her majesty's a pretty nice girl but she changes from day to day.

la confidential ficlet: the devil was wiser (jack vincennes)

2006-05-04T03:16:09Z

This is really just a drive by to let you all know that I still exist, honestly! I was doing some hard drive spring cleaning last night and I found this, and I thought, "Huh. That is not as bad as the yuletide anxiety made me think it was. In fact, that is rather decent! I shall post it to the livejournals in order to prove my continued existence!" So that is what I am doing.

We'll call this a coming attraction to a crazy post in a livejournal near you (*cough* mine) but, y'all, Dark Shadows Revival is on DVD. There are no words.

The Big V sits all alone at his kitchen table, drinking another shot, smoking another Cuban cigar, and aren’t those illegal, Jack? Oh, boyo, not if you know the right people, and the Big V knows all the right people, the right ones to know if you’re breaking the law and the right ones to know if you’re enforcing it; the lines between the two get hard to see in afternoon glare, when sun comes down thick and bright.

Blows out a ring of smoke, watches it drift -- hazy, falling apart toward the cold glass of the sliding doors, the oh so glamorous two foot deep balcony over the skinny black road below. The neighborhood’s just this side of respectable, just close enough to dangerous to make the women who follow him home sometimes gasp, red finger nails into his coat jacket, red lips against his ear, “Oh, Jack, you’re so brave,” and “All part of the job, kiddo,” he tells them, and they love it. Each and every goddamned one of ‘em. Just like they love the piece strapped to his ankle, the red leather of his shoulder holster, the gleam of his handcuffs when he tosses them onto the desk, the clink and jingle of the cuffs opening and closing around their wrists as The Big V, Sgt. Jack Vincennes, shows them how a cop really does a pat down, and if they close their eyes and squint, maybe they can almost see Brett Chase.

Maybe Jack hasn’t spent enough time drinking if he’s still thinking about Badge of Honor. A cabinet of half empty bottles watches him balefully from the carpet as he knocks back another whiskey, mouth pinching with it as his eyes fall closed, his head falls back. He touches the skin of his throat, right over the Adam’s apple, runs his thumb along the long lateral line from ear to ear, and takes another shot so he can feel the shit go down from the outside, too, swallows hard so he can feel his throat working under the scarless skin there, and ladies and gentleman The Big V is not fucking drunk enough for THIS. Last time he got – sentimental about a case, he was still working a beat, wearing a uniform.

The Big V is not a bleeding heart. No way, no how, and the long hot, bitter pull he takes off the bottle next leaves him wet eyed and blinking at his own reflection in the sliding glass door. And he thinks, here it is folks, Jack Vincennes! White male, nearly forty years old, black silk bathrobe, white cotton pajamas, expensive booze and cigar, cheap slippers. Thinning hair, thickening gut. Alone on a Saturday night with a manila case file at his elbow. So exciting, Jack, such a thrill.

Yeah, darlin’. You bet.

omfg.

2006-04-28T08:02:28Z

okay this post is post brought to you by panic. panic and stress. and caffeine. panic, stress, caffeine and nicotine. and a fanatical devotion to the pope.

i'll come in again.

let's try this in list format. compare and contrast the following bits of information:

tonight i had to:

write three papers

tonight i have:

waxed a friend
bought a wig
got in an argument about the existence of an objective reality
drank so much goddamned caffeine i think my whole body is going to explode and the left over pieces will quiver on the walls with the trembling energy that now courses through my wild veins.
written about three pages of one paper, sent off an email for an extension on another, and...yeah. okay. i have five hours.

i'm also starting to spell everything phonetically. i think i'm in a regressive state brought on by stress.

it is time for the crazy eyes, my friends. may their reign be short.

nifra_idril @ 2006-04-23T21:55:00

2006-04-24T01:55:38Z

Hello mes amis! I have had a lovely weekend, and I hope you all have, too. I want to say thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Saturday! *hugs you all* I was all warmed and happy to get the birthday love! Danke, danke, mille grazie and merci!

I am, apparently, feeling like switching up the language every now and again today. It's cool, though. Ain't ever too many ways to say thank you.

Gimme a laugh, y'all.

2006-04-14T03:08:56Z

I'ma be up all night paper writing. Oh yes. Oh yes, my children. So, I stumbled over a meme that looks like it could yield entertaining responses, and this is it. So let me know:

If you had me alone, locked up in your house for twenty-four hours and I had to do whatever you wanted me to, what would you have me do? All comments will be permanently screened because it's a secret. Then repost this in your LJ. You might be surprised with the responses you get.

nifra_idril @ 2006-04-12T14:12:00

2006-04-12T18:13:11Z

Sometimes, I surprise myself. I do things and I think, "Huh. I didn't think I was that person," and then I go on about my life with a new found sense of who and what I am. Today, I've discovered that I am the person who can and will wear a pink gingham tube top. I am wearing it right now, with a lovely little sweater, and I look adorable. Yes, I am that adorable, adorable person. *bats eyelashes*

Now, I know that everyone's asking who their fandom boyfriend is, but I won't ask. I'll tell. My new fandom boyfriend is J.D. from Scrubs. I want you all to just close your eyes, and visualize the clutzy, crazy, insane internal monologue and very nutty ideas that would result from this union. That is correct. J.D. and I are made for each other.

I was walking down the street today and a little girl was walking with her big brother (or very young father - we're talking late teens, but it's possible), and she smiled at me and then looked at me and said, "When I get old, I want to look like her." Isn't that wonderful? Barring the neccesary "ohmygod I'm totally not old, but I can see how old I would look to a 3 year old" freak out, I mean. Mainly though: wonderful.

Family Resemblance.

2006-04-10T19:57:02Z

The following is an actual conversation with my father over IMs. The topic I am trying to discuss is the Nif!Bro's fantastic New York High School Field Trip this upcoming weekend.

Nif!Dad: HI HI PUFFY AMIYOUMI SHOW!!!
nifra_idril: Will he have any time to even go to Cafe Roma with me or anything during this trip? I really want him to meet some of my friends.
nifra_idril: HI HI PUFFY AMIYOUMI SHOW!
Nif!Dad: HAI HAI PUPHEE AMMI OOMI SHOW!
nifra_idril: Phonetics!
Nif!Dad: Asionics!
nifra_idril: Academics! Histrionics!
nifra_idril: But really - will he have any free time?
Nif!Dad: I have also been told, "No grandparents, no uncles" as in they won't be leaving the hotel except as part of a group outing.
nifra_idril: But -- really. Sisters! This sister could go TO the hotel?
Nif!Dad: I will, of course, ask again, plus I believe that they are allowed visitors at the hotel
nifra_idril: Okay, cool.
Nif!Dad: Playah, I believe the term you're searching for is "sistahs."
nifra_idril: Say to his teacher, "Hey, can you help a sistah out?"
Nif!Dad: Well, if you have ever met his teacher, you would know what I mean when I say that I believe the answer would be an unqualified "NO!"
nifra_idril: Why she gotta hate a playa?
nifra_idril: Can't she show no love? For her homies?
Nif!Dad: WOHS IMUYIMA YFFUP IH IH
nifra_idril: Sometimes, you scare me a lot.
Nif!Dad: H
I

H
I
P
U
F
F
Y
A
M
Y
U
M
I

S
H
O
W
nifra_idril: This is one of those times.
nifra_idril: Did you get into the Easter candy or something?
Nif!Dad: No Peeps, no jelly beans; I am mocked cruelly by my own purchasing choices.

In case any of you were wondering where I got it - and by "it", I mean my effervescent charm and COMPLETE INSANITY - that would be where.

confessions.

2006-04-10T17:41:50Z

1.

