Title: Hush
Author: Phin
Rating: FRT, probably lower
Pairing: Lee/Kara, sort of.
Spoilers: Set post-Unfinished Business, without having much to do with that episode.
Disclaimer: I do not own Battlestar Galactica or any of the characters or recognisable situations. This story is written and published for personal enjoyment and the love of the characters. No profit is being made.
Summary: In five minutes they can fill a room with what they're not saying, until she can't tell which are the words they have said and which are the ones they haven't.
Author's note: I do apologise for this story. I'm not sure where it came from and I kind of like it but I also kind of hate it. It seems to be my brain's response to getting no sleep after staying up all night watching old episodes of BSG and looking at Samuel Palmer paintings and etchings. Any comments/suggestions would be welcomed because to be totally honest I'm baffled by this thing!
Italics denote thoughts, sort of.
Hush
I.
So they stop talking. Because the words they're speaking aren't the conversations they're having and it's all just too confusing, and too damn hard, and it's the end of the world and she can't even speak anymore. Not to him. Because everything they say is twenty things they aren't saying, until the rooms they're in become thick, stuffed full of words unsaid. Sentences are stacked high on tables, syllables drip down from light bulbs and overflow from glasses, pauses cluster and get tangled in her hair. In five minutes they can fill a room with what they're not saying, until she can't tell which are the words they have said and which are the ones they haven't. And it never matters anyway because she's got commas in her eyes and segues cramming down her throat until she's going to cry or choke and she has to run.
II.
In her bunk at night they stay close and silent, they shut the curtain tight so the words that he always brings with him, clinging to his shoes and clothes, can't get in. Some words they can't get rid of. He leaves his pants and shoes under her bunk but he still brings some words with him. 'Her', is always wrapped around his wedding band, just like she knows 'loss' and 'shame' are twined around the ring his brother gave her. She thinks that there's a word on her arm as well, clinging to the feathers of her marriage tattoo, she can't see it but she thinks he can. Sometimes she wonders what it is. 'Husband', or 'him', or maybe something more true, 'betrayal' perhaps, or 'downfall'. She doesn't want to know. If they stay silent the words shrink overnight, until by morning there are only specks of dust where they were. But it still doesn't make it hurt any less that every night when he comes to sleep in her bed, he brings 'shatter' and 'desolation' and a hundred other words she can't bear, dragging them behind him in snarled up clumps that have stuck to his shoes.
She doesn't know where his wife is while he's spending his nights in this bunk with her. A question like that could fill a whole room with what was not being said, it could suffocate the whole ship, so she doesn't ask.
At night they talk in silence.
III.
The gentle rasp of his stubble against her cheekbone, the corner of his lips trailing over her cheek, his nose nudging her jaw, urging her to lift her head and look at him, says Nothing's right, but maybe someday it will be. The way her head flops and her eyes refuse to meet his says Maybe it'll be worse.
The twitch of his lips as his hand skims her waist says Pretty and her huff of breath says Frak off (but don't go). Even when they don't speak, they speak in riddles.
The heel of her hand running along his collarbone asks What if it never gets better? What if it's never meant to be better for people like us?
His thumbs stroking her neck say Don't break, you scare me when you're fragile but at the same time a bite to her jawbone, hard enough to bruise says You left me for him. Bitch. It says other things too, dark, coiling words that will stay with her if she lets them, but she puts her hands over her ears to show that she won't hear it. She doesn't bother to bite his ring finger in reply, they've already had this argument so many times in words. Also once in blows. They beat their apologies and their devotions into each other's skin, carrying the bruises for days so everyone could see how much they were cherished.
As he falls asleep every night her kiss in the crook of his elbow asks Do you trust me again yet?
His fingers slowly slipping along the indentations of her ribs means Not yet but the gentle slide of his tongue over the veins of her wrist means Soon. Nearly.
Every night she lies on his chest, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. She listens to the breath rush in and out of him and thinks about floating. His body lifts and lowers her with the rhythm of the air. She knows each rise of his chest, pushing against hers is saying I love you, always and each deflation, drawing away, begs Tell me you love me She hopes he's just asking for reassurance. She hopes he knows that all her inhalations mean I do, always even though it means But I'll never say it, every time she breathes out. She hopes he knows that she times her breathing so their breaths can speak to each other all night, while everyone else sleeps.
Tell me you love me … I do, always … I love you, always … But I'll never say it … Tell me you love me … I do, always…
IV.
During the day they still hate each other and they will do until they can learn again how to say it all in speech, not touch. But for now, they can lie together in the dark on the wrong side of the apocalypse and speak mountains without words. They sketch out tentative confessions with fingertips on skin, mapping the ground for the spoken words that will have to come tumbling out soon. The words can't stay unsaid forever.
For now, they hate each other, except every night, when they talk without sound and render gentle confessions with each breath.
V.
Once, they don't hate each other during the day.
The words are nearly ready to be said. And for one moment when their fingers brush in the hallway they don't hate each other. Kara sees a clump of the awful words that Lee always drags behind him, come loose and roll away. She feels 'loss' and 'shame' start to slip from around her engagement ring until 'loss' falls onto the ground and 'shame' only hangs by a thread. For one moment when their fingers brush it means "We're on the wrong side of the end of the world together. Time is all we have and time is all we need."