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millarificTitle: Sackcloth and Ashes
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
millari
Characters: Baltar, Gaeta, Dee
Pairings: Baltar/Gaeta
Rating: NC-17
Beta: Thanks to some wonderful people who really supported me in writing this, assured me it was a good story, gave me excellent feedback, and just generally made it into an infinitely better story. Thanks go togeekbynight, daybreak777, trovia and anyone else who I've nervously showed this story to.
Warnings: spanking, masochism, reference to childhood spanking
Summary: A simple bedroom game becomes more complex than Felix ever bargained for.
A/N: This story takes place in an AU version of early S4, where Baltar's trial still resulted in an acquittal, he reconciled with Gaeta shortly after the trial, and the two are living together on Galactica in an established relationship. The cult either doesn't exist or has never had contact with Baltar. Also, instead of the Cylons giving the Fleet their jump technology, Baltar is reprogramming their FTLs ship by ship, using knowledge of Cylon tech he picked up during his time on the basestar. Since he's helping them find Earth much more quickly, Baltar is tolerated by the higher-ups on Galactica, but he still faces a lot of hostility from the rank and file, and also from civilians in the Fleet. Oh, and Gaeta has yet to go on the Demetrius, so he currently has both legs.
The first time Gaius ever brought up the idea, Felix was too busy smirking about it to wonder.
“You want me to punish you?” he chuckled, after getting over the initial surprise. The two of them sat cross-legged on their bed talking. “What?” he teased, “does the Aerelon farm boy need a spanking?”
Felix saw Gaius’ eyes widen in surprise, then look away quickly. “Yes, I suppose,” he said, his voice turning strangely husky.
Felix gaped at him in total surprise, then laughed out loud. “Gods, Gaius, are you actually embarrassed about asking me for this? You?”
He still wouldn’t look at him. “You say that like I’m some sort of…deviant.”
Felix paused, finally noticing the way his lover's form was bowed. He reached out a hand and pulled Gaius to him, still laughing a little in the back of his throat.
“I’m sorry,” he grinned. “I guess I’m just surprised that there’s a sexual taste that my epicurean playboy boyfriend is actually embarrassed to admit to, that’s all.” He guided his head into his lap, stroking his hair in a soothing gesture.
“So you’ll do it?” The hope in his voice floated up at Felix.
Felix bent his head down to reach him and pulled a deep kiss out of him. “Of course I will.” His fingers cupped Gaius under the chin so that he could not avoid his gaze.
“Don’t be embarrassed about it. I’m no stranger to kink, you know. And you’re not even the first who was into this. I once had a boyfriend who liked getting his ass spanked.”
Gaius’ expression reconfigured itself until it managed haughty and playful.
“You?” he challenged, with that teasing lilt that never failed to turn Felix on. “The never-tell-a-lie, squeaky clean Felix Gaeta has had a kinky sex life?”
Felix just rolled his eyes in mock frustration.
“Why does everybody I’ve ever slept with on this ship say that?”
***
He’d forgotten what a rush of power this could be.
He had to admit that it was quite a turn-on to have Gaius spread out on the bed like a barely considered, half-opened gift.
Gaius often liked to act like he was the one in charge of their relationship, but Felix was First Officer of the Watch and a lieutenant, so he knew how to give orders, and he knew how to stand his ground when it mattered. Privately, Felix loved and envied how Gaius never hesitated to speak his mind, even to the point where Felix had to admit he could become insufferable and alienate people.
That hardly ever happened anymore. For starters, Gaius didn’t get that many chances to become insufferable, because most people on Galactica didn’t talk to him, not since the trial. But on the rare occasions where he did come dangerously close, Felix simply gave him the look.
Whenever Gaius was on the receiving end of it, he would purse his lips in surprise, raise his chin with one last haughty assertion of authority, and then invariably acquiesce, although often not without a sigh.
As Felix walked around the foot of the bed now, with his lover bent over the mattress – naked except for the trousers neatly pulled down to his ankles, Felix made sure to produce this look, knowing its unexpected appearance would throw Gaius off. Like the tiger on his tattoo, Felix crouched down to his prey’s level, enjoying the startled expression in his lover’s eyes.
“Oh, you bastard,” Gaius hissed in surprise.
Felix’s face spread into a grin. “Listen to the mouth on you,” he teased. “You’ll pay for that soon enough.”
Gaius hadn’t been able to be very specific with Felix about what he had in mind, but Felix figured it was probably much like his other boyfriend, Philip, who’d basically wanted an authoritarian father figure. Usually, he'd just worn his military uniform and channeled the Old Man in his head, and it worked brilliantly. He’d worn his uniform for this, as sort of a default. He also liked the idea that after tonight, Gaius might never be able to look at him in uniform the same way again.
As he stared into Gaius’ upturned, slightly wary expression, he briefly considered imitating the Admiral’s gravelly voice, to make Gaius laugh, but then remembered how shy he’d been in asking for this. Felix didn’t want to embarrass him or break the fragile mood. He walked back around, so Gaius couldn’t see him, then bent down and whispered hot into his ear: “Are you ready?”
A soft, calamitous whimper, deep in the back of his throat, was his only reply. Felix’s own breath caught with arousal at the sound. After a moment, he recovered his composure with a lascivious smirk. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
His laugh was throaty and lustful as he smacked his lover with a deliberately sudden first blow, watching Gaius clench and yelp in surprise. After a moment, Felix bent down to kiss him on the back of the neck before beginning in earnest.
This first time was about testing Gaius’ limits, listening carefully to his grunts, moans, and stifled cries. About seeing how much he would writhe, and how hard he would struggle to remain still, whether or not he truly wanted to accept Felix’s control over his body, whether or not he could trust Felix to know what he was capable of absorbing. Felix had learned a lot about this process back on Caprica, the summer after he had first transferred to Galactica.
Felix never had considered spanking a lover before he met Philip, a hospital intern a few years older than him, but he’d been surprised to find out how suited he was to the dominant role, and how hot it could be to watch the man he loved writhing on bed, submitting to his control. His one concern had been that he might hurt someone, but Philip taught Felix how to decipher the body’s minute biological signals – the ones that told him when a person was experiencing an endorphin rush, or that pain was becoming overwhelming.
However, once Gaius stopped reacting to the surprise of the first few spanks, Felix noticed how his body language broadcast none of this. It was not that Gaius couldn't feel it, but it didn't seem to affect him much. In surprise, and then with a touch of frustration, Felix spanked him increasingly harder until he decided his hand stung too much to go any further.
“You’ve done this before with someone,” he accused mildly over Gaius’ prone body.
But Gaius shook his head vehemently, then buried his face into the blankets with a silent, dejected air. Gaius’ body always telegraphed the truth of his statements to Felix, and he could tell right now that he wasn’t lying.
“Did you not enjoy doing that?” Even muffled into the bedding, Gaius’ voice sounded distant and thoughtful.
“You barely cracked a sweat," Felix observed in disbelief. "I don’t even think you got turned on. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“No, no, I did,” Gaius warbled quickly, pulling himself up onto the bed, kicking off the trousers bunched at his ankles. But his head twitched nervously and his eyes seemed somewhere far away.
“For someone who's never done this before, you seemed rather … unsurprised,” Felix probed. “You sure you've never been spanked before?”
He saw how the sound of his voice called Gaius back to attention. “Oh, well, yes.” He rolled onto his back and stared up at Felix. “On the farm. My father did, when my brothers or I were especially miscreant. He would sometimes take us to, you know, the barn, use his belt.."
Felix blanched. "Gods, Gaius," he said softly. "That's not what I meant. Why didn't you tell me?" He suddenly had a creeping unease about what they had just done. "Why did you ask me to do that? Did it bring up bad memories?"
"Bad memories? Of what?" His eyes widened with realization. "Oh! Felix, no. Not at all. It's fine." His arms wrapped around his now drawn-up knees, and he settled his chin upon them. "No worries, love."
"But your father beat you and your brothers?" Felix insisted, his voice arcing in a way he hadn't intended. He saw something cloud over in Gaius' eyes.
"That's quite an inflammatory way to put it." His measured tones cut into the quiet between them. "Didn't your parents give you spankings when you were a child?"
Felix didn't know what to say.
"I'll take from your expression that they didn't believe in it." His hand ran through his hair, awkward and stilted. "Or were you outrageously well-behaved even as a child?" He reached out to cup Felix's chin, but Felix nudged the hand away. "Did he do that a lot to you?" Felix insisted.
Gaius went stiff with indignation. "Felix, he punished us. When we deserved it."
Felix stared at him, trying to understand. "Did you find yourself liking it?” he asked slowly. “Is that why you like it now?"
Gaius thought a moment. "No. It wasn't enjoyable,” he said. “I didn't like it at all. But I'll tell you one thing, Felix, when it was over, it was all over."
"What do you mean?"
"There were no grudges, nothing lingering. Everything just went back to normal."
Felix swallowed hard. "Look, I don't want this to hurt you." After a moment, he added, "Emotionally, I mean."
"You did nothing of the kind." Gaius was already reaching out and yanking Felix’s hand towards him, suckling on each finger, one by one. This time, Felix allowed it, guilty at the tiny sigh that escaped his lips. He had an inkling that the move was meant to distract; briefly, he wondered from what.
“This was nice, darling,” Gaius assured him in between fingers, his voice curving more playfully now.
“Really it was. I had fun.” But something in his voice was too pat to be believed, and Felix eyed him intently.
"But it wasn't quite what you wanted, was it?"
Gaius fell into an uncomfortable silence. “Well…” he finally relented.
Felix pulled his hand back gently. “What do you want?" He tried out a mischievous smile, following Gaius' lead. "Something a little more intense? 'Cause I could manage that, if that's what you really want.”
Gaius' eyes immediately came alive, searching Felix’s for something. Felix did not miss the sharp intake of breath. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, I would like that.”
His arm curved and pulled Felix on top of him, into a long, passionate kiss, the wetness of his tongue sliding over Felix’s lips, then parting them open in a possessive gesture. Felix grunted with pleasure, barely noticing Gaius’s practiced fingers pulling at the zipper to his trousers until the scratchy fabric was shimmying down his legs. He found himself flipped over on his back, naked from the waist down. His lover’s hands were making quick work of him, finding every corner of his body, raising goosebumps everywhere at once.
“Gaius,” he gasped, as the man teased his tongue around the tip of his cock. “Gods, how do you do that? You’re frakking amazing sometimes, you know that?”
“I am, aren’t I?” The pleased, haughty lilt in his lover’s voice told Felix that they were back on familiar ground. Gaius’ lips continued to dance around the idea of sucking him off, and Felix's eyes rolled back as fingers began tracing ghostly curves inside his thighs, then up his sides, then down his arms. Felix’s hands fumbled blindly, desperately trying to guess the next location of this delicious torment, but Gaius batted them away easily.
“Ohh, if you’re going to do it,” he moaned, “then godsdamnit, just do it.” His entire body writhed as Gaius coaxed quivering sighs out of him. “Come on…I’m begging you…please. You're making me insane.”
“Oh, is that what I'm doing?” The coy, tantalizing retort surprised Felix into a pleased smile. He kept his eyes closed, enjoying the way his lover’s voice seemed both above and below him, engulfing him completely. “Well good,” the voice continued, deadpan. “That is the point, darling.”
Felix's eyes flashed open and saw Gaius, his body curved over Felix’s cock, his expression hungry, predatory. He treated Felix to a confident, closemouthed smile before finally taking him deep into his warm, wet mouth. Panicky, ecstatic waves rocketed to Felix’s nerve endings. Soon, Gaius had settled into serious work on him, taking him deeper and deeper into his mouth, tongue fluttering up in long, slow trails along the shaft. Felix didn't know how much more he could take of this delicious agony.
“Just you wait...” He was aiming for teasing threats, but his body felt rubbery and, and he knew his breaths were coming out in uneven rasps. Through lidded eyes, he saw Gaius’ bemused expression, watching him try desperately to manufacture even one coherent sentence “Just you wait,” he repeated between clenched teeth. “Just you wait until the next time I’ve got you underneath me, Gaius...”
But then he was crying out in wordless, frustrated protest as he felt Gaius suddenly withdrawing. He reached out blindly again, weak with desire.
“Really?” Gaius’s voice taunted, arch and self-satisfied. “Because if I didn’t know better, I’d say that you enjoy being this way, squirming under me, under my complete control.”
Felix groaned. His hands found the back of Gaius’ head, fingers entangling themselves onto the man’s long tresses, firmly guiding his lover’s mouth back, silently ordering him to finish. He heard Gaius grunt incoherently as he engulfed Felix’s cock again. Felix clung to a fistful of Gaius’ hair, willing himself not to come right then and there. He raised his head, wanting to see the man he loved like this – swollen lips parting and tightening around him, focused on him and only him.
A few long strands of hair had fallen across Gaius’ eyes. It reminded Felix of being in the lab with him, when Gaius got so intent on something that he couldn’t be bothered to pull back the rebellious strands. He smiled weakly, and stretched out a reverent hand to brush them back. At his touch, Gaius’ eyes darted upward in surprise, and Felix could see a grin blooming there, around his own cock. He shuddered as the first tiny wave of orgasm flooded him. “Ohh gods…
“Next time,” he said, his voice ragged as he hovered on the edge of coming, “I am definitely going to take you in hand.”