I sometimes don't charge my cell phone on purpose. I know it's bad, but sometimes i kind of look at the last bar of battery, and then I look at my charger, and then I look at my solitude and I think, "You know, I could be unreachable for a while and that would be fine by me." I think this is a hold over of spending an entire summer cell phone-less, and my incredibly bad phone karma of the past few years, but sometimes I like the idea that if somebody wants to talk to me, they're really going to have to work for it. Plus, I like not getting all the somewhat urgent, "Oh my God where are you, you have a car and I was really hoping you could _________." phone calls, which are generally all about coffee and cigarettes, which I think says a lot about your average college student (or maybe just my group of friends). Either way, sometimes not setting the alarm and not getting a million phone calls is nice, especially when you've spent two weeks in motion and you just need to stop, collaborate (with yourself?), and listen (to nothing?). (I can't help myself sometimes with the song lyrics. It's a sickness.)

2.

I think I enjoy cleaning my ears too much. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment that is rivaled only by cutting my toe nails.

3.

I have trained myself to actively crave ramen noodles. Oh, the sodium. Delicious, delicious sodium.

I am choosing to think of this as a life skill - could I perhaps put it on a resume? Also, I'm starting to wonder if I can put everything on a resume. Things from, "I make quiche!" to "Dude, I can totally head bang better than anyone you know, probably. Check out my head of hair!" These are the things that I will probably not need in an office setting, but I can't imagine why not.

4.

I become irrationally furious at all weight loss commercials. This is because it's always like this: "Hey, if you're fat, then you're unhappy! But if you're fixing your body situation you're going to want to dance and smile and you'll have friends! The only way to have friends is to lose weight! Oh, God, lose that weight! Lose it, fatty!" It makes me want to shake the television and say things like, "Do you know how many girls you just convinced that bulimea is the way to go, motherfucking ad agents!?"

5.

My window overlooks the yard of my across the street neighbors. It's an entire family from grandparents down that lives in one big white, gabled house. In the front yard, the grandmother is gardening. She's wearing a red flowery skirt and a bright yellow apron and a big blue straw hat. Every now and then she stops and rubs at the lower part of her back before bending back to the earth, which is dark and still wet. When she digs her spade into the ground she does it with regular even motions - it looks amazingly the same every time. And for all that she's old, and the white fuzz of her hair escapse from the confines of the hat, wisps over her thin, brown neck, as she digs, it looks perfectly effortless. Her arm pulls back and goes forward, and dirt spills off the dark metal like she's moving in water. Like her bones don't hurt, which they must, because when she walks her legs shake and she holds onto whatever's closest to her. But now, she turns digs at an even pace, humming to herself a tune that the wind carries into my apartment every now and then - just little snitches of something that sounds like a hymn whenever the breeze strikes right. Every now and then, she turns her face toward the tall, white barked tree above her, and the cloud dotted sky above that, and she laughs.

"Lord have mercy," she said one time. "The real spring has come, at last."

the daquiri is a learner's permit for life

2006-04-08T19:48:50Z

1.

There are several different kinds of rain, and I think this week it's safe to say that I've walked through nearly all of them. There is the pleasant rain of last night, which falls pretty gently and makes a nice shushing noise when it does, and it alleviates the mugginess of the air and when you breathe, it feels fresh.

There is the somewhat less pleasant, but still pretty okay rain of today which falls in drips and drabs like a petulant child trying to make up its mind about what it wants to be.

Then there is the totally fucking horrid rain of earlier this week, that comes in slant-wise and stings your eyes and doesn't bead up on tree branches like little glass circlets but instead collects in mud-holes and soaks your shoes and your socks and it's cold and it smells like wet sweaters.

Also this week - the snow. The snow is the red headed stepchild of this week, weatherwise, and it had best know when to make itself scarce or I'ma have to take action.

2.

Every joint in my body makes a frightening crunching noise when it cracks, and today every joint in my body has taken to cracking and popping like I'm fucking Rice Krispies. I do not approve.

3.

I have serious and abiding thoughts about Battlestar Galactica, and Starbuck, who is the Grand High Poohbah In Training of the Good Ol' Boys Soceity, God love her.

4.

I may, or may not, have had a nightmare last night which involved me bludgeoning a koala bear with a fish while it waved air brushed acrylic claws of doom in my face.

The "may not" in the above paragraph indicates the shame I feel that my sleeping mind is so fucking crazed.

5.

I do not often lose my temper, but y'all, I lost it but good this week, and after a full day of stewing, I've decided that I feel the better for it. Fly free, temper. Fly free.

6.

I am completely horrified about the whole Duke Lacross team thing. I really don't have much to say beyond that - I know a lot of horrible things happen every day, but this is just so apalling that it's sitting with me, deep in my ribcage, heavy and hard and horrible.

Firstly, I want you to realize that my hair is not a tootsie roll.

2006-04-02T00:53:07Z

There are times in life, when an idea hits you. Not one of those earth shattering epiphany type ideas, nor even a niggling back-brain story idea that whispers at you about this one feeling that you can maybe create on paper if you just sift through the words you have long enough. No, these ideas are simply brilliant, though somewhat shakey in terms of execution or analysis, and you believe in them with your whole soul, because honestly, you think, there is simply nothing more true or awesome.

I'd like to share some of these ideas with you.

1. ARG! AVAST YE, UNHAND THAT MINIVAN!

I'd like to state for the records that pirates are unmitigatedly cool. Minivans, on the other hand, are not so cool. BUT! They do have those doors that slide open on either side, leaving the middle section of the minivan as a breeze-through or staging area, which allows the supple mind (yes, I called my mind supple - what are you gonna do about it, huh? Punk?) to think of a way to combine the cool of pirates with the functionality of the minivan.

I want you to imagine that part of the minivan as a staging area for a highway pirate attack. Stay with me, stay with me, all shall be revealed in time.

Here's the scenario: you pull up on along side a car that seems to have particularly interesting loot (read: good road snacks or rocking cds!), and with the launcher that you will have attached to your minivan, you launch not one, but two grappling hooks onto the other vessel. Then with monkey-like agility you and your crew of miscreants board the other car and procure the booty.

A sample conversation would go like this:

Minivan Pirate: Avast ye! Hand over the gummy worms and frappucinos!

Driver: ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?

Minivan Pirate: You have been boarded! We are purloining your sugary goodness!

Driver: WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

Then, after confiscating the goods, the pirates return to the staging area of the minivan, and the minivan flotilla makes its way toward safe haven, which I imagine as a strip mall. Perhaps with a gym that's advertising a pilates class, and a moderately priced food chain restuarant.

This parking lot will be filled with minivans that are proudly bearing a full-rear window sticker of the Jolly Roger, and a scurvy lot of pirates who lounge in the half opened vehicles, tearing viciously into the coolers worth of road snacks they will have...liberated. There could be rival minivan pirate gangs, and vendettas within them.

It would be like drama on the high seas...but on the highways. Tell me it's not cool. Go on. I won't believe you.

2. The Hangover as Essential, or Chaser Plus is the Enemy

I have talked about this before, and some lucky members of the world have seen me hung over, and friends, I will be brief on this point, but I believe that eliminating the hang over is a drastic error in judgment as the hangover is a neccesary part of human survival, if that human happens to have been over-served the previous evening.

The hangover gives you a fuzzy blanket wrapped over all the stupid shit you may, or may not, have done the night before. The hangover makes survival your first priority, and suddenly it doesn't matter that at five in the morning you drunk dialed high school friends to tell them that you've always thought they wore colors that spoke to you of a certain ennui, and that you wish that they could, like you, partake in the joy of life. The hangover makes you taste the sweet, sweet water in a way you've never tasted it before -- delicious, cool deliverence. The hangover, though not to be enjoyed, does give you a certain perspective on the world that cannot be duplicated.

The hangover is a punishment, and you know this well, but it makes you feel a little bit like you're a trooper. It makes you feel like you've earned the face-down bed-flop in the afternoon. It makes you wear your sunglasses inside sometimes, and that kind of makes you look like a rockstar.

