Scar Tissue
Dec. 30th, 2008 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
falafel_musingsSummary: A missing scenes fic exploring the darker side of Gaeta and his new relationship with Hoshi. Set between the beginning of S4 and the end of the webisode series 'The Face of the Enemy'.
Characters: Gaeta/Hoshi with appearences from Dee, Racetrack, Cottle, Tigh and Helo.
Rating: NC-17 (dark themes, drug abuse and sexual content)
Disclaimer: I do not frakking own BSG.
Spoilers: Up to Webisode 8.
Dedication: for![[info]](https://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lls_mutant andingrid_m.
Author's Note: Includes a short segment called Scars originally written for the bsg slashathon.
Felix sat watching the flickery TV set in the corner of Joe's bar. The news reporter kept switching between stories. There was the one about Gaius Baltar’s shocking acquittal and the other one about Captain
It was a good thing this guy kept buying him drinks.
Hoshi. That was the guy’s name. The communications officer from the Pegasus. His first name was Louis or Lucas; something like that. Felix really should have known his name by now. They had been working together in the CIC for months. Well, whoever he was, he was returning from the bar with fresh drinks in his hands and setting them down on Felix’s table. He couldn’t argue with that.
“There you go…” said the Hoshi guy, smiling pleasantly. “One tall glass of ambrosia with a whisky chaser. Don’t drink it so fast this time.”
Felix smiled back at him, reaching for the glass whilst leaning a little too heavily against the guy’s arm. Hoshi raised a hand, brushing the curls away from his ears, still beaming at Felix like he was an adorable puppy.
“Really, I’m not drunk,” Felix slurred. “But I need to tell you something...”
Hoshi perked up an eyebrow, seeming intrigued.
“Oh yeah…what’s that?” he asked, smirking in amusement.
Felix tapped his nose, lowering his voice to a whisper.
“I lied in court,” he admitted clumsily.
Hoshi’s smile faded. He swallowed, waiting for an explanation. Felix realised that at some point he had taken the guy’s hand. Their fingers were jumbled together.
“I had to…” Felix murmured. “I knew they were going to let Baltar walk, but I had to try and stop it. I know it was perjury, but I was trying to do the right thing. Sometimes the right thing and the truth aren’t the same. I mean…I was the one who told the truth about who won the election. Look where that got us…”
Hoshi nodded solemnly. “
Felix glanced over his shoulder.
“Baltar’s a traitor…” Felix continued, turning back to Hoshi. “I might not have been there when he signed the death list, but I know he’s guilty. He didn’t care about any of the people on that list. He never cared about me…”
Hoshi blinked. “About you, Felix?”
Felix shook his head, trying to settle his emotions.
“No, I mean…his people,” he amended. “Gaius didn’t care about all those people he swore to protect. He only cares about himself.”
Hoshi nodded again. “I understand. I won’t tell anyone.”
Felix snorted again, looking back to where
“Hey listen…could you please do me a favour?” he began.
“Sure,” said Hoshi. “You name it.”
“Take me back to your rack and frak my brains out.”
Hoshi’s eyes widened. His cheeks turned a ravishing shade of pink. It took the guy a moment to regain his composure, smoothing over his embarrassment with a smile. He ran his fingers through Felix’s curls again, settling his hand on his nape. Felix teetered forwards in his chair and pressed a kiss to his lips. He could hear the girls sniggering from across the barroom. Felix was also struggling not to laugh. He didn’t want to mess this up, even if it was only a one night thing.
Felix seriously needed to get laid tonight. Helo had picked him to serve as navigation officer on the classified Demetrius mission. He didn’t want to go, but those were his orders. He was to report to the hanger deck at 0300 hours so their ship could jump away before the fleet woke up to find them gone.
Felix would have to leave Hoshi in a similar way, slipping out from his bunk while he was still sleeping. He wouldn’t tell Hoshi he was leaving. Why complicate matters? He could always explain when he came home.
~*~
At first, it was just Felix alone in his bed, singing to distract himself from the pain.