He never got a chance to say more though, for the universe had just exploded into sparks of light and blinding sensation.
***
But really, Felix forgot all about it their next few nights together. It took Gaius mustering up his courage, just as they were about to go to sleep, to bring the subject back up again.
“I feel positively ridiculous asking you for this,” he said, awkwardly nuzzling into Felix’s shoulder. “But do you remember telling me a few nights ago that you would give me…” he paused, eyes darting from side to side, “…a more intense experience?”
At first, Felix’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Oh,” he chuckled after a moment, idling his fingers along Gaius’ neck. “I forgot. The farm boy wants his hide tanned, right?”
Gaius' gaze flew away. “I really do wish you wouldn’t refer to it that way,” he mumbled.
The tone chastened Felix. “Hey.” He took his lover’s cheek into his palm, forced him to look up into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I was just playing around. But listen. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You know that, right?”
Gaius nodded vigorously. “Yes, I know,” he acknowledged, but Felix could read Gaius’ compulsive, almost gulping nods so easily. How many countless times had Felix seen him this way – his gaze darting all over the place with discomfort, his face unable to keep a single expression for more than a millisecond? Gaius Baltar had told a lot of lies in the last few years, and Felix had gotten really good at spotting them by now.
“Look at me,” he half-teased for a moment, then softened. “Gaius, I’m serious. Look at me. Relax.” He saw how Gaius had to force himself to maintain eye contact.
“You know, while I admit I find this sudden shyness of yours kind of adorable, I really don’t think it’s justified. If this is something you want, I’m happy to give it to you, with no judgments, all right?”
“All right,” he nodded, but he still looked furtive. Felix raised one eyebrow, unconvinced.
“No, really,” Gaius insisted, more forcefully this time. Felix stared at him for a long time, then finally kissed him.
“Good, then.” He closed the subject. “We both have the evening off tomorrow.” His tongue reached out and licked the spot just under the ear that Gaius liked so much. It worked like a charm: Gaius finally relaxed into his shoulder again, and a low moan of a desire beginning to coalesce rumbled underneath his quickening breaths.
With one last flick of his tongue, Felix pulled away, then kissed his lover chastely on the lips. “We’ll deal with you then,” he quipped, then turned off the lights before Gaius had a chance to react.
“No fair!” He heard Gaius’s protest and smiled into the darkness.
***
The next day, as they finished lunch in the Mess, Felix discreetly passed Gaius a note with detailed and very specific instructions. “It’s regarding this evening,” he explained with a pursed grin.
Gaius read the note in silence, eyebrows arching at various points, then let his gaze meander up to the unyielding expression Felix had in the meantime constructed for his benefit.
“I think it’ll help to set the proper mood,” Felix added, lowering his voice as he looked around at the soldiers ignoring them, chattering over food. “I’ll expect you to be ready and waiting for me by the time I get off shift. Is that clear?”
Gaius blinked and said nothing for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his tone was hushed and streaked with emotion. “All the things on this list,” he said slowly. “You need it to be like this? I mean, for this to work for you?”
Felix blinked back surprise. “Well, no.” For the first time since all this had started between them, he felt strangely embarrassed. “Not really. I don’t need this to be any particular way.” He eyed the note in Gaius’ hands, suddenly wishing he’d never written it. “I thought you would want it.”
"No.” Felix wondered at how Gaius' tone had gone flat. “I don’t want games. I don’t want masks. I want…something real.”
All of a sudden, Felix felt hopelessly naïve. “I don’t know what to say.”
Gaius reached out to touch his face. Felix smiled at the affectionate gesture as he felt Gaius’ fingers brush along his cheek. But a moment later, the touch recoiled and Felix saw him bristle with hostile embarrassment.
“Motherfrakkers.” He mumbled the epithet so low, Felix almost missed it. He followed Gaius' eyes to where he was staring down a couple of pilots making rude gestures at him from across the Mess.
“They will never stop hating me, will they?” he seethed. “Who the frak do they think is upgrading the Fleet’s FTL drives? Who do they think is getting them to Earth?”
Felix recognized Racetrack as one of the pilots, but not the other woman. Dee hardly ever managed to pull him into a card game anymore these days, and he realized he’d lost track of the newer pilots at this point. When Racetrack met Felix’s gaze, her eyes flashed away guiltily, but the other pilot had no such shame and continued to glare at Gaius openly.
“I didn’t have to share those Cylon algorithms with anyone…”
“Come on, Gaius,” he cut in softly. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
“Anyway,” Gaius sighed, passing back the note, face down, across the table. “This doesn’t need to be anything all that complicated. In fact, I think it’s better if it isn’t.”
Felix carefully folded up the note several times until it was a tiny paper square. He closed his fist around it.
“Have I angered you?” Gaius asked, elbows on the table, his fingers pressed into a strained steeple in front of his face. He stared meaningfully at Felix’s fist.
“What? Gaius, no! It’s not like that. It’s just…” He tried to articulate a response. “See, all along I thought I understood what you wanted from me. But now?” His voice trailed off a moment, lost. “I feel like I don’t understand at all.”
Gaius take one last look at the glaring pilot’s murderous gaze, then sank visibly into his own thoughts.
“That’s all right,” he murmured through laced fingers. “You don’t need to.”
***
That night in their quarters, he found Gaius waiting for him in the dark, cross-legged on the bed, his back to the door.
He could see just enough to know that Gaius had absently folded in his hands neatly in his lap. Felix watched his hunched shoulders and bowed head for a long moment, then walked over quietly and ruffled his lover’s hair from behind.
“Hey, babe,” he teased affectionately. “Ready to pay for your sins?”
His lover’s face became suffused with chagrin. “Felix,” he began, “I need you take this seriously. You need to…”
Felix thought a moment, then interrupted the impending lecture with a hand shoved over Gaius’ mouth.
“Just what makes you think you’re in charge here?” he said, quickly adopting the voice of command. He watched with satisfaction as Gaius’ eyes widened. After a shocked moment, he nodded and pulled back slightly. “I’m not.”
“Better,” Felix said simply, then waited a moment for everything to sink in. “You told me you wanted something real, Gaius, so that’s I’m going to give you,” he explained, his tone matter-of-fact, businesslike. “You’re very used to telling other people what to do, but that’s not going to be the case here.
“Now get up,” he ordered, sounding like the military man he was.
Gaius, however, sat frozen on the bed, surprise and indecision still streaking his eyes.
“I told you to get up.” Felix growled, thinking of the Old Man now. “Don’t make me repeat myself again.”
He watched Gaius’ mind catching up as he hastily disentangled himself and stood up next to Felix, hunting the younger man’s eyes.
“Get over there.” He pointed at the back corner of the bedroom. “I want your forehead touching that wall by the time I get to you.”
Gaius’ face visibly processed the command, the tone, everything. Felix watched him make his decision.
As ordered, he walked over to the wall and pressed his forehead against it. Felix let him stand there awkwardly, hands fidgeting with nervous energy.
Felix didn’t go straight over to him. He went instead to another corner of the room. In silence, he shuffled through the books and papers on their desk, looking for a particular item, one of the few things he had managed to save from the lab when it had been completely dismantled, out of a knee-jerk panic that anything and everything that the traitorous Doctor Baltar had done in that room was Cylon-influenced, and therefore a possible threat to the Fleet.
He found it buried under a sprawl of notes: a teak ruler - part of a executive’s set of desk tools that the lab had possessed when Felix had first arrived on Galactica. Back when there had been a Twelve Worlds, it must have cost an outrageous small fortune.
Satisfied, he walked back towards Gaius, who was clearly listening to his movements. He curved an arm around his lover’s torso, smiling at the way his touch provoked Gaius’ startled reflex. His thumb and forefinger played with the button to the man’s trousers, then yanked the zipper open, gliding pants and boxers down in a soft, swift motion.
“I can give you what you want, but you’re going to have to trust me,” he told him. Gaius silently let him pull the gray tee-shirt up and over his head, and Felix put his mouth right next to his lover’s ear, voice low and demanding. “Do you trust me?”
He idly massaged the knot of tension in between Gaius’ shoulders with his fingers as he waited. The atmosphere seemed to crackle with the sound of his jagged breaths. After a long pause, Felix saw his body straighten with resolve. “Yes…yes, of course. Of course I trust you.”
His fingers continued their massaging motion. “Okay,” he smiled, letting his tone become gentler. “Then when you’re ready, I want you to put your palms flat against the wall, by your head.”
Felix heard Gaius’ breath hitch in surprise. His hands began to obey, then faltered, then tried again, slowly sliding up the wall. They stopped at either side of his forehead. Felix let one finger trace down his spine and Gaius shuddered.
“You’re doing great,” he told him. “We’re going to start now.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Shhh…don’t try to control this,” he admonished. “You wanted something real, remember?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, flustered. “I do want this. Honestly.”
“I know.” He waited until Gaius willed himself back into quiet acceptance. “Better,” he said reassuringly, and kissed him on that familiar spot just beneath his ear, knowing it would make him draw a sharp breath of arousal. Then he brought the ruler down in a stinging crack.
Gaius recoiled in surprise, but he made no sound. Felix noted that he hadn’t moved his forehead from the wall, and so he brought the ruler down again, harder this time. A surprised, urgent moan escaped Gaius’ lips, but he managed to stand completely still. Remembering the other night, Felix began a hard, confident rhythm.
“We’re going to do this for a while,” he said matter-of-factly, stepping up the pace, peppering him now and then with wider and faster swings. “Right now, some part of you still feels in control of this situation, no matter what promises you’ve made me to let go. I know that. You can’t help it. So our first order of business is to get you to truly give up that idea, okay?”
The nod came out quick and slightly shaky. Good. He was starting to lose some reserve already. He stepped into the strokes, altering the pace yet again, keeping things hard to predict. He remembered how much Philip had liked that.
He knew he was breaking Gaius' barriers when he saw how his shoulders sank.
“Gods, Felix!” He hissed through gritted teeth. “What is that thing? Frak!”
He made the blows harsher, heavier, quicker, provoking surprised yelps as Gaius pressed himself into the wall, both trying to get away and trying to stay in place. Soon the yelps transformed into languorous moans, and Gaius’ back arched desperately with the struggle to keep still. Felix felt a burning sensation in his arm muscles, and a stirring in his cock as it began to strain against his uniform.
“Listen to you, you're incorrigible,” he teased softly in his ear. “You make me want to frak you right here and now, when I’m supposed to be punishing you. What are we to do about that, hmmm?”
A inchoate groan filled the silence. It sounded distant, disconnected. Felix pulled his hair gently, to bring his mind back into the room. It provoked a surprised whimper. On impulse, Felix pinned his lover's cheek firmly against the wall.
“You still feel in control, Gaius?” he asked him with yet another crack of the ruler. Felix found himself more and more aroused as he watched Gaius shut his eyes tight, utterly losing himself in the sensation.
“N- No,” The word came out stuttered, penitent.
“Excellent.” He kissed Gaius’ forehead, still pressing his cheek to the wall. “Then we can start this punishment you wanted.”
Gaius' body jerked under another stinging stroke. “What?” he rasped. “Are you telling me we haven’t even started yet?”
Felix smacked him again. “I don’t think you’re in any position to argue, are you?” He tried to put aside for the moment how much this was turning him on and focus on being what Gaius needed right now – stern, unyielding. “You said you wanted a punishment, and that’s what you’re going to get, so you better get used to the idea.”
He paused for a long stretch, letting him wonder when the next blow would come. “Do you really think you’ve been adequately punished yet?”
After a moment, Gaius shook his head mournfully, or as best he could with Felix’s hand still pinning him in place.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Felix whispered hot, steady breaths into his ear, making Gaius squirm, but Felix made no effort to release him. He began spanking him again, watching carefully as Gaius struggled briefly, then went limp against the wall, submitting to it all.
Felix’s desire, hard and pulsing against his clothes, was becoming agony.
“You’re doing great,” he murmured in between strokes. “Don’t worry. You’re almost done.” Gaius only moaned in response. “Then, when I’m done spanking you, you know what I’m going to do?”
“No,” he gasped.
I’m gonna frak you.” He spread Gaius’ legs apart with his boot. “Hard and fast. Just like this.”
At the sudden burst of several more rapid-fire strokes, Gaius spat out Felix’s name like it was an oath. Desperate, he arched again and wrested free of Felix’s pinioning hand and broke position.
Felix stopped immediately, waiting to see what he would do. While he waited, he inspected the angry, dark red marks all over Gaius' skin, feeling amazed and even a little frightened at what he'd done. His old lover had never absorbed this much. And Gaius still hadn't actually said a word to stop him.
"You okay, babe?" he whispered. He placed a kiss between his shoulder blades. "You feel punished enough yet?”
No answer.
He murmured in his ear a second time. “Gaius! Answer me. You done? Or you need more?”
Felix watched him steady his balance, watched how his fingers restlessly curled and opened at his sides, as if he were trying to stop them from balling them into fists.
