The characters don't belong to me.  Which is a shame.

Expectations
 

 
Note: fandom often holds that a yahren is approximately two-thirds of a year.  I believe the basis for this is that the stated maximum life-span of a Colonial is 200 yahrens.  I’m not convinced by this; given the advances in medical treatment asserted by the show, I see no reason why the Colonials’ maximum life-span shouldn’t be 200 years.  So, for the story that follows, please note that a yahren is more or less equal to a year.   

 

He was 20 yahrens old the first time Starbuck surprised him.

He’d been awarded a late pass by the Commandant so he could spend an evening with his father, home on leave.  It was supposed to be a treat, but by the time his father finally dismissed him, he felt as though he had survived (barely) one of Ambrose’s more convoluted exercises on strategic thinking.  In a way which reminded him of Parade every morning, where his appearance and his swiftness to obey orders were under judgment, he had presented his grades and his status as holder of the Kobolian Prize for Strategy, and had been deemed up to standard.  This time.  Next time, Apollo knew he would have had to do even better.  The Sword of Honour had to be his, together with the role of Senior Student in the final year, otherwise he would have failed.  It wasn’t that his father had ever said so.  It was just what he expected of his first-born son.

Apollo didn’t suppose that any other students would be in the library at this time of night, despite the following day’s exam, so he didn’t worry about the noise of the chair’s metal feet dragging over the floor tiles as he pulled it out to sit down.  The other cadets knew it was his chair, just as they knew the seat in front of Terminal 3 belonged to Sarko, and the place next to the window overlooking the gardens was Rudoff’s.  They were the only regulars in the library; the others went in as infrequently as possible, preferring to spend their time in sports and drinking and other cadet-type activities.  The three of them had formed an unofficial ‘Club of Uncool’ – not so much a club, given that they hardly spoke to one another, but more an alliance of the geeks / scholars / sons desperate for their father’s approbation. 

The datapad he’d left there earlier that day was undisturbed, and it took him little time to wipe from his mind the memory of dinnertime conversation and sink back into the analysis of the Unification War that he was working on as part of his dissertation. 

Some time later, he became aware that something was vying with the hard-fought battles for his attention.  When he stopped reading for long enough to give it his full attention, he realised that it was an annoying noise.  Somebody was talking.  The library and talking didn’t go together under the Academy’s strict rules, except for Sarko’s occasional swearing at the terminal, which he and Rudoff had swiftly learned to ignore.  And neither Sarko nor Rudoff were here tonight – it was too late even for them, not that Apollo considered them lightweights, or anything.  Well, not much.  Curiosity piqued, Apollo pushed back his chair and went exploring.

He found the source of the noise in the Colonial History section, and had to resist the urge to rub his eyes to ensure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing.  The cadet who would have been the founding member of the Cool Club, if there were such a thing, was in the library.  The blond playboy / gambler / heartbreaker extraordinaire, not to mention the most accomplished pilot who had ever graced the seat of a Viper, was In The Library.

Cadet Cool – Starbuck, Apollo belatedly remembered - the cadet who claimed the academic side of things was desperately overrated, that he wouldn’t study if he were paid to do so, and had so far survived the Academy through a combination of charm, good looks and sheer effrontery (not to mention sexual services to the tutors, or so rumour went), was in the library.  He was in the library, chair tilted back on two legs in a way that was not only dangerous but also distinctly against regulations, staring at the ceiling and reciting a list that Apollo, well-versed in military history, instantly recognised as the key stages in the battle of Tol’Straata.

“Cerberus sends out broadband distress signal claiming engine malfunction and giving co-ordinates; comes under fire from two Baseships just short of Tucan; throws all squadrons at the Baseships while staging retreat.  Krysos gives signal to Atlantis who comes to aid from dark side of Tucan.  Baseships destroyed, 2; personnel lost, 198; Vipers lost, 114; Krysos awarded the Distinguished Service Medallion for being an egotistical murdering bastard and leaving his pilots to die while covering his ass.”

“One hundred and twenty-three.” 

The chair legs crashed back down, and Starbuck twisted to look at Apollo in a way that in a less attractive mortal could have been described as a gape.

“Excuse me?”

“One hundred and twenty-three Vipers lost, once the missing-presumed-deads are counted.”  He wasn’t the sort of person who Starbuck’s sort of person even knew existed, but the perfectionist in Apollo wouldn’t let Starbuck get away with inexactitudes.