There was Cottle too of course and the nurses who came by to change his bandages and dose him up with morpha. There were also the silhouettes of mystery visitors who lingered behind his curtains, not daring to come forwards into the light. He wondered who these people were, though he didn’t wish to see them. Felix sang loud and clear, building his song like an ivory tower around himself.
For those first few days it was just him alone. It was just his voice, his cold sweats and the sharp ceaseless tingling of his phantom leg.
Then one morning Felix woke from a fitful sleep to find that somebody was holding his hand. He tried to sit up, wincing with the effort.
“Shhh…just lay still…” said the man at his beside.
He grimaced and nodded, doing as the kind voice advised him.
“It’s me, Felix,” the voice whispered. “It’s Louis.”
Felix frowned, trying to remember if he knew a Louis. He blinked his eyes and realised his visitor was Lt. Hoshi; the guy he had been thinking of as my last frak in two lousy months. He had been certain his first name was Lucas.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” Hoshi continued. “It’s been crazy up in the CIC. Ever since that cylon baseship arrived and then jumped away again with the President and half of our pilots onboard…well, it’s just been chaos.”
Felix could only manage a groan in response. Hoshi squeezed his hand.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” he added hastily. “I’m just going to sit here. Sing if you want to. You have the most beautiful voice, Felix.”
Felix snorted at the compliment. Then he flushed.
After that morning, Hoshi came to sit by his bedside and hold his hand whenever he had a break from his duties. Felix liked the softness and warmth of his palm. It was soothing…like morpha, like ambrosia…Felix could already feel himself becoming a user. Hoshi insisted that he wanted to be there for him. He told Felix he should call him Louis. He told him to ask if there was anything he needed. When Cottle released him from sickbay Louis was there to take him up to his room.
Yes, Felix’s injury had afforded him some new quarters. No longer would he have to share a dormitory with the other junior officers. Felix had a big roomy space with a double bed, a wardrobe, his own table and chair. A technician had fitted a seat and railings to his shower unit so that he could sit down to wash. Louis had brought up his clothes, his possessions and tried to make the room homely for Felix. He was more like his nurse than his boyfriend. He helped Felix to dress, he cooked him food, he fussed over him and he held on tightly to his hand.
Felix was thankful for his help, but he was embarrassed by the attention and scared by the vulnerability of his new body. He often felt relieved when Louis returned to the CIC. When he was alone in his quarters Felix had nothing to do but practice walking on his crutches. Occasionally he would lift his head and catch his reflection in the mirror or the window. His skin was pale as a desert moon. His hair was turning grey at the edges. Lines and shadows had darkened his eyes.
He looked old and sickly, haggard and frail.
Felix didn’t want to believe it. He was twenty-seven.
~*~
Felix sat in his chair, gulping from the whisky bottle that sat on his desk. The liquor burned on his tongue. It tasted of rusty metal and foul dreams. He gazed out of his window into the cold black void; into the permanent night. Beneath its foreboding curtain lay the planet of ash, the garden of scars. Their murdered promise land. The shuttles had yet to return from the planet’s surface, but their messages had already reached those who had stayed behind on Galactica.
Earth was dead. Their last hope in the universe was gone.
Louis was kneeling before the chair, his lips sliding over Felix’s cock, taking him deep into his throat. Felix hummed in dull satisfaction, his tired eyes fluttering open and closed. The heat in his loins was as comforting as the whisky. His clammy skin stuck to the back of the chair. He was naked apart from his vest. The ugly stump of his leg was exposed; a twist of scar tissue that looked like a clenched fist. Somehow Louis was ignoring it. His hands stroked up Felix’s inner thighs, cupping his balls in his palms. Felix moaned, his head lolling back. Louis had hung up his uniform on the door of his wardrobe. Felix imagined it bursting into flames.
His cock twitched against Louis's tongue. Felix was close to climaxing now, but he was reluctant to withdraw from the warming folds of that mouth. Felix liked that it was Louis on his knees and not him. It certainly made a change. He liked that there was one person on this ship who was lonelier, more malleable and more desperate to please than he was. Felix placed his hand flat on Louis's head, petting him lazily, while slugging another mouthful from the whisky bottle.
