Synergy, by Desdemon
Oct. 19th, 2005 06:08 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
hail-d.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashficTitle: Synergy
Author: Desdemon
Challenge: Food and Buildings (sga_flashfic)
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,724
Summary: John and Rodney get thrown in prison.
Author's Notes: Unbeta'd. Anybody know a beta who's good with pacing issues? :D
It occurred to John, as he and Rodney were frogmarched towards a looming prison complex, that in “Star Wars,” this never would have happened. The Millenium Falcon crowd never would have given the Dtartha the benefit of the doubt like this – they were naturally suspicious, which is a good way to be when surrounded by aliens. If they had met with the consular emissary, they would have smelled a rat right away. Maybe the Atlantis crew ought to have followed fewer diplomatic procedures and taken a page out of Han Solo’s book: shoot first, extend olive branches and get captured later.
He and Rodney were thrown into a cell that seemed to grow straight out of the rock face. John was instantly up and running for the doorway, but he was almost slammed by stone bars that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Okay, then. Literally growing out of the rock face. He spun around with a growl and stalked to the other side of the cell.
Rodney, however, had seized upon the one fact learned during the exchange-of-culture period of this little adventure that had not led to their imprisonment.
“Hey!” he called, leaning bodily against the bars with his hands wrapped around them. “If you plan to keep us here, you’re eventually going to have to feed us. We can’t just not eat.”
The Dtarthan guards said nothing. They didn’t even turn around.
“Look, I don’t think you understand - members of my species die if they go without food. We die - you have to understand dying, even if you don’t understand eating - hey! I’m talking to you!”
“They can’t hear you, Rodney,” John said wearily. He rubbed his face with his hands.
“What do you mean, they can’t hear me?” Rodney jerked around from where he was clutching at the bars – what the hell kind of rock were we talking about, anyway? - to look at John, who was squatting on the opposite side of the cell. “Are we in some kind of - sound-absorbing containment field?”
“They don’t have ears,” John said. He sat down, hard, and stretched his legs out in front of him. He brought one knee up to rest his arm on.
“Don’t be absurd.” Rodney’s mouth was at a more terrified slant than usual – it was the look he tended to get when informed of imminent doom, or when children were nearby. Rodney darted a look at the guards stationed outside the bars. They looked like all the other Dtartha, so tall and skinny and discolored that they’d reminded John of string beans. Deaf string beans.
“They don’t have ears, I was looking,” John insisted, raising his eyebrows for emphasis. “And anyway, didn’t you see me snapping to get their attention?”
Rodney jerked his head to the side a little, still with his Oh my God, children expression on. “I thought you had a song stuck in your head.”
John stared at him.
“Yes, I realize now that that doesn’t make much sense, but I was being threatened at the time with starvation and death, as were you, Major!”
“So naturally, insane with fear, I decided to keep time to a song?”
“Can we just accept the fact that I can occasionally be illogical under stress and move on to the more pressing topic of ‘How are we going to convince the Dtartha to feed us if they have no ears?’” Rodney’s face changed mid-glare and he said, “Hold on, how did they even talk to us in the first place? We were discussing trade negotiations.” He said it like a dirty word – trade negotiations - as if it was the most humiliating thing in the world to be discussing just prior to capture.
“I figured that they--“
“Of course - they read lips, what am I saying?”
“--read lips,” John finished, giving Rodney a look. He’d be damned if Rodney in hyper, imminent-death mode was going to affect his calm. He worked very hard on his calm. It kept him from – well, it kept him from doing what Rodney was doing right now, with the possible addition of shooting things John probably wasn’t supposed to shoot. His calm usually involved sunglasses. Right now, it involved sitting with his arm slung across one knee and finishing his sentences, interruptions or no.
Rodney completely missed his disapproval. “Okay, how is that possible? What possible genetic advantage could there be for the human race to eliminate such basic organic processes as eating and – and hearing?” He pointed at John, who had opened his mouth. “Not an organic process, I know, keep quiet. Illogical under stress.”
