| Current mood: | accomplished |
| Current music: | still bent |
new fic! yay! part one, supply and demand
so i've been feeling all left out of the ficathon, cos i don't know where it's all started, and i am, in any case, too mentally overloaded to even contemplate further prompts - ask ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
bantha_fodder, she tried to prompt me, to no avail. but now i'm all happy, cos i FINALLY FINISHED THIS GODDAMN FIC!!!
yay for coke and rum down the pub. and yay to voleuse, who provided the final inspiration.
and thank you niz4 - agent of collaboration.
this one is long folks, so i've split it up. parts two and three to follow.
Title: Supply and Demand
Rating: PG? BSG? Beats me…does frak count as a rude word?
Disclaimer: Thanks and kudos to Ron Moore.
Archive: At Beyond Insane,but if you’d like to, please email
Summary: The first Law of Supply and Demand extends to everything.
Note: Hey look – a fic title with capitals! Thanks galore to angualupin for the scurvy info (argh, me hearties) and to niz4 for being her usual excellent inspiring self.
Spoilers: Post-Act of Contrition, but a little totally AU for timelines.
Feedback: I’m also open to offers of money, chocolate, and babysitting.
Supply and Demand
First, it was tampons.
No, actually, before that it was just plain old time and care and an ear for listening and a shoulder to lean on, but none of these have a market value, and once everyone realised the lack they just picked up the slack for each other to some extent. So there’s almost enough to go round now, except for time, and that will never be anything but in short supply, so they all make do.
The next thing was parts – Viper parts, particularly – but eventually they got a handle on that too and now they make their own, although the kinks about raw supplies like wiring and solder are still being worked out. He guesses that the freight and manufacturing ships are getting organised, and someone will have to figure out planetary supply lines, and he is incredibly glad that this isn’t part of his job description.
But the first real thing was tampons.
And naturally, he never even noticed it until Kara walked into the squad bunkroom sometime after midwatch with a huge grin on her face and a kitbag full of small white boxes. And every female squad member cheered.
Kara started tossing out the boxes like they were candy, or early birthday presents, and someone said “Thank the Lords!” and someone else said “Starbuck, you’re a champion”, and about half the women in the room went straight for the head.
He’d been standing near the lockers with a pencil, making amendments to the shift rotation schedule.
“What was that all about?”
And she just winked at him.
Goddamnit. Well, he knew she had a few connections. And he figured she had to know somebody – I mean, how else could she keep herself in cigars?
*
He’s in the rec room.
Dualla is addicted to mystery novels, although it has taken him a while to pick this up. She reads very quickly – voracious: his father would say she is a voracious reader – eyes skimming over words, lips parted like she’s tasting them, the expression on her face one of heightened anticipation, slightly blanketed by her need to maintain composure in an occupied room. He wonders how her face looks when she’s reading alone. Maybe she chews her lip with her teeth. Maybe she lets her eyebrows raise at the denouement.
He can imagine her in her rack, propped on a pillow, with her back against the bulkhead and her knees drawn up, an attitude of thorough absorption. He imagines that the story takes her to another place, somewhere out of herself, out of the here. He imagines that she dresses for her shift and then settles down to read until five minutes before she’s due in CIC – finishing pages in a hurry, hoping to complete the chapter, checking her chrono, marking the page carefully and laying her novel down with a sigh, walking into the presence of her commanding officers with a mind full of safe adventure and derring-do.
He fetches himself another coffee from the bench and sees her read the last page, the concluding lines. She exhales silently, smiling. Then she presses the book reverently between her two palms, turns it and opens the cover, and starts again from page one.
*
“What do you miss about planet life?”
“Pardon?”
“Planet life. As in, living on a planet. As opposed to, say, hauling your ass through space in a clapped-out metal rustbucket.”
They are both in their bunks, and Kara’s voice floats up from underneath. A serendipitous alignment of shifts, and they are the only two people still awake in officer’s quarters at 0300. Lights are dimmed – it maintains the illusion.
He considers the question.
“What do I miss?”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t say apart from my mother and everyone else, because her tone is too light for that not to be a given. He screws up his face.
“It’s a pretty broad category, Starbuck.”
“Humour me.”
“I miss…gods, I don’t know. I’m too tired to think about this.”
“You are so boring.”
He can hear her pouting. He prompts her, because this conversation is somehow making him feel sleepy and warm, and he wants the nice feeling to continue.
“Well, what do you miss?”
“Me?” She pauses, but he knows she’s thought about this, so it’s largely for effect. “Okay, I miss…coffee at Hover’s.”