The hangover is painful, but then every birth is. The hangover, my friends, is the buffer between you and the actual world you inhabit until you can mentally cope with it. In conclusion: Chaser Plus, you are the devil.

3. Nicholas Sparks' Machiavellian Plot

I freely admit that I love mawkishly maudlin movies. I will stare at the screan with weepy eyes, clutching at my kleenex with a trembling lip as the consumptive heroine collapses gracefully into the strong arms of her stalwart hero. I do not deny this.

I enjoy A Walk to Remember. I enjoy The Notebook. I'm not proud.

But I am convinced that Nicholas Sparks is slowly, secretely poisoning our minds. He draws you in, he gets you involved. You think abstractly at first about how you may or may not be comfortable with the Christian propaganda, or the gender politics, or the inherent social commentary or the jingoism that floats every so closely above the head of the nostalgia upon which he relies. For the first few moments, you may roll your eyes. You may snort. You may comment on ridiculous dialogue or perceived mediocrity.

But then, your eyes glaze over and you fall deep, deep into the earnest love story he's showing you. You're hypnotized - it's like the man is fucking Rasputin. There is nothing you can do.

Lifetime movies do not even do this as intensely. Those you still carry a sense of irony with you while you watch. Nicholas Sparks annihilates your irony. He leaves you no choice. He makes a zombie of you, and you (and I) love it. He is clearly in league with the forces of darkness.

existence = motion?

2006-03-27T22:51:01Z

I have returned to school, and the life that I have created for myself apart from the roiling mass of family that is mine. I love them all, but they are like a herd of drunken bear cubs -- adorable, dangerous, and somewhat insane as a concept. I have internet for the first time in almost a week, which is nice, and yet somehow does not actually make it easier to get the things done that I need to get done (witness: I am LJ-ing instead of _______ <--- insert thing I need to do there).

I simply had to share the horror, though. And the horror is this:

I am rifling through my mother's desk, looking for a lighter, as I plan to go outside and sneak a cigarette behind the garage as though I was fourteen years old out of the desire to be a Positive Role Model for the Siblets, who are all still very impressionable and treat me as though I am a god and they are my creepy and troubling cult, chanting in front of pictures of me and repeating the wisdom that I have handed down to them ("Dude, don't eat that shit, it will give you gas," forever and ever amen). Now, in a desk, most people keep pens. Most people keep paper. Most people keep odds and ends.

My mother, apparently, keeps condoms and lube in her desk. I found this out by opening The Wrong Drawer and finding the offending items. My response was to slam the drawer shut, throw up my hands, shriek "Unclean! Unclean! God, unclean!" as I ran from the room. I still have this full body shudder thing happening as I think of it.

As a dutiful child would, I want my mother to be happy. I want her to be in a good relationship, with someone who will hold her hand, and watch Antiques Roadshow with her, and cuddle with her. This cuddling is to be fully clothed, you understand. Any and all kissing would have to be church appropriate kissing. Behind closed doors, they would discuss art or play chess or simply dissolve into balls of white light. I don't think about it too hard, and with good reason -- which is that she is my mother. Perhaps I'm too sensitive, but "mother" and "condom" belong nowhere near one another in any configuration of words.

The horror, I say, the horror.

I have brilliant moments. Also, lemon bars.

2006-03-20T01:29:30Z

Today I saw a high school teacher of mine on the street, and then we spent about a half hour talking about my geeky high school extracurricular (mock trial) the way that you see people talking about their football glory days. It wasn't until my littlest sister coughed and said "I don't want...your life" ala Varsity Blues that I realized how retarded we were being.

To compensate for it, I bought her ice cream and let her play her music in the car. I even sung (can it be called that if what you're doing is hesitantly attempting to scream along with a very angry screamo type song?) with her. This has redeemed me.

But! The best part of the day - are you guys ready for this? I realized, like the pure genius I am, that I could download the last epi of BSG on iTunes and then? I could watch it finally instead of poring over the TWOP recap and teasing details out of Lyra. It was wild. (Yeah, it really did take me this long to put the whole thing together in my head. I'm a real sharp one.)

But the thing about finally watching Lay Down Your Burdens 2 is that pretty much all I want to do now is write Cylon Baby Daddies AU, or just BSG fic in general, and what I really, truly must be writing is remix.

Send me strength, friends. I will need it.

this bowtie is really a camera

2006-03-18T18:13:28Z

1.

It's my first night home, and I'm curled up on the couch with my thirteen year old sister. She's sullenly glaring at the television, saying repeatedly "There's nothing on." I reach over into her lap and grab for the remote, and after a brief struggle during which I am forced to resort to rubbing whipped cream from our desert into her hair, I get the remote.

"You," I tell her, "just don't know where to look."

So I turn on the WB, only to find Supernatural. She rolls her eyes and scoffs and throws a pillow at me, saying, "OMG (let me note that she actually said the individual letters - like this "Oh-Em-Gee"), the WB is totally for losers," with all the derision that only a thirteen year old girl is capable of.

Undaunted, I just nod at the screen as the Winchester-mobile rumbles across a road. "Wait for it," I say, patting her leg. "Wait for it."

At the first close up on Padalecki and Ackles, her jaw drops open and she lets out a squeal of high pitched giggle, complete with full puppy-like body writhe.

I begin counting off on my fingers for the inevitable explosion of glee. It takes until six for her to shriek, "OH-EM-GEE!! THEY ARE SO HOT!"

"Oh, I know," I say smugly, smirking at her.

She sputters on and on and on about the various hotness, until finally I smack her with a pillow and say, "You're making it hard for me to enjoy Dean."

"Dean? Oh-Em-Gee, Dean is way not the hot brother," she says, and I freeze, staring at her.

The pillow fight that follows that pronouncement is epic, and ends when my mother walks into the room to find me pinning the littlest Nif!Sister to the couch and waving the bowl with whipped cream near her face, yelling, "Who's the hottest, huh, huh? Who's the hottest, kid?"

"SAM!!" she keeps howling, and then we both notice my mother, standing there.

She's got her arms crossed and a hand over her mouth, her eyebrows are about to merge with her hairline.

"Oh. Hi, Mom," I say, smiling really wide and sitting back and pulling the littlest Nif!Sister into a hug.

"Girls," she says sternly, and we both stiffen. "You both need to realize that Dean is the hot brother, all right? And stop playing with your food."

Then she walks out.

After a second of blinking shock, I turn to my sister and stick out my tongue. "See?" I say. "Even Mom thinks so."

"You're how old again?" the Nif!Sister asks, glaring, and it is only then that I feel shame.

2.

The supermarket, and my mother and I are shopping together while cheerfully exchanging family gossip. She's just gotten through telling me about the new diet one aunt is trying out and I've just told her about my cousin's secret plan to get our aunt to send him surfing on break, and we're rounding a corner, and her face goes white.

She kind of bends her knees until her face is directly parallel to the handle bar and her entire body is hidden behind the metal of the shopping cart she's pushing, and she hisses, "Oh, shit."

"Mom?" I say, concerned.

"No, no, no, do not turn around, do not look at me, you are shopping alone, you're shopping alone - Oh FUCK, stand in front of me!" she whisper yells, pulling at me, until she's hidden between me and the cereal behind her.

Now, I am pretty good at going with the flow, so I pick up a box of cereal and pretend to be engrossed in it. I read the ingredients aloud, with a furrowed brow, nodding to myself as though I really care about the mono di-glyrcerides or whatever happen to be in it. A steady stream of people is passing by, and my mother is still crouched against my shins.

"Mom?" I finally ask out of the side of my mouth. "What the fuck?"

"Just a little while longer," she says frantically. "Please, please."

So I stay where I am until she finally pushes me away and slaps her sunglasses on her face.

