. Waiting for a known, set time was one thing, and hard enough.
He also knew when Louis promised he’d come back to the racks for the hour between Felix’s shifts before catching a shuttle down to Celeste. According to the plan, Louis would never get to the hangar deck, though; the attack would come while they were alone together, and they’d head up to CIC when the alarm sounded, together. But unlike the Cylons, Felix didn’t trust humans to follow plans. One of the things he’d learned about humans in his years on Pegasus was their amazing ability to adapt. It had even rubbed off on him a little. It was a very valuable evolutionary trait, but it caused so many problems as well.
Worrying wasn’t useful, though. Felix tried to push those thoughts aside, but they were too resilient. They wouldn’t go away unless replaced with something else, something strong. He knew what was strong enough to assuredly keep that anxiety away, but it wasn’t a very enticing option. After several minutes of casting about in his mind for something else, he sighed and gave in.
Felix focused on trying to remember those times of which none of the Cylons would speak. He was afraid of what those memories contained and would honestly rather never recall any of them, but maybe purposefully reaching back would keep them from bubbling up on their own, he reasoned. If there was such a thing as a good time to try, this was a good one, too, since the rush of sensations and adrenaline that came with frakking always drowned the memories out.
His eyes blinked open. He remembered a word he’d never heard before, among humans or Cylons: fucking.
“They were simply acting on a natural impulse,” the blonde woman who was beside him when he was in the tub says. The younger woman isn’t there anymore. She’s talking to an older man. They’re standing very close, much closer than they should be, given how loud they’re speaking. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“They were fucking. They’re barely five months old, and they were fucking.” His voice is distinctive to begin with, but the growl in it is even more pronounced when he’s mad. He’s very mad now.
Felix looks to his side, where Two is sitting. His eyes are as wide as Felix’s, and wet, too. They hold hands and watch the fight, heads bowed. Two’s hand trembles in Felix’s grasp.
“They were exploring their new bodies,” the woman says. “They’re not children. They’re highly intelligent beings experiencing the world in a completely new way, without the limits of circuitry and metal.”
The man snorts. “Exactly. They have no frame of reference for how to handle their bodies and their environment. That’s what a child is, Ellen!”
Felix wants to chime in that it’s okay, it only hurt a little at first, and mostly it felt so, so good, so there’s no need for them to be angry. He’s afraid to be punished, yes, but he’s more afraid that they’ll take Two away. He and Two have been friends for far longer than they’d been in these new bodies, far longer than they’d even known the Five.
But Felix doesn’t speak up. The man is still talking. “Just because you’ll fuck anything that moves doesn’t mean it’s okay for them to take after their mother,” he says.
“What the-how dare you make this about me! That’s just pathetic, Saul. And like you never-”
Felix closed his eyes. It hurt that he couldn’t remember which Two of the thousands on the baseships was the one who sat beside him and held his hand in the memory. He would probably never know. That was enough of that memory.
He took a deep breath and decided with no little trepidation to reach back once more to the memory that scared him most. It came much more easily than he’d expected.
He is in the tub. The older woman wipes his face with a white towel and strokes his hair.
“What happened?” she asks quietly.
He takes a greedy gulp of air. “Two. We fought, and there was something sharp, and...”
And oh God, it comes back to him in a rush, the angry words between them, the shoves. Two pushes back much harder this time, and Felix falls backwards. He lands not on the floor, but on something sharp, and oh, it rips through him, his skin, his muscles, his stomach, and it hurts more, stronger than any feeling, good or bad, he’s ever felt. Two is above him. The pain is too intense for Felix to understand his words, but he can read the utter horror on his face.
His first death, Felix realized. He understood why the Cylons would vote to voluntarily forget that. Death was traumatic, even now, but that first time... He tried to not think of the crewmates he’d just wished farewell a few hours ago when they’d departed for shore leave, or the millions snug in their beds in the city below. But Felix wasn’t very good at trying to not think about things.
The claxons blared as Cain set Condition One throughout the ship. Felix felt terror rising within him, not because of the alert-that was right on time-but because Louis wasn’t there yet like he was supposed to be. Felix pulled on his uniform. His plan was already going awry, and it had only just begun.
~~**~~**~~
In her heyday, there had been no such thing as a quiet, out-of-the-way corridor on the Pegasus. After the previous day’s losses, almost all the halls besides those around the barracks and critical areas like CIC were empty. That was the only reason Gina could sneak up on him out in public and dare bring the subject up.
“Where are you going?” she asked, sidling up to him as he walked.