John closed his mouth.
“Okay, so it would be safe to assume that they have no need to communicate without direct eye contact. And they don’t consume –“ Rodney stopped, staring at nothing. “Wait. It’s more than that.” He met John’s eyes, requesting that John be on the same page, please, and suddenly John was.
“They don’t process energy,” John said, which was wrong the moment he said it.
“Intake-outtake,” Rodney said. “They don’t do it.” Wrong wrong wrong.
“That’s not possible,” John protested – not at Rodney, just at the wrongness. All living beings – well, okay, to be on the safe side, all humans had to function according to the basic rules of biology. The idea that some humanoid creature didn’t - well, it was disturbing, not to mention totally impossible.
“I mean, we’re talking high-school level biology, here,” Rodney said. Oh, yeah, they were on the same page. “If things don’t process energy, they just drop down dead. They don’t lock people up and stand guard outside the door. They don’t build doors.” He turned his head and looked hard at the backs of the guards.
“They’re too far away to poke,” John said.
Rodney glanced at him. “I know that,” he said.
John raised his hands. “Just saying.”
Rodney crossed his arms and leaned against the wall behind him with a thunk. “We are being held prisoner by physiologically impossible beings,” he said. “This is absurd.”
“They could be lying,” John suggested halfheartedly.
Rodney looked over at the guards again, considering. “Oy,” he called. He waited a moment, then added, “Dtarthas are ugly beanpole doofuses!”
John rolled his eyes. “That’s some strong language, there, Rodney.”
“Shut up,” Rodney said distractedly, uncrossing his arms suddenly and looking around the dim cell. “Is there anything in here we could throw at them?”
John inclined his head to the left, then the right. Slightly out of his reach was a fragile-looking dirt clod. He leaned over and picked it up carefully, handing it to Rodney, who’d seen it at the same time he did.
Rodney approached the bars, gauging the distance, then threw it carefully.
“Damn,” he said.
“Didn’t reach?”
“No, it hit him, he just didn’t turn around.” Rodney faced John with a despairing look. “I’m going to starve to death.”
John was going to say something sarcastic such as, and I guess I’ll be having a picnic while this happens, but he suddenly found he didn’t mind so much.
“We’re not going to starve,” he said instead. “Elizabeth will send in another team when we don’t check in, and they won’t get captured like we did.”
“And why not?”
“Because,” John said reasonably. “They won’t.”
Rodney didn’t say anything, but what he meant was “you’re an idiot.”
Twelve hours later, it had been dark for eight hours, and Rodney had been listing foods he would never eat again for three. John had yet to brain him with his combat vest mostly out of sheer amazement that Rodney could still think of food he hadn’t previously listed.
“…pickled eggs, Kraft cheese slices, those plastic spoons dipped in chocolate they give you for coffee, seaweed-flavored potato chips, two percent milk…”
It was actually kind of amazing. Three straight hours of nothing but Rodney’s voice listing godawful foodstuffs like ketchup-and-sugar sandwiches and somehow John’s calm had been damaged not at all. He was lying along the opposite wall, vest folded under his head, playing images of killer string beans in his head. There were little rips in the beans that looked like jagged teeth, and that was how they ate people. They were a hundred feet tall.
“…sugar substitute packets, bacon fat, pomegranate seeds, Nutella, those little strawberry-looking things you find in fields, ostrich-egg ice cream, d-“
“Dolphin?” John sputtered. The string beans in his head all suddenly made dolphin noises.
“You’re silent for squid and salmon eggs but you have a problem with dolphin?” Rodney’s outline was disdainful.
John squinted at him. “I like sushi. And anyway, people eat sushi.” He pointed at Rodney. “You name me one person that goes to SeaWorld, and looks at the little dolphins doing tricks and flapping their flippers, and thinks, I’d like to eat one of those!”
“Dolphin steaks, Major. Clearly you’ve never been to any seafood restaurant worth its sal-“ Rodney stopped. “Wait a minute. I didn’t ever say ‘dolphin.’”