“I- I-.” His voice sounded dry and shaky. “I don’t know.”
Felix’s eyes widened at the plaintive sound of it, the confusion, the sheer need. “Hands back up on the wall,” he finally ordered.
It was a test.
He watched Gaius' hands fly up, as if to comply with Felix's order, then run instead through his hair and get caught. His forehead stayed not pressed, but merely resting against the wall. Felix touched his skin, traced along the wide marks he’d left.
“Get back into position,” he prompted.
Felix saw his hands leave his hair, his fingers tentative walk up the wall and settle there, like claws. Felix examined them a moment. He pressed them down against the wall. “Palms flat, Gaius. Your forehead too. Get into position,” he repeated calmly. “If you want this, show me.”
Gaius hesitated, and for a second, Felix thought for sure he was done; but then a moment later, he pressed his forehead against the wall, and spread his legs a little.
"That's it, babe. You're doing great." He stepped back, dug his fingers into Gaius’ hair, holding on tight, and put everything he had into it, bringing down the ruler again and again with a wide, swinging impact that echoed loudly in the concrete and metal room. Felix wondered if guards in the hallways could hear it. He imagined their faces, listening with curiosity to the sharp, repeated cracks filtering through the doorjamb; the subdued groans that were quickly giving way anew to loud, panicky whimpers.
The thought of it made him want this part to be done; he was dying to feel himself deep inside Gaius, penetrating him, kissing his neck and under his ear. He pressed his chin hard into Gaius’ left shoulder, suddenly posessed of an idea.
“Okay,” he grunted. “Now tell me: why do you want this? Tell me why you like it.”
Gaius managed to get something out that was in between a curse and a wordless plea.
“Not good enough, Gaius,” he chided. “Come on, let’s hear it. Tell me how this makes you feel?”
“It frakking hurts!” he managed between clenched teeth. “How the frak do you think it feels?”
“But you want it to hurt, don’t you?” he pressed, bringing down the ruler again. His cock was throbbing with anticipation. “Don’t you?”
“Yes!” His voice squeaked, straining at the high pitch. “Yes,” he repeated after a moment, choking on the single word like it was an admission. Felix saw his eyes moistening with the start of tears and realized that he’d hit some sort of nerve.
“You haven’t even once asked me to stop yet,” he said. “Why is that?”
Gaius twisted his face away as best he could, still pinned to the wall. He was no longer standing against it so much as clinging to it.
“What does it matter?” he grunted, but Felix saw immediately that it did. It was the part of him he was stubbornly keeping out of Felix’s reach; it was the lock he was hoping Felix would rip open.
“Stop avoiding the question. Tell me why you wanted this, Gaius, or do I have to keep doing this indefinitely?"
Gaius squirmed desperately under the ruler's renewed attention. “Gods, Felix!”
But still, Felix noted with amazement, there were no requests, no demands, not even an attempt to bargain him into stopping this.
“This won’t end until you tell me why,” he said, his voice implacable and firm. He kept him pressed tight against the wall. “Tell me why you wanted this.”
He stopped, trying to give him a chance to think straight. At first, there was only the sound of Gaius noisily catching his breath, swallowing hard, struggling to speak normally. Words rasped in his throat like shards of glass. He sounded like he was talking in the Aerelon accent he'd only let Felix hear once before.
“It’s what I deserve.”
Felix threw down the ruler. He knew all at once that it was done. It clattered noisily on the metal floor.
“Is that so?” he flirted as an experiment, his tone provisionally full of innuendo, unsure exactly where to go next.
“Frak me,” Gaius cut him off hoarsely, still in that rasping accent, in no mood for playfulness. “Do it now.”
Felix, aching for release, needed little convincing. He began tearing at his own uniform jacket, unzipping his trousers, sighing with relief as his erection was liberated from its confinement, now thick and sloppy wet in his hand. But as he wrapped his other arm around Gaius and brought him in close, he stopped in confusion.
“But you’re not turned on,” he said in shock.
A silent moment passed between them. “I will be soon enough,” he growled. “Come on,” he urged. But Felix stood still, caught between desire and uncertainty.
“Come on, Felix,” he repeated, spreading himself wide against the wall, inviting Felix with his body. “Do it just like you said you would. I want you to.”
Felix groaned, unable to resist any longer, wet his fingers with his own leaking semen and prepped him a few times before just entering him. Gaius gasped and hissed in surprise, then settled down into a rhythm of soft moans as Felix began pumping into him. The sudden tightness around his engorged cock intoxicated Felix. He felt like his entire body was vibrating with desire. He could smell the scent of his own juices in the air around them and the faint aroma of Gaius’ sweat. The weakness in his thighs made it difficult to stand up. He grabbed Gaius by the shoulders for purchase. Each time their bodies made contact, Gaius whimpered a little, a sound that lay somewhere in between pleasure and pain, and for the life of him, Felix couldn't decide which; gods, help him, he didn't care too much which. He just wanted to feel the heat of Gaius' skin warming his thighs every time he thrust deeper and deeper into him. He just wanted to hear Gaius whimper and gasp and moan like that until he...until he...
Until he came so hard, he bit down to stop himself from screaming into the shivering, dizzy climax.
Moments later, leaning against the wall next to Gaius, he relished the lingering release of his orgasm, the fuzzy, disoriented, out-of-control sensations coursing through his body. But he soon forced himself upright again. He hadn’t made Gaius come yet, and that seemed like a crime.
He guided him over to the bed across the room, marveling anew at how light he was, how he’d never completely gotten his weight back from all those months in the brig. He lay him on his back, and Gaius winced when his body made contact with the bed.
“You okay, babe?" he asked, running his fingers through Gaius' dark tresses.
“I’m fine,” he grunted softly. He sounded spent, exhausted. Felix leaned over his supine body and kissed him affectionately at the base of his throat. “Did you get you what you wanted?” he asked.
“Yes,” his voice rasped again, but his normal accent was back. “It was exactly what I wanted. Thank you.”
“Let me take care of you now.” Felix began to clamber onto the bed, bending prone over his body, ready to take him into his mouth.
“No.” He pulled Felix up towards him; it was an unmistakable command. Surprised, Felix let himself be settled into the crook of Gaius’ arm without discussion.
“But I want to make you come,” he said, worried.
Gaius looked caught for a moment, then waved his hand at him in languid dismissal.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I got what I wanted.”
Felix gaped at him. “I’m so sorry,” he said, dismayed. “I got all caught up in what I was feeling ...”
“I said it was alright, Felix. You did just what I wanted.”
Somehow, without him realizing it, Gaius had now become the one stroking his hair, whispering soft reassurances over his head.
“I should have been paying more attention,” Felix said, still guilty. “I should’ve noticed.”
“Don’t be ludicrous,” he said quietly. “You were perfect. You did everything just right.”
Felix wanted to protest more, but Gaius’ floating, soothing hands on his skin were hypnotic, and his body, exhausted from such an intense orgasm, soon gave in to sleep in his lover’s arms.
***
Felix tried again to apologize the next morning, but found the discussion gently yet firmly closed. Aching, but seemingly satisfied, Gaius rebuffed Felix’s flirtations and innuendos on the subject over the next few days, and seemed to want to pretend it had all never happened. A bit surprised, Felix nevertheless followed his lover’s cues, and decided to wait for Gaius to make the first move.
Which he did a few days later, when Felix decided to relieve boredom in the CIC by visiting Gaius in the lab during a break.
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise! What are you doing here?” Gaius flickered a brief, inquiring gaze in Felix’s direction as he closed the lab’s hatch door.
“Oh, I’m on my rounds, so I only have a few minutes to spare. But I thought I’d come down here and say hello. The DRADIS is dead and my mind kept wandering.”
Gaius looked up from a binder filled with pages of computer code. “Really?” Felix saw a salacious grin spread across his face, and knew things were back to normal. “Exactly how many minutes do you have, Lieutenant?” Each word was deliberately crisp and businesslike, but Felix saw his tongue play across his bottom lip in anticipation.
“For that?" he said coyly, staring at Gaius' lips, "oh, about ten.”
Gaius theatrically tossed the binder onto his workbench, sending half of the octagonal papers on it flying to the floor. Felix bent down to pick up the papers, but Gaius was waving a dismissive hand over his head.
“Never mind them,” he said hurriedly, and Felix felt Gaius' hand on the small of his back as he tried to get to his feet. He looked up to see Gaius undoing the buttons to his lab coat. “I’ve had an absolutely trying day so far, I’ve been wired and restless as all hell, and you look absolutely gorgeous down there, love.” He unbuttoned his pants. “You’ll take care of me, won’t you?”
“What?” he croaked. “Here? Are you serious?”
“Of course I am,” he wheedled, guiding Felix’s hand to the bulge in his trousers.
“Well, you’re certainly all recovered from the other day, aren’t you?” he teased. “I was proposing ten minutes of making out, not making a porn movie in the middle of the lab.”
“You simply can’t leave me like this,” he protested.
He caught a whiff of Gaius’ musk around them and could already feel his cock stirring. The three days they’d gone without was feeling like an eternity.
“Believe me,” he tried, “it’s not that I don’t want to. You know I want to.” He could already hear his voice faltering. “But what if someone suddenly came in here for something?”
Gaius ruffled through Felix’s hair. “Come on, love. It’s not like we haven’t done things in here before.” His eyebrows arched meaningfully.
Felix blushed just a little. “Yeah, Gaius, but that was during the overnight shift, when there was the skeleton crew. Someone could come in,” he pointed out.
“What are the odds that someone’s going to come in here in the next nine minutes?”
“More like seven now.”
“Even better! I promise you: no one has been in here all day, and no one will come.” He paused, bent his voice into a flirtation. “That is, except us. Or was this visit purely to tease me?”
There was a long, hopeful silence. Then, Felix sighed and pointed wordlessly towards the back of the lab. Gaius practically bounced his way there. By the time Felix reached him, he had already shoved his back against an open wall and pulled out the folds of his shirt, so Felix could see that he wore nothing underneath his trousers.
Felix swallowed back a laugh. “You’re insatiable,” he grinned. You know that?”
“I’m completely willing to admit to that. Now can we just skip to the part where you utterly improve my day? How long have we got now?”
Felix checked his watch again. “Not long. Only six minutes.”
Gaius groaned loudly as Felix took him into his mouth.
“It’ll be enough,” he gasped.
***
“Better?”
Gaius steadied himself against a lab cart as Felix wiped his mouth and started to pick himself up, as well as the papers Gaius had knocked to the floor.
“Infinitely,” he sighed, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling. “Thank you.” He stuffed the tails of his shirt into his pants. “Thank you. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to get you…”
“What’s this, Gaius?”
“What?” He cocked his head at the item Felix waved in his direction. “Oh, that photo? It’s nothing.” He picked up the large binder of data and started flipping through it, finding his place again. “Just something some woman shoved into my hands a few days ago.”
“Some woman?” Felix echoed. “Who?”
“Don’t know.” He shrugged again, burying his expression into the binder. “It doesn’t matter.”
Felix examined the snapshot more carefully. It was dog-eared at the corners and had white creases in several places, as if it had been folded up for a long time in someone’s pocket. “What is this a picture of?” he asked mystified, looking at the glazed-over expressions in the photo. It was a huge gathering of people – poor people, if he went by their clothing. They seemed incongruously located in what appeared to be a gleaming spaceport.
“I don’t know,” Gaius said impatiently, still not looking up. “She didn’t say.”
Felix walked over to his lover, suddenly feeling uneasy. “Gaius.” He placed a hand on his shoulder. “What did this woman say to you?”
His head flew up and glared at Felix. “I told you I don’t remember.” But Felix searched his eyes, hand still on his shoulder, and Gaius broke under the meaningful silence. “Something pejorative,” he admitted.
Felix looked at the picture again. “Gaius, who was she? A crew member?” Glares in the mess hall were one thing, but verbal threats and harassment were beyond the pale, and something he could probably get the Admiral to do something about. He stuffed the photo into his pocket as evidence.
“I don’t know. Look, it doesn’t matter.”
“Well, what kind of uniform did she have on?” he insisted.
Gaius slammed the thick binder shut with a loud, frustrated thud. “It wasn’t any of your crew, so please, can we stop discussing this? This didn’t even happen on Galact-”
He froze, in the middle of the word and closed his eyes in tired chagrin.
Felix’s hand plummeted from his lover’s shoulder.
“Wait, this happened on a Fleet ship? What were you doing walking around in the Fleet?”
There was silence, and Felix clenched his fists at his sides as he answered his own question. “You did it again, didn’t you?”
Gaius said nothing. Felix sighed, his eyes tight with worry. “Gaius! Why didn’t you have them bring the FTL equipment here to you, like we arranged? You promised me. Why would you go around walking around in the Fleet where any disgruntled person can take a shot at you?”
Gaius shrugged yet again, infuriating Felix. “Actually,” he said with a wan smile, “the odds of me getting shot down by some nutter go up significantly on Galactica. This is where all the guns are, after all.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Felix snapped. “Why would you do that?”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “I don’t know. They asked me? I was bored? Maybe I felt like seeing somewhere else besides these labyrinthine hallways again, all day, every day?”