"So, explanation?" I say, finally. "Because that was all a little too weird."

She takes a deep breath and purses her lips to the side, finally grates out, "I told my ex-boyfriend I was moving to South America because I couldn't bear to tell him I just wasn't attracted to him. He couldn't see me." and saunters off.

I, left holding the cereal, shake my head, and put it back carefully.

My mother pops her head back around the aisle and says, "What? You thought you were the only one in this family who got themself into weird situations?"

nifra_idril @ 2006-03-08T21:13:00

2006-03-09T02:07:59Z

y'all, there is an unidentified smell in my apartment and a hell of an ache in my head and belly. the latter i blame on burger king, the former is pretty much up for grabs as it is un. i. dentified. also, rank.

mainly, this is just to say: hello. i love porn. the song most of the time by bob dylan reminds me of galen tyrol. that is all.

It's an addiction. Honestly.

2006-03-06T00:13:59Z

I have things I want to say about the last episode of BSG, but I must run away very shortly. In lieu of that, I bring to you more Cylon Baby Daddies. No spoilers for the last epi.

Neither of them sleeps well. Galen stares at the ceiling, mostly, or sometimes shuts the curtains he’s strung up around his bed and looks over the schematics for the Blackbird, trying to find a way to manage a Laura II. Something better, something faster, something harder to break. He traces the lines of the hull over and over again with his fingers, and listens to Helo breathing slowly, deliberately, until his eyes burn and shut.

Helo talks a lot – he’s always been good at that. He talks to himself, to Hera, and sometimes he talks to Galen. Not just about the day, or the way his raptor felt when he was on CAP, or something Starbuck said. He talks about his parents, he talks about Aerilon, he talks about the future, he talks about Hera’s, he talks about Caprica. He talks about Sharon.

He isn’t afraid to ask questions, and in the dark, Galen can even answer them sometimes.

“You still angry at me?” Helo asks him.

Yes, every day, he thinks, and shifts onto his side. You should have stayed with her, you should have come back to Galactica instead of being a hero, you should have never touched her, you should have gotten to her first, you should have been here when she died the first time, she should have broken your heart instead of mine. She should never have loved you.

Helo watches him, waiting, unafraid and neutral, and Galen sighs, and then he says, “Some days. “ and he thinks We’re the same. I can’t blame you for that. “It doesn’t matter, though. It isn’t – it’s not like it used to be.”

Helo nods, rubs his head a little and lies back on his bed. Galen watches him over the crib.

“Before the attacks, when Sharon – Boomer --,” he catches himself, and Galen almost laughs, because it isn’t like Boomer and Sharon were different people, like Helo’s Sharon was any less Boomer or his Boomer was any less Sharon. “When you two first started – when you started seeing each other, I was surprised. I was jealous, because I’d thought that we – me and her – I thought we were going somewhere. I cared about her. I didn’t hate you, though. You were a good guy. You treated her right. I respected that.” Helo turns his head, and almost smiles. “I just really frakin’ wished she’d picked me.”

He thinks of Sharon in the weeks before she died. He thinks of her lying on the white hospital bed, the bandage strapped across her cheek, her brittle voice and her hard eyes. He thinks of how she looked when he walked away.

It takes some time, but Galen manages to say, “Maybe she’d have been happier if she had.”

“Hey,” Helo says softly. “Hey.”

Galen shakes his head. “I couldn’t help her. Before she – before the first Sharon shot Adama, she was so scared. She knew something was wrong, knew she was going to do something, and I couldn’t help her. I left her alone, and she tried to – she shot herself, you know. “ He sits up and runs a hand over his eyes. “I couldn’t help her, so I left her. You wouldn’t have.”

“We don’t know that,” Helo tells him. “You did your best. You did what you could –“

“I left her, and she was scared,” Galen says flatly. “I wasn’t what she needed. You were. You never left her. You were there until the end, and she knew that.”

“That why you’re here now?” Helo asks him, leaning up on one elbow. He reaches a long arm over, touches the top of Hera’s head. “Trying to make up for that?”

Galen looks over at her, snoring lightly as she sleeps. She’s kicked the blankets off her legs, and without thinking about it, he reaches over and pulls them up, tucks them around her round body. “Part of it, I guess.”

“And the rest?” Helo’s voice is sharp. When Galen looks up, Helo’s watching him closely.

“When I was on Kobol,” Galen says slowly, “I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know about Sharon and Adama – I didn’t know she was a Cylon. I didn’t know anything, really, except that people were dying, and I thought I was next. I was – I hoped it would be me next, instead of Cally or Baltar or hell, even Crashdown. There was a toaster coming, bullets everywhere, and I thought, ‘Okay. Okay,’ just like that.” He shakes his head. “It didn’t seem like – there wasn’t a reason to keep going. On Pegasus, too. It just – I was tired. I thought if I could just stop, you know? Just stop and rest and not have to worry about getting back up.”

On the crib, Helo’s knuckles whiten and his jaw tightens. “You wanted to die.”

“When she died, I was there. I don’t know – I don’t know if you know about that,” Galen says, looking down again. “She was – we were in the hallway. She was wearing handcuffs, they were taking her to the brig. They would have executed her anyway, it was just – sooner. She was scared. She was looking up at me, and she –,” he breaks off, because he hasn’t talked about this, he can’t talk about this, not even here. Not even in the dark. “Anyway, since then I haven’t – I’d wake up. I’d go on shift. I’d work until I could keep working, and I’d get back in my rack. Then I’d do the whole thing again. It didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. “

“Listen to me, Chief,” Helo says. “You matter. You have people who care about you. You have people who need you. You have to keep going, no matter how frakked up it is. No matter how hard.”

“I know.” Galen looks up, his mouth quirks to the side. He touches Hera’s knee through her thin grey blanket. “She makes it easier. She makes it – worthwhile.”

“I wasn’t just talking about Hera,” Helo tells Galen. He lets go of the crib, and wraps his hand around Galen’s forearm, shakes it a little. “I couldn’t fraking do this without you, so don’t you dare give up on me.”

“I won’t,” Galen promises, and he means it and Helo squeezes his arm one last time before letting go. They stare at each other a moment, and Galen feels almost like he’s seeing Helo for the first time – no, not Helo. Karl. And Karl’s just as scared as he is, just as frakked up, just as confused. Karl needs him, like Hera does, and he’s watching Galen with big eyes, like he’s expecting Galen to bolt. So Galen nods his head, just a little – says, without a word I’m here. I’m standing with you. and Karl relaxes, smiles and rubs his chin – a silent thank you. Between them, Hera stirs and her eyes flutter open, and she sucks in a breath, and as she starts to whimper, Galen and Karl turn toward their daughter.

Previous installments here, here, and here.

Failure: AVERTED.

2006-03-03T19:46:18Z

I will not have to be Esperanza, Marie Francoise, or Isabella any time soon. I walked into class to the beautiful sound of my teacher saying "Paper extension" and then "Let's not talk about the reading today". Someone up there loves me, I will tell you what.

What we did talk about though, was motherhood, and conceptions thereof. Somehow, a full two hours talking about bilogical impulses to be a mother, and the way that one responds physically to holding a tiny baby in their arms has filled me with the tick, tick, ticking of my own insistent imperative to procreate, and I'll say this: if ever it was clear that our bodies do not neccesarily want what is most sensible, this is an instance of that. But since my ovaries are all 'Woo! Babies!' I have decided to bring you....*drum roll* more Cylon Baby Daddies! (Or, The Brave Little Toaster and Her Two Daddies and definitely not Antietam, no matter how much I may wish to call this that, because doing so would lead to me being shanked so hard by lyra_sena).