He smiles at the ceiling.
“I always thought they made it too weak there.”
“That’s because you won’t drink it unless your spoon stands up in it.” Her voice broadens as she grins.
“What else?”
“It’s your turn.”
“I’m still thinking. What else?”
“Steak.”
“Mm.” He misses that too.
“Buying underwear.”
He laughs softly.
“Since when?”
“Shutup. Since I couldn’t do it anymore.”
An image from earlier in the day of her, standing at the shared bathroom sink in white briefs and a tank, floats into his brain before he blinks it away.
“That’s it? Coffee, steak and underwear?”
“The list is too long. Anyway, s’your turn.”
“It’s my turn…ah gods…” He presses the back of his head into the thin pillow. “I don’t know. Fresh milk.”
“Fresh anything,” she suggests solemnly.
“Cold ambrosia at the end of a long day.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“Books… I don’t know. That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all I can think of. How about…hot water, anytime.”
“Yeah, that’s a good one.”
“Yep. And…” He muses for a second. “…swimming in the sea.”
“Never thought you were big on the beach.”
“I’m not. I mean, I wasn’t. It’s like you and the underwear – you don’t miss it until it’s gone.”
“So say we all.” She sounds like she’s speaking from very far away, down a long tube.
Suddenly the conversation is making him melancholy. He rolls onto his side, which affords him a darkened view of quarters, and he looks at all the empty racks, and thinks of the things the dead will never get a chance to miss. He closes his eyes: he’s not a kid, this is not a slumber party. This is real. They can never go home again.
“I miss the sun,” he breathes, so softly he thinks she probably failed to catch it. He thinks she might have dropped off. But when he reaches out to pull the curtain across he can see her, she’s angled her head sideways a little from her bunk so she can look up and catch his eye. She looks pale, weary, eyes winging out of dark shadows, but she’s smiling.
“Go to sleep, Apollo.” Her hair falls away onto the pillow, a dirty-blonde frame. “Dream of the sun.”
And the last thing he sees before closing his eyes is the radiance of her face.
*
Next day, he thinks about the tampons. More specifically, he thinks about how she got the tampons.
It isn’t really an official blackmarket, more like a loose inter-ship trading network. People still have cubits, although nobody really seems completely sure of what they’re worth now. He knows that the pilots and the deck crew personnel do a line in trade – money, toiletries, luxury foods like chocolate, stuff like that. People on the civilian ships are open to barter.
But three things bother him. The first is that military personnel have better access to requisitions anyway, which doesn’t seem fair on the civilians, who are basically just bargaining with limited supplies, or what they own or make. The second thing is that, military or not, not everyone is above reproach – they have a whole cache of mechanical supplies and equipment in the storerooms that would look mighty tempting to some people. And the third thing is –
Kara.
Anything that seems to skate the edge of legality apparently falls into Kara’s turf, for obvious reasons. Rumours get around. He thinks that if he were trying to get a hold of something, he would probably go to Starbuck. It would make perfect sense.
He thinks it’s unlikely she’d deal in anything truly off-limits, like meds or parts. But he can see how she’d enjoy being in the role – the connection, the supplier. The person who gets you what you need. Who helps you out. She’d be pleased with the illicitness of it, knowing she wasn’t really getting her hands dirty.
He decides to keep his eyes peeled.
*
He’s in the CIC.
Gaeta is the neatest person he’s ever met. This is backhanded compliment because it implies that the man is slightly anal, although in Gaeta’s job this quality is undoubtedly considered an asset, and Lee is not unaware of how other people regard his own attention to detail.
But, neatness. Gaeta walks over to hand the commander a printout from the last Jump, and then turns back to his station. Then he notices that the clip on his boot has come undone. Lee watches him check the screens as he snaps the clip. Lee notices the gloss on the toe of Gaeta’s boot, the spit-polish extending all the way to the heel. Lee glances at his own boots, observes scuff-marks and wear, and something registers.
Shoe-polish is used sparingly amongst the crew, because it is in high demand and difficult to replace. Lee himself shines his shoes less frequently than regulations demand, and frequently enough to get a razzing in quarters. He knows that his father would admire this attitude in Gaeta, admire a man who makes an effort to maintain appearances, even during times of crisis. Looking the part is important, his father would say.
Meanwhile, the question of where Gaeta gets his shoe-polish goes begging.
*
He notices.
That’s pretty much his job, to notice. In fact, it now seems quite amazing to him that he never noticed before. Remiss of him.
