Gaeta has decided that he frakking hates this time of year.
It's not because he's a grump about the holidays. Truly. He liked a good Saturnalia celebration as much as the next person, back when it was an actual event and not a strained attempt at normalcy during the years after the attacks. No, he hates everything just because it's so unbearably cold. Even the chill at the Dance of Celestine was pushing it, and now, with everything below freezing for weeks on end, Gaeta's turned into an outright recluse.
But. If it's not the holidays, just the weather, he supposes he ought to try and drag himself out for Givingstide. Especially since he does have some presents to distribute. (Most of which feel woefully inadequate -- how do you even give gifts in a place of abundance like this? He's spent years exchanging things like five-year-old magazines and tubes of toothpaste, properly mended socks and half-cups of real coffee. Nobody here would appreciate something that basic.)
Catch him by the fire with his food and mulled wine, slowly shedding a comically large number of layers as he begins to thaw out. His mood will thaw out soon enough, too, we promise.
from now on we'll have to muddle through somehow[mourner's night]
He wasn't planning on joining the procession -- see above re: recluse -- but when it passes by the apartments on Goldleaf Street, the sight tugs hard at the old wounds crisscrossing his heart.
There's a reason Gaeta doesn't talk much about his life before Marrow Isle. If he ever gave himself real room to grieve, he's certain, it'd metastasize until that's all he was anymore. Grief made manifest. He'd start weeping and never be able to stop. Useless, helpless, uncontrollable. What would even be the point of him then? And a whole holiday given over to grief? No. He should keep his shields up and stay inside.
...
Gaeta wraps himself in his customary layers and falls in step with the procession, silently accepting a candle from one of the villagers.
Still, he tries to keep everything as small and contained as he can on the approach to the graveyard. It feels like every inch of him is drawn so tight with the effort that he's shaking with more than the cold. Moving among the headstones, he doesn't know where to go, what to do, what to say. It's different than sending out those lanterns during the beach party, or tacking a photograph on Galactica's memorial wall. Remembrance is not the same as mourning.
So all he does is stand, and breathe, and try not to weep, as precarious as standing on the edge of a canyon.
Felix Gaeta | Battlestar Galactica | OTA
Gaeta has decided that he frakking hates this time of year.
It's not because he's a grump about the holidays. Truly. He liked a good Saturnalia celebration as much as the next person, back when it was an actual event and not a strained attempt at normalcy during the years after the attacks. No, he hates everything just because it's so unbearably cold. Even the chill at the Dance of Celestine was pushing it, and now, with everything below freezing for weeks on end, Gaeta's turned into an outright recluse.
But. If it's not the holidays, just the weather, he supposes he ought to try and drag himself out for Givingstide. Especially since he does have some presents to distribute. (Most of which feel woefully inadequate -- how do you even give gifts in a place of abundance like this? He's spent years exchanging things like five-year-old magazines and tubes of toothpaste, properly mended socks and half-cups of real coffee. Nobody here would appreciate something that basic.)
Catch him by the fire with his food and mulled wine, slowly shedding a comically large number of layers as he begins to thaw out. His mood will thaw out soon enough, too, we promise.
from now on we'll have to muddle through somehow [mourner's night]
He wasn't planning on joining the procession -- see above re: recluse -- but when it passes by the apartments on Goldleaf Street, the sight tugs hard at the old wounds crisscrossing his heart.
There's a reason Gaeta doesn't talk much about his life before Marrow Isle. If he ever gave himself real room to grieve, he's certain, it'd metastasize until that's all he was anymore. Grief made manifest. He'd start weeping and never be able to stop. Useless, helpless, uncontrollable. What would even be the point of him then? And a whole holiday given over to grief? No. He should keep his shields up and stay inside.
...
Gaeta wraps himself in his customary layers and falls in step with the procession, silently accepting a candle from one of the villagers.
Still, he tries to keep everything as small and contained as he can on the approach to the graveyard. It feels like every inch of him is drawn so tight with the effort that he's shaking with more than the cold. Moving among the headstones, he doesn't know where to go, what to do, what to say. It's different than sending out those lanterns during the beach party, or tacking a photograph on Galactica's memorial wall. Remembrance is not the same as mourning.
So all he does is stand, and breathe, and try not to weep, as precarious as standing on the edge of a canyon.