Fic: Ephemera (Gaeta/Baltar - PG)

[millarific]

Title: Ephemera
Author: millarific
Characters: Gaeta, Baltar, Athena, implied Helo
Pairing: Gaeta/Baltar
Wordcount: 2,365
Rating: PG (there be kissing)
SPOILERS: Um, it's totally AU, but I guess, through Season 3?
Warnings: none
Summary: This is a totally AU, possibly self-induglent fic set in a mythical Season 4 where Baltar and Gaeta are not trying to kill and/or betray each other, and Gaius hasn't been stolen by the Den Mothers of the Apocalypse. It may have also been influenced by too much viewing of "Dancing With the Stars" at the gym. :)
Beta: _usakeh_Thanks, usakeh!
Author's Note: This was intended to be written for gaeta_squee 's fic battle, which ended April 4, but I didn't make it on time. The prompt was ludicrous. Also, thanks to sphinxvictorian and fuschia for looking this over and encouraging me along the way.

 

 

Felix groaned at yet another pop song he hadn’t much liked back when it was hot on the wireless five years ago.

“You know,” he complained mildly, “with a practically inextinguishable black market, you’d think they’d have found some new songs to play in this bar by now.”

Gaius stared thoughtfully at the small dance floor over the rim of his own glass. After a moment, he sighed. “It’s all rubbish anyway. I don’t know why you made me come here.”

“Because no one wants us in their card games, there are only so many books you can read, and I won’t let you hide in quarters forever.” Felix gave him a tight-lipped smile.

Gaius nodded in resignation as the DJ shifted into the next track, this time, a traditional song which had been recorded over the years in dozens of different ways, but all featuring an undeniable beat.

“Oh,” Gaius rolled his eyes, “and it just got worse.” He watched the people on the floor quickly group themselves into bouncing and skipping pairs, linking arms and alternating partners. Noting Felix’s tapping foot, Gaius snorted. “Do you actually like this music? It’s so mechanical, no style or grace to it, so frakking…provincial.”

“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Gaius,” he retorted. “They’re simple dances, but that’s what makes them fun. They’re traditional; everybody knows them. What’s wrong with that?”

“I can think of plenty of better ways to have fun bouncing up and down like a jackrabbit, darling.” Gaius tousled his lover’s hair. Felix smiled at the flirtatious gesture but the music thumped in his bones, calling to him. He glanced across the room, saw Dee flitting about from partner to partner, a beaming smile on her face that was all too rare these days.

“Come on,” he said impulsively, “why don’t we go out there and show them how it’s done?”

“You must be joking,” Gaius scoffed, looking back out onto the dance floor.

“Don’t you know how?” Felix teased. “Come on, you must have learned these dances growing up on Arielon.”

“What?” he grimaced, annoyed, “because we were poor but happy farmers? Spare me the stereotypes, Felix.”  

“That’s not what I meant, Gaius, and you know it,” Felix chided him, but his partner was only half-listening. Felix noticed that despite his complaints, he couldn’t take his eyes off the dancing. “You know,” he teased, “I seem to remember a certain Colonial Day celebration where you were quite content to dance all night.”  

“Colonial Day?” His voice rose in pitch, confused a moment, then bent playfully. “Oh. Well. There were a lot of lovely ladies needing my attention that night, you must understand.”

Felix smirked at that. “I bet.”

The dancers began leaving the floor as the DJ shifted to yet another song from long ago. “Ah, now that’s more like it!” Gaius exclaimed. ”Now, this, you can dance to with some panache!”

Felix listened more carefully, his eyebrows rising in disbelief. “This is what you like?” he said, bemused. “Seriously? How do I not know this about you after three years? This is my parents’ music!”

“I’ll bet they danced to it too, didn’t they?” said Gaius.

“Yeah, they did, actually.”

Wistfulness crept into Gaius’ voice. “When I was a child, I used to get two cubits at the end of every month if I did all my chores. For years, I spent half my monthly allowance going to the movie theatre thirty klicks away. They didn’t have modern movies, of course, just old films no one was interested in. But those old movies, they were so…so glamorous." He smiled at the memory. "I loved when a movie opened up with the the Caprica City skyline. And there was always at least one scene with all these beautiful, cultured people dancing the night away to this kind of music.

“The minute I got to University,” he sipped at his drink, “I signed up for lessons.”

“You know, you are full of surprises.” Felix felt bad for having teased him now. “I never learned how to dance like this,” he said. “I always thought I couldn't. But I remember my parents putting on their old records every now and then after dinner and spending half the night dancing. My sister and I used to shake our heads at how embarrassing they were." He shook his head, nostalgic.