Felix imagined himself as Gaius Baltar. He imagined himself as Colonel Tigh. He hated them all and he loathed himself. It infuriated him that he had followed those leaders to this end. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he were blind. Louis's mouth was still there; licking his wounds, soothing the burn...
Felix felt himself exploding in the darkness. His mind boiled away like a dying star. His torso twisted and shuddered in the chair. His leg sang. He felt like his whole body might as well be a scar; tingling with the phantom pain of all that he had lost. Felix started to laugh and whimper before Louis’s mouth rose up and covered his lips – sealing his hurt inside, bandaging it with love.
A kiss to halt his heart’s own apocalypse.
~*~
The ships returned from Earth and at first, nothing really changed.
Felix imagined that the fleet were in shock. For so long they had journeyed. They had fought their way through the stars. They had always been promised that Earth would be their reward. But all they ever had were their routines. So they kept on doing their jobs. They kept on following orders. What else was there to do? They were all still struggling with the sad futility of this quest.
Yes, everything stayed the same…except that now they were living without hope and they were living with the cylons. Sixes, Sharons and Leobens roamed the fleet, the very same models that had held humanity in a state of oppression on New Caprica. There were the new cylons too; the sleeper models who had been with them all along. There was Colonel Tigh and Chief Tyrol, the cylons who had tried to airlock Felix for being a traitor and a collaborator. There was Samuel Anders, the cylon who had shot a hole through Felix’s leg, crippling him for an attempt at mutiny. They were all cylons, they were all free and they were all forgiven.
And that was just…fine. Except that now Felix wasn’t sleeping. He was stumbling in the corridors. He kept dropping his pills. His crewmates looked at him with a pitying concern. They didn’t trust his calculations anymore.
In the end, they sent Felix for a week’s recovery on the Zephyr.
Then the Raptor jumped to the wrong location.
Then the passengers on that Raptor began to die one by one.
Then Felix Gaeta opened his eyes and he saw the world for what it was really like. And what he saw was a sea of corruption, swelling all around him, drowning human souls in its tide. Pretty soon it would swallow them all. Unless he did something to stop it. Unless he found a way to put things right...
Yes. It was time for a reckoning.
~*~
Louis carried Felix out of the Raptor in his arms. He was smiling; triumphant, like a storybook hero. Felix was bloody, nauseous and dizzied by the sudden rush of air. He rested his head under Louis’s chin. He clung to him like a security blanket. He had never felt so grateful for this man’s love.
Felix had someone now. And there was part of him that just wanted to stay with that someone and be comforted. He never wanted to leave the Galactica again. It seemed like every time he returned from an excursion there was a stretcher, a drip and an oxygen mask waiting for him in the hanger deck.
For a moment, Felix almost forgot his anger.
Then he woke up to find himself in the sickbay again and Cottle was trying to push another frakking cannula into his nose. Felix struggled, pushing their hands away and demanding to speak with the Admiral. Cottle gave him a stern look before threatening him with restraints and sedatives. Felix came close to losing his temper before Louis squeezed his hand and begged him to calm down.
Once the doctors had checked him over and washed the blood off him, Felix repeated his demands. He wasn’t going to let them brush this aside. Louis wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and followed at his heels as Felix marched up to the conference room. Even with his metal leg and his walking cane Felix’s gait was now bold and determined. He stepped into the room where Tigh and Helo sat waiting, a few sheets of paperwork spread out before them on the desk.
“Where’s the Admiral?” asked Felix. “I asked to speak with the Admiral!”
“Pipe down, son,” Tigh said wearily. “The Old Man’s in meetings with the Quorum on Colonial One. He’s got his hands full. Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
“I’m not telling you anything…” Felix snapped at the Colonel.
Louis pressed his shoulder, pushing him down into a chair. “I’m sorry, sirs. He’s still really shook up. He’s on a lot of medication…”
Tigh waved his hand, dismissing these apologies.
