Chapter Text
The world has changed, and you change with it. Yesterday, you were just a Pyramid player, captain of your squad. Today, you're a survivor. One of the lucky few to be on a ship with an FTL drive. You're never more thankful for a friendly match than this moment. If that one game had never happened between you and Caprica, if the team hadn't stayed longer than they did and declined the C-Bucs' offer to train together, you would be back on Tauron right now with your family. At home.
Your family.
You know what's happened to them, but you don't form the words in your mind. You block it out. You focus on the here and now. You focus on your team, but not before saying a quick prayer to Zeus, the one your ancestors called Thor, asking for protection for your loved ones. Loved ones you will never see again. Loved ones sitting next to you. Loved ones who may already be dead.
You pray.
Now you, Michael Ballack, you go and be a leader.
--
The news breaks over the wireless a few days later, after the fleet can stop for breath. Galactica is looking for pilots.
You find yourself conflicted. Your first loyalty is to your colony, but these men have been your friends for years. Leaving them for Galactica would rip your heart in two. You think back on your all too few years on Picon at the War Academy. You did well enough in your studies, showed promise in the flight sims, but you wanted the open air instead of the canned air found in a Viper cockpit. You found your open air on the Pyramid court, and you excelled. It was your domain, your kingdom, your empire to reign as you saw fit. The Tauron media began to call you "Kaiser", a noble title from long ago, to befit someone of your stature on the court.
But none of that matters now. The courts, the praise, the elation. All that matters is surviving.
Torsten finds you in one of the lounges on Cloud Nine; one that's out of the way, one where you thought no one would find you. Torsten has always had that way, like he knows what you think before you do.
"Micha."
You sigh; it's all you can do. "It's like… I know what's required of me. It's an awful situation, Torsten."
"Of course it is, and that's why we're going."
"We?"
"The Mannschaft, Micha. We all know what's going on onboard Galactica. They'll need all the help they can get. We may not all be pilots, but there's work to be done. To be honest, I'm going stir crazy on this flying hotel."
"And Jogi's all right with this? And Oliver? Hansi? What about the young ones? They're all so…"
"We'll watch over them, like we always have."
You stay silent for a few moments and let Torsten's words sink in. These boys, they're throwing themselves into a war zone. For you, from what Torsten's insinuating. Some of them, like Marcell and David, they're just kids. They shouldn't have to do this.
You tell this to Torsten, and he just shrugs. "If they choose to follow their captain, it's their choice."
It is, and that settles it. You stand up from your comfortable chair and look around. This will likely be the last time you see anything that conjures up the word "comfort".
You throw your arm around Torsten's shoulders, thankful for the contact. "We'll do it together, then."
He nods. The two of you walk out of the lounge and down to Jogi's cabin.
It's time for a team meeting.
--
The first few weeks are a blur. Your previous experience with a Viper gives you an edge over the others, and after a few crash courses with Starbuck, they throw you into your first CAP, desperate for the additional manpower. The others aren't so lucky, and get to spend more "quality" time with the holy terror you perceive Starbuck to be. She's good at what she does, great even, but there's a time to be cocky, and there's a time to be serious. You watch Apollo more than anyone else. You understand his analytical mind, the cut-and-dry approach he uses with everything.
A coping mechanism, you presume.
Your previous life follows you here as well, and it's not long before "Kaiser" is painted on your Viper beneath your name – Lieutenant Michael Ballack. You're made a lieutenant because of your former training, but you would rather be an ensign with the rest of the team that made the first cut: Torsten, Lukas, Bastian, and Arne. The idea was to stay with the team instead of excelling ahead of them – this definitely was not the plan. You resign yourself to the fact that they're on their way. They'll be up here with you, flying in the emptiness, searching for any sign of raiders in the dark.
--
You collapse into your rack, exhausted, after your third double CAP in five days. Starbuck going missing, and the fleet following after her, has thrown the whole flight deck into chaos. You've been neglecting everyone and focusing only on your plane, your routine, your survival. Refusing the stims that are floating around the flight deck like candy, because you know what happens in the long run with scheisse like that.
Chief Tyrol ordered you off the deck after you landed, telling you to find your rack before you collapse - that you were not going to crash one of his birds because you couldn't read your instruments. He gave you a standing order to not come back for at least two days, no matter what anyone else said, even Commander Adama. You protested weakly, knowing you wanted to, knowing you were minutes away from sleeping standing up, but you couldn't. Technically you're Tyrol's superior – the bars on your flight suit screaming a rank you didn't earn. A rank you threw back in the face of the Colonial Fleet all those years ago, but you knew if he saw you on deck, he'd send you straight to the brig. So, in deference, you smiled back at him and left the deck, thankful for the small permission that your body had been screaming for.
