NOTE: I came to realize that the formatting got bungled and italics stripped out, which...I finally decided I couldn't live with. Thanks, Megara79 and Guest for the sweet reviews, and I've saved them :-)
bsg_epics did a prompt war this week, with 100 one-word prompts, any characters, any ratings, etc. I didn't get a ton written, but it did bring some interesting themes to explore...
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Knife, Simon, Kara Title: Deep Cut; T
She couldn't remember it in her brain, but there it was, in her soul somewhere: she'd been violated by the over-genial doctor and a scalpel while she was out cold, unaware. It was different from the gunshot wound, different from his gloved hands sliding into her for no good reason. Kara slipped her hand under the sheet again and pulled the bandage away from the sliced skin underneath. It didn't feel like other times she'd been cut on, to fix a bad knee or clean a wound. She felt knifed. There was no other feeling that fit so exactly.
His calling her "Starbuck" had cut like a knife as well, tearing a rent in the few threads of fragile hope she'd allowed herself to weave.
The glass was awkward and biting in her hand, hard to grip, slippery with her sweat as she waited. He had better cutting instruments, but nothing with an edge as sharp as her will.
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Sick; Bill/Saul, Food Poisoning on Picon; T
The fever was cooking him from the inside out, and the nausea was not quite making him run to the head, just making him wish that he would go ahead and puke.
"Told you not to order medium rare in that joint." Bill laid a cold damp cloth on Saul's forehead and pressed it against his skin.
Saul thought of the spicy burger he'd eaten earlier and groaned. Too long on ship's rations, he'd been done in by the smell of char and spice that reminded him of shore leave with Bill on Tauron, scarfing up fresh food and each other.
"Oh, Gods, just kill me now," he whimpered, raising one shaky hand to shield his eyes from the light that suddenly seemed too bright.
"Not just yet," Bill said, wiping a trickle of water off Saul's cheek with his thumb. "I've still got a lot I want to do with you before you go." Even though the swimmy double vision the fever was giving him, Saul could see the tenderness in his eyes. He relaxed a little, enough to let Bill maneuver him until his head rested in his lover's lap.
"Wish I could do more about this." Saul nudged his nose against the firm bulge under Bill's jeans. The movement roiled his stomach again and he closed his eyes. The cool cloth was back, and he felt the sickness ebb just a touch.
"Steady, Saul. I've got you, okay? Try to get some sleep. This'll be over by morning."
More maneuvering, and finally, blissfully, he felt worn cotton sheets against his bare skin. A few minutes of relief, then the chills set in. He groaned, and the cloth was whisked away immediately, followed by a naked Bill Adama sliding into bed and wrapping him into a warm, healing embrace.
His teeth quit chattering when he felt warm, soft lips at the back of his neck. Bill pressed the length of his body against Saul's shivering frame, and little by little, a cocoon of body heat wove around them both.
"I hate you seeing me all frakked up," he mumbled, the comfort starting to put him asleep. "Should be tearing up the town…or each other." Saul gave a weak chuckle, then snuggled his head against Bill's arm.
"There'll be other leaves." Bill moved his hand down Saul's hip in long light strokes. Feels like velvet he thought muzzily. He'd have to remember to tell Bill that when he felt better.
What was that the priests always said? In sickness and in health? He captured Bill's hand and pressed it to his lips.
It made more sense tonight than it ever had when he'd heard the words before. Sickness was ugly and uncomfortable, but here they were anyway. A different kind of giving and receiving than usual for them, but just as heartfelt as their very best frakking.
In sickness and in health.
Yeah, he take that vow, if it was with Bill.
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Photograph, Saul/Ellen Title:Photographic Memories T
He took another deep drag off his cigarette and held it between stained fingers, picking the next spot to cleanse. His other hand held the photograph, fingertips bending the sides.
Her eyes had always wandered towards other men. Sly glances when she thought he wasn't looking. Wide-eyed denial that shifted into angry accusatory darts when he confronted her.
The confused sadness he saw there was the worst. It came and went almost too fast to catch, unless he was really studying her closely.