“I haven’t time for trauma or hysterics,” he muttered. “There’s enough of it on the civilian ships. Carry on, Mr Agathon. I have to get back to the CIC.”
Once Tigh had left the room, Felix grasped his cane and stood up again.
“It was a cylon!” he blurted. “An Eight! She killed them all.”
“Whoa…hold on there,” said Helo, fumbling for a pen and the form he needed to fill out. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Mr Gaeta?”
“She murdered them. The cylon murdered them. I need to speak to the Admiral. We need to call off the alliance. We can’t trust them!”
“Slow down,” Helo soothed. “I just need you to tell me what happened on the Raptor. This incident doesn’t have to mean the end of the alliance.”
Felix shook his head in disbelief. “But she killed them!” he repeated. His voice was cracking now, verging on tears, but he still had to speak. “They killed our friends on New Caprica. They killed our families back on the colonies. We can’t trust them. We can’t ever trust the cylons! This…this isn’t right!”
Helo sighed. “Felix, could you please just tell me what happened?”
Felix snorted a laugh, his lips twisting with resentment.
“Of course, there’s no point in trying to explain it to you…” he laughed bitterly, still shaking his head. “You’re married to one of them.”
Helo flushed with indignation. Felix had never insulted him over this. He had never called his friend a ‘toaster lover’. Not until this moment.
“Mr Hoshi…” said Helo, ignoring his remark and turning his attention to the man who stood nervously by Felix’s side. “I want you to escort Mr Gaeta back to his quarters and see that he gets some rest. This interview can be postponed until he has made a full recovery. That’ll be all for now.”
Felix stood staring at Helo, realising with sadness that he couldn’t trust him either. Louis took him by the arm, steering him out of the conference room. Felix released a sigh. He decided that it would be better to wait after all. Not because he needed to recover…because he needed time to plan.
~*~
Felix watched Louis through the shadows, his chest rising and falling where he lay on the mattress they shared. Felix had given up on sleeping himself. There was a new itch in his phantom leg. It wouldn’t let him rest.
“Um…Felix?” said Louis, raising his head. “What are you doing out of bed?”
Louis’s voice was tired and husky. He propped himself up on his elbows and snapped on their bedside lamp. Felix winced as its light stung his eyes. Ten minutes ago he had slipped off the mattress, crawled across the floor, opened Hoshi’s locker and taken out the bottle of Leonis wine they had been saving for a special occasion. Felix had lifted this wine onto the table, clambered up into a chair and proceeded to glug down half the bottle. But his leg still wouldn’t stop itching.
“Are you drinking?!” Louis exclaimed. “Baby, you took your painkillers before you went to bed. You really shouldn’t be drinking…”
Louis got to his feet, confused and flustering.
“Are you going to get me some more morpha?” Felix asked curtly.
“No! Cottle said you shouldn’t be taking any more of that stuff. Do you have any idea how much trouble me and Ishay are in? No more.”
Felix snorted. “Frak off and let me drink then.”
Louis seized him by the wrist, stretching out his left arm.
“Felix, will you look at what you’ve been doing to yourself!” he yelled, pointing to the purple bruise that was spreading from the needle mark in his skin.
Felix shrugged a shoulder, laughing off his concern.
“Oh Louis…you’re kind of sexy when you get angry.”
“Felix, this isn’t a joke!” Louis wailed, close to tears now. “I’m trying to help you. I used to feel so connected to you. That’s how I saved you when you were missing! But now it…it feels like you’re slipping away from me again…like you’re still lost in that dark empty void and I don’t know how to reach you...”
Felix shrugged again. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
A hand cracked against his jaw. Felix blinked and spluttered. It took him a moment to realise that Louis had actually slapped him. Felix tasted warm blood on the inside his mouth. He shook his head, laughing some more.