“Godsdamnit, Gaius! You were lucky this time that it was just a woman shoving a picture in your hand.” He paused. “Did you at least take the security detachment of Marines we arranged last time? I showed you how to schedule them if you ever needed to, remember?”
He looked away, said nothing.
“Gaius…”
“I don’t like taking them,” he complained quietly. “Every time I look at their uniforms, it’s like I’m back in jail again. And when I take them, people look at me that way too."
Felix pulled out the creased photo again. He felt a cold knot at the pit of his stomach. “These are refugees, aren’t they?” he demanded. “This picture was taken during the attacks on the Colonies.”
“I believe she said something to that effect, yes,” he mumbled.
Felix paused, the anger suddenly all punched out of him. “Are you all right?”
Gaius’ arms crossed his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“That must have been hard for you,” Felix ventured slowly, cautiously. “Was she blaming you for something specific with this picture?”
Gaius threw his hands up into the air. “Oh, for frak’s sake!” he exclaimed. “I took a walk, Felix, all right? I didn’t tell you, all right? Be angry at me if you want, but could you please spare me the psychoanalysis?”
And suddenly, all the anger was coursing back through Felix again. “Fine. You don’t want sympathy? Well, how about this then? You made me a promise. I trusted you to keep it. You didn’t need to do this at all, but you did it anyway. So yeah. I’m angry. You could’ve been killed.”
"Oh come now," he taunted. "There's no need for melodrama."
"I am not being melodramatic!" he insisted. "We talked about this!" He paused, trying to regain his self-control. He was trying to be understanding about this. He really was. "We had an agreement," he said stiffly, "and you went behind my back, because you knew I'd fight you about this."
"Look, I won't go anymore, all right? Is that what you want to hear?"
"This is something you went behind my back to do and you show no regret about it. Our relationship is supposed to be about honesty and trust.”
Gaius' arms flew across his chest. "I know that! You really think I don't know that?"
“Then why?" he exclaimed. "Why didn't you tell me about this? And if you were going to go behind my back, why couldn't you have at least taken the guards?"
Gaius pursed his lips into a scowl, unable or unwilling to come up with a response. "What's the point of telling you things?" he muttered. "If you're just going to get angry?"
Felix blinked in disbelief. "Oh, that's just great, Gaius. Really frakking mature."
Gaius' expression became more and more imperious. "No, I'm serious, Felix. Why bother? You won't like anything I have to say."
"Try me," he baited, with a curt, ugly tone he did nothing to prevent. The words felt like drops of acid on his tongue.
Gaius' expression darkened. "I'd rather not."
Felix knew he had to get out of the lab before he broke something irreplaceable. "Fine," he snarled. "If that's the way you want it."
He strode out of the lab, utterly silent, slamming the hatch door with the full force of his body.
***
“Unfrakkingbelievable,” Felix muttered, shaking his head as he eyed the clipboard.
“Problem, Lieutenant?” His head shot up at the sound of the crisp, neutral voice. Dee stood next to him,
peering over at the flight log in his hands.
“Oh, uh…” he said, flustered. “It’s nothing.”
There was a pause as she arched her eyebrows meaningfully. “Oh really?” She looked around at the other people in the CIC. It had been so dead that the Admiral wasn’t even on deck, leaving in charge Tigh,
immersed in paperwork in the conference room. No one was particularly paying attention to them. She lowered her voice so only the two of them could hear.
“Is this the same nothing that made you show up from your break over ten minutes late? For the first time in oh, I don’t know… at least a year?” Her face widened into a gentle, teasing smile. “And don’t try to deny it, Lieutenant: You’ve been fidgeting at your post for the last four hours.”
Her hand settled onto her hips, as if daring him to lie, knowing very well he couldn’t, not to her.
“How long have we been friends now?” she insisted quietly. “So come on, tell me. What’s going on?”
He shook his head sadly. “You’re not going to want to hear about it,” he warned.
She pursed her lips. “Is it about him?”
Felix nodded. He watched her close her eyes and sigh. “I still don’t approve of the two of you together,” she began.
“Dee, you don’t have to…”
“But for you,” she continued with a forceful whisper, “I will listen.” Then she corrected herself. “Or rather, I will try and listen. No guarantees if you tell me something he’s done to you that makes me mad.” She took the log from his hand. “So now tell me what on the flight logs could possibly have to do with your boyfriend?”
Felix pointed to the entries, to one and then one before, and then one before that. “See?” he said, as her eyes followed his roaming finger. “He’s on that log three times. We had a deal that he wouldn’t take trips into the Fleet after someone on The Rising Star threatened to kill him several months ago. But look, there he is. He went behind my back, for no good reason.”
“You’re spying on him in the flight logs?” Her voice turned arch, accusing.
“Only after he let it slip. And I wouldn’t call it spying,” he protested. “I just had to check to see how many other times he’s been there.”
She cocked her head. “You two had a fight about this, didn’t you?”
Felix ignored this. “He’s gone three times in the last two weeks. The same ship again and again. He hid it from me because he knew I’d be mad at him.” He was getting angry all over again just thinking about it. “He wouldn’t even give me a compelling reason when I confronted him about it.”
She continued to inspect the clipboard. “Well, whatever his reasons, he’s certainly got more guts than I gave him credit for.”
His forehead crinkled in surprise, distracted momentarily from his anger. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Believe me, I have little sympathy for the man. I’m just saying, it must be kind of tough for him to be on that ship, of all ships. You know, given his past? I mean, even Gaius Baltar must have some conscience when it comes to his own homeworld.”
“Dee, what are you talking about?” The hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle.
She scoffed in mock amazement. “Really, Felix? There’s a ship in this Fleet and you don’t know its history?
Didn’t you know this ship was only one to make it out of Aerelon?”
It took a second to absorb. “Aerelon?” His eyes flew back down to the logs.
“I’m amazed you missed that, Felix,” she teased. “It's named after the harvest goddess, for gods’ sake. Don’t you remember it? The ship was so completely stuffed with refugees, they had to sleep on the floor on top of each other?”
“He’s been flying all this time to a ship from Aerelon?” Felix felt his hand press onto his mouth in shock. “Oh my gods,” he whispered.
“What?” Then she saw his expression. “What is it?”
“You’ve got to cover for me, Dee. Just for an hour.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Where are you going?”
“Please, Dee. Give me an hour. Maybe less if I can manage it.”
“You’re going to go find him now, aren’t you?” She sighed. “If you must…” She waved him off,
half-annoyed, half-indulgent. “You’ll be no use around here until you do.”
“Thanks,” he breathed. “I owe you one.”
She adjusted her headset. “You owe me big time,” she corrected.
He nodded. And just barely managed not to leave the CIC running.
***
“How could you manipulate me like that?” he demanded as soon as he slammed the hatch door shut to their quarters.
Gaius didn’t look up from his novel, but his voice rolled out at Felix, supercilious and haughty. “What are you on about?”
“You knew that ship was from Aerelon,” he accused. “You’ve been going to that ship because it’s from Aerelon, haven’t you?”
Gaius’ head shot up in surprise. He threw down the novel, rose to his feet, as if ready to argue; but Felix’s accusation seemed to have silenced him.
“That’s what all this spanking stuff has been about hasn’t it? It’s not a turn-on, at all. It’s about the guilt you feel whenever you go there.” He paused, more and more realization blooming with each moment. “And you didn’t tell me anything about it because you knew I’d never agree to lay a hand on you if I knew why.”
He knew he’d guessed right when he saw the shocked expression frozen upon Gaius’ face. “Felix, I-“
“You turned me into a tool to hurt you! Do you understand how horrible that makes me feel?”
Gaius said nothing. Felix could see the glimmer of tears forming in his eyes, and it just made him feel worse. He fell into a chair, rubbing his eyes.
“Why are you putting yourself through this?" he insisted. "If you’re trying to make up for something, this isn’t the way to do it. What do you think you’re accomplishing by opening yourself to a bullet in the head?”
“Felix,” he said quietly, with what Felix could clearly see was a manufactured composure, “I don’t know what delusion you’re under about this, but the only reason I went there is because the captain of the ship specifically asked me to come. It was going to be too difficult to dismantle the ship’s FTL drive for…”
“Oh cut the bullshit, Gaius!” He heard his own shouts reverberating around the room. He forced himself to calm down before speaking again. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Don’t lie to me. Not now.”
Gaius stared at him wide-eyed for what seemed like forever. “All right,” he said, nodding repeatedly. “All right.” He looked away, ashamed.
“I had to go there,” he mumbled. “It’s been years. I knew it was unlikely. But I had to know.”
“Know what?”
After a long pause, the words came hurtling out of him, all at once. “I had to know if any of my family was still alive.”
Felix could say nothing for almost a minute. “Gaius,” he finally whispered. “My gods, you should have told me about this. I could have gone with you. I could’ve helped you through this." A lump formed at the back of his throat. "I can’t believe you’ve been keeping all of this trapped inside you the whole time.”
Gaius gave him a bewildered look. “I couldn’t imagine talking to you about this,” he said, his tone strident. “I couldn’t imagine you’d want to talk about this. Not when I’m the one who…” His voice trailed off. “Gods,” he whispered, falling back onto the bed, burying his head in his hands.
“I don’t think I can do this,” Felix heard him say through his fingers.
The lump in the back of his throat felt like a rock now. Felix rubbed his eyes again, then walked over to the bed and sat down. When he put his arm around him, Gaius started, then collapsed into his neck, breathing heavily.
“I didn’t know. I really didn’t know,” he repeated over and over, his voice thick with choked-back sobs. “I had no idea. I never intended...”
“I know, Gaius, I know,” he sighed. “We’ve been over this. But this isn’t something you can fix or erase if you only just hurt yourself or endanger yourself enough.”
He went silent, letting Felix stroke his hair for a long time. “How do I fix it?” The plaintive tone, uttered into Felix’s chest, gutted him.
“You don’t,” he said sadly. “You can’t.”
“What!” He pulled himself up, horror streaking through his eyes. “No! How am I supposed to go on for the rest of my life with this over my head?”
Felix let his hand rest on Gaius’ cheek, his gaze a steady stare into his lover’s frantic expression. “I don’t really know. You learn to live with it, I guess. Work at being a better person. Let people come to forgive you in their own time, in their own way.”
There was a long silence. Gaius inspected his own hands. “And if they never do?”
“You take what forgiveness you can get and forget about the rest. You can’t control how everyone feels about you.” He shrugged. “But it’ll get better eventually. It has to. Believe me, I know from experience.”
He watched Gaius slowly process this, then pull away and walk across the room, busying himself self-consciously with the task of boiling water. Less than two minutes later, the kettle whistled and he let drop two cold, previously-used tea bags into their cups. Wordlessly, he returned and offered Felix a steaming cup. They sipped at the tea in silence, sitting next to each other on the bed.
“You didn’t find any of them, did you?” Felix asked after a while. “Any of your family?”
Gaius looked surprised, then shook his head. “No,” he said, mournful. “Of course not. At this point, it would have been a miracle if I had.”
“You’ve never told me anything about them,” he said with pointed quietude. “The only things I know about them are what I read in your book.”
“Well, I never think of them,” he replied, even more pointedly. “Or at least, I try not to.” He took a long, awkward sip of tea. “I said some horrible things the last time I saw them.”
Felix nodded, thoughtful. “You know,” he continued, “you’ve never asked me about my family either. Not in the whole three years I’ve known you.”
Gaius looked away. “I never ask anyone about their family,” he murmured. “Not anymore.”
Felix almost choked on his tea. He coughed loudly, then recovered, exhaling deeply, saying nothing again for a long while.
“My mother raised me alone, from the time I was ten,” he offered.
Gaius went very still, but Felix could see he was listening in cautious surprise. “She was a professor,” he continued, trying to sound casual, “of mathematics. I calculated my first FTL jump in her office, on a computer model that her students used for practice.”
Gaius did eventually look up at him, but he seemed unable to respond, so Felix pressed on. “She had to raise me and my younger sister Lucilla after my dad died. He had a fatal heart attack, in the middle of an Oracle giving him a reading, can you believe that?”
Gaius managed to shake his head in commiseration, but otherwise said nothing. He let Felix chatter on.
“I practically raised my younger sister from then on,” he went on, determined. “My mom was so busy with her job and trying to keep everything going, but she took good care of us. My sister, her name was Lucilla. She was three years younger than me, but she always seemed more experienced about everything. I don’t know how that happened, exactly.”
Gaius just stared at him, eyes wide and rimmed heavily with tears.
Felix stared back at him, paused in thought. He closed his hand around his lover’s.
“You know,” he added, “come to think of it, I bet she would have liked you a lot.”
Gaius blinked, swallowed hard. “Felix,” he began, his voice a thin reed, straining to the point of breaking. “Felix…” he trailed off.
“You would have liked her too,” Felix added quickly. “I know it.”
Gaius closed his eyes. “I don’t know what to say.” But after a moment, he met Felix’s gaze with an unsteady but determined expression.
“I would have really loved to meet her, Felix,” he said.
Felix squeezed his hand tight. “Yeah, I know.”
