IC inbox (pumpkin hollow)

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy here! Leave a message.

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july

[not_a_traitor]

As usual, Gaeta can't sleep for more than a couple hours, so he's out and about in the early morning, hoping to turn the insomnia into a little motivation. The walk will do him some good as he keeps strengthening his bad leg, he figures; he'll find some breakfast, pick up a few groceries, maybe take an extra shift at the library once it's open to make up for all the time he missed in June...

...pass close enough to Father Mulcahy's house to notice -- is that a tent in the backyard?

And is someone inside it?

Puzzled, he slows to a halt, eyeing the setup with a frown.

[lovethyneighb_or]

At this hour, there isn't much movement to see; past four in the morning he's usually become too exhausted for the paranoia and discomfort to win out, and respite will come, if only for a few hours. Poking out from the tent flap is the bottom of some kind of wooden rod. Otherwise, nothing seems amiss.

[not_a_traitor]

Hm.

Someday, Gaeta hopes tiredly, he won't feel like two wild animals have just started a frantic, scrabbling fight in his brain every time there's a slight change in his environment. It's probably nothing; it's not nothing, what if something's wrong? He studies the tent for another minute before, with a sigh, he continues on his walk.

But the fight in his head doesn't get much quieter, even after a couple hours of puttering around town. He takes a detour back to the Oak & Iron for two more cups of coffee, poured into lidded containers for easy transport, plus a small wrapped package holding a few pastries. Then he returns to Mulcahy's house.

If he's still not visible in the backyard, Gaeta will knock on the front door. Maybe it's nothing, but there's no harm in visiting a friend either way.

[lovethyneighb_or]

The rod is gone by the time Gaeta returns; so is whatever figure that was in the tent. A candle is on in the house, and though the curtains are drawn, the crack of light beneath them reveals a shadow moving as he putters around his house.

When he knocks, there’s a long pause. Then the shadow moves to the door, and there’s the sound of the lock turning.

Still in his pajamas, Mulcahy looks haggard in the weak light of early morning and dim candles, pale and wraithlike. His thin hair is a mess, his shoulders and eyes slump like a sun-starved plant left to droop as he grips his staff for balance. He looks miserable in the way that the hideously sleep-deprived do. And yet, seeing Gaeta at the door, he lifts just a little bit.

“Oh,” he creaks softly, voice still rusted with sleep. “Gaeta. Hello, son. Do you need something?”

[not_a_traitor]

...Gods. Gaeta isn't entirely sure what he expected, but it wasn't for Mulcahy to look this bad.

(The fight quiets down at last. I was right, he tells himself firmly, to think something was wrong.)

"Morning, Father," he says. "No, I, ah, just wanted to stop by. See how you were doing." A small, crooked smile, and he rummages in his satchel to extract one of the coffee flasks -- still warm and still holding all its contents unspilled, thankfully. As he holds it out like he were presenting a written sitrep to the Admiral: "I'm glad I did. You look like you could use this."

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Ah," he sighs, taking the flask in hand. As wilted as he looks, he seems perfectly comfortable standing in the doorway of his home, being handed coffee by a friend. Over his shoulder his Klefki appears, jingling curiously.

Mulcahy takes a sip. "Thank you for that. You're not wrong at all. I've been doing... poorly, I'm afraid. It mostly comes down to having trouble sleeping." Clearly. "And you? How have you been?"

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta grimaces. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Spoken with the sympathy of another insomniac. He glances to the Klefki, digs up another brief smile, and wiggles his fingers with a murmured yes, hello to you too before returning his attention to Mulcahy.

"I've been -- you know." He shrugs, leaning a shoulder against the door. "Making do. About the same as always." So not great, but functional; a familiar state for anyone in the veterans' club. Gaeta pauses, then adds, as casual as he can, "Does the trouble have anything to do with the campsite out back?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

Peter jangles happily, the keyhole that is its mouth opening in something like a smile before it retreats back into the house. It has breakfast to finish.

"I'm afraid so. It's that dirt man." To Gaeta, the answer slips out easily. (Half of it, anyway.) "Have you heard his music? It's just that I can't stand the thought of him breaking into my house. Becoming nocturnal is not quite an option for me at the moment, so I thought that if I did have to sleep at night..."

He sighs. He sounds foolish for this behavior, but it really is all he could come up with. "The town is generally safe enough, and if I am sleeping outside, then I can reasonably expect someone to appear in my space. I can tolerate a hand reaching under my pillow then. But not inside my house."

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta blows out a breath. "Yeah." Low. "It's frakked up."

Among many other things that aren't even remotely the point: why would you break into somebody's house to steal dirt? Isn't there enough of it outside?

He studies Mulcahy for another beat. "Is it just your house, specifically? Would it be easier if you were sleeping indoors somewhere else, like the inn?"

On an actual bed is heavily implied, but left unspoken.

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Any place that's meant to be where I'm safe, especially by a lock with a key that I have. I..."

... hmmh.

"I've been forced outside more than once. I don't take to it well."

[not_a_traitor]

"How do you mean?"

The frown of concern deepens.

"Forced outside from -- the same kind of thing? Someone breaking into your house?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

It's hardly "breaking in" when you couldn't lock your door in the first place, but.

"This is more than a year ago now, but yes. And being brought someplace else."

Kidnapped, he means, but he can't speak the word directly, as if the word will burn his tongue. To do so would be to summon the past into the present. He can't look it in the eye.