On the flight deck, people talk. In the mess, people talk. In CIC, people talk. On Colonial One, people talk. Outside of Galactica and the President, nobody knows about Hera - where she's from, who her mother was, what she is, what she might be. Every four days, either Galen or Helo takes her to see Doc Cottle, who looks her over and says the same thing every time, "Healthy, but what do I know, I'm no pediatrician," and then they take her to the President and the Admiral and they present her check up, and the Vice President looks it over and studies Hera. They unwrap her from her blanket, and hand her over to Baltar, and Helo stands not a hair's breadth away, watching as every inch of her is catologued again for the people in the room. The President will always mention adoption again, and Galen will calmly tell her that they're all right, and Helo will pick up the baby, and Galen follow him out the hatch.

The first time, it got heated, and Helo and the President ended up nearly yelling until Galen and the Admiral stepped in, so now, mainly, Helo doesn't say a word.

It gets hard to take care of Hera on the flight deck, when Helo's out flying in the CAP. He holds her in one arm and directs Cally and the rest of the grunts with the other - burps the baby and reams out the idiots who keep trying to replace the wrong valve on Starbuck's Viper, and all the while, there are mutters. There are stares. Nobody's really sure what to make of the baby.

Sometimes Galen isn't so sure either, even if he is changing her diapers, and rubbing her warm back, and feeding her from the bottle that Cottle somehow managed to put together, or watching her sleep, or wiping drool off her pale, round cheeks.

He's always liked babies. Middle child in a big family, son to a priest -- he spent a lot of his childhood around newborns and toddlers and he's always been good with them. He's always enjoyed watching them, holding them, taking care of them. It's not hard to talk to a baby; he figured that out when he was really small. You can say whatever you want to a baby, because it feels almost like they understand you -- like they can understand somehow. When his oldest sister had her first child, he spent a lot of time helping out -- but then, everyone did. It wasn't like this, it wasn't like he was responsible for her.

And sometimes, when he's holding Hera, he wonders why he is responsible for her. He hated her before she was born, or almost did, because he knew it wasn't fair -- he knew it wasn't right, but when he saw Sharon's body rounding out with a baby that wasn't his, there were times he'd been so angry he'd hoped, wished, that she wouldn't give birth. That something would happen, that the baby would --

But Hera's in his arms now, and Sharon's gone. It's as simple (and even when he's trying his hardest to keep it simple, he knows that's a lie, he knows this is a hell of a lot more complicated) as that.

At first, it had been a duty. Almost a way of punishing himself, of punishing Helo, too, because this could have been his baby, and somewhere, maybe, he wanted Helo to remember that.

It's different, now. It's been different for a long time, and he holds Hera just to hold her. Just to feel the weight of her against him. He lies on his rack for hours, Hera gurgling on his chest and waving her little fists, and he talks to her. He tells her the stories his mother used to tell him about the Lords of Kobol, about mythology. He tells her the story of the Cyclops, and the raging seas of Kobol, and the hunt of Artemis and Apollo and how constellations are heroes. He tells her about his family, and how his mother had white, white hair even when he was little. He talks to Hera about things that he never even told Sharon, after the Cylon attack -- about his nephews. He calls them her cousins.

Galen wanted to have children with Sharon. He wanted to get old with her, and raise a lot of dark eyed, dair haired babies who would smile wide, cake smeared smiles in family photographs. He always wanted to be a father, and somehow, he is. When he looks at Hera, he can see Sharon sometimes, but he can see Helo, too.

He can't see himself in her, and there are nights when he turns his face to the wall beside his bed and listens as Helo comforts Hera in the dark, and he thinks I shouldn't be here and this isn't mine. He wonders what it would be like if he hadn't stood up next to Helo, if he hadn't said, "I'll be there to help," if Hera had been passed into the open, waiting arms of some big eyed stranger, looking for something to love, someone to take care of, someone to remind them of something they had once, and he thinks, Maybe that would be easier.

Maybe it would be. Maybe if Hera wasn't there, crying and fussing and smiling and sleeping beside him, tucked beside his ribcage and his arm, he would forget that he was broken. Maybe he'd be able to fix himself.

Except that now, even when he sees Helo holding her, he gets anxious. His hands feel unspeakably empty, his chest cold. In the morning, when he wakes the first thing he does is press a secret kiss to the wisps of dark hair on her forehead, and he can stand the day before him. He can stand the doubt, and the fear, and the black that surrounds them all - he can face things. He feels less hollow, and she's so small to make him feel something so big, so unexpected.

She's not even two months old, and Hera is the love of Galen Tyrol's life already. So when people stares, he stares back. When people talk, he pretends not to hear; it doesn't matter what anyone says. Not the Admiral, not the President, not Cally, not Starbuck, not anyone, because no matter how hard it is. No matter how tired he is of waking up night after night, of fighting Helo about the right way to hold her when feeding her, of changing diapers every hour on the hour, it doesn't matter. Hera matters. She's his daughter, as much as she is Helo's. As much as she is Sharon's, and he holds her, and he thinks, this is our child, the three of us, and he thinks Sharon would have liked that somehow. He hopes she would have.

Previous snippets here and here.

I'ma need either a Chief or Helo icon if this keeps up; can't have my two sweet fathers being under-represented.

OMFG failure!

2006-03-03T14:01:31Z

I have: slept five hours
boogied the night away
changed my socks
coughed until point of near retching

I have not: fully woken up yet
made my coffee maker work
had any caffeine
finished the paper due today
done the reading for today.

I cannot: skip class.
run away to Mexico and change my name to Esperanza.
run away to Montreal and change my name to Marie Francoise.
run away to Milan and change my name to Isabella.
buy coffee.
park remotely near where I'm going to need to be on campus.
freak out!!!
go back to bed.

I will: perservere.
answer to my actual name until circumstances really dictate a flight to another country.
fake having done the reading.
fake being awake/take a nap later.
throw myself upon the altar of fate and hope that everything turns out the way I wish it to.

Right. Onward. Here I go. Dear God, here I go.

Delicious food time, and other things.

2006-03-02T03:29:45Z

So, there comes a point when you look into your cupboard and you see the following things: ramen, ramen, ramen, and more ramen, a jar of holland onions, a can of olives and some tomato paste. Eating more ramen feels like slowly killing yourself, so you think "Tomato paste. I can do something with that, right?"

The answer is absolutely yes! Especially if you borrow pasta from your room mate and find a very old but still edible bell pepper in the fridge! My pasta is delicious! And absolutely not at all ramen! Thank God! The holland onions are maybe a somewhat odd addition to the sauce, but hey, it works. And if you cover anything with a lot of pepper, it pretty much just tastes like delicious, delicious pepper. In conclusion, DINNER: ACCOMPLISHED.

Also, hidden in the back of my refrigerator was a bottle of good beer that I remember buying long, long ago. My kitchen is the kitchen that just keeps giving.

In other news: there's a blister on my toe that I feel is mocking me. You will not beat me, blister. You will not keep me down; I will not allow it.

And, okay, what I'm about to say next is going to sound weird, but I think we all have these little issues from time to time. But honestly, if I hear one more compliment on my breasts, I may lose my temper entirely. I mean, compliments are nice, sure, but you know what? When you're a D-cup from 4th grade onward, you get sick of people noticing your chest region before other parts of you, and you're pretty much over hearing talk about your breasts. I mean, really? Pick another part of the body to compliment, I don't care if you are 1) a really good friend trying to tell you that you look hot in a new shirt, or 2) a significant other trying to be sexy or really anything at all.

Here, I'll even help, world: I have nice eyes! My calves are very shapely! My fingers are long! I have delicate wrists and a lady like mouth! (Lady like in terms of shape, not in terms of what I say, because that would just be funny.) I have pert elbows! My nose is refined! My chin speaks to my determination and defiance!

Just, for the love of God, universe, leave my breasts out of it. The end.

I -- love. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

2006-02-28T20:04:54Z

If God was kind, I would marry Stephen Colbert.

