Fic: You Made a Slow Disaster of Me (Gaeta/Baltar - G)

[millarific]

Title: You Made a Slow Disaster Out of Me
Author: millari
Characters: Baltar, Gaeta
Pairing: Baltar/Gaeta
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Wordcount: 370
Summary: They both know what Felix is giving up here and now to send Gaius to the airlock.
Author's Note: This was written for the bsg_epics Shipper War Challenge Inspired by a prompt by the ever-wonderful geekbynight, whose multitude of prompts inspired a bunch of writing.



In the witness box at the trial of Gaius Baltar, Felix is not ready for the man himself to speak.

Gaius has uttered precious few words during his trial. In fact, he has been silent every moment for which Felix has been present. So Felix's memories of Gaius' voice have to come from when Felix interrogated him in his cell. His words then had been loud, harsh, baiting.

They make Gaius' outraged shouts at Felix's testimony (What are you talking about? You weren't there!) easy to deal with. It is the soft, plaintive words (Oh Felix, Felix … What are you doing?) that hit him the hardest.

They both know what Gaius's question means. They both know what Felix is giving up of himself here and now to send Gaius to the airlock. The shared understanding between them forms a momentary, confusing bond that Felix desperately does not want. Rattled, he almost loses his nerve. He's actually relieved when Gaius stops trying to understand and just gives in to his baser impulses, turning bitchy and aggressive. (You missed, butterfingers!) This is at least familiar territory.

He makes a point of staring straight at Gaius several times during his testimony, drinking in his ex-lover's shocked, infuriated, but ultimately helpless stare. Though Gaius surely knew that Felix was on the prosecution's witness list, Felix can tell that he didn't see this coming at all. The fact that he's finally broken the man's silence tells Felix that for Gaius, the sense of betrayal has been intensely personal.

Good, he thinks bitterly. Now you finally understand.

It's only as the Admiral dismisses him from the stand that Felix realizes what he and Gaius have enacted in that courtoom just now – Gaius so emotional, Felix unable to keep his eyes off him, Gaius so exasperated that he actually mocked Felix for not doing a good enough job at killing him.

Intensely personal. A knock-down, drag-out, high-stakes lover's quarrel, staged in the middle of open court. His victory crumbles to dust in clenched fists as it dawns on him that what he thought would recover his sense of honor has only served to dissipate it more.

It's a long, hollow walk to his shift in the CIC.

Comments

[trovia.livejournal.com]

Oh Felix.

It makes so much sense that a man such as Felix, who values his personal dignity so highly, would feel so ashamed of enacting something so personal in public.

It also makes me think of how he was found after he killed Evilthena, his darkest moment and greatest loss of control both there for everybody to see. That after he lost his leg, and tried to sing through his pain despite the fact that everybody could hear.

Of course, for all the times his private life was on display (people watching him in sickbay but not visiting him, Adama not reacting to either his stabbing of Baltar nor the incident with Eight), this makes me think back to the other ficlet, about how he has come to internalize that he's invisible. That's certainly one of the aspects of this character that I've always identified with on the most personal level, too.