“What are you talking about?” John asked. “Yes, you did. I heard it.”
“No, Major. You didn’t.” The Rodney outline was starting to look agitated. “I had it in my head, I was all ready to say ostrich-egg ice cream, dolphin, crispy noodles, but I never even got to dolphin. You said dolphin. The moment I thought it.”
John sat up and squirmed to face the Rodney outline. “So what are you saying, I’m psychic?”
“Not psychic, not psychic, not psychic,” Rodney said impatiently. “Or maybe yes, okay, psychic, but not in the way that you mean. I mean-“
“Oh,” John said.
“Yes. Exactly,” Rodney said.
“Exac- okay, this is getting a little creepy,” John said at the same time.
“Ha! You’re telling me,” Rodney said. “Having you inside my body? Scary thought.”
“I’m sure your body isn’t all that scary, Rodney,” John said. Then he actually heard what they’d both just said, and he instantly needed to apologize, right that second. “And, okay, wow, I did not mean for that to sound at all suggestive-“
“Neither did – I mean, not in the slightest,” Rodney said, sounding horrified. “A-and I didn’t take it that way, so-“
“So, good,” John said.
“Yes. Good,” Rodney said.
And then they were both profoundly uncomfortable.
Because what Rodney and John had discovered, apparently in tandem, was that the Dtartha didn’t have mental telepathy – they had physical telepathy. They were operating on some kind of frequency that allowed them to share physiological states and qualities. Whether it was Ancient technology, an evolutionary defense against the Wraith, a combination of both, or none of the above, the Dtartha had no need to eat or hear because somewhere on this planet, one Dtartha was doing it for them. And because of this telepathy of the body, the rest of them walked around all day long as if they were eating. They didn’t need ears because they knew instinctively when someone else wanted to talk, and they turned to look at them. John and Rodney had been on this planet for about half a day, and already they were exchanging simple brain waves.
Basically what this meant was if one of them started thinking about sex, their bodies would react accordingly, and they would have a really big problem.
They were silent for a long time, trying very hard not to think about sex.
“You do realize this means you won’t starve to death?” John tried after a while.
“Wonderful. I can only hope for individual cell decay.” The Rodney outline looked like it was pinching the bridge of its nose.
John was vaguely insulted. Grumpily, he squeezed his eyes shut and thought, Not sex not sex not sex not sex.
The Rodney outline looked up and sighed. “Have you read any Freud at all, Major? You’re making this into an elephant.”
“You’re lucky I have telepathy to help me understand what you just said,” John accused.
Rodney sighed again. “Look, this isn’t working. Is it working?”
John shifted. “No,” he said.
“All right. I think the best plan here is to talk about it, get it out of the open, and then change the subject naturally and comfortably, until we’re not thinking about it.”
“Actually, I think that’s a very bad plan,” John said, frowning. “What if we think about it more because we’re talking about it? I think it’ll go away if we ignore it.”
“Spoken like a true military man. You’ll make a wonderfully passive-aggressive parent someday. All right!” Rodney slapped his knees. “Sex. We’re talking about it.”
“I don’t like your plan, Rodney.” John’s eyes wandered to the outline of his combat vest in the dark, to the pocket where his sunglasses were tucked.
“Well, that’s too bad for you. We made a couple of comments about sex, I don’t even remember what we said, and now we’re talking about it. Sex sex sex.”
“I don’t like your plan, Rodney,” John said again. His voice sounded somehow tighter, and that made him even angrier - and whoa, when did he get angry?
“Sex is normal, biological, therefore probably not an issue on this planet-“
“Shut up, Rodney.”
“-healthy, beneficial, pretty damn fun, not that I can make much of an informed commentary on it-“
“Rodney, shut up.” John was glaring at the outline across from him, which would have shut Rodney up in the daylight, but it was nighttime and Rodney couldn’t see John any better than John could see him.
“-which I consider a personal choice, really, not at all a reflection of my social life, which of course would be hard to believe for someone like you, who probably gets laid all the-“
“Rodney!” John veritably bellowed.