He notices four bottles of what could be hair conditioner in Starbuck’s locker. The next day, they’re gone. One of the wing patrol pilots gets three pairs of socks, a bra and a scented candle for her birthday. Crashdown offers him an exchange: three shaving razors for a half a box of pencils.
A few days later he sees Crash betting more razors on a triad game. Kara laughs when the man throws in his hand – she pulls the pot towards herself, lascivious grinning.
“Come home to mommy,” she says.
*
Lee finally catches up with her in quarters.
She’s sitting on a bench, her flight jacket hanging open loosely and dog tags dangling as she puts on her boots. He’s on mids; she’s got one more patrol before coming off earlies. He starts stripping off his workout sweats, watching her fingers tug and snap and click.
He starts the conversation lightly.
“I hear you’ve branched out. Flying and commerce – didn’t know you were so multi-talented, Starbuck.”
She stretches her legs out in front and grins.
“Yeah? Did it surprise you?”
“A little.” He grins – short-lived exchange - as he pulls his gear out of his locker. “So, what you been trading?”
She shrugs.
“Stuff. Personals, smokes, clothes, chocolate, music – nothing that would bother your dad, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Hey, I gotta ask.”
“Why? You wanna put in an order?”
He almost says ‘rubbers’, just to see the look on her face, but then decides that would be obnoxious. He peels off his tanks.
“So, nothing that would bother my dad.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Booze?”
She lifts and drops one shoulder.
“Sometimes. For special occasions. It’s not completely forbidden.”
“And tampons, obviously.” He can smile when he says that, which is her cue to smile back, a little devilish.
“Yup. And prophylactics.”
This surprises him.
“What, are people stockpiling? Cottle says the implant supplies won’t run out until –“
“No, not that.” She waves a hand. “I mean, fraternization policy still exists. For now, anyway.”
He blinks, slings a towel around his waist to change his underwear.
“And?”
“Well, there’s still civilians and non-coms.” She stakes him out with her eyes. “People still frak, you know.”
Pause for subtext. He doesn’t have time for this - he just nods and looks away as he slips out of and into briefs.
“Sure.”
Ever happy to push the boundaries of courtesy, she angles her head to catch his gaze.
“So it bothers you?”
“What?” He pulls on his pants. “The frakking or the trading?”
She rolls her eyes. He grins, then – considers.
“To tell you the truth…I’m not sure.”
Bored now, she stands to go. “Well, when you make up your mind let me know.”
“Does that mean you’d stop trading if I asked you to?”
It doesn’t come out like an appeal. He hadn’t meant it to. He’s curious. She just shrugs and grins, noncommittal, and he realises he doesn’t know why he expected another response.
She gathers up her gloves and reels her dogtags into her tank, against her skin.
“Well this has been fun, but I’m on the clock.”
“See you after patrol.”
Back to pleasantries, which she acknowledges briefly before walking out. As a potential opening, he thinks it all went…as well as could be expected.
*
He’s in the bathroom.
Cally smoothes on hand-creme in the bathroom, it looks like white axle grease, clarified sump oil, but he knows it’s not requisition. She rubs it into the cracks in her fingers, fissures in the webbing between. She sighs a little when she does this. She would be slightly mortified to know that Lee was observing her, she thinks that in a bathroom full of other people she is safe, anonymous, alone.
He finishes his shave and leaves, thinking of how his mother used to rub creme into her hands after gardening. But Cally’s needs and his mother’s needs are (were) different, so it’s a poor analogy, and the only thing linking Cally with his mother is the image of hands chafing together greasily, two women performing self-repair.
*
There’s a mental list.
Shampoo - five bottles, squeezed into share portions. Shaving razors. Cigarettes. Packs of cards. Tampons, rubbers. Old clothes, especially civvies. Pens, pencils, paper. Books (novels and non-fiction). Music chips and personal Player earphones. Shoe-polish. Socks. Underwear. Chocolate bars and, sometimes, dried fruit.
Birthday gifts - small things. Shaving soap. A whetstone. Good knives. Fragrance oils (jewelry and other adornment being superfluous and mostly forbidden on deck). Candles. Booze – for a special occasion. Tiny sachets of sugar and powdered milk. Lotions and cremes that smell softly of flowers.
He can’t remember the last time he saw real flowers.
In the bunkroom he sees Evans hand Kara four pairs of briefs and a pack of cards, which she slips into her daypack before slipping out. He takes this - their lack of concealment, not surreptitious, not concerned – to mean that it is turning into a cottage industry
*
He’s in the squad bunkroom.