Her eyebrows…now those were a pair of destructive tools. She could mock, scold, or sneer with a flick of a muscle here or there. Or throw out thunderclouds when they drew together and down, the lightning cracks not far behind.
Not her hair…something about her hair always broke his heart anyway. It was a more innocent part of her, somehow. Even at her most bitter, vicious stage, her hair still smelled like a frakking sunlit meadow.
He flicked off the ashy tip and studied the glowing red embers. If he touched it to his skin, it would leave a scar, if he held it there long enough.
He looked at the picture again.
You love Bill Adama more than you ever loved me.
You'll never amount to anything.
No wonder I do what I do. Look at you.
And the insidious offers to share another drink. Just one more.
Offers to make up for the past with a present frak.
Promises that it would be different this time.
He held the cigarette steady. The paper smoked, then shriveled away from the edges of the burn, leaving a hole where the image of her mouth had been.
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Right: Adama/Roslin Title: Talking With his Hands Rating: M
She's looked at his left hand countless times. She's seen the ironic gold band shining in cold florescent lights, in the warm glow of her desk lamp. She's stolen a couple of furtive glances in the natural light of a few surreal days. It's a reminder that he's had another life, before the attacks, before she ever met him.
She wonders if he looks at her left hand as well. If he ever gets curious about who she was before the attacks, whether she was always single, or had been divorced, or widowed.
She hadn't contemplated his right hand until it was at her cheek, gently turning her face towards his. He'd let his hand linger just there, under her jaw, until the kiss was well over and it was just his eyes meeting hers, holding her gaze as tenderly as his fingers held her flesh.
This is the hand that could cup my breast one day. These are the fingers that could play over me until I come.
She glances down at his other hand and puts the unexpected errant thought out of her mind. He's still married to the Fleet, to his command. And now to a new role: Admiral. Gold at his collar announces his commitment more than any ring. His naked right hand is a tease, a springboard to a little light fantasy, nothing more.
Billy helps her walk away. She still feels the warmth of his fingers on her skin.
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Bubbles, Julia Brynn, Kacey Brynn, Title: Through the Open Door; T
Kacey's laugh is light as soap bubbles in summer. Julia doesn't know how she does it. The doors open, or the hatch or bay or whatever the damn things are called.
Some things are still as strange as they were when the attacks were new. She's spent most of her life on the ground. If it opens to let you go from one place to another, it should be a door. As Kacey grows (if they live, if she lives, if enough of the others live) she'll forget about hatches, and decks, and heads, and messes.
She'll forget about apartments.
The doors open and the sunlight stings her eyes. It's brighter than New Caprica, the fields are greener, the grass high and dense. Kacey's ready to dance out into the fresh air, tugging at Julia's hand.
Kacey pipes up with a question, a hope about seeing Kara Thrace. Julia tosses her a soothing half-promise for later. The leaders of the Fleet are far ahead, doing what she imagines are leader-y things. President Roslin had looked terribly sick that last day, and she heard Adama was staying close by her.
She'll always think of Laura Roslin as "President;" she's the only person Julia's ever voted for. She'd been too exhausted from tending a teething baby during Adar's last election to get out and vote. She imagines her older child playing in a field like this on the Shore, his sitter keeping a watchful eye over him as he runs this way and that, grinning, gap-toothed.
A flash of red and pink catches her eye, from the clearing far up ahead, past the winding line of Colonials picking their way through the high grass. Roslin had been so strong, so comforting when everything went to shit on New Caprica. Then Kacey had disappeared, and no one was strong enough, then, to give her any comfort.
Not until she saw her in the arms of Kara Thrace. Julia's let the confusion go about all that; all that's left is gratitude and a hope that Kara finds what she needs.
The strap of her rucksack digs into her shoulder, and she tells Kacey to wait a minute while she adjusts it. The green remains overpowering, the sun is still too bright…but the ground below her feet is soft and loamy, springy against her step. The rucksack feels lighter somehow. She could get used to this. her eyes adjust and she realizes how beautiful this new place is.
It will be a good resting place for Laura Roslin. No ashes, no fire, no swamps of mud. She wonders if that's something Roslin, or maybe Adama thinks about.