Author:
millariCharacters: Baltar, Gaeta, Dee
Pairings: Baltar/Gaeta
Rating: NC-17
Beta: Thanks to some wonderful people who really supported me in writing this, assured me it was a good story, gave me excellent feedback, and just generally made it into an infinitely better story. Thanks go to
geekbynight, daybreak777, trovia and anyone else who I've nervously showed this story to. Warnings: spanking, masochism, reference to childhood spanking
Summary: A simple bedroom game becomes more complex than Felix ever bargained for.
A/N: This story takes place in an AU version of early S4, where Baltar's trial still resulted in an acquittal, he reconciled with Gaeta shortly after the trial, and the two are living together on Galactica in an established relationship. The cult either doesn't exist or has never had contact with Baltar. Also, instead of the Cylons giving the Fleet their jump technology, Baltar is reprogramming their FTLs ship by ship, using knowledge of Cylon tech he picked up during his time on the basestar. Since he's helping them find Earth much more quickly, Baltar is tolerated by the higher-ups on Galactica, but he still faces a lot of hostility from the rank and file, and also from civilians in the Fleet. Oh, and Gaeta has yet to go on the Demetrius, so he currently has both legs.
The first time Gaius ever brought up the idea, Felix was too busy smirking about it to wonder.
“You want me to punish you?” he chuckled, after getting over the initial surprise. The two of them sat cross-legged on their bed talking. “What?” he teased, “does the Aerelon farm boy need a spanking?”
Felix saw Gaius’ eyes widen in surprise, then look away quickly. “Yes, I suppose,” he said, his voice turning strangely husky.
Felix gaped at him in total surprise, then laughed out loud. “Gods, Gaius, are you actually embarrassed about asking me for this? You?”
He still wouldn’t look at him. “You say that like I’m some sort of…deviant.”
Felix paused, finally noticing the way his lover's form was bowed. He reached out a hand and pulled Gaius to him, still laughing a little in the back of his throat.
“I’m sorry,” he grinned. “I guess I’m just surprised that there’s a sexual taste that my epicurean playboy boyfriend is actually embarrassed to admit to, that’s all.” He guided his head into his lap, stroking his hair in a soothing gesture.
“So you’ll do it?” The hope in his voice floated up at Felix.
Felix bent his head down to reach him and pulled a deep kiss out of him. “Of course I will.” His fingers cupped Gaius under the chin so that he could not avoid his gaze.
“Don’t be embarrassed about it. I’m no stranger to kink, you know. And you’re not even the first who was into this. I once had a boyfriend who liked getting his ass spanked.”
Gaius’ expression reconfigured itself until it managed haughty and playful.
“You?” he challenged, with that teasing lilt that never failed to turn Felix on. “The never-tell-a-lie, squeaky clean Felix Gaeta has had a kinky sex life?”
Felix just rolled his eyes in mock frustration.
“Why does everybody I’ve ever slept with on this ship say that?”
***
He’d forgotten what a rush of power this could be.
He had to admit that it was quite a turn-on to have Gaius spread out on the bed like a barely considered, half-opened gift.
Gaius often liked to act like he was the one in charge of their relationship, but Felix was First Officer of the Watch and a lieutenant, so he knew how to give orders, and he knew how to stand his ground when it mattered. Privately, Felix loved and envied how Gaius never hesitated to speak his mind, even to the point where Felix had to admit he could become insufferable and alienate people.
That hardly ever happened anymore. For starters, Gaius didn’t get that many chances to become insufferable, because most people on Galactica didn’t talk to him, not since the trial. But on the rare occasions where he did come dangerously close, Felix simply gave him the look.
Whenever Gaius was on the receiving end of it, he would purse his lips in surprise, raise his chin with one last haughty assertion of authority, and then invariably acquiesce, although often not without a sigh.
As Felix walked around the foot of the bed now, with his lover bent over the mattress – naked except for the trousers neatly pulled down to his ankles, Felix made sure to produce this look, knowing its unexpected appearance would throw Gaius off. Like the tiger on his tattoo, Felix crouched down to his prey’s level, enjoying the startled expression in his lover’s eyes.
“Oh, you bastard,” Gaius hissed in surprise.
Felix’s face spread into a grin. “Listen to the mouth on you,” he teased. “You’ll pay for that soon enough.”
Gaius hadn’t been able to be very specific with Felix about what he had in mind, but Felix figured it was probably much like his other boyfriend, Philip, who’d basically wanted an authoritarian father figure. Usually, he'd just worn his military uniform and channeled the Old Man in his head, and it worked brilliantly. He’d worn his uniform for this, as sort of a default. He also liked the idea that after tonight, Gaius might never be able to look at him in uniform the same way again.
As he stared into Gaius’ upturned, slightly wary expression, he briefly considered imitating the Admiral’s gravelly voice, to make Gaius laugh, but then remembered how shy he’d been in asking for this. Felix didn’t want to embarrass him or break the fragile mood. He walked back around, so Gaius couldn’t see him, then bent down and whispered hot into his ear: “Are you ready?”
A soft, calamitous whimper, deep in the back of his throat, was his only reply. Felix’s own breath caught with arousal at the sound. After a moment, he recovered his composure with a lascivious smirk. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
His laugh was throaty and lustful as he smacked his lover with a deliberately sudden first blow, watching Gaius clench and yelp in surprise. After a moment, Felix bent down to kiss him on the back of the neck before beginning in earnest.
This first time was about testing Gaius’ limits, listening carefully to his grunts, moans, and stifled cries. About seeing how much he would writhe, and how hard he would struggle to remain still, whether or not he truly wanted to accept Felix’s control over his body, whether or not he could trust Felix to know what he was capable of absorbing. Felix had learned a lot about this process back on Caprica, the summer after he had first transferred to Galactica.
Felix never had considered spanking a lover before he met Philip, a hospital intern a few years older than him, but he’d been surprised to find out how suited he was to the dominant role, and how hot it could be to watch the man he loved writhing on bed, submitting to his control. His one concern had been that he might hurt someone, but Philip taught Felix how to decipher the body’s minute biological signals – the ones that told him when a person was experiencing an endorphin rush, or that pain was becoming overwhelming.
However, once Gaius stopped reacting to the surprise of the first few spanks, Felix noticed how his body language broadcast none of this. It was not that Gaius couldn't feel it, but it didn't seem to affect him much. In surprise, and then with a touch of frustration, Felix spanked him increasingly harder until he decided his hand stung too much to go any further.
“You’ve done this before with someone,” he accused mildly over Gaius’ prone body.
But Gaius shook his head vehemently, then buried his face into the blankets with a silent, dejected air. Gaius’ body always telegraphed the truth of his statements to Felix, and he could tell right now that he wasn’t lying.
“Did you not enjoy doing that?” Even muffled into the bedding, Gaius’ voice sounded distant and thoughtful.
“You barely cracked a sweat," Felix observed in disbelief. "I don’t even think you got turned on. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“No, no, I did,” Gaius warbled quickly, pulling himself up onto the bed, kicking off the trousers bunched at his ankles. But his head twitched nervously and his eyes seemed somewhere far away.
“For someone who's never done this before, you seemed rather … unsurprised,” Felix probed. “You sure you've never been spanked before?”
He saw how the sound of his voice called Gaius back to attention. “Oh, well, yes.” He rolled onto his back and stared up at Felix. “On the farm. My father did, when my brothers or I were especially miscreant. He would sometimes take us to, you know, the barn, use his belt.."
Felix blanched. "Gods, Gaius," he said softly. "That's not what I meant. Why didn't you tell me?" He suddenly had a creeping unease about what they had just done. "Why did you ask me to do that? Did it bring up bad memories?"
"Bad memories? Of what?" His eyes widened with realization. "Oh! Felix, no. Not at all. It's fine." His arms wrapped around his now drawn-up knees, and he settled his chin upon them. "No worries, love."
"But your father beat you and your brothers?" Felix insisted, his voice arcing in a way he hadn't intended. He saw something cloud over in Gaius' eyes.
"That's quite an inflammatory way to put it." His measured tones cut into the quiet between them. "Didn't your parents give you spankings when you were a child?"
Felix didn't know what to say.
"I'll take from your expression that they didn't believe in it." His hand ran through his hair, awkward and stilted. "Or were you outrageously well-behaved even as a child?" He reached out to cup Felix's chin, but Felix nudged the hand away. "Did he do that a lot to you?" Felix insisted.
Gaius went stiff with indignation. "Felix, he punished us. When we deserved it."
Felix stared at him, trying to understand. "Did you find yourself liking it?” he asked slowly. “Is that why you like it now?"
Gaius thought a moment. "No. It wasn't enjoyable,” he said. “I didn't like it at all. But I'll tell you one thing, Felix, when it was over, it was all over."
"What do you mean?"
"There were no grudges, nothing lingering. Everything just went back to normal."
Felix swallowed hard. "Look, I don't want this to hurt you." After a moment, he added, "Emotionally, I mean."
"You did nothing of the kind." Gaius was already reaching out and yanking Felix’s hand towards him, suckling on each finger, one by one. This time, Felix allowed it, guilty at the tiny sigh that escaped his lips. He had an inkling that the move was meant to distract; briefly, he wondered from what.
“This was nice, darling,” Gaius assured him in between fingers, his voice curving more playfully now.
“Really it was. I had fun.” But something in his voice was too pat to be believed, and Felix eyed him intently.
"But it wasn't quite what you wanted, was it?"
Gaius fell into an uncomfortable silence. “Well…” he finally relented.
Felix pulled his hand back gently. “What do you want?" He tried out a mischievous smile, following Gaius' lead. "Something a little more intense? 'Cause I could manage that, if that's what you really want.”
Gaius' eyes immediately came alive, searching Felix’s for something. Felix did not miss the sharp intake of breath. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, I would like that.”
His arm curved and pulled Felix on top of him, into a long, passionate kiss, the wetness of his tongue sliding over Felix’s lips, then parting them open in a possessive gesture. Felix grunted with pleasure, barely noticing Gaius’s practiced fingers pulling at the zipper to his trousers until the scratchy fabric was shimmying down his legs. He found himself flipped over on his back, naked from the waist down. His lover’s hands were making quick work of him, finding every corner of his body, raising goosebumps everywhere at once.
“Gaius,” he gasped, as the man teased his tongue around the tip of his cock. “Gods, how do you do that? You’re frakking amazing sometimes, you know that?”
“I am, aren’t I?” The pleased, haughty lilt in his lover’s voice told Felix that they were back on familiar ground. Gaius’ lips continued to dance around the idea of sucking him off, and Felix's eyes rolled back as fingers began tracing ghostly curves inside his thighs, then up his sides, then down his arms. Felix’s hands fumbled blindly, desperately trying to guess the next location of this delicious torment, but Gaius batted them away easily.
“Ohh, if you’re going to do it,” he moaned, “then godsdamnit, just do it.” His entire body writhed as Gaius coaxed quivering sighs out of him. “Come on…I’m begging you…please. You're making me insane.”
“Oh, is that what I'm doing?” The coy, tantalizing retort surprised Felix into a pleased smile. He kept his eyes closed, enjoying the way his lover’s voice seemed both above and below him, engulfing him completely. “Well good,” the voice continued, deadpan. “That is the point, darling.”
Felix's eyes flashed open and saw Gaius, his body curved over Felix’s cock, his expression hungry, predatory. He treated Felix to a confident, closemouthed smile before finally taking him deep into his warm, wet mouth. Panicky, ecstatic waves rocketed to Felix’s nerve endings. Soon, Gaius had settled into serious work on him, taking him deeper and deeper into his mouth, tongue fluttering up in long, slow trails along the shaft. Felix didn't know how much more he could take of this delicious agony.
“Just you wait...” He was aiming for teasing threats, but his body felt rubbery and, and he knew his breaths were coming out in uneven rasps. Through lidded eyes, he saw Gaius’ bemused expression, watching him try desperately to manufacture even one coherent sentence “Just you wait,” he repeated between clenched teeth. “Just you wait until the next time I’ve got you underneath me, Gaius...”
But then he was crying out in wordless, frustrated protest as he felt Gaius suddenly withdrawing. He reached out blindly again, weak with desire.
“Really?” Gaius’s voice taunted, arch and self-satisfied. “Because if I didn’t know better, I’d say that you enjoy being this way, squirming under me, under my complete control.”
Felix groaned. His hands found the back of Gaius’ head, fingers entangling themselves onto the man’s long tresses, firmly guiding his lover’s mouth back, silently ordering him to finish. He heard Gaius grunt incoherently as he engulfed Felix’s cock again. Felix clung to a fistful of Gaius’ hair, willing himself not to come right then and there. He raised his head, wanting to see the man he loved like this – swollen lips parting and tightening around him, focused on him and only him.
A few long strands of hair had fallen across Gaius’ eyes. It reminded Felix of being in the lab with him, when Gaius got so intent on something that he couldn’t be bothered to pull back the rebellious strands. He smiled weakly, and stretched out a reverent hand to brush them back. At his touch, Gaius’ eyes darted upward in surprise, and Felix could see a grin blooming there, around his own cock. He shuddered as the first tiny wave of orgasm flooded him. “Ohh gods…
“Next time,” he said, his voice ragged as he hovered on the edge of coming, “I am definitely going to take you in hand.”