He didn’t look at her. “Visiting Louis in the infirmary. They’re keeping him for observation because of the concussion, but Donnelly says they think he’ll be all right.”
“Hmm,” Gina said noncommittally. They walked in silence for a while. Just when Felix was starting to feel comfortable, she said, “The only job you had was to get up to CIC and sabotage the FTL drives so they couldn’t jump away.”
Felix had been trained for this, though he’d never thought he’d have to use it against his partner: he remained cool and calm, kept his face still and emotionless. “We didn’t account for Shaw. She was just too good for me to trick that quickly.”
He flicked his gaze briefly, just long enough to assess Gina’s expression. She had a good poker face herself, but not perfect. He could tell she wasn’t buying it. “If she was too good to trick, why not take more...extreme measures? It didn’t matter if you blew your cover at that point, so long as you succeeded.”
Felix didn’t answer.
“I know why you did it. Why you failed,” she said.
Felix took two more steps, then turned on his heel and faced her. “If you blow my cover, I blow yours. It’s not a threat; it’s just a statement of reality. I know the reverse applies with just as much force.” He leaned in and lowered his voice, even though there was no one around to hear. “As if you really wanted to see us succeed any more than I did. It’s stupid for us to pretend we don’t have the same...issue.”
Gina’s shoulders sank, and that gesture spoke more eloquently of what was going on between her and Cain than any words could have.
Felix took his position at Gina’s side again, and they continued walking, their pace much slower this time.
Before they reached the main, busy corridor, Gina whispered to him, “You know they won’t make it. They’ll die eventually. It’s only a matter of time.”
“I know.” Felix closed his eyes. “But not yet.”
~~**~~**~~
Felix found Louis sitting on his bunk, the white patch of gauze still on his temple.
“I didn’t know they’d released you from the infirmary,” Felix said.
Louis looked up at the noise of the hatch closing, but his eyes were hollow. “Hell of a way to get the racks to ourselves. Almost everyone else had already left for shore leave when the attack happened.”
Louis looked so small and fragile in the empty room, words that Felix never would have imagined describing him with before. It scared Felix. He didn’t know what to do. He stepped closer, reached out and ran his fingers through Louis’s hair.
Louis’s gaze dropped to the floor as he said, “I don’t know whether to thank you or to hate you for keeping me here.”
Felix dropped to the mattress beside Louis like a puppet whose strings had been cut. They clung to each other so hard he could barely breathe. Neither of them cried. Felix imagined the shock of it all made it too big for Louis to really deal with yet, but as for Felix, fear overwhelmed every other emotion. I don’t know whether to thank you or to hate you. He knew Louis didn’t mean it like that, but...he knew Louis would never find out, but if he did learn the truth, Felix knew what the answer would be.
The sex that followed was awkward, frantic, and mainly just rutting against each other to cling to a warm body and to prove to themselves they were still alive; getting off was little more than a byproduct. They lay in bed afterwards, and Louis talked. Felix only listened to the sound of his voice, not the words, as he thought. He felt Louis’s fingers running through his hair.
Felix had learned a few things about himself in the past couple years living among humans. Felix knew he was a god. Not God, of course, but a god in the Colonial sense. He was an immortal, looking down at the throngs of humanity and playing with their lives. He chose who lived and who died (and he knew that with one word to Cylon-phobic Cain, he could have saved them all today-he didn’t deny that he was a petty and capricious god, either). But most importantly, he knew he was a young god. He was a god who still looked at the prospect of forever with a kind of horror, because as he listened to another heart beating under his ear, he couldn’t imagine how long the future would feel once loss began to take its toll. He knew no matter what he did, he would lose everything, eventually, but his soul was young enough that it still knew how to cry out, not yet.
He looked up when he heard Louis sob. He was crying, finally. “I was the oldest of my siblings,” he said, his eyes far away. “We were always really close. When Abby got engaged, all four of us got together to meet her husband-to-be, and we joked that she wasn’t really engaged until he passed our test. We did the same thing for Hannah, and then for Sylvie. They always joked that maybe the reason I was still single was the prospect of a grilling from the three of them scared guys off...” Louis laughed weakly. Felix didn’t think his heart could hurt any more, but it somehow found a way to take on even more pain.
Louis continued, “It almost seems silly now. ‘‘Til death do us part’ probably wouldn’t be that long at all anymore.”
Felix couldn’t meet his eyes, but he grabbed Louis’s hand and buried his face in his shoulder.
“But it’s not yet,” he murmured into the warm skin. “Not yet.”