“One hundred and twenty-three, then,” Starbuck repeated, blue eyes steady on Apollo’s face.

Apollo nodded in satisfaction.  He turned to leave, but for some reason couldn’t ignore the need for a parting shot.  “And if I were you, I’d keep my views of Krysos off the answer paper tomorrow.  Krysos is one of Ambrose’s most revered ancestors.”

He retreated to his table and tried again to bury himself in battles long-past.  It was difficult, however, when he found a grin keep stealing onto his face, for no real reason he could fathom.

It became even more difficult when his datapad was suddenly moved, and Starbuck hitched up a hip onto the table where it had been.  Which meant that he was alarmingly close to Apollo.

“Do you play Triad?”

The question took him by surprise, but he found himself answering with unconsidered honesty.  “I used to, but I don’t have time here.”

Starbuck’s eyebrows rose.  “Too busy studying, I guess.  Or maybe you have a string of really hot girlfriends.  But given that you’re here on your own at this time of night, I’d go for the former.”

Apollo’s cheeks were flushed, though with anger or embarrassment he couldn’t say as he focused on the desk in front of him.  He just knew that his membership of the Club of Uncool was yet again cause for mockery.

“Are you any good?”

“My team were semi-finalists in the School Area Senior Championships.”  As soon as the words left his mouth Apollo winced, because it sounded as though he was both bragging and defensive. 

“I’m not interested in runners-up.” 

Apollo’s eyes shot to Starbuck’s face, but before his snarl at the smug-faced idiot who was stopping him getting on with his work found voice, Starbuck smiled.  It was like the sun coming out.

“Play with me, and we’ll win,” he said.

Apollo found himself nodding, dazed.  He’d do anything to see that smile again. 

“See you tomorrow,” the sun said, as he removed himself from Apollo’s desk and started to walk towards the doorway.

He paused for an instant, and looked back.  “Oh, and Apollo?  Don’t be too late to bed tonight – you’re going to need to be on top form to play with me.”

With another smile that could have meant anything but which meant everything to Apollo, he sauntered out of the library.

It was only later that Apollo realised that the Academy’s Champion Triad players didn’t customarily win the Sword of Honour as well.  Faced with the choice between Starbuck’s smile and his father’s approval, he decided that some customs were made to be broken.

 

The first time Apollo surprised him, Starbuck was 23 yahrens old.  He was enjoying two sectons leave, leave that he had more than earned and which he more than needed.  The military precision machine that was the Atlantia did not allow for individual expression – particularly when that individual expression involved idiosyncratic timekeeping.  He had argued that predictability stunted situational awareness, and felt he had made a pretty good fist of that argument – but Captain Peterson’s unsmiling response was a secton-long withdrawal of officer’s privileges.  Since then, Starbuck had reluctantly conceded that the Colonial military machine did not encourage free-thinkers and, though he realised it was to their ultimate loss, he decided for the sake of access to the Officers’ Mess, and the better rations that this allowed, to toe the line.  Well, close to the line.  His judgment was remarkably sound about what would be acceptable and what might be considered an offence to military efficiency (oxymorons notwithstanding).

His first few days had been a whirl of enjoying the fleshpots of Caprica City, the gaming halls, and the bars.  The sort of club that enabled all three to be enjoyed together were beyond his meagre means as a 2^nd Lieutenant, so this way he simply decided each day what he was in the mood for and let that dictate his itinerary.  Old Peterson would have had a fit at his unmilitary spontaneity.  Somehow that knowledge only added to his enjoyment.

Which was just as well, because he found his enjoyment was flagging slightly as the first secton drew to an end.  Peterson, in what Starbuck was convinced was a fit of pettiness, had scheduled his leave to start just as that of his particular friends was finishing.  In fact, as he was leaving he’d passed Boomer in the landing area, on his way back to the Atlantia.  And while he had had no complaints about those first few days, and particularly not about the nights, which he used to reacquaint himself with the loveliest that Caprica had to offer, time was starting to hang a little heavy.