He never got a chance to say more though, for the universe had just exploded into sparks of light and blinding sensation.
***
But really, Felix forgot all about it their next few nights together. It took Gaius mustering up his courage, just as they were about to go to sleep, to bring the subject back up again.
“I feel positively ridiculous asking you for this,” he said, awkwardly nuzzling into Felix’s shoulder. “But do you remember telling me a few nights ago that you would give me…” he paused, eyes darting from side to side, “…a more intense experience?”
At first, Felix’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Oh,” he chuckled after a moment, idling his fingers along Gaius’ neck. “I forgot. The farm boy wants his hide tanned, right?”
Gaius' gaze flew away. “I really do wish you wouldn’t refer to it that way,” he mumbled.
The tone chastened Felix. “Hey.” He took his lover’s cheek into his palm, forced him to look up into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I was just playing around. But listen. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You know that, right?”
Gaius nodded vigorously. “Yes, I know,” he acknowledged, but Felix could read Gaius’ compulsive, almost gulping nods so easily. How many countless times had Felix seen him this way – his gaze darting all over the place with discomfort, his face unable to keep a single expression for more than a millisecond? Gaius Baltar had told a lot of lies in the last few years, and Felix had gotten really good at spotting them by now.
“Look at me,” he half-teased for a moment, then softened. “Gaius, I’m serious. Look at me. Relax.” He saw how Gaius had to force himself to maintain eye contact.
“You know, while I admit I find this sudden shyness of yours kind of adorable, I really don’t think it’s justified. If this is something you want, I’m happy to give it to you, with no judgments, all right?”
“All right,” he nodded, but he still looked furtive. Felix raised one eyebrow, unconvinced.
“No, really,” Gaius insisted, more forcefully this time. Felix stared at him for a long time, then finally kissed him.
“Good, then.” He closed the subject. “We both have the evening off tomorrow.” His tongue reached out and licked the spot just under the ear that Gaius liked so much. It worked like a charm: Gaius finally relaxed into his shoulder again, and a low moan of a desire beginning to coalesce rumbled underneath his quickening breaths.
With one last flick of his tongue, Felix pulled away, then kissed his lover chastely on the lips. “We’ll deal with you then,” he quipped, then turned off the lights before Gaius had a chance to react.
“No fair!” He heard Gaius’s protest and smiled into the darkness.
***
The next day, as they finished lunch in the Mess, Felix discreetly passed Gaius a note with detailed and very specific instructions. “It’s regarding this evening,” he explained with a pursed grin.
Gaius read the note in silence, eyebrows arching at various points, then let his gaze meander up to the unyielding expression Felix had in the meantime constructed for his benefit.
“I think it’ll help to set the proper mood,” Felix added, lowering his voice as he looked around at the soldiers ignoring them, chattering over food. “I’ll expect you to be ready and waiting for me by the time I get off shift. Is that clear?”
Gaius blinked and said nothing for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his tone was hushed and streaked with emotion. “All the things on this list,” he said slowly. “You need it to be like this? I mean, for this to work for you?”
Felix blinked back surprise. “Well, no.” For the first time since all this had started between them, he felt strangely embarrassed. “Not really. I don’t need this to be any particular way.” He eyed the note in Gaius’ hands, suddenly wishing he’d never written it. “I thought you would want it.”
"No.” Felix wondered at how Gaius' tone had gone flat. “I don’t want games. I don’t want masks. I want…something real.”
All of a sudden, Felix felt hopelessly naïve. “I don’t know what to say.”
Gaius reached out to touch his face. Felix smiled at the affectionate gesture as he felt Gaius’ fingers brush along his cheek. But a moment later, the touch recoiled and Felix saw him bristle with hostile embarrassment.
“Motherfrakkers.” He mumbled the epithet so low, Felix almost missed it. He followed Gaius' eyes to where he was staring down a couple of pilots making rude gestures at him from across the Mess.
“They will never stop hating me, will they?” he seethed. “Who the frak do they think is upgrading the Fleet’s FTL drives? Who do they think is getting them to Earth?”
Felix recognized Racetrack as one of the pilots, but not the other woman. Dee hardly ever managed to pull him into a card game anymore these days, and he realized he’d lost track of the newer pilots at this point. When Racetrack met Felix’s gaze, her eyes flashed away guiltily, but the other pilot had no such shame and continued to glare at Gaius openly.
“I didn’t have to share those Cylon algorithms with anyone…”
“Come on, Gaius,” he cut in softly. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
“Anyway,” Gaius sighed, passing back the note, face down, across the table. “This doesn’t need to be anything all that complicated. In fact, I think it’s better if it isn’t.”
Felix carefully folded up the note several times until it was a tiny paper square. He closed his fist around it.
“Have I angered you?” Gaius asked, elbows on the table, his fingers pressed into a strained steeple in front of his face. He stared meaningfully at Felix’s fist.
“What? Gaius, no! It’s not like that. It’s just…” He tried to articulate a response. “See, all along I thought I understood what you wanted from me. But now?” His voice trailed off a moment, lost. “I feel like I don’t understand at all.”
Gaius take one last look at the glaring pilot’s murderous gaze, then sank visibly into his own thoughts.
“That’s all right,” he murmured through laced fingers. “You don’t need to.”
***
That night in their quarters, he found Gaius waiting for him in the dark, cross-legged on the bed, his back to the door.
He could see just enough to know that Gaius had absently folded in his hands neatly in his lap. Felix watched his hunched shoulders and bowed head for a long moment, then walked over quietly and ruffled his lover’s hair from behind.
“Hey, babe,” he teased affectionately. “Ready to pay for your sins?”
His lover’s face became suffused with chagrin. “Felix,” he began, “I need you take this seriously. You need to…”
Felix thought a moment, then interrupted the impending lecture with a hand shoved over Gaius’ mouth.
“Just what makes you think you’re in charge here?” he said, quickly adopting the voice of command. He watched with satisfaction as Gaius’ eyes widened. After a shocked moment, he nodded and pulled back slightly. “I’m not.”
“Better,” Felix said simply, then waited a moment for everything to sink in. “You told me you wanted something real, Gaius, so that’s I’m going to give you,” he explained, his tone matter-of-fact, businesslike. “You’re very used to telling other people what to do, but that’s not going to be the case here.
“Now get up,” he ordered, sounding like the military man he was.
Gaius, however, sat frozen on the bed, surprise and indecision still streaking his eyes.
“I told you to get up.” Felix growled, thinking of the Old Man now. “Don’t make me repeat myself again.”
He watched Gaius’ mind catching up as he hastily disentangled himself and stood up next to Felix, hunting the younger man’s eyes.
“Get over there.” He pointed at the back corner of the bedroom. “I want your forehead touching that wall by the time I get to you.”
Gaius’ face visibly processed the command, the tone, everything. Felix watched him make his decision.
As ordered, he walked over to the wall and pressed his forehead against it. Felix let him stand there awkwardly, hands fidgeting with nervous energy.
Felix didn’t go straight over to him. He went instead to another corner of the room. In silence, he shuffled through the books and papers on their desk, looking for a particular item, one of the few things he had managed to save from the lab when it had been completely dismantled, out of a knee-jerk panic that anything and everything that the traitorous Doctor Baltar had done in that room was Cylon-influenced, and therefore a possible threat to the Fleet.
He found it buried under a sprawl of notes: a teak ruler - part of a executive’s set of desk tools that the lab had possessed when Felix had first arrived on Galactica. Back when there had been a Twelve Worlds, it must have cost an outrageous small fortune.
Satisfied, he walked back towards Gaius, who was clearly listening to his movements. He curved an arm around his lover’s torso, smiling at the way his touch provoked Gaius’ startled reflex. His thumb and forefinger played with the button to the man’s trousers, then yanked the zipper open, gliding pants and boxers down in a soft, swift motion.
“I can give you what you want, but you’re going to have to trust me,” he told him. Gaius silently let him pull the gray tee-shirt up and over his head, and Felix put his mouth right next to his lover’s ear, voice low and demanding. “Do you trust me?”
He idly massaged the knot of tension in between Gaius’ shoulders with his fingers as he waited. The atmosphere seemed to crackle with the sound of his jagged breaths. After a long pause, Felix saw his body straighten with resolve. “Yes…yes, of course. Of course I trust you.”
His fingers continued their massaging motion. “Okay,” he smiled, letting his tone become gentler. “Then when you’re ready, I want you to put your palms flat against the wall, by your head.”
Felix heard Gaius’ breath hitch in surprise. His hands began to obey, then faltered, then tried again, slowly sliding up the wall. They stopped at either side of his forehead. Felix let one finger trace down his spine and Gaius shuddered.
“You’re doing great,” he told him. “We’re going to start now.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Shhh…don’t try to control this,” he admonished. “You wanted something real, remember?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, flustered. “I do want this. Honestly.”
“I know.” He waited until Gaius willed himself back into quiet acceptance. “Better,” he said reassuringly, and kissed him on that familiar spot just beneath his ear, knowing it would make him draw a sharp breath of arousal. Then he brought the ruler down in a stinging crack.
Gaius recoiled in surprise, but he made no sound. Felix noted that he hadn’t moved his forehead from the wall, and so he brought the ruler down again, harder this time. A surprised, urgent moan escaped Gaius’ lips, but he managed to stand completely still. Remembering the other night, Felix began a hard, confident rhythm.
“We’re going to do this for a while,” he said matter-of-factly, stepping up the pace, peppering him now and then with wider and faster swings. “Right now, some part of you still feels in control of this situation, no matter what promises you’ve made me to let go. I know that. You can’t help it. So our first order of business is to get you to truly give up that idea, okay?”
The nod came out quick and slightly shaky. Good. He was starting to lose some reserve already. He stepped into the strokes, altering the pace yet again, keeping things hard to predict. He remembered how much Philip had liked that.
He knew he was breaking Gaius' barriers when he saw how his shoulders sank.
“Gods, Felix!” He hissed through gritted teeth. “What is that thing? Frak!”
He made the blows harsher, heavier, quicker, provoking surprised yelps as Gaius pressed himself into the wall, both trying to get away and trying to stay in place. Soon the yelps transformed into languorous moans, and Gaius’ back arched desperately with the struggle to keep still. Felix felt a burning sensation in his arm muscles, and a stirring in his cock as it began to strain against his uniform.
“Listen to you, you're incorrigible,” he teased softly in his ear. “You make me want to frak you right here and now, when I’m supposed to be punishing you. What are we to do about that, hmmm?”
A inchoate groan filled the silence. It sounded distant, disconnected. Felix pulled his hair gently, to bring his mind back into the room. It provoked a surprised whimper. On impulse, Felix pinned his lover's cheek firmly against the wall.
“You still feel in control, Gaius?” he asked him with yet another crack of the ruler. Felix found himself more and more aroused as he watched Gaius shut his eyes tight, utterly losing himself in the sensation.
“N- No,” The word came out stuttered, penitent.
“Excellent.” He kissed Gaius’ forehead, still pressing his cheek to the wall. “Then we can start this punishment you wanted.”
Gaius' body jerked under another stinging stroke. “What?” he rasped. “Are you telling me we haven’t even started yet?”
Felix smacked him again. “I don’t think you’re in any position to argue, are you?” He tried to put aside for the moment how much this was turning him on and focus on being what Gaius needed right now – stern, unyielding. “You said you wanted a punishment, and that’s what you’re going to get, so you better get used to the idea.”
He paused for a long stretch, letting him wonder when the next blow would come. “Do you really think you’ve been adequately punished yet?”
After a moment, Gaius shook his head mournfully, or as best he could with Felix’s hand still pinning him in place.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Felix whispered hot, steady breaths into his ear, making Gaius squirm, but Felix made no effort to release him. He began spanking him again, watching carefully as Gaius struggled briefly, then went limp against the wall, submitting to it all.
Felix’s desire, hard and pulsing against his clothes, was becoming agony.
“You’re doing great,” he murmured in between strokes. “Don’t worry. You’re almost done.” Gaius only moaned in response. “Then, when I’m done spanking you, you know what I’m going to do?”
“No,” he gasped.
I’m gonna frak you.” He spread Gaius’ legs apart with his boot. “Hard and fast. Just like this.”
At the sudden burst of several more rapid-fire strokes, Gaius spat out Felix’s name like it was an oath. Desperate, he arched again and wrested free of Felix’s pinioning hand and broke position.
Felix stopped immediately, waiting to see what he would do. While he waited, he inspected the angry, dark red marks all over Gaius' skin, feeling amazed and even a little frightened at what he'd done. His old lover had never absorbed this much. And Gaius still hadn't actually said a word to stop him.
"You okay, babe?" he whispered. He placed a kiss between his shoulder blades. "You feel punished enough yet?”
No answer.
He murmured in his ear a second time. “Gaius! Answer me. You done? Or you need more?”
Felix watched him steady his balance, watched how his fingers restlessly curled and opened at his sides, as if he were trying to stop them from balling them into fists.