[not_a_traitor]

Mulcahy will see when Gaeta makes the connection. It does not happen all at once, but crosses a spectrum: the confusion blends with disbelief (Gaeta, still, even now, wondering if he's understood the unsaid words beneath Mulcahy's explanation), the disbelief stretches into a thin horror, and that horror does not go away once the light of understanding reaches his eyes.

"Gods." He doesn't know what else to say. Even that might not be the right thing to say, he thinks absurdly, when Mulcahy is a priest of a singular god. "That's -- horrible. I'm so sorry, sir."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy hesitates. He doesn't know what to say, so he sips his coffee again instead.

"Ah, well. It's been some time," he reiterates. He isn't sure why. Does he mean to reassure or dismiss, and is it for Gaeta or himself? "But you... understand why if he comes for me, I don't want it to be in my house. It's all a little too unpleasant."

He pauses again, feeling the warmth leak into his hands from the flask. "You know, Gaeta, you can step inside if you'd like. I'd hate to keep you standing out here on the porch."

[not_a_traitor]

"Oh, uh -- "

He shakes off enough of the cloud to huff a wry, self-deprecating noise. "Thank you," he says as he steps inside. "I didn't want to come in uninvited, if you're already on edge from a home invasion."

Once over the threshold, Gaeta rummages through his bag again.

"I don't know how much of an appetite you have, but I brought some pastries, too. Interested?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

"My, Gaeta. If I knew you were going to try and sell me something the moment I let you in, I would have left you out there."

This is all delivered with a laughing tone as he takes the single candle he'd lit in the house to go and light a few of the oil lamps. Peter, sensing a visitor, comes floating in to eye Gaeta cautiously.

He sets down the candle as he circles back. "I would appreciate one. Thank you very much."

[not_a_traitor]

"Lucky for you, I'm not driving a particularly hard bargain today," says Gaeta lightly. "Zero brass. Get it while it lasts."

He offers a brief grin along with one of the pastries when Mulcahy circles back. "You're very welome, sir. -- And what about you?" he adds to Peter, eyebrows lifted. "What, do you want breakfast, too?"

He's all set to break off part of his own pastry to give the Klefki a bite. What can he say? He's a soft touch.

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy glances up. "Hm? Oh--come on in, Peter. Gaeta's a friend." To him: "Don't worry too much about it. He has his own breakfast, but he's a careful sort of fellow. Very protective."

A small plate is produced to put the pastry on, one for each of them. Peter floats into the room and settles into a high spot to watch, rather like an irritable cat.

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta chuckles. "Sounds like a good pet to have. Especially, ah, right now."

Gingerly, he takes a seat, propping his cane nearby before digging out the second coffee flask for himself. He spares another glance for Peter. "Is he able to... I don't know. Sound the alarm at all? Or is he too quiet for that?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

“Oh, he’s quite loud. I found that out one night when he got spooked by a groundhog in the yard, before I started teaching him what to look out for. He made this incredibly loud screeching noise like scraping metal. Startled me terribly until I found out it was only him.”

[not_a_traitor]

"Good, uh... key ring," says Gaeta, amused but approving. He lifts his coffee toward the Klefki. "Mostly. If that woke me up, I would've thought it was a hull failure and dropped dead of a heart attack, not -- how I ended up dying."

You know. Being executed at the end of a launch tube.

After a moment's hesitation, Gaeta rubs the back of his head, faintly embarrassed. "I'm going into CIC mode," he says, wry. "I can feel it. See a problem, try to fix it. But -- honestly, I don't know. What do you need to feel safer, Father?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Believe me, my first thought had been that a tank had utterly flattened a jeep in my kitchen." Beat. "Those would be large military land vehicles."

He goes quiet for a moment, mulling over his share of pastry and coffee.

"I wish I knew," he murmurs. "Well, I do know. I'd like to be sure that I won't have my house broken into. But I don't know what you could possibly do about it. And..."

He presses his thumbs together until the tips turn white, then lets them go. "If I'm being very, very honest. I don't know if I'm really all that more scared than I usually am. All that's really changed is that one of my fears is suddenly much more material than usual."

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta exhales. "Yeah, I know how that goes," he murmurs. "The background noise gets... foregrounded, by something, but it's always there either way."

His mouth twists a bit.

"Still. If you'll, ah, let me be the biggest hypocrite in the worlds for a second -- " The twist resolves into a brief, humorless smile. "A bad week's sleep only makes it worse."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy laughs quietly.

"I... I suppose... even though I have company in the house with Peter, being the only person here at night doesn't help." Or having a window facing Hawkeye's, who still has his curtains drawn tightly shut. "But I don't know what I could do about that, except perhaps going back to the Oak and Iron."

[not_a_traitor]

Well...

Another solution, immediate and obvious, pops into Gaeta's mind. A solution that also feels -- overly familiar? Too intimate?

Too trusting, murmurs an equally obvious thought. And that, paradoxically, is what pushes Gaeta into making the offer. Hasn't he already trusted Mulcahy with plenty already? First with a few pieces of his past; then the Father's reassurance that not every monotheist on the island was in alignment with the Cylons. Hell, if it weren't for Mulcahy keeping his head during the cult visitation, Gaeta would have lost his own altogether.

"Well, if all you need is an extra warm body on the couch," he says, "I could stay over."