"The only dances I know how to do are the traditional ones we learned in school. Those were easy," he concluded. "This kind of stuff?” His hand gestured vaguely towards the dance floor. “It’s totally out of my league.”

“You could pick up the rudiments quite quickly,” Gaius began. “I’m sure someone with your intelligence…”

“No way,” Felix cut off the idea in mid-formation. “I’m not going to be able to do that, no matter how many times you try to teach me.” But he was chagrined to see Gaius warming up to the challenge. “I won’t live up to all your great movie memories,” he warned. “I’ll step all over your feet. It’ll just be disappointing.”

“Oh don’t be ludicrous.” Gaius waved a dismissive hand at him. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’m going to the bar,” he insisted. “I need another drink.”

“But by the time you get back, the song will be over,” he protested.

“You can teach me when the next one comes on,” he said easily.

“You are a coward, Felix Gaeta,” Gaius accused, but Felix was already moving towards the other end of the room.

“I’ve been called worse,” Felix called over his shoulder.

 

                                                                          ************

This had been one of Felix’s stupider ideas. But he was even stupider for having agreed to it. The last place in the universe he wanted to be was in this crass bar with all these drunk screeching people, who were obligated by their military oaths to leave him alone, but not prevented from openly glaring at him; that is, when they weren’t simply pretending he didn’t exist.

Gaius wasn’t sure which was worse.

He looked over with a restless eye, wondering where Felix was, so he could begin a campaign to get them the hell out of this place. He wasn’t at the bar. He wasn’t walking back across the room. Where the hell was he?

“May I have this dance, Doctor?”

Gaius blinked in surprise, whirled around at the unfamiliar female voice.

“You?” he said in amazement.

Sharon Agathon stood before him with pursed lips. “What?” she challenged.

His arms crossed over his chest. “But you’re a…” He trailed off in embarrassment and confusion.

“A Cylon?” she finished for him. “I would have thought that you of all people around here would be beyond those kinds of prejudices.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not that,” he said. “It’s just...” he searched for the right words and failed. “Honestly, I’m bewildered,” he admitted. “How do you even know how to dance to music made by humans over forty years ago?”

“What, you think you’re the only poor kid from Arielon who tried to learn some social graces, Doctor?”

He gaped at her.

“Or at least, that’s what Boomer thought she’d done.” She shrugged, giving him a wan smile. “Helo can’t dance to save his life either. So this was one of the least useful skills I got from her. Until now.”

His eyes drifted again, through the smoky haze throughout the bar, and he finally caught a flash of Felix squirreled away in a corner, chatting with Karl Agathon. Felix had made friends with the man in the last few months, working together in the CIC. The man was civil to Gaius, even friendly, in an unobtrusive, assumed way that Gaius found as mystifying as he found it a relief.

He made a surprised, percussive sound of realization in the back of his throat. “Felix put you up to this.”

“Songs from this era were a lot shorter than songs today, Doctor,” she said pointedly. “You want that dance or not?”

He looked across the hazy room again. He was sure Felix was willfully avoiding his gaze. He looked back at Lieutenant Agathon, her posture so very straight in her military uniform, like she was struggling against the entire world, and she couldn’t afford to let her guard down even for a moment. The only soft part of her were those deep brown eyes; they’d always made her look like a lost child.

He stopped short. She’s not that one, he reminded himself, suddenly discomfited. This one had no history with him. She wasn’t the one that brought him to Galactica. She wasn’t the one whom he’d told to…

“I’m not exactly good for one’s social status, in case you hadn’t noticed,” he blurted out.

She actually laughed at that. In his face. “You think I’m good for yours?”

There was something both cynical and innocent about it that for a moment gave him one last glimpse of the other one, and he felt another tiny twinge of guilt. But her laughter was contagious, distracting.

“Yeah, all right then,” he said eventually. “Thanks.” He formally extended his hand to her. She took it.

They walked onto the dance floor alone, the song shifting into a sultry, swinging rhythm. It had been about three to four years since he’d done this, but muscle memory immediately took over, and his body knew exactly what to do. Hers did too, and the two of them glided across the dance in easy unison, their bodies jerking, swaying, and bending in perfect call and response. She flawlessly obeyed every subtle push and pull of his hand. He kept up with the turns of her hips. Gaius could tell that they looked absolutely stunning together. He was sure he felt the weight of the bar patrons' awestruck stares. For the next two minutes, he was back on Caprica; he was the next bright thing at University; he was President Adar’s guest of honor;  he was the newly elected Vice-President of the Colonies. He saw himself waving graciously to the adoring throngs.