“I- I-.” His voice sounded dry and shaky. “I don’t know.”
Felix’s eyes widened at the plaintive sound of it, the confusion, the sheer need. “Hands back up on the wall,” he finally ordered.
It was a test.
He watched Gaius' hands fly up, as if to comply with Felix's order, then run instead through his hair and get caught. His forehead stayed not pressed, but merely resting against the wall. Felix touched his skin, traced along the wide marks he’d left.
“Get back into position,” he prompted.
Felix saw his hands leave his hair, his fingers tentative walk up the wall and settle there, like claws. Felix examined them a moment. He pressed them down against the wall. “Palms flat, Gaius. Your forehead too. Get into position,” he repeated calmly. “If you want this, show me.”
Gaius hesitated, and for a second, Felix thought for sure he was done; but then a moment later, he pressed his forehead against the wall, and spread his legs a little.
"That's it, babe. You're doing great." He stepped back, dug his fingers into Gaius’ hair, holding on tight, and put everything he had into it, bringing down the ruler again and again with a wide, swinging impact that echoed loudly in the concrete and metal room. Felix wondered if guards in the hallways could hear it. He imagined their faces, listening with curiosity to the sharp, repeated cracks filtering through the doorjamb; the subdued groans that were quickly giving way anew to loud, panicky whimpers.
The thought of it made him want this part to be done; he was dying to feel himself deep inside Gaius, penetrating him, kissing his neck and under his ear. He pressed his chin hard into Gaius’ left shoulder, suddenly posessed of an idea.
“Okay,” he grunted. “Now tell me: why do you want this? Tell me why you like it.”
Gaius managed to get something out that was in between a curse and a wordless plea.
“Not good enough, Gaius,” he chided. “Come on, let’s hear it. Tell me how this makes you feel?”
“It frakking hurts!” he managed between clenched teeth. “How the frak do you think it feels?”
“But you want it to hurt, don’t you?” he pressed, bringing down the ruler again. His cock was throbbing with anticipation. “Don’t you?”
“Yes!” His voice squeaked, straining at the high pitch. “Yes,” he repeated after a moment, choking on the single word like it was an admission. Felix saw his eyes moistening with the start of tears and realized that he’d hit some sort of nerve.
“You haven’t even once asked me to stop yet,” he said. “Why is that?”
Gaius twisted his face away as best he could, still pinned to the wall. He was no longer standing against it so much as clinging to it.
“What does it matter?” he grunted, but Felix saw immediately that it did. It was the part of him he was stubbornly keeping out of Felix’s reach; it was the lock he was hoping Felix would rip open.
“Stop avoiding the question. Tell me why you wanted this, Gaius, or do I have to keep doing this indefinitely?"
Gaius squirmed desperately under the ruler's renewed attention. “Gods, Felix!”
But still, Felix noted with amazement, there were no requests, no demands, not even an attempt to bargain him into stopping this.
“This won’t end until you tell me why,” he said, his voice implacable and firm. He kept him pressed tight against the wall. “Tell me why you wanted this.”
He stopped, trying to give him a chance to think straight. At first, there was only the sound of Gaius noisily catching his breath, swallowing hard, struggling to speak normally. Words rasped in his throat like shards of glass. He sounded like he was talking in the Aerelon accent he'd only let Felix hear once before.
“It’s what I deserve.”
Felix threw down the ruler. He knew all at once that it was done. It clattered noisily on the metal floor.
“Is that so?” he flirted as an experiment, his tone provisionally full of innuendo, unsure exactly where to go next.
“Frak me,” Gaius cut him off hoarsely, still in that rasping accent, in no mood for playfulness. “Do it now.”
Felix, aching for release, needed little convincing. He began tearing at his own uniform jacket, unzipping his trousers, sighing with relief as his erection was liberated from its confinement, now thick and sloppy wet in his hand. But as he wrapped his other arm around Gaius and brought him in close, he stopped in confusion.
“But you’re not turned on,” he said in shock.
A silent moment passed between them. “I will be soon enough,” he growled. “Come on,” he urged. But Felix stood still, caught between desire and uncertainty.
“Come on, Felix,” he repeated, spreading himself wide against the wall, inviting Felix with his body. “Do it just like you said you would. I want you to.”
Felix groaned, unable to resist any longer, wet his fingers with his own leaking semen and prepped him a few times before just entering him. Gaius gasped and hissed in surprise, then settled down into a rhythm of soft moans as Felix began pumping into him. The sudden tightness around his engorged cock intoxicated Felix. He felt like his entire body was vibrating with desire. He could smell the scent of his own juices in the air around them and the faint aroma of Gaius’ sweat. The weakness in his thighs made it difficult to stand up. He grabbed Gaius by the shoulders for purchase. Each time their bodies made contact, Gaius whimpered a little, a sound that lay somewhere in between pleasure and pain, and for the life of him, Felix couldn't decide which; gods, help him, he didn't care too much which. He just wanted to feel the heat of Gaius' skin warming his thighs every time he thrust deeper and deeper into him. He just wanted to hear Gaius whimper and gasp and moan like that until he...until he...
Until he came so hard, he bit down to stop himself from screaming into the shivering, dizzy climax.
Moments later, leaning against the wall next to Gaius, he relished the lingering release of his orgasm, the fuzzy, disoriented, out-of-control sensations coursing through his body. But he soon forced himself upright again. He hadn’t made Gaius come yet, and that seemed like a crime.
He guided him over to the bed across the room, marveling anew at how light he was, how he’d never completely gotten his weight back from all those months in the brig. He lay him on his back, and Gaius winced when his body made contact with the bed.
“You okay, babe?" he asked, running his fingers through Gaius' dark tresses.
“I’m fine,” he grunted softly. He sounded spent, exhausted. Felix leaned over his supine body and kissed him affectionately at the base of his throat. “Did you get you what you wanted?” he asked.
“Yes,” his voice rasped again, but his normal accent was back. “It was exactly what I wanted. Thank you.”
“Let me take care of you now.” Felix began to clamber onto the bed, bending prone over his body, ready to take him into his mouth.
“No.” He pulled Felix up towards him; it was an unmistakable command. Surprised, Felix let himself be settled into the crook of Gaius’ arm without discussion.
“But I want to make you come,” he said, worried.
Gaius looked caught for a moment, then waved his hand at him in languid dismissal.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I got what I wanted.”
Felix gaped at him. “I’m so sorry,” he said, dismayed. “I got all caught up in what I was feeling ...”
“I said it was alright, Felix. You did just what I wanted.”
Somehow, without him realizing it, Gaius had now become the one stroking his hair, whispering soft reassurances over his head.
“I should have been paying more attention,” Felix said, still guilty. “I should’ve noticed.”
“Don’t be ludicrous,” he said quietly. “You were perfect. You did everything just right.”
Felix wanted to protest more, but Gaius’ floating, soothing hands on his skin were hypnotic, and his body, exhausted from such an intense orgasm, soon gave in to sleep in his lover’s arms.
***
Felix tried again to apologize the next morning, but found the discussion gently yet firmly closed. Aching, but seemingly satisfied, Gaius rebuffed Felix’s flirtations and innuendos on the subject over the next few days, and seemed to want to pretend it had all never happened. A bit surprised, Felix nevertheless followed his lover’s cues, and decided to wait for Gaius to make the first move.
Which he did a few days later, when Felix decided to relieve boredom in the CIC by visiting Gaius in the lab during a break.
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise! What are you doing here?” Gaius flickered a brief, inquiring gaze in Felix’s direction as he closed the lab’s hatch door.
“Oh, I’m on my rounds, so I only have a few minutes to spare. But I thought I’d come down here and say hello. The DRADIS is dead and my mind kept wandering.”
Gaius looked up from a binder filled with pages of computer code. “Really?” Felix saw a salacious grin spread across his face, and knew things were back to normal. “Exactly how many minutes do you have, Lieutenant?” Each word was deliberately crisp and businesslike, but Felix saw his tongue play across his bottom lip in anticipation.
“For that?" he said coyly, staring at Gaius' lips, "oh, about ten.”
Gaius theatrically tossed the binder onto his workbench, sending half of the octagonal papers on it flying to the floor. Felix bent down to pick up the papers, but Gaius was waving a dismissive hand over his head.
“Never mind them,” he said hurriedly, and Felix felt Gaius' hand on the small of his back as he tried to get to his feet. He looked up to see Gaius undoing the buttons to his lab coat. “I’ve had an absolutely trying day so far, I’ve been wired and restless as all hell, and you look absolutely gorgeous down there, love.” He unbuttoned his pants. “You’ll take care of me, won’t you?”
“What?” he croaked. “Here? Are you serious?”
“Of course I am,” he wheedled, guiding Felix’s hand to the bulge in his trousers.
“Well, you’re certainly all recovered from the other day, aren’t you?” he teased. “I was proposing ten minutes of making out, not making a porn movie in the middle of the lab.”
“You simply can’t leave me like this,” he protested.
He caught a whiff of Gaius’ musk around them and could already feel his cock stirring. The three days they’d gone without was feeling like an eternity.
“Believe me,” he tried, “it’s not that I don’t want to. You know I want to.” He could already hear his voice faltering. “But what if someone suddenly came in here for something?”
Gaius ruffled through Felix’s hair. “Come on, love. It’s not like we haven’t done things in here before.” His eyebrows arched meaningfully.
Felix blushed just a little. “Yeah, Gaius, but that was during the overnight shift, when there was the skeleton crew. Someone could come in,” he pointed out.
“What are the odds that someone’s going to come in here in the next nine minutes?”
“More like seven now.”
“Even better! I promise you: no one has been in here all day, and no one will come.” He paused, bent his voice into a flirtation. “That is, except us. Or was this visit purely to tease me?”
There was a long, hopeful silence. Then, Felix sighed and pointed wordlessly towards the back of the lab. Gaius practically bounced his way there. By the time Felix reached him, he had already shoved his back against an open wall and pulled out the folds of his shirt, so Felix could see that he wore nothing underneath his trousers.
Felix swallowed back a laugh. “You’re insatiable,” he grinned. You know that?”
“I’m completely willing to admit to that. Now can we just skip to the part where you utterly improve my day? How long have we got now?”
Felix checked his watch again. “Not long. Only six minutes.”
Gaius groaned loudly as Felix took him into his mouth.
“It’ll be enough,” he gasped.
***
“Better?”
Gaius steadied himself against a lab cart as Felix wiped his mouth and started to pick himself up, as well as the papers Gaius had knocked to the floor.
“Infinitely,” he sighed, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling. “Thank you.” He stuffed the tails of his shirt into his pants. “Thank you. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to get you…”
“What’s this, Gaius?”
“What?” He cocked his head at the item Felix waved in his direction. “Oh, that photo? It’s nothing.” He picked up the large binder of data and started flipping through it, finding his place again. “Just something some woman shoved into my hands a few days ago.”
“Some woman?” Felix echoed. “Who?”
“Don’t know.” He shrugged again, burying his expression into the binder. “It doesn’t matter.”
Felix examined the snapshot more carefully. It was dog-eared at the corners and had white creases in several places, as if it had been folded up for a long time in someone’s pocket. “What is this a picture of?” he asked mystified, looking at the glazed-over expressions in the photo. It was a huge gathering of people – poor people, if he went by their clothing. They seemed incongruously located in what appeared to be a gleaming spaceport.
“I don’t know,” Gaius said impatiently, still not looking up. “She didn’t say.”
Felix walked over to his lover, suddenly feeling uneasy. “Gaius.” He placed a hand on his shoulder. “What did this woman say to you?”
His head flew up and glared at Felix. “I told you I don’t remember.” But Felix searched his eyes, hand still on his shoulder, and Gaius broke under the meaningful silence. “Something pejorative,” he admitted.
Felix looked at the picture again. “Gaius, who was she? A crew member?” Glares in the mess hall were one thing, but verbal threats and harassment were beyond the pale, and something he could probably get the Admiral to do something about. He stuffed the photo into his pocket as evidence.
“I don’t know. Look, it doesn’t matter.”
“Well, what kind of uniform did she have on?” he insisted.
Gaius slammed the thick binder shut with a loud, frustrated thud. “It wasn’t any of your crew, so please, can we stop discussing this? This didn’t even happen on Galact-”
He froze, in the middle of the word and closed his eyes in tired chagrin.
Felix’s hand plummeted from his lover’s shoulder.
“Wait, this happened on a Fleet ship? What were you doing walking around in the Fleet?”
There was silence, and Felix clenched his fists at his sides as he answered his own question. “You did it again, didn’t you?”
Gaius said nothing. Felix sighed, his eyes tight with worry. “Gaius! Why didn’t you have them bring the FTL equipment here to you, like we arranged? You promised me. Why would you go around walking around in the Fleet where any disgruntled person can take a shot at you?”
Gaius shrugged yet again, infuriating Felix. “Actually,” he said with a wan smile, “the odds of me getting shot down by some nutter go up significantly on Galactica. This is where all the guns are, after all.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Felix snapped. “Why would you do that?”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “I don’t know. They asked me? I was bored? Maybe I felt like seeing somewhere else besides these labyrinthine hallways again, all day, every day?”