Apparently, hackthis, lyra_sena,slodwick and <lj user="musesfool

2006-02-28T18:54:04Z

Because I wrote more Cylon Baby!Daddies! I'm feeling like I might snippet in this from time to time, because, y'all - Helo and Chief! Baby!Daddies! It may not make much sense if you haven't read this.

They put the crib between their racks, in the middle of the room. It’s not big – it used to be a storage closet, and even after they clean it, it smells a little like oil and rust. Hera’s crib is made of metal taken from broken wings, spare parts of the raptors and vipers that couldn’t be used. Galen and Helo sanded them down, welded them in place, padded the crib with blankets until it was soft and safe for her.

Galen doesn’t sleep until he can hear Helo stop murmuring to Hera. He sings to her a lot, quietly, tonelessly, just crooning the words to old Aerilon lullabies. Galen recognizes a few, but a lot are new to him, and even if they’re meant to comfort Hera, they comfort him, too, a little.

When she wakes up in the middle of the night, Galen’s always there first. She waves her fists and feet in the air, her red face curled up. When he lifts her, she folds her fingers around the edge of his tank top, presses her wet face into his neck.

Helo watches him, eyes catching the little light coming in through the hatch combing. “You’re good with her,” he says.

“Big family,” Galen tells him, rubbing her back. “Plus my sisters all have – had – there were a lot of babies.”

“You can get some sleep, you know,” Helo says, sitting up. “I can –“

“S’allright, I’ve got her.” Galen holds her booted feet in one hand, and Hera quiets a little.

Helo sits up and reaches over to touch her side, his fingers brush against Galen’s for a second and he smiles in the dark. “Sometimes, I can’t tell what she wants, you know? I try feeding her, or changing her, just holding her, but nothing works, You always get her to quiet right down.”

Galen ducks his head, brushes his cheek against the top of Hera’s head, “Just a burping this time. You pat her right between the shoulder blades until she’s quiet. ” Helo’s watching her with big eyes, and she’s a warm, sweet bundle in Galen’s arms, but he holds her out to Helo. “You want to hold her?”

“No, it’s okay,” Helo tells him, still rubbing her side. “Sometimes I worry that I’ll hurt her. She’s so little and I just – I can’t believe – “

“Yeah,” Galen says. “I know.”

Helo half laughs, and his hand drops back to his lap. “You ever – do you ever think that Sharon’s out there? My – her mother? She’s out there somewhere, thinking about her? Trying to get back here?”

Hera cooes into Galen’s neck, and Helo watches him with those big eyes, his face so open and the light from the corridor makes a stripe across the room. “I hope not,” he tells Helo honestly. “I hope I never see her again.”

Helo lies back on his rack and puts an arm over his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, “yeah.”

leave at your own chosen speed

2006-02-27T20:17:35Z

i am feeling low today. there's something pleasing about the way those words go together, though the sensation itself i could probably do without. is it 'cellar door' that's supposed to be the most beautiful phrase in the english language? i can't remember, but it is a lovely phrase. also, my internets are slow. hi, this post so far is brought to you by free association.

at any rate, i have several things i want to say. first, let's talk about bsg, shall we?

the last episode was a really redeeming episode after the slew of less than awesome episodes we've had since the death of Herr Caine, who i miss more and more as the revolving door of pegasus command goes round and round. i haven't really said anything about bsg since she died, because i've been trapped in an unneccesary flashback - much like the series itself. i don't really know what the hell is going on with the writers addiction to that conceit, but i feel that 1) its getting old and 2) they are doing a crap job of maintaining what's happening when timewise because of it. so, you know. y'all could stop with the flashbacks.

at any rate - they blew my mind again with the whole 'caprica six has a hallucinatory baltar omg' thing, but it makes it almost harder for me to accept hallucinatory six in this weird way. because clearly that six is not the same woman as the woman on caprica is. that's the six that baltar met - with all the same agendas and motivations as the six that baltar met, and none of the redemptive impulses. the contrast between the six that blew up at baltar while questioning her faith and the six who faltered through sharon's apartment trying to overcome her own questions about what the cylons are doing was very marked. the six that demanded baltar procure plutonium is not the same woman who would say that genocide is wrong.

the slew of sixes we've met on bsg seem to all be different. for the purposes of me talking about it: let hallucinatory six= 6v.1, shelley godfrey=6v.2, gina=6v.3, and caprica six=6v.4. Of those, 6v.3 and 6v.4 - this season's creations - are the most human, and i think that ties in with the overarching theme of what it is to be human, and individuality that this season has been toying with. interestingly, this second half of the season has made a really strong effort to make us see the monstrous in the human, while season one had the burden of making us believe in cylons as bad guys.

6v.3 has pretty much been weirdly abandoned by the show, which i kind of resent. i was incredibly excited by her, and baltar's scenes with her in the cain episodes are some of the strongest of the series. i loved seeing her different take on faith, and seeing her question the plan of the cylon god/the cylon propaganda about the cylon god. i loved seeing her breaking down when baltar tried to kiss her. i really don't get what she's doing in the fleet, though i suppose i'm supposed to make some kind of paralell between her mission to make humans seek peace with the cylons and 6v.4's new found mission to try and make the cylons seek peace and coexistence with the humans, but i just haven't seen enough of it to really get that. i question what 6v.3 is doing, and her motivations - is she acting as a cylon to disseminate discontent within the fleet, or is she legitimately trying to end the war? i just don't know, and i'd love to see more. frankly, what i was really hoping would happen with her would be that she would catalyze the destruction of 6v.1's hold on baltar, and that we'd stop having her around, not because i don't love the character, but rather becuase i think it would be an interesting thing to see baltar without that crutch. i want to see him operating on his own head of steam, and while i get that he's an incredibly weak and self serving guy, i'd like to see what he would become with 6v.3 guiding him and his own judgment rather than constantly following the advice of the beautiful cleavagey slutbomb that is 6v.1.

6v.1 has remained a fairly static character throughout. she continues to proslethyze about the cylon god, and his plans, and to use sexual power as a manipulation, and the only times we've seen break throughs with her were last episode after the supposed death of hera (and really, man, that was way fucking harsh - poor helo! and poor sharon, too, but mainly the one i feel for is helo who is being betrayed by his own people and dude, if i was him, and i found out about all of this, i would freak the hell out and fuck shit up left right and center, but he won't because he's helo and his parents taught him to use his words and talk through disagreements until a place of mutual love and respect can be found) and also when they first found the pegasus brig/torture chamber with her duplicate, prone and agonized.

well, maybe that's not fair - maybe she cracked a little when the resurrection ship was destroyed. this is actually the second time she's told baltar he's commited an unforgivable sin that the cylon god will not forget. which makes me wonder if that relationship is going to be on the skids now, and if you can't maintain a relationship with a hallucination who adores you, then the rest of us are doomed. i just want to throw that out there.

the hallucination of baltar, now that i think about it, is as equally different from the actual man as the hallucination of caprica six is from the woman. the faux!baltar is more a male hallucinatory six, with a human agenda - he's self-posessed, he talks about love, he is confident and he is more righteous than baltar has ever been.

food for thought: are we supposed to be assuming that the nuclear explosion created these shades? or is it a love thing? if so, that's really interesting, because these products of love are certainly an strange reflection on the kind of love that these two have. but perhaps not innacurate. carnal, jaded and manipulative -- that's them as we've known them.

okay, so here are a couple of things unrelated to that: 1) anders, wtf? why are you on my show? i resent your existence, and your stupid hair. i hope that sometime you will do something that will interest me, or that you will never be used again. that is all.

2) sharon on galactica: if there was ever a way to turn that woman back into an agent for the cylons, roslin found it, and it worries me for poor helo. it worries me.