It had occurred to him – briefly – to see if Apollo was around, given that his family home was close to Caprica City.  They had lost touch since they had received their separate postings after graduation, but Starbuck still heard the scuttlebutt about Adama’s son.  How he had made Lieutenant First Class earlier than any other of his graduating year, and that he was still playing Triad.  Being Champion at the Academy hadn’t harmed his ability to attract good partners, if his successes were anything to go by.  He still wasn’t as good as Starbuck, of course, but Starbuck would have welcomed him back as a partner if only they were ever to be posted to the same ship.  Well, he had *thought* he would, but the other thing the scuttlebutt told him was that Apollo had reverted to type since his promotion, becoming such a stickler for the regulations and all that stuff that Starbuck wondered if the Apollo he had sometimes seen at the Academy were gone for good.  So he’d quite swiftly decided it wasn’t such a good idea to try to make contact, especially as he might end up talking to Commander Adama – or, Lords forbid, Siress Adama, on the com device if he tried it.

The sound of jingling made him realise he was playing with the cubits in his pocket as he ordered another drink.  He’d cleaned up the previous night, and it had been such an easy game that it had briefly killed his appetite for Pyramid.  Tonight he was on the prowl for a different form of entertainment.

“Hey.”

The voice in his ear was low.  Starbuck took a deliberate swallow from his glass before turning around and looking. 

Young, smooth-skinned – and there was a lot of that smooth skin on display around the miniscule top the guy was wearing – and lips fuller than Starbuck had seen in a long while contributed to a pleasing impression.  The blonde he’d picked up last night, who had been enthusiastically admiring of his card play, had become clingy after sex, trying to get him to agree to see her again.  He’d come here tonight specifically to avoid any such felgercarb.

The guy smirked under his assessing gaze with the confidence of the young and beautiful.  “Like what you see?”

And suddenly Starbuck didn’t.  Even the best sex he had ever had didn’t compare to the thrill of flying the Starhound Class Viper – the extra thrust from state-of-the-art turbos and the inverse motion braking thrusters made the earlier classes of Viper feel in comparison as though they were wading through frozen mushies - and he realised that he would rather be flying with his squadron mates than having sex with yet another nameless pick-up.  And it annoyed him too that the boy thought he was beautiful enough to pick up Starbuck.

He shrugged.  “Seen better,” and turned back to his drink.

Maybe later, settling down into the cold sheets of his hotel room alone, he’d regret his decision, but for now he’d light a fumarillo and enjoy having enough money to pay for some luxuries in life.  Not a huge number, given a 2^nd Lieutenant’s pay, but more than he was used to.

The evening was older by several glasses of ambrosa and rejected pick-up attempts when Starbuck blinked in disbelief.  He took another mouthful from his glass just to check that he was still conscious, but what he thought he was seeing was still there.  Suddenly decisive, he emptied his glass down his throat and made his slightly uneven way to the door.  He knew he couldn’t really have seen Lt Goody Two Shoes in a place like this, but just in case, he’d like to be sure.  Because even if it were Lt – sorry, Lt First Class Goody Two Shoes, it had to be better than spending the rest of his leave alone.  Worst case scenario, it would remind him why he was enjoying himself on his own.

Either way, Starbuck wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

He wasn’t prepared to find Apollo pressed against the wall of the club going mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue with a man.

He didn’t expect the breathless moan from Apollo.  And he didn’t expect to melt away quietly into the darkness of the street rather than taking the, surely unrepeatable, opportunity to tease the frack out of Lt 'Straighter than the fuselage pod on the Mark II Raptor' Apollo.

Apollo was 27 yahrens old when Starbuck surprised him again.

He had thought that Starbuck would never again be able to surprise him.  He thought that he knew Starbuck, knew his faults, his plays, his way of being that made every other person Apollo knew pale into insignificance.

Starbuck said “Consider it a wedding present,” before he disappeared.

Later, Apollo wondered if Starbuck had really surprised him, or if he had surprised himself.  He had thought Starbuck was indestructible, that he was part of Apollo’s life who would be there whatever.  It wasn’t until he was gone that Apollo realised that life without him was, quite simply, no life at all.

 

Starbuck was 28 when Apollo next surprised him.

Apollo hugged him.

Starbuck, caught by surprise as well as by Apollo’s strong arms, made a weak joke. 

“It’s against regulations to hug a junior officer – unless you really mean it.”

Apollo let him go as soon as he was reminded about regulations, about duty, honour, and all the other stuff that he had absorbed with his mother’s milk.  And Serina’s glower might also have played a part in his decision: self-preservation might be dimmed at times in Apollo, but it was still there.