Kacey giggles again and the image of soap bubbles come back. She'd like to see Kacey run and play like her son had when he was her age. Maybe there's some substance here than can be made into soap.
Maybe by the time Kacey has a child of her own.
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Trapped , Cally/Chief, Title: Fatherhood, T
It had been a foolish mistake, a drunken reaction to one too many losses, one too many nightmares.
Wonder and worry mixed in Cally's head.
She thought about the words she'd use, the happy ones she'd pull out from overheard conversations between excited couples.
A little one's on the way.
You're going to be a father.
President Roslin always said we should start having babies.
Galen would be thrilled. He'd stroke her belly with all the care he lavished on his mechanical charges. He'd talk about the future, what he wanted for them both. He'd make love to her slow and gentle, and she'd feel cherished and whole.
And when he went to his shift, he'd almost certainly come back alive.
Hotdog…didn't Viper pilots say they were dead already? Would he even remember that night? The ten minute adrenaline-jacked frakking that stopped her period, that was making her breasts swell?
He'd feel trapped by her announcement. She knew that deep inside, where life was just beginning to stir, imperceptible but for her imagining. He might accept this, or deny it. She didn't know him well enough to predict his final feelings, and that told her everything she needed to know.
Galen would never feel like that. He'd love this baby, like he loved her. And she loved him…she'd loved him well before this baby was conceived.
That one stupid act wasn't going to define her life, or her baby's life. It might not carry Galen's blood, but it would carry his love. In the end, that was all that mattered. She snuggled her back into his broad chest and brought his hand over her flat belly.
Tomorrow, maybe, she'd tell him. And then they'd go from there.
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Bed: Adama/Roslin, Title: Making the Bed, M
An angular pebble scraped her back and she wondered through the herb-scented haze if she'd ever make love in a real bed again. She'd snuggled against his chest (carefully, trying not to press on the healing places) under a soggy tarp; she'd been ready to welcome him into her fold-out couch, if there'd been more than a curtain, if she'd had a little more energy.
And there'd been that moment that caught them both off-guard, grinding and kissing, moaning into the leather of his overstuffed sofa, the reality of her move to solid ground suddenly taking them both further into territory they'd been tip-toeing around for months. If she'd changed her mind, if she'd stayed….
But she hadn't. And now he was here, and burlap pillows and scrub-grass ground would have to do. He was murmuring into the side of her neck between soft, wet kisses, all the pleasure he'd been wanting to give her for so long.
Laura rolled half-over him, biting her lip when he ran his hand up her leg until he was cupping her ass. She reached back and flicked the offending pebble away.
Our bed is here, it's wherever we are.
They'd make it real enough.
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Lips: Laura, Meier (Z/M) Title: Kobol Conversations, Part 1 T
The heavy mist was turning into light rain when Meier crouched down beside the President.
"I'm on you this shift, Madame President." He spoke as deferentially as he ever had to the suits on parole boards.
She was more gracious than any of them, at least on the surface. "Thank you, Mr. Meier. Is Tom getting some rest?"
Her use of Tom's first name irritated him more than it should. "He's going around the perimeters."
And then he'd be back in the lean-to they'd set up a few meters from the others, and they could snatch a couple of hours of just being together before the next muddy trek began. Tom would be soaked from his patrol, brushing under rain-soaked tree limbs. He wouldn't ask for it—he never did—but he'd be ready for the warmth and relief Meier could give him.
He could almost feel his heat leaching into Tom's shivering body when he realized Roslin had stopped looking at her blood-stained book and was studying him instead.
"Something wrong, Madame President?" The title felt wrong on his tongue. Was she still his president if he'd never voted for her, or Adar?
"You've been with Mr. Zarek a long time, haven't you?"
There was a softness in her eyes as she spoke. He wondered if she was faking it.
"I guess you could say that. Close to twenty years." He shrugged, his habits of dissembling to authority coming back full force. "Not like we had much choice. We went were we were told."
"Hmm." She cocked her head. "I would have thought…it seems, from what I've seen, that there's feelings between you."