3) sharon on caprica: omg how much did i love that the cylons hadn't really provided for the possibility that, uhm, creating a model to be completely human would prove inevitably stupid given the downloading process? the whole thing about 'boxing' her and caprica six was really sinister. i mean, really, really sinister. i don't know how, precisely, these two plan to convince the cylons in thirty six hours that they're right, and was kind of hoping that they'd take off into the hills with anders and help that movement (though don't mistake me: i resent anders existence, no really). but here's a shallow thing: she looked way fucking hot in this episode. i mean, really. way fucking hot.

4) chief and helo and hera's 'funeral': i had known that i had missed chief, but not how much until i saw him there watching the baby's ashes float away with the fictitious space wind. god what a good man he is. what a good man. hackthis, seriously, you can have helo as your baby!daddy if i get chief.

secondly on the agenda i would like to say the following things about sga: i have had a ronon epiphany. that epiphany is that i love ronon, and his smooth, beautiful skin, and his gleaming biceps. in a game of cliff/shag/marry concerning the men of sga, i would definitely marry ronon. and give him beer and cookies. together we would devour meadows filled with oreos. also, i, unlike his team and elizabeth, would listen to his input. i would be the ewok to his wookie. life would be so sweet.

hi, guys.

2006-02-24T18:35:18Z

1) i type only in lowercase now as i am still sick, and too out of it to have respect for proper punctuation. also, i have lost my enthusiasm. once, i was an enthusiastic person. now, i am a coughing/sneezing/nose blowing person.

2) parents of the world: when you are in public with your screaming toddler, do not ignore the screams, because we - the innocent bystanders - cannot ignore them. you may be inured to the horrible noises that your children can make, but we stand there, our collective head throbbing with the hideous shrieks issuing forth from your irate offspring, and can think of nothing else. please, god, for our good, be proactive. be responsible. make your child stop acting as though it is being flayed.

3) my current shameful secret: i love antiques roadshow.

4) tonight is most haunted live/battlestar galactica night. to all my homies in the ot6 all i have to ask: can i say something?

5) i went to class today. i deserve a buttered biscuit and red currant jam.

6) my professor did not come to class today. she does not get jam.

7) if only my ears would stop popping, i would tell you all that the hills are alive with the sound of my recovery. i am that chuffed (correct use of word?) to not be feverish.

8) lyra truly is an adoable frunk.

9) i live near a funeral home and almost every day i drive past a huddled mass of black standing before it. people holding hands and wiping their eyes, or staring at the cement as their jaws harden and hold back tears. often times i avert my eyes and pretend not to see it, but today i saw this man standing there, no expression on his face as tears poured down his face and i couldn't stop looking. i felt really bad about being a willing audience to his grief, but there was something mesmerizing about it. he was immaculately groomed, in his mid thirtiesish, with black wire glasses and a bright green scarf and unruly reddish brown hair and he stood with his arms steadfastly by his sides. he made me think of the tin man, and i don't know why.

10) being dehydrated means drinking more water than usual means spending more time peeing than usual which i resent. i want the years i've spent peeing back, dammit.

that's why they call me mr. farenheit

2006-02-23T16:43:02Z

okay, guys, here's my current thing: i love the OT6 more than reason, my apartment is filled with vermin, and my fever is skirting 101. there is a conspiracy afoot between people who care about me (one professor, two roomates, one childhood friend, one (not) boyfriend) to keep me in bed, and recuperating, but how can one recuperate when one is alone and imagining the evil vermin scratching noises that must, somewhere be happening? this paranoia comes and goes, and honestly, is somewhat of a front for the fact that just lying in bed and feeling miserable bores me terribly. but miserable, i am.

so yesterday i found on the sidewalk outside of my house a check that was dated 1996. i tried to get in touch with the people who wrote it, but they've moved in the past ten years. i am at a loss as to what to do with the check, beyond sit here, stare at it, and make up stories in my mind about the check.

also, as i have been informed by my prof that i am not to come to school today on pain of death, i shall be here at my computer all the livelong day. perhaps this will mean writing time. perhaps, indeed.

Last Will and Testament.

2006-02-16T16:35:43Z

I've had some bad menses times in my checkered past, y'all, but I will tell you what - this time seems to be one of the worst. I can barely walk the cramps hurt so badly, and I have this involuntary weeping thing happening. There is simply no way I'm going to class today - I can't even keep down aspirin. Also, I want to die. If there is anything, anything fun or interesting or even remotely entertaining happening in your worlds, please tell me. Please, God give me sweet sweet distractions.

Oh, also? I would really appreciate it if my brain would stop thinking it was hilarious to have me lying here, fetal and feeling like I was being turned inside out, while humming 'I enjoy being a girl' to myself. The irony is OLD. Thank you, and goodnight.

BSG Fic: Every Good Mother's Son

2006-02-15T21:15:34Z

For lyra_sena!

Summary: Billy's two mothers.
Spoilers for Sacrifice.

1.

It is seven in the morning when William Wallace Keikeya is born. He’s the youngest, and the only boy, and when he is handed into his mother’s arms he is a small, warm weight. His eyes are blue, and there isn’t any hair on the smooth skin of his soft head. His father holds onto his ankle gently, and says, “Maybe he’ll be tall, like me,” with a thick, choking voice.

His mother draws a finger over his sleeping cheek and smiles without saying a word. When she brings him home, she lights three tall candles at the shrine in the living room. She asks Athena to give her son sense, which is more important than wisdom. She asks Poseidon to give her son adaptability, asks that William be able to change like the sea. She asks Apollo that her son might live in the light, so that no matter what may happen to him, he will always be able to find joy.

The candles burn the whole night through, and fill the house with the scent of sage and juniper.

**

There are trees behind the house where Billy grows up. They’re old and they creak, groan in the wind. In Spring on Aerilon there are angry storms that hiss across the salt flats, into the cities and towns crouching low beside the coast. Billy’s bedroom is closest to the yard, on the second floor beneath the wide spread canopy of one of the bigger trees.

When the thunder and wind come at night his room shakes, and Billy gets afraid. He slips out from under his covers and presses his face against the window. He stares at the branches for a long time, at the bowed head of a robin in its nest, and spreads out his pudgy fingers along the glass. Another clap of thunder hits, and he skitters across the warm wood floor, tumbles down the stairs and trips into his parent’s bedroom.

His father sleeps heavily, barely even rolls over as the door bangs open and Billy runs in, but his mother’s eyes flutter open, and with her long, sure hands she pulls him onto the bed.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, but Billy just presses his head against her chest and clutches at her arms as the world outside breaks apart. He’s five years old and getting heavy, but she pulls him into her lap, and smoothes back his hair from his hot forehead.

“It’s all right,” she tells him, her voice soft and low. “It’s all right, sweetheart. No need to be afraid.”

He murmurs something she can’t hear, and then falls asleep, his fingers tight on her nightgown. In the morning, he wakes before she does, and she finds him outside, kneeling in a puddle and cupping a broken bird’s nest in his hands.

“Billy?” she calls, softly, and when he turns toward her, his face is dirty and tear streaked.

There are shattered blue eggs in the nest, and Billy says, “I wanted to bring them inside, but I was too scared last night. I wanted to get them. I could have saved them,” and his voice breaks.

“Oh, it’s not your fault,” she begins, putting a hand on his shoulders, and he rubs a muddy sleeve over his nose and takes a deep breath before looking back up at her.

“Will you help me bury them?” he asks, all blue eyes and small, sad mouth.

“Of course,” his mother tells him. Later, in a dry enough spot they find beside the kitchen, Billy’s father digs a hole, and his mother says all of the appropriate prayers, and Billy’s little hands try so hard to fit the jagged edges of the speckled eggs back together before placing them tenderly into the wet earth.

**

Billy is rarely in trouble, and so when his school calls during the middle of the day, his mother is surprised. Even more surprised when she finds him sitting in the principal’s office, his cheeks flaming, his eyes narrowed into angry slits, with his arms crossed and a mutinous expression on his round face.