Sleep. Rest. Food.
Torsten. Lukas. Schweini.
Home.
A voice comes out of the near darkness. "Where have you been?"
You stare at the ceiling of your rack, the effort to speak almost too much. "You know where I've been, Fringser."
"Sorry, Micha. I had to ask."
"I know."
You hear a rustle of fabric and the metallic scrape of someone pulling back the small screen of your rack. "Scoot over. Get on your side."
You don't have the strength to protest, so you roll over closer to the wall and allow Torsten to slide in behind you.
He closes the screen and wraps his arm around your waist. His breath on your neck, his voice in your ear. "Sleep, Micha. I'll take care of you."
You nod slightly and fall asleep to the rhythm of Torsten breathing.
--
"Baron! You've got Cylons on your six! Shake them off!"
The attack on the tylium mine is proving more difficult than expected, and that's putting it lightly. The Cylons are jamming their Viper's missiles and oh gods this was not the plan frack scheisse and "Prince! Baron's still got those fracking raiders on his tail!"
"I'm on it, Kaiser. Just you watch."
You do watch as Lukas barrel rolls and starts toward Bastian, guns blazing and picking off two of the raiders as Schweini cartwheels over the last raider and turns it into a blazing orange against the black.
You have no time to watch the two of them fly off together, because something else catches your attention. "König! Apollo's flying too close to the mine! Follow him in! Keep him covered!"
Torsten doesn't answer back, but you didn't expect him to. He bursts nearly out of view, the triangular afterburn of his Viper getting smaller as you continue to blast at raiders, all the while commanding your troops. You see the mine explode in the distance and it's Torsten in your ear amidst all the channel chatter saying that Apollo's all right, that's he's all right, and they're flying back to Galactica.
Picking off raptors seems a little like child's play after that.
--
You lock the door to your racks behind yourself and Torsten. Your flight suit hangs on your hips and your tanks are so damp and you don't care because he was brilliant and beautiful and you're on such a fracking high right now and you don't give a flying frack about anything else but just being with this gorgeous and fracking insane man.
You drop your helmet on the table and grab him by one hand and pull him in. You're here you think and you're alive, but the words don't escape. Instead, you crush your lips to his. You breathe in that scent that has always been inexplicably Torsten. You align yourself to his body, wrapping an arm around his waist and the other coming to rest in his hair, hair cut so short to accommodate the viper helmet.
You pull back slightly and look at him. "You. Don't ever do that again."
He gives you a small smirk. "You told me to follow him."
"I know I did. I just… it's just I…"
He kisses you back, slow and languid, like water lapping up against the shoreline. "Micha. It's all right. I'm here."
He is.
You relax slightly, the adrenaline from the firefight slowly receding, and being replaced by something else. Something better. You pull at his flight suit, wanting to be as close to him as possible. It's a difficult task, but working together, both of you find yourselves standing in your tanks and shorts. It's not enough, though.
It's never enough when it comes to Torsten.
He sees it in your eyes, and pulls you back to his rack, but not before eying you over. He gives you a smile of approval, and that's all you need. You follow him in. He's still smiling, and it's infectious. You mirror that same smile as he pulls your tanks up around your head. You lift up slightly and allow him to pull them off you, throwing them out the rack and onto the floor. He does the same with your shorts, leaving you bare.
He also sheds what little bit of clothing he has left, but you don't see where it lands. What you do see is Torsten.
Hard.
For you.
You don't have time to focus because he's kissing you again. Distracting you. oh gods frack the cylons frack apollo frack starbuck frack every single fracking person onboard this fracking ship.
Frack them all.
All that matters is Torsten's fist around your cock and the sounds escaping from your lips and his lips around yours taking it all in. You reach for him, knowing in the small part of your brain that's still working that you don't want to leave him out, that it doesn't work quite right unless you do it together. You do your part well, because it's not long before his rhythm falters and you're coming apart at the seams and everything whites out.
--
You're both roused sometime later by someone pounding on the door and the sound of laughter.
"Micha? Torsten? You in there? Open up! We got our hands on real Ambrosia, didn't we Schweini?"
"Prime liquor, boys! Time to drink up!"
All you can do is look at Torsten and laugh.
It feels good to laugh.