Frak, how close had she been watching them? Had she heard any of their plans for her young protector? Had she seen the few furtive kisses they'd grabbed behind racks of frozen bread or at a bend in the trail?
"Like you said, we've been around each other a long time." He hoped she'd take the hint. He had dirty business ahead; both he and Tom did. Humanizing these autocrats was the last thing he needed to do right now.
"What difference does it make?" he grunted.
Her glance fell to the blood-stained book again. "I keep getting reminded of how little time we really have…how fast things change." She met his eyes, and for a second he saw how the young prince could fall into the depths he saw there.
"I think of things I wish I'd said to people when I had the chance. If you think there's anything you haven't told him, tonight would be a good time to fix that. I wish—" She broke off, and the wistful look on her face made her look vulnerable, human…like she understood without hearing the words what life had been like for them.
He thought again of Tom, cold and wet and waiting for him to bring him comfort in the night, like he had for years. Maybe he could slip away when she fell asleep, find him on patrol, get him to knock off early… Hell, she was practically encouraging him to do just that. She sounded so sympathetic…
How do you know when a politician is lying? When their lips are moving. Tom's cautionary sneer sounded loud in his memory.
"I'm fine, Madame President. You should get some sleep."
He looked off into the dark as she curled up in her sleeping bag.
He had a job to do, and discussing his feelings with her wasn't on the list..
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Joy: Laura, Bill, Title: Kobol Conversations, Part 2: T
He looked so angry, standing there, the moment frozen, guns raised, lips tight. Elosha said there'd be a price in blood, but Kobol had soaked up so much already, and Bill had already spilled his all over his own sacred ground of the CIC.
They were all mutineers, she supposed. Rebels. Traitors, in his eyes. Once they had danced and talked of politics and patriotism. And now…she gripped the Book of Pythia tighter. Tom was right. There's a power in sons repudiating their fathers, in fathers sacrificing their sons.
Even the rain seemed to pause, the atmosphere taking a last breath before something irrevocable happened. She followed its lead, waiting.
The smile, the tears were so unexpected, she wondered if she was having another delusion. The joy lightened Adama's features, and his killing face, the mouth and eyes that had wanted to punish, was transformed, all crinkled eyes and crooked grin. Captain Apollo gave as good as he got, a boy feeling welcome at home again.
Joy has its own power. She'd have to remember to tell Tom that, when she got the chance.
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Water: Bill/Laura, Title: Kobol Conversations, Part 3, T
"Our ancestors sure picked a soggy planet." He nodded at the drizzle whispering against the canvas tarp overhead.
"Maybe that's part of the reason they left." Laura smiled. She shifted towards the Commander, trying to avoid an annoying leak above her. He seemed happy to make more room beside him.
"I don't mind, really. It's part of what makes this place so different from being on the ship. The water smells so different…kind of wild."
He chuckled, his lips closer to her ear than she'd realized. "You're a connoisseur of…water? That doesn't sound like a politician. I would have guessed white wine."
She leaned back until her head was touching his shoulder. It felt right, here in the twilight of the home of the gods. Wouldn't it be interesting if it felt right to do a little more?
It felt good to just talk like this.
"Sounds silly when you say it like that. But yes, Bill, I've always loved water, moving water. Rivers, streams, the ocean. I wish I'd spent more time near the water." She swallowed against the melancholy rising in her throat. The waterways she remembered, the oceans she dreamed about would be radioactive for years, even if the Clyons magically disappeared like they had the first time.
"You're from Caprica City, right? Did you spend much time at the Riverwalk? They had all kinds of reflective pools and fountains. Never spent as much time there as I wanted to." His easy rumble opened something inside her as he went on to talk about days when his boys were young, the time he built a water garden behind his house because they loved one they'd seen on vacation with their mother when he was away.
She tried to hold back the tide of emotion she felt at his mention of the fountains…her fountain, the fountain she'd walked into, numb and cold. She mostly succeeded, except for one rebellious tear that escaped and landed on the back of his hand.
"Damn leak," she said, tilting her face down against his shoulder.
"You can move a little more this way. There's room."
One day she'd thank him for pretending to believe it was rain.