As the song entered its final throes, he dipped her low and she laughed in girlish surprise. He snapped her body back up and glanced out at the bar patrons around them.

Who were still screeching drunk, chattering, and utterly involved in themselves. It took him by surprise. “Oh,” he exhaled with a touch of disappointment.

“You okay, Doctor?”

He was startled back into the moment. “What? Oh. Yes, yes,” he said, chagrined, nodding more frantically than he’d intended. “I’m fine. More than fine, really. I just thought I saw...I thought they were…”

The music change interrupted his ramblings. A smile broke out on his face. “They’re playing another one,” he said in pleased surprise.

“I requested two songs,” she said, curving her foot around his, silently telegraphing that their next dance would begin with a turn and glide. “I wasn’t sure how long it would take to convince you.”

He sighed. “Thank you, Lieutenant Agathon.” It didn’t feel right somehow to call her Sharon. He didn’t know her all that well yet, and anyway, it made him think of the other one.

“You’re welcome, Doctor Baltar,” she said matter-of-factly, but Gaius could hear gentleness buried underneath. They danced in silence, both having learned the quirks of each other’s moves by now.

Once the question occurred to him, Gaius couldn’t stop himself from asking:

“What made you come over here?” He wasn’t even sure why he wanted to know. He suspected the truth would embarrass him and if she lied to him, well, that would possibly be more embarrassing. "I mean, I know why you came over here, but what made you do it?"

She let him pull her into a twirl. When she was facing him again, those deep brown eyes looked steadily into his. “Because you stopped them.”

He blanched, irrationally worried that she was accusing him of something. “I’m sorry. Er, what?”

“Hera,” she said simply. “You stopped them from killing my unborn child. Hera’s alive today because you fought for her.”

Oh.He stumbled into the good will, floored by it. “I see.”

She pushed them into another spin, and then the song was ending. He twisted her with a final flourish, and they ended the song with her spun into his arms.

A moment later, she glided out of the embrace, then gave him a small formal nod, which he returned in an equally formal manner.

“That was wonderful and utterly unexpected, Lieutentant Agathon,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” she said simply, and walked off through the haze of cigarette smoke, returning to the other side of the room. Gaius watched how her husband lit up at the sight of her, how she smiled back at him. He felt strangely ebullient just watching them.

 “So you’re suddenly having a good time.” He felt Felix’s hand on his back, heard his amiable tone behind him. “You weren’t lying about those dance moves, were you?”

Without speaking, Gaius curled his fingers tightly into the locks of Felix’s hair, bringing Felix’s lips into a long, confident kiss.

Felix’s eyes widened, and he licked his bottom lip with newfound interest. “By the way,” he said, making his voice a low growl, “did I mention how sexy you looked out on that dance floor?”

He grabbed Gaius’ hand and traced a suggestive index finger around his palm. “I’ve changed my mind,” he announced. “I’ve decided I want a dance lesson after all.” He let a beat pass. “A very private one. Back in our room. Now, please.”

Gaius chuckled. “I think that could be arranged.” He took one last look at the people around them, accidentally catching the glance of a pretty blonde, who immediately assaulted him a cold glare. He blinked and regained his composure a moment, then turned away to kiss Felix full on the lips again, not caring. He pulled their bodies into motion and towards the exit.

“Yes, why don’t we?” he smiled. “I have some moves to show you that I think you’ll quite like.”

Comments

[millari.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading, and I'm glad you liked it!

Well, I'll admit that in my brain, the seed for the story was the idea of them dancing, but yeah, I didn't really want to make it about that, because it felt sort of like a cute dead end, narratively speaking. Plus, even though it's totally an AU fic, fanon seems to have definitively established that Felix really isn't a very good dancer, so I *just* couldn't make him one, especially after Gaius teaching him for five minutes. ;)

I sat on the story for a while trying to figure out, well then, who else would dance with him, given that everybody on ship hates him? (This question is probably why I was late making the challenge deadline.) Then I saw an interview with Grace Park talking about how she has to write outlines to keep all the different Sharons straight and what they've experienced, given the semi-shared programming. As an example, she cited the fact that Athena has no history with Baltar, that she's not the one that watched Helo give up his seat for Baltar, etc. Then everything, as they say, clicked.

Also, thanks for validating the decision to show Felix's character moment from a distance. I had started to write a conversation between him and the Agathons showing how Athena made her decision, but then I trashed it, thinking it worked much better as a surprise. Also, I liked the idea that there's some ambiguity about whether Athena going over to Baltar was the result of Felix asking for the favor or simply him mentioning the situation and her taking the initiative.

Anyway, thanks again for the comment. I'll be looking out for your fic!