Rodney’s outline stilled.
In the absence of bellowing, something welled up in John, something big and difficult that hurt.
“Ow,” Rodney said softly.
John looked at the ground, though Rodney couldn’t see his expression. He took a breath and said lightly, “I’m sorry. Guess the strain of not thinking is getting to me.”
“Really? I would think that would be your state of rest, Major,” Rodney said, but John could feel Rodney watching him in the dark.
John’s ribs ached, like they were holding something in. “What would you know about resting, Rodney? You’ve been talking nonstop for three hours.”
Instead of taking the bait, Rodney said, “Sorry.” And then, “Don’t apologize again, for God’s sake.” When John said nothing, surprised, Rodney said, “Huh. Some advantages to this telepathy thing. But, seriously, can you get over it and stop giving me a stomachache, please? Because my hypochondria certainly doesn’t know that this isn’t the beginning of a long series of increasingly painful hunger pangs.” He slapped his knees, which John was beginning to recognize as Rodney-code for “I am uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, well, so am I,” John muttered.
“Major,” Rodney said, and his voice was suddenly serious.
John looked up at Rodney. He could see the outline of his shoulder, the quick curve of his neck, the splintered light on his hair.
“Whatever we’re talking about, repressing it only makes it stronger,” Rodney said firmly.
Almost idly, John said, “Sometimes, things just go away.” If he really looked, he could see the faintest thread of an outline of Rodney’s jaw.
“And sometimes they give me a stomachache that feels like starvation,” Rodney snapped. “God, am I really that – “ He stopped.
John snapped out of it. “What?” But he knew, because there was shame in his belly now. “No,” he said, and the vehemence in his voice startled him. “No.” He shook his head emphatically. “No. No. You’re - “ But then it was his turn to stop.
“Ow,” Rodney said again.
John felt the corner of his mouth quirk. “Yeah. Ow.”
For a minute they were both still hurting. Then they were both a little breathless.
“Okay,” Rodney said. “I think you should know that I’m thinking about sex again.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” John’s voice was getting scratchy.
“Ohhh, shit. John – John – “
Somehow they met in the middle of the cell. And somebody was feeling shaky, and somebody was sort of in shock, and somebody was allergic to dust, and somebody was happy, but they were all rolled together and swirled around and for once, they were totally and completely on the same wavelength.
Author: Desdemon
Challenge: Food and Buildings (sga_flashfic)
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,724
Summary: John and Rodney get thrown in prison.
Author's Notes: Unbeta'd. Anybody know a beta who's good with pacing issues? :D
It occurred to John, as he and Rodney were frogmarched towards a looming prison complex, that in “Star Wars,” this never would have happened. The Millenium Falcon crowd never would have given the Dtartha the benefit of the doubt like this – they were naturally suspicious, which is a good way to be when surrounded by aliens. If they had met with the consular emissary, they would have smelled a rat right away. Maybe the Atlantis crew ought to have followed fewer diplomatic procedures and taken a page out of Han Solo’s book: shoot first, extend olive branches and get captured later.
He and Rodney were thrown into a cell that seemed to grow straight out of the rock face. John was instantly up and running for the doorway, but he was almost slammed by stone bars that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Okay, then. Literally growing out of the rock face. He spun around with a growl and stalked to the other side of the cell.
Rodney, however, had seized upon the one fact learned during the exchange-of-culture period of this little adventure that had not led to their imprisonment.
“Hey!” he called, leaning bodily against the bars with his hands wrapped around them. “If you plan to keep us here, you’re eventually going to have to feed us. We can’t just not eat.”
The Dtarthan guards said nothing. They didn’t even turn around.
“Look, I don’t think you understand - members of my species die if they go without food. We die - you have to understand dying, even if you don’t understand eating - hey! I’m talking to you!”
“They can’t hear you, Rodney,” John said wearily. He rubbed his face with his hands.