Hotdog is low on socks, because he’s been trading them for cigarettes. This is common knowledge. It’s also common knowledge that cigarettes are a controlled substance - that is, you learn to exercise control, you treat cigarettes as an indulgence, a devotion, smoking rarely and savouring each disgusting gasp. You can only afford to smoke lavishly if you are as good at cards as Kara Thrace, and Hotdog (this is common knowledge too) is not particularly good at cards.
Hotdog smokes a lot anyway. Maybe it’s because he came into the service so recently. He has no understanding of cigarettes, of what they’re worth.
Which is why Lee has the opportunity to see Hotdog drag on a pair of damp and stinking socks with an expression of grim distaste. He looks disgusted, but resigned to it. Footrot, Lee thinks, is probably not far behind.
*
They meet up again in the mess but it’s ships passing, she is chasing her breakfast around with a fork disinterestedly and he is just sitting down. He understands the lack of interest – scrambled eggs from powder, with fake bread-like substance and synth something else on the side. They ration the real food now too. He nods at her with his chin.
“Eat.”
She makes a face.
“Frak, I hate this stuff.”
“You need to eat. You need the energy.”
“Energy, right. But why bother eating if I only wanna heave it all up again when I’m done?” She pushes her plate away with a grimace. “You know what I’d love? Orange juice. Real orange juice, with pith, and an actual taste.”
He chews, nonchalant. The bread has the texture of rubbery cardboard.
“Thought you could’ve got your hands on a few measly oranges.”
She shrugs, picks her teeth with her thumbnail.
“I never trade food. Not real food.” She lets her fork clunk down onto her plate, abandoned. “Don’t wanna be accused of taking a meal out of anyone’s mouth.”
Nodding acknowledgment. He concentrates on swallowing as she appraises him.
“So have you thought any more about what you miss?”
“I thought we covered this?”
“I’m still curious. C’mon, Apollo – I’m talking on a purely base material level.”
“You mean is there anything I’m lacking. That I’m in need of.”
“Well I could make a few suggestions about what you need, but let’s not go there.”
“Funny.” He clears his throat. “Kara, seriously – the trading.”
“I thought we discussed this already,” she frowns.
“We did. I wanna discuss it some more.”
“I don’t get it. Why is this even an issue?”
“Because the civilians on the other ships shouldn’t have to barter with their supplies and belongings.” He pauses meaningfully. “You know, some of this stuff I could get on order.”
She pushes back into her chair.
“Sure. I’m always happy to wait a month for a cake of soap.”
He lays his fork down carefully.
“Everybody has needs, Kara. We’re not the only ones hanging out for supplies, you know. There’s plenty of ships out there that have –“
“Yeah, look, I think I’m pretty aware of the fact that we’re all going short.”
“So you know that I’m doing the best I can to make sure that everyone gets the essentials.”
“I’m not disputing that. Look, it’s fine. You’re doing a great job – sir.”
“I don’t need your reassurances, Kara, and that’s got nothing to do with it.”
“Really? I thought you were just feeling insecure.”
He stops, takes a breath with his mouth open, closes it into a tight line. She realises that she’s crossed over, bites her lip for restraint, ploughs on.
“Look, I’m …” Not ready to back down yet. “You know, this doesn’t have to devolve into an argument about seniority and regulations –“
“Unfortunately that’s pretty much what it boils down to.”
“No, it doesn’t. Everybody’s rationing, but people just…need stuff.”
He can feel himself starching up, sitting straighter in his seat, he can’t help himself. His reply comes out a little grating.
“Well I haven’t seen anyone cracking at the seams for want of a few luxuries.”
“Maybe you haven’t been paying attention.”
“Now that is just –“ He stops, glances around – the volume of his voice is drawing attention. He clenches his hand into a fist, releases it, leans across the table to hiss at her. “Now that is just bullshit.“
She rolls her eyes, unbothered by spectacle.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry – lords, will you just relax? I mean, c’mon, Lee. Tampons aren’t ‘luxuries’” She makes the quote marks in the air with her fingers. “People come to me, trying to get things that make their lives more bearable, so I just –“
“You what? Take their meagre cubits and belongings and sacrifice them on the blackmarket? How does this make people’s lives more bearable? Did you know that Hotdog is about to develop tinia if he keeps trading his socks for cigarettes?”
“Hotdog is an idiot.”
“Really.” He’s angry enough now to ask pertinent questions, even if his voice is quiet. “And what, exactly, is your cut, as the middleman?”
She rears back.
“Frak you,” she says coldly.