He’s eleven years old, and his mother has only seen him this angry a handful of times before.

“What happened?” she asks, but he just sets his jaw and turns farther toward the wall.

“ ‘Mnot going to apologize,” he practically growls.

The frosted glass door opens, and the principal shuffles in, looking tired. “Mrs. Keikeya – ” he begins, and that’s when Billy’s mother notices Billy’s scraped knuckles.

“My gods,” she says, “was he in a fight?”

“They started it,” Billy mutters, and opens his mouth to say more when the principal holds up a forestalling hand.

“He was protecting a smaller classmate from bullies, and accidentally, I believe, broke one of the other children’s arms,” the man tells her. He rubs at his eyes and sits down across from her and Billy slides lower into his chair. His hair sticks up at the top of his head, and his mother sees the sand stuck into the collar of his shirt for the first time, the slight tear of his shirt, his scuffed shoes.

“Please, just take him home for the day. I can’t get away without some disciplinary action in this, but frankly, I don’t believe your son has done anything wrong,” the principal tells her, and Billy looks up, surprised.

“It’s okay?” he asks, and the principal smiles at him faintly.

Billy’s mother puts a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“No, but Mason may have been if it hadn’t been for the intervention of your son,” the principal says. He smiles again, and says, “Mrs. Keikeya, you have a very kind son.”

Billy’s eyes widen and she smiles back, smoothing his hair down. “Yes,” she tells the principal. “I know.”

**

By the time Billy goes off to university, his mother’s head fits beneath his chin when he hugs her. His bedroom is packed up, and he’s headed out on the next flight to Caprica City, and her home will be empty for the first time in nearly thirty years.

“You be careful,” she warns him, squeezing her arms tight around his ribs.

Billy smiles at her and promises he will be when she finally pulls away. She fusses with his shirt, and cups his cheek before drawing him down to press a kiss to his forehead.

There’s a honk from the driveway, and Billy’s father yells that it’s time to go. Billy stands in the doorway, and he’s so tall, so grown up, this boy of hers. She presses a hand to her throat, and tells him to leave.

“Mom,” he says, eyes wide and blue, “I love you.”

“I know,” she tells him, and he leaves, the door slamming a little behind him.

Hours later, when her husband comes home, Billy’s mother has spread out all her pictures of him on the long wooden table in the living room. She pours them both a glass of wine, and they point from one glossy picture to another.

Here, Billy is eight years old, and there is a huge gap in his smile. He’s at the beach and his sister is covering him with sand, and only his flushed, happy face is visible.

Here, he’s just learning to walk, and wearing a yellow and blue jumper that his mother made for him. It’s still in the attic, beside the boxes of baby shoes and old school books.

Here, it’s his oldest sister’s birthday, and he has icing from her cake smeared over his cheeks.

Here, there’s a blur of motion around his arms, and he’s too skinny and tall – one of the growing spurts had just caught him. He’s playing Pyramid with his school team, and his legs are too long and too pale.

“Beanpole,” his father says, affectionately, his fingers stroking the edges of the picture.

His mother wipes her eyes, and smiles. “Tall like you,” she says, and her husband kisses the top of her head.

“He’ll be all right, you know,” he says. “He’s smart, and strong, and he’ll be fine, even though it is so far away.”

She touches Billy’s round, sleeping face in one of the baby pictures of him. “I know,” she whispers. “I know.”

**
2.

It is eleven thirty in the morning when Laura Roslin meets Billy Keikeya. He drops a stack of files when he holds out one hand in greeting to her.

“I’m, uh, I’m your new intern, Madame Secretary,” he stammers, flushing, and she smiles at him, helps him pick up the papers. “My name is Billy Keikeya and I’m a student at Caprica University, studying politics and – ”

“Hello, Billy,” she says smoothly, handing him one of the folders. “Please, call me Laura.”

He smiles back at her, and with his round, pink cheeks and wide blue eyes, he looks younger than Laura can ever remember being. A tall little boy in man’s clothing – nervous, eager.

“Okay, Madame – Laura,” he says, and she laughs.

**

In the week after the attack, Laura watches Billy. When he sleeps, he’s still, and he makes quiet, hurt noises. There are deep purple circles under his eyes, and when the blanket slips off his shoulders during his ten minutes of rest, she’s surprised to find herself tucking it back up.

He’s too young for this, she thinks, looking at his smooth, round face. She forgets that thought when he wakes up. His eyes snap completely open, and his mouth gets tight and his hands are steady as he hands her the latest death toll.

Around the hundred and sixtieth hour without any real sleep, Billy is talking to her about the scarcity of grain based foods throughout the fleet, and it occurs to Laura that she has no idea how old he is.

He’s startled when she asks, and then stops for a second to half chuckle and it sounds broken, hollow. “Uh, actually I think I turned twenty…maybe two days ago now,” he tells her.

“Oh,” Laura says, because there’s nothing else to say. And then the clock strikes the thirty-three minute mark, and they brace for a jump.

When Billy sleeps next, she digs through her purse until she finds a chocolate bar she’d brought with her from Caprica. She gives it to him and wishes him a happy birthday, and when his red eyes fill a little, she hugs him. He holds onto her tightly, and she rubs gently at his neck.

She doesn’t tell him it’ll be all right; they both know it won’t. But she wants to.

**

It’s two months after the Cylon attack, and Colonial One is quiet, for once. Billy sits before Laura, scratching notes onto his pad of paper, and his hair sticks up behind his ears, and she finds herself reaching out to smooth it down. Her hand falls to her side, and she half laughs at herself.

“What?” Billy asks, and she shakes her head.

“Nothing, I was just thinking,” she tells him, and he watches her a second longer before going back to his work.

Laura thinks that if she had a son, he’d be a little older than Billy, probably. But when she tries to picture her own child, all she can think of is Billy’s face.

**

What Laura remembers most about collapsing in her office is Billy catching her. Then she remembers white light, and scratchy sheets, and Billy’s suit hovering over her as she’s wheeled through hallways. She tries to say his name, but he doesn’t hear her over the doctors, and then her eyes shut again.

She wakes up and it’s dark. Billy is staring at his shoes and sitting next to her bed. His cheeks are wet.

“I thought,” he says when he sees her watching him. “I thought there would be more time. I knew you were sick – ”

She raises her arms, and they shake a little. “Come here,” she says, and he puts his head on her chest and his body shakes a little while he cries. She’s tired, and it hurts a little, but she runs her hands across his back over and over and presses a small kiss to his forehead.

“You’ll be okay,” she tells him, as he sits up and rubs at his red nose. He takes a deep breath and wipes at his face. “I know you will.”

“What do you need me to do?” he asks her, and Laura has never been as proud of anyone in her entire life as she is of Billy at that moment.

**

He dies at three twenty-three in the afternoon. Laura hears the report of casualties crackle over the line in the CIC, and she has to grip tightly onto the chair in front of her so that she doesn’t fall.

His body is cold when she sees him. His cheeks are wrong – pale, and drawn, and slack. His eyes will never open again. Her lungs clench when she breathes, and she fixes his hair so that it lies just so.

When she goes home, she lights all the candles she has. “Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer,” she manages, taking deep, shuddering breaths as she sobs, “I send into your hands the soul of Billy Keikeya.”

In her hands, she holds his tie. It’s stained with blood and the knot is half undone. She runs her fingers over it again and again. She closes her eyes, and starts again. “Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer. I send into your hands the soul of my son.”

The candles burn long after she falls asleep, exhausted, tie in her hands and her face marked by tears, and when Laura wakes, all she can smell is salt and ashes.

Question!

2006-02-15T19:24:15Z

Billy Keikeya on BSG: What planet does he say his parents lived on, in the pilot miniseries? Anybody know? Please help me, internets. I am needing of the knowledge!