“Why don’t you hit me a bit harder, Louis?” he suggested. “If you knock me out then at least I won’t have to listen to your whining…”
Louis shook his head, the tears spilling over his cheeks now. He snatched the bottle from the tabletop. Felix lurched forward in his chair, trying to jump up and grab it back. He couldn’t, of course. His false leg and his crutch were both sitting propped against the bedside on the other side of the room.
Felix shook his head, slumping back in his seat. “Frak me, Louis…don’t you think it’s a little low to be stealing from a cripple?”
Louis hung his head, too upset to talk back.
“I…I love you…” he said.
These words were enough to shut Felix up. He pressed a hand to his face and pinched his temples. This conversation felt so painfully familiar. Felix was sure he had shared this exact same fight with Gaius little more than a year ago. Except now he was on the other side of it, looking back at Louis like he was a mirror reflection of his former self.
“I’m sorry for you…” Felix returned.
It wasn’t the answer Louis wanted to hear, but it was the best he could offer him. There was no response. Louis simply placed the wine back in his locker, securing it with a pad lock, before he coiled an arm around Felix’s waist and helped him back into their bed. Felix was surprised when Louis pulled him against his chest, cradling him in his arms, letting his tears spill onto Felix’s brow. Louis was still there for him. He would forgive him. He would take care of him.
But Felix still couldn’t sleep. The itching still hadn’t stopped.
Felix knew he was drowning now. He had fallen deep into that sea. His soul was writhing in the darkest places of the ocean. It was so dark that Felix couldn't tell which way was up and which was down. He didn't know which way to swim to find air...daylight...salvation. He was lost.
He hoped there would come a time for love.
THE END
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Date: 2008-12-30 04:03 am (UTC)You write such a compelling Dark!Felix. Besides all the painful moments with Hoshi, which I'll address in a minute, I wanted to cite the scene with Helo, which totally gutted me. These two have had a burgeoning friendship since the end of Season 3, and I really got the impression that despite his decision not to return to Galactica in time to save Felix's leg, Helo's friendship was one of the brighter spots in poor Felix's life lately. To see him attack Helo like that - when Helo was just asking him to give him the whole story, and when Felix hadn't ever gotten angry with him before (that we can see) even over the loss of his leg - was so shocking and heartbreaking, and yet a totally believable consequence of the events of the webisodes that hadn't occurred to me yet. Oh, and the way Hoshi was his shadow in that scene, trying to calm him down and make excuses for him, was so painful to watch. Hoshi in that scene in the CIC felt like an abused partner trying to prop up and make excuses for his abuser.
And speaking of Felix/Hoshi, Felix really *has* become practically a carbon copy of Baltar in the way he treats Hoshi, hasn't he? I could totally hear Baltar on New Caprica saying this to Felix: “If you knock me out then at least I won’t have to listen to your whining…”
In fact, I found myself so angry and yet sorry for Felix, in the same way I often do for Baltar in darker New Caprica fics. It was even more distressing to have Felix realize himself that he was repeating his own frakked-up relationship history in inverse.
I like too how you show us Felix's internal thoughts during his first "date" with Hoshi in Joe's Bar. You introduce the idea that from the beginning, Felix was in no place mentally to be in a relationship with anyone, and it only got worse after the Demetrius mission. But you also give these little hints about how Hoshi wasn't really his ideal type, and even if none of the events of Season 4 had happened, how Felix might very well have considered himself settling for a relationship with someone like Hoshi, so unlike the flashy, glamorous, dominant personality Felix fell hard for in Baltar. That you have Hoshi utter this line in the middle of their argument: "I used to feel so connected to you. That’s how I saved you when you were missing!" really spoke volumes about how they probably never truly connected at all, that Hoshi was kind of fooling himself. I was reminded of one of Hoshi's lines in an upcoming webisode where he talks about what attracted him to Felix. That line feels even more darkly ironic to me now.