“Just tell me, seriously – how does all this help people, Kara?”
She glares at him, her eyes a wasteland.
“I don’t know how long it’s gonna take you to figure this out, Lee, but sometimes life isn’t just about the essentials.”
And something happens to her then. She blinks, lays her hands flat on the table, searches in his face.
“Lords, Lee – don’t you remember what living was like? Don’t you miss anything?”
And her pathos damps his anger for a moment and he thinks about it. Family pictures. Mementos. The bud vase of his mothers that had always been sitting someplace. Stuff you can’t get back.
“I…” he starts, then has to swallow in order to continue. “I feel like I should’ve saved something before the house burnt down.”
He looks away from her, looks at his plate, but he suddenly has no appetite, and the food tastes like ashes anyway.
*
Attack.
He flies patrols for two days straight, pulls a triple shift on the last stretch, and on the third day, returning from quarters after a shower, eyes gritty with fatigue, he helps Tyrol break up a fight just off the flight deck. Two crewmen arguing over a barter exchange gone wrong. Shaving soap, apparently, was involved. After the tension of the past few days this is almost the equivalent of comic relief, but he avoids grinning and lays down the law.
He gets back into the cockpit, thinking about tempers fraying over shaving soap. I mean, gods. How did soap get so frakking important?
He bites his lip.
*
He’s in his rack, at last.
Kara comes into the bunkroom late, into the gloom of fake night. He’s been trying to sleep, and opens his eyes dozily. Wonders if he should remind her that she’s on shift in a few hours. Thinks better of it.
She’s really trying to be quiet, sliding off her jacket, stowing her pack. She gets something out of it and he watches through half-closed eyes, fascinated, at the ritual she now performs.
She snaps open the lid of a small white bottle, squeezes something into one palm. Then she rubs her hands together, sighing with contentment as she works the stuff over her hands, over her face. There’s something prayerful about the movements – hands wringing in unison, face raised up, then bowed down. A ministration. Sliding her hands up her arms, smoothing over the skin of her shoulders, pale from lack of sun. The pads of her fingers press and ease gently, stroking the column of her throat, smoothing down over her collarbone. He can see her fingers slip under the straps of her tanks, granting access. He can see the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.
His eyes dart to her face. She looks peaceful. Happy.
And then the scent drifts over to him and he understands why. Rich, heady. His nostrils flare in appreciation. He can’t place the scent, but it reminds him of something. He closes his eyes for a second and…he’s got it. The smell of sweetness – cookies straight from the oven, incense burning, a citrus tang.
He wonders where she got the lotion. What she traded for it. It smells expensive.
She slips quietly into her bunk, and he hears faint rustlings as she preps her alarm, draws the curtain. Now silence. He rolls over and tries to return to sleep, only now the scent of the lotion, warmed by her body, is rising up from below, faint but detectable.
He closes his eyes and tries to focus on letting himself go limp, drift off. But the lilt of vanillin and incense and oranges is insistent and distracting. He feels enveloped. He has a claustrophobic moment, until he realises that it’s easier not to fight it. He likes the scent, after all. It’s not entirely unpleasant.
He gives in, breathes in deeply, lets perfume waft in and out of him…
Fades to black.
*
Two days later alert status has been scaled down and he’s relaying information to Dualla in CIC, and when he’s next spoken to he looks up. His father flaps paperwork at him, waving him over so that the deep gravel of voice doesn’t travel to too many ears.
“They’re fighting over soap now?”
Lee hesitates, off-guard, before replying.
“It was a one-off incident. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“Make sure it doesn’t.”
Lee nods, but his commander catches his eye.
“What about the trading?”
This was most definitely not in the report, but his father’s omnipresence is the stuff of legend.
“Sir?”
“I’ve heard.” His father frowns and peers at him. “You’re the CAG. Deal with it.”
And there’s not much else to add, except ‘Yes, sir’. At least his father didn’t say ‘Deal with her’, because that would be tantamount to implying that the CAG has no control over his pilots. And that his father is watching. And that maybe his father would deal with it more efficiently.
He finds the sense of his inadequacies, and his father’s subtle disappointment, incredibly distracting.
Not like there isn’t enough distractions. Kara is generous with everything she gets, so the late-night lotion has been shared out amongst other women. Now he’s smelling her everywhere. It’s maddening.
Dualla walks over and discreetly hands him a schedule printout, and his nostrils flare with the reminder.
*
sorry for the repetition, but i sliced it up to make it fit. next part in five.
Edit: here's the next bits -
part two
part three
cheers.