Starbuck spent many, many nights alone after that, wondering what would have happened if he had just hugged Apollo back instead of having to be so – so Starbuck about the whole situation.

 

At 29, Starbuck should have been old enough to see it coming.  But somehow it took him by surprise when Apollo kissed him.

There had been a party, with too much ale and ambrosa, and too many missing faces.  Those left after the Cylons’ ambush at Karpa were determined not only to mark their victory, but to ensure they knew they were alive.  As the evening grew noisier and more desperate in its jollity, Starbuck, for once acting like the responsible citizen that everyone knew he wasn’t, took pity on a drunken Apollo and helped him up from the sofa and Sheba’s clutches in order to escort him back to his quarters. 

He had intended to leave him, but the sheen of tears in Apollo’s eyes demanded he stay and try to talk him out of the guilt that wasn’t his to bear.  Had it not been for his clear-sighted, not to mention fracking sneaky, plan, none of them would have survived, let alone be in currently safe space with the Cylons thinking they were destroyed.  So he sat next to Apollo, and told him so.  Told him that nobody had deserved that stupid fracking prize for strategic thinking more than Apollo did.  Told him that he’d turned out all right, really, for someone who’d been so uncool at the Academy until Starbuck had rescued him.  In fact, Starbuck said a lot more than he had intended to, but then he’d had a lot to drink, and Apollo was very quiet, apart from the occasional hiccupping breath that might or might not have been laughter – or a sob. 

It was when Starbuck said that he really had to go because he was due on duty the next morning and his current CO was a real reactionary when it came to things like freedom of expression and situational awareness that Apollo grabbed hold of his arm.  He said, “Stay, Starbuck,” and pressed a hot kiss against Starbuck’s neck.  Starbuck froze for an instant, then turned to look at Apollo.  Which neatly gave Apollo access to his mouth.  And after that the thought of leaving was, with most other thoughts, swiftly driven out of Starbuck’s head.

Starbuck was, however, surprised to find that Apollo knew just what to do to make him moan, and writhe, and moan some more.

Apollo was more surprised to find, the next morning, that Starbuck had stayed.  And that he came back the following night. 

 

Apollo was 33 when Starbuck next surprised him.

He said, “I love you, ‘Pol.”

It had been just another night at the Officers’ Club, another night where Starbuck had lost his own and the best part of Apollo’s pay on one of his unbeatable systems, where Starbuck had been holding court and Apollo had been just another of the admirers in his orbit.  It had been just another night of coming back to Apollo’s quarters, a moment of emptiness at remembering that Boxey was at a sleepover with a friend, and then of pleasure at realising that they could make all the noise in the bedroom they wanted to.  He just had to check his messages first, check that the Galactica was still functioning even though the Strike Captain had taken four centars of R&R.

Starbuck hadn’t done what he usually did when Apollo was being Captain Dutiful, which involved pressing up close against him, encouraging his clothes to fall off in a way that Apollo still couldn’t understand because, Lords knew, even when he was trying to get undressed in a hurry, his fingers and thumbs got in the way of fasteners and buttons, but Starbuck just seemed to look at an item of clothing and it undid itself for him.  Starbuck hadn’t walked him backwards away from the terminal, towards the bed, to touch him in ways that Apollo had never known before.

Instead, Starbuck had stopped in the living area and watched Apollo check the messages on his terminal, watched him send a voice message back to Jolly about the duty office roster for the next secton.  He’d watched Apollo, and when Apollo signed off the message, he’d said it.

“I love you, ‘Pol.”

Surprise splintered Apollo’s lungs.  At least, that was the best explanation Apollo could come up with as to why he suddenly couldn’t breathe and his chest hurt.  He had never thought Starbuck would say it.  Not to him.  And he’d thought that being with Starbuck was enough.

But, this – this was light and life and everything rolled into the incandescence that was Starbuck.  And he felt the shudder, felt the tear in the fabric of the universe as the laws of physics changed and the sun started to revolve around him, bringing warmth and life to the cold and somewhat barren wasteland.

There were other surprises during their yahrens together, but nothing ever stole Apollo’s breath the way Starbuck’s declaration did that night (though there were times when Starbuck’s hands and tongue, applied together, came close).  And nothing ever again surprised Starbuck to speechlessness in quite the same way as did Apollo’s calm announcement to the Commander about the change in his living arrangements.

But then, when you have everything you want, who needs surprises?

 

End