“Godsdamnit, Gaius! You were lucky this time that it was just a woman shoving a picture in your hand.” He paused. “Did you at least take the security detachment of Marines we arranged last time? I showed you how to schedule them if you ever needed to, remember?”
He looked away, said nothing.
“Gaius…”
“I don’t like taking them,” he complained quietly. “Every time I look at their uniforms, it’s like I’m back in jail again. And when I take them, people look at me that way too."
Felix pulled out the creased photo again. He felt a cold knot at the pit of his stomach. “These are refugees, aren’t they?” he demanded. “This picture was taken during the attacks on the Colonies.”
“I believe she said something to that effect, yes,” he mumbled.
Felix paused, the anger suddenly all punched out of him. “Are you all right?”
Gaius’ arms crossed his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“That must have been hard for you,” Felix ventured slowly, cautiously. “Was she blaming you for something specific with this picture?”
Gaius threw his hands up into the air. “Oh, for frak’s sake!” he exclaimed. “I took a walk, Felix, all right? I didn’t tell you, all right? Be angry at me if you want, but could you please spare me the psychoanalysis?”
And suddenly, all the anger was coursing back through Felix again. “Fine. You don’t want sympathy? Well, how about this then? You made me a promise. I trusted you to keep it. You didn’t need to do this at all, but you did it anyway. So yeah. I’m angry. You could’ve been killed.”
"Oh come now," he taunted. "There's no need for melodrama."
"I am not being melodramatic!" he insisted. "We talked about this!" He paused, trying to regain his self-control. He was trying to be understanding about this. He really was. "We had an agreement," he said stiffly, "and you went behind my back, because you knew I'd fight you about this."
"Look, I won't go anymore, all right? Is that what you want to hear?"
"This is something you went behind my back to do and you show no regret about it. Our relationship is supposed to be about honesty and trust.”
Gaius' arms flew across his chest. "I know that! You really think I don't know that?"
“Then why?" he exclaimed. "Why didn't you tell me about this? And if you were going to go behind my back, why couldn't you have at least taken the guards?"
Gaius pursed his lips into a scowl, unable or unwilling to come up with a response. "What's the point of telling you things?" he muttered. "If you're just going to get angry?"
Felix blinked in disbelief. "Oh, that's just great, Gaius. Really frakking mature."
Gaius' expression became more and more imperious. "No, I'm serious, Felix. Why bother? You won't like anything I have to say."
"Try me," he baited, with a curt, ugly tone he did nothing to prevent. The words felt like drops of acid on his tongue.
Gaius' expression darkened. "I'd rather not."
Felix knew he had to get out of the lab before he broke something irreplaceable. "Fine," he snarled. "If that's the way you want it."
He strode out of the lab, utterly silent, slamming the hatch door with the full force of his body.
***
“Unfrakkingbelievable,” Felix muttered, shaking his head as he eyed the clipboard.
“Problem, Lieutenant?” His head shot up at the sound of the crisp, neutral voice. Dee stood next to him,
peering over at the flight log in his hands.
“Oh, uh…” he said, flustered. “It’s nothing.”
There was a pause as she arched her eyebrows meaningfully. “Oh really?” She looked around at the other people in the CIC. It had been so dead that the Admiral wasn’t even on deck, leaving in charge Tigh,
immersed in paperwork in the conference room. No one was particularly paying attention to them. She lowered her voice so only the two of them could hear.
“Is this the same nothing that made you show up from your break over ten minutes late? For the first time in oh, I don’t know… at least a year?” Her face widened into a gentle, teasing smile. “And don’t try to deny it, Lieutenant: You’ve been fidgeting at your post for the last four hours.”
Her hand settled onto her hips, as if daring him to lie, knowing very well he couldn’t, not to her.
“How long have we been friends now?” she insisted quietly. “So come on, tell me. What’s going on?”
He shook his head sadly. “You’re not going to want to hear about it,” he warned.
She pursed her lips. “Is it about him?”
Felix nodded. He watched her close her eyes and sigh. “I still don’t approve of the two of you together,” she began.
“Dee, you don’t have to…”
“But for you,” she continued with a forceful whisper, “I will listen.” Then she corrected herself. “Or rather, I will try and listen. No guarantees if you tell me something he’s done to you that makes me mad.” She took the log from his hand. “So now tell me what on the flight logs could possibly have to do with your boyfriend?”
Felix pointed to the entries, to one and then one before, and then one before that. “See?” he said, as her eyes followed his roaming finger. “He’s on that log three times. We had a deal that he wouldn’t take trips into the Fleet after someone on The Rising Star threatened to kill him several months ago. But look, there he is. He went behind my back, for no good reason.”
“You’re spying on him in the flight logs?” Her voice turned arch, accusing.
“Only after he let it slip. And I wouldn’t call it spying,” he protested. “I just had to check to see how many other times he’s been there.”
She cocked her head. “You two had a fight about this, didn’t you?”
Felix ignored this. “He’s gone three times in the last two weeks. The same ship again and again. He hid it from me because he knew I’d be mad at him.” He was getting angry all over again just thinking about it. “He wouldn’t even give me a compelling reason when I confronted him about it.”
She continued to inspect the clipboard. “Well, whatever his reasons, he’s certainly got more guts than I gave him credit for.”
His forehead crinkled in surprise, distracted momentarily from his anger. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Believe me, I have little sympathy for the man. I’m just saying, it must be kind of tough for him to be on that ship, of all ships. You know, given his past? I mean, even Gaius Baltar must have some conscience when it comes to his own homeworld.”
“Dee, what are you talking about?” The hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle.
She scoffed in mock amazement. “Really, Felix? There’s a ship in this Fleet and you don’t know its history?
Didn’t you know this ship was only one to make it out of Aerelon?”
It took a second to absorb. “Aerelon?” His eyes flew back down to the logs.
“I’m amazed you missed that, Felix,” she teased. “It's named after the harvest goddess, for gods’ sake. Don’t you remember it? The ship was so completely stuffed with refugees, they had to sleep on the floor on top of each other?”
“He’s been flying all this time to a ship from Aerelon?” Felix felt his hand press onto his mouth in shock. “Oh my gods,” he whispered.
“What?” Then she saw his expression. “What is it?”
“You’ve got to cover for me, Dee. Just for an hour.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Where are you going?”
“Please, Dee. Give me an hour. Maybe less if I can manage it.”
“You’re going to go find him now, aren’t you?” She sighed. “If you must…” She waved him off,
half-annoyed, half-indulgent. “You’ll be no use around here until you do.”
“Thanks,” he breathed. “I owe you one.”
She adjusted her headset. “You owe me big time,” she corrected.
He nodded. And just barely managed not to leave the CIC running.
***
“How could you manipulate me like that?” he demanded as soon as he slammed the hatch door shut to their quarters.
Gaius didn’t look up from his novel, but his voice rolled out at Felix, supercilious and haughty. “What are you on about?”
“You knew that ship was from Aerelon,” he accused. “You’ve been going to that ship because it’s from Aerelon, haven’t you?”
Gaius’ head shot up in surprise. He threw down the novel, rose to his feet, as if ready to argue; but Felix’s accusation seemed to have silenced him.
“That’s what all this spanking stuff has been about hasn’t it? It’s not a turn-on, at all. It’s about the guilt you feel whenever you go there.” He paused, more and more realization blooming with each moment. “And you didn’t tell me anything about it because you knew I’d never agree to lay a hand on you if I knew why.”
He knew he’d guessed right when he saw the shocked expression frozen upon Gaius’ face. “Felix, I-“
“You turned me into a tool to hurt you! Do you understand how horrible that makes me feel?”
Gaius said nothing. Felix could see the glimmer of tears forming in his eyes, and it just made him feel worse. He fell into a chair, rubbing his eyes.
“Why are you putting yourself through this?" he insisted. "If you’re trying to make up for something, this isn’t the way to do it. What do you think you’re accomplishing by opening yourself to a bullet in the head?”
“Felix,” he said quietly, with what Felix could clearly see was a manufactured composure, “I don’t know what delusion you’re under about this, but the only reason I went there is because the captain of the ship specifically asked me to come. It was going to be too difficult to dismantle the ship’s FTL drive for…”
“Oh cut the bullshit, Gaius!” He heard his own shouts reverberating around the room. He forced himself to calm down before speaking again. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Don’t lie to me. Not now.”
Gaius stared at him wide-eyed for what seemed like forever. “All right,” he said, nodding repeatedly. “All right.” He looked away, ashamed.
“I had to go there,” he mumbled. “It’s been years. I knew it was unlikely. But I had to know.”
“Know what?”
After a long pause, the words came hurtling out of him, all at once. “I had to know if any of my family was still alive.”
Felix could say nothing for almost a minute. “Gaius,” he finally whispered. “My gods, you should have told me about this. I could have gone with you. I could’ve helped you through this." A lump formed at the back of his throat. "I can’t believe you’ve been keeping all of this trapped inside you the whole time.”
Gaius gave him a bewildered look. “I couldn’t imagine talking to you about this,” he said, his tone strident. “I couldn’t imagine you’d want to talk about this. Not when I’m the one who…” His voice trailed off. “Gods,” he whispered, falling back onto the bed, burying his head in his hands.
“I don’t think I can do this,” Felix heard him say through his fingers.
The lump in the back of his throat felt like a rock now. Felix rubbed his eyes again, then walked over to the bed and sat down. When he put his arm around him, Gaius started, then collapsed into his neck, breathing heavily.
“I didn’t know. I really didn’t know,” he repeated over and over, his voice thick with choked-back sobs. “I had no idea. I never intended...”
“I know, Gaius, I know,” he sighed. “We’ve been over this. But this isn’t something you can fix or erase if you only just hurt yourself or endanger yourself enough.”
He went silent, letting Felix stroke his hair for a long time. “How do I fix it?” The plaintive tone, uttered into Felix’s chest, gutted him.
“You don’t,” he said sadly. “You can’t.”
“What!” He pulled himself up, horror streaking through his eyes. “No! How am I supposed to go on for the rest of my life with this over my head?”
Felix let his hand rest on Gaius’ cheek, his gaze a steady stare into his lover’s frantic expression. “I don’t really know. You learn to live with it, I guess. Work at being a better person. Let people come to forgive you in their own time, in their own way.”
There was a long silence. Gaius inspected his own hands. “And if they never do?”
“You take what forgiveness you can get and forget about the rest. You can’t control how everyone feels about you.” He shrugged. “But it’ll get better eventually. It has to. Believe me, I know from experience.”
He watched Gaius slowly process this, then pull away and walk across the room, busying himself self-consciously with the task of boiling water. Less than two minutes later, the kettle whistled and he let drop two cold, previously-used tea bags into their cups. Wordlessly, he returned and offered Felix a steaming cup. They sipped at the tea in silence, sitting next to each other on the bed.
“You didn’t find any of them, did you?” Felix asked after a while. “Any of your family?”
Gaius looked surprised, then shook his head. “No,” he said, mournful. “Of course not. At this point, it would have been a miracle if I had.”
“You’ve never told me anything about them,” he said with pointed quietude. “The only things I know about them are what I read in your book.”
“Well, I never think of them,” he replied, even more pointedly. “Or at least, I try not to.” He took a long, awkward sip of tea. “I said some horrible things the last time I saw them.”
Felix nodded, thoughtful. “You know,” he continued, “you’ve never asked me about my family either. Not in the whole three years I’ve known you.”
Gaius looked away. “I never ask anyone about their family,” he murmured. “Not anymore.”
Felix almost choked on his tea. He coughed loudly, then recovered, exhaling deeply, saying nothing again for a long while.
“My mother raised me alone, from the time I was ten,” he offered.
Gaius went very still, but Felix could see he was listening in cautious surprise. “She was a professor,” he continued, trying to sound casual, “of mathematics. I calculated my first FTL jump in her office, on a computer model that her students used for practice.”
Gaius did eventually look up at him, but he seemed unable to respond, so Felix pressed on. “She had to raise me and my younger sister Lucilla after my dad died. He had a fatal heart attack, in the middle of an Oracle giving him a reading, can you believe that?”
Gaius managed to shake his head in commiseration, but otherwise said nothing. He let Felix chatter on.
“I practically raised my younger sister from then on,” he went on, determined. “My mom was so busy with her job and trying to keep everything going, but she took good care of us. My sister, her name was Lucilla. She was three years younger than me, but she always seemed more experienced about everything. I don’t know how that happened, exactly.”
Gaius just stared at him, eyes wide and rimmed heavily with tears.
Felix stared back at him, paused in thought. He closed his hand around his lover’s.
“You know,” he added, “come to think of it, I bet she would have liked you a lot.”
Gaius blinked, swallowed hard. “Felix,” he began, his voice a thin reed, straining to the point of breaking. “Felix…” he trailed off.
“You would have liked her too,” Felix added quickly. “I know it.”
Gaius closed his eyes. “I don’t know what to say.” But after a moment, he met Felix’s gaze with an unsteady but determined expression.
“I would have really loved to meet her, Felix,” he said.
Felix squeezed his hand tight. “Yeah, I know.”