However, I loved too that Hoshi shows some righteous anger, that he slapped Felix, that he locked away the wine, that he stuck to his guns when it really mattered. In a way, he has carried himself with more backbone around Dark!Felix than Felix seemed to do with Baltar until the very end of the New Caprica arc. And yet, you see in the way he follows Felix around, how you describe him beaming as he rescues Felix like a storybook hero, how Hoshi is getting something a little frakked-up out of this caretaker/boyfriend relationship with Felix, and he's in over his head with Felix's darkness. You write an interestingly needy Hoshi here. (Oh, btw, the older segment works really well in this larger context, although I kind of wish it was still taking place in Adama's quarters - such a brilliantly dark choice of setting.)
The only tiny bit of relief in this story comes at the end, when you show that Felix does actually have some buried care for Hoshi, if maybe not love, in the way that he wants to protect Hoshi from the repercussions of his plan.
Great, great fic.
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Date: 2008-12-30 04:24 pm (UTC)The Helo scene came about by accident. At first I was just going to have Felix yelling at cylon!Tigh, then being more civil towards Helo. Then the Helo/Sharon thing crept up on me in a nasty way. It does make me worry about how many bridges Felix is going to burn by siding with Zarek and being anti-cylon. Not just Helo, but Dee. Man, 4.5 is going to hurt.
As a Baltar/Gaeta fan I can't help but characterise Hoshi and Gaeta/Hoshi in a way that extends and mirrors my frakked up pairing of choice. I definitely think Baltar has rubbed off on Felix. And Hoshi is very much like a S1/2 Gaeta. I think Hoshi is a little more dreamy and spiritual - and yes, I do get the impression that Hoshi's love for Felix is a little deluded. I also think that he is getting something out of mollycoddling Felix, even indulging him in ways that he really should not (like too much morpha!) There are a lot of people who get through life by having someone else to take care of. I can definitely imagine Hoshi having co-dependancy issues.
Well, I decided to shift the setting from the Admirals quarters because at the end of the webisodes, with Felix wanting to speak to Adama, it seems he still has some respect for the Old Man. Boozing and oral sex in the Admirals quarters is something I'll save for crazy!Felix once he has overthrown the administration and is ready to build his evil empire of resturaunts shaped like food. Hehe!
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Date: 2008-12-30 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 10:42 am (UTC)Oh God, yes! Same here. That line came in as quite a bit of a shock... because it's so brutally true, he was only twenty-seven!
Geez, cappy, you have some serious skills, girl! That's all I can say, I'm still speechless!
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Date: 2009-01-07 10:56 am (UTC)I don't know Felix's age exactly, but if he finished college at the usual age (20/21) then served on Galactica for 3 years he would be about 24 at the beginning of the series and 27 now. Yet AJ often plays him like a troubled old man.
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Date: 2008-12-30 12:23 pm (UTC)I really hope Felix never gets that bad. It's so hard to watch since we know he's driven by pain.
The scene with Helo reminds me of something you said about Felix in a comment... how his singing and the stabbing of Baltar are attempts to ask for help, but people don't get it. I had a feeling that he's doing something like this in that scene, too, but he's too far gone for anybody to understand it now.
Great fic.
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Date: 2008-12-30 04:41 pm (UTC)Just to be clear, I do think Felix is a good person. I think he's a very good person. A better person that I am myself. But I wanted to explore how things like pain, betrayal, trauma, drug abuse, etc, can have seriously damaging effects on any good person.
Felix is not himself in this fic. He needs help. And yes, he doesn't know how to ask for it and other people don't know how to give it. I hope it doesn't get this bad on the show either but between "Resturaunts shaped like food" and "I guess a pity frak is out of the question then" - I'm trying to prepare myself.
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Date: 2008-12-30 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-12-30 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 05:10 pm (UTC)" “I…I love you…” he said.
These words were enough to shut Felix up. He pressed a hand to his face and pinched his temples. He felt like something was constricting his chest. This conversation felt so painfully familiar. Felix was sure he had shared this exact same fight with Gaius little more than a year ago. Except now he was on the other side of it, looking back at Louis like he was a mirror reflection of his former self.