“What do you mean, they can’t hear me?” Rodney jerked around from where he was clutching at the bars – what the hell kind of rock were we talking about, anyway? - to look at John, who was squatting on the opposite side of the cell. “Are we in some kind of - sound-absorbing containment field?”
“They don’t have ears,” John said. He sat down, hard, and stretched his legs out in front of him. He brought one knee up to rest his arm on.
“Don’t be absurd.” Rodney’s mouth was at a more terrified slant than usual – it was the look he tended to get when informed of imminent doom, or when children were nearby. Rodney darted a look at the guards stationed outside the bars. They looked like all the other Dtartha, so tall and skinny and discolored that they’d reminded John of string beans. Deaf string beans.
“They don’t have ears, I was looking,” John insisted, raising his eyebrows for emphasis. “And anyway, didn’t you see me snapping to get their attention?”
Rodney jerked his head to the side a little, still with his Oh my God, children expression on. “I thought you had a song stuck in your head.”
John stared at him.
“Yes, I realize now that that doesn’t make much sense, but I was being threatened at the time with starvation and death, as were you, Major!”
“So naturally, insane with fear, I decided to keep time to a song?”
“Can we just accept the fact that I can occasionally be illogical under stress and move on to the more pressing topic of ‘How are we going to convince the Dtartha to feed us if they have no ears?’” Rodney’s face changed mid-glare and he said, “Hold on, how did they even talk to us in the first place? We were discussing trade negotiations.” He said it like a dirty word – trade negotiations - as if it was the most humiliating thing in the world to be discussing just prior to capture.
“I figured that they--“
“Of course - they read lips, what am I saying?”
“--read lips,” John finished, giving Rodney a look. He’d be damned if Rodney in hyper, imminent-death mode was going to affect his calm. He worked very hard on his calm. It kept him from – well, it kept him from doing what Rodney was doing right now, with the possible addition of shooting things John probably wasn’t supposed to shoot. His calm usually involved sunglasses. Right now, it involved sitting with his arm slung across one knee and finishing his sentences, interruptions or no.
Rodney completely missed his disapproval. “Okay, how is that possible? What possible genetic advantage could there be for the human race to eliminate such basic organic processes as eating and – and hearing?” He pointed at John, who had opened his mouth. “Not an organic process, I know, keep quiet. Illogical under stress.”
John closed his mouth.
“Okay, so it would be safe to assume that they have no need to communicate without direct eye contact. And they don’t consume –“ Rodney stopped, staring at nothing. “Wait. It’s more than that.” He met John’s eyes, requesting that John be on the same page, please, and suddenly John was.
“They don’t process energy,” John said, which was wrong the moment he said it.
“Intake-outtake,” Rodney said. “They don’t do it.” Wrong wrong wrong.
“That’s not possible,” John protested – not at Rodney, just at the wrongness. All living beings – well, okay, to be on the safe side, all humans had to function according to the basic rules of biology. The idea that some humanoid creature didn’t - well, it was disturbing, not to mention totally impossible.
“I mean, we’re talking high-school level biology, here,” Rodney said. Oh, yeah, they were on the same page. “If things don’t process energy, they just drop down dead. They don’t lock people up and stand guard outside the door. They don’t build doors.” He turned his head and looked hard at the backs of the guards.
“They’re too far away to poke,” John said.
Rodney glanced at him. “I know that,” he said.
John raised his hands. “Just saying.”
Rodney crossed his arms and leaned against the wall behind him with a thunk. “We are being held prisoner by physiologically impossible beings,” he said. “This is absurd.”
“They could be lying,” John suggested halfheartedly.
Rodney looked over at the guards again, considering. “Oy,” he called. He waited a moment, then added, “Dtarthas are ugly beanpole doofuses!”
John rolled his eyes. “That’s some strong language, there, Rodney.”
“Shut up,” Rodney said distractedly, uncrossing his arms suddenly and looking around the dim cell. “Is there anything in here we could throw at them?”
John inclined his head to the left, then the right. Slightly out of his reach was a fragile-looking dirt clod. He leaned over and picked it up carefully, handing it to Rodney, who’d seen