“I’m sorry for you…” Felix returned. "
TIS A VERAL DAGGER IN MY HEART. D:
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Date: 2008-12-30 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 07:13 pm (UTC)Yeah, this was beautiful. I have to laugh, because I imagine Jane Espenson saying, "No! No! No! No! There was more to it before that!" and RDM rubbing his hands together Gollum style and hissing, "but we like this version, precious."
Heh.
As you know, I definitely prefer a lighter version. HOWEVER. That remark actually only extends to pre-Demetrius. Basically, I like the idea that they had a "healthy and stable" (to quote JE) relationship pre-Demetrius. Post-Demetrius... I hate to say it, but I can see this perfectly. The scene where they have the big fight and Hoshi slaps him... ouch. But yet, I love it, because while Hoshi is for the most part coming off as dreamy and softer (both in your fic and the webisodes), it does show that Hoshi's got the steel that he must have had to be in the CIC on the Pegasus.
The co-dependency issues were interesting, and I can't say I didn't believe them, that's for sure. I really, really, really hate to say it, because except for this part I LIKE Hoshi/Gaeta, but at the end of 10 when Gaeta's going to Zarek, Hoshi did come off as kind of whiny. Which is funny, because for the rest of the webisodes he didn't. But I can see where you got the co-dependency thing from.
I laughed and was beaming at the Louis and Lucas thing. I don't think I need to explain why :) I also found the line about Felix having his own stretcher, drip, and oxygen mask inappropriately (in a good way) funny. I love it when a writer can slip in commentary on the show like that and make it completely natural coming from the character.
Like the others, I also loved the scene where he burned his bridge with Helo. I actually would love to see a scene in the series where they come up against each other, because they are the two big idealist/moral centers, and it would be (will be?) very interesting to see them on opposite sides of the battle.
Believe it or not, my heart broke a lot less for Hoshi in this fic than it did in the webisodes. In the webisodes, I favor the notion that the two of them had been together for a while pre-Demetrius, and the relationship was a lot more balanced. In that scenario, Hoshi has a reason to believe that Felix loves him and there's a history there. (I wonder if that's also what we're supposed to get out of Racetrack's comments about them being a good couple. "We can't really show it in this timeframe, but at some point, they worked.") In this scenario, I found myself feeling a bit like Felix, a little more contemptuous of Hoshi. Dude, you sleep with a guy once and you build this in your head? Yeah. Come back to reality, Hoshi.
But although this is dark, I really loved it. Excellent job! (BTW- it got recced over on scifi.com forums :) )
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Date: 2008-12-30 08:43 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think you're right that pre-Demetrius Gaeta/Hoshi must have had a more positive and developed relationship. I fear my Hoshi must come off as a little stalkerish - insisting that he and Felix are deeply mystically connected after a one night stand. But then I have a habit of making them mirror the Baltar/Gaeta ship, meaning Hoshi is more precious about it than Felix. I guess on reflection this was a fic that explored the new crazy/dark Felix more than it explored Gaeta/Hoshi. I mainly used Hoshi as a witness to Felix's breakdown.
I'd like to write a story from Hoshi's POV though. I don't blame the guy if he has some co-dependancy issues. He needs something to keep him going and maybe taking care of his boyfriend helps his own stability. And yes, I always think Hoshi must have some steel in him if he survived under Cain. But on the surface he is totally woobie over Felix.
Oooh! Recced? I don't go to SF.forums much but that's cool!
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Date: 2008-12-30 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-03 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-06 03:46 am (UTC)Loved the parallels between Baltar/Felix & Felix/Hoshi - so clever.
It seemed like every time he returned from an excursion there was a stretcher, a drip and an oxygen mask waiting for him in the hanger deck.
Lol! In a sea of darkness, nothing better than some unexpected humor. ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 11:00 am (UTC)I'm glad the Baltar/Gaeta parallels worked!
Thanks for reading *hugs*
I've Got To Say
Date: 2009-01-20 11:42 am (UTC)Would you mind if I friend you?
Re: I've Got To Say
Date: 2009-01-20 05:35 pm (UTC)Friended you back!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-07 10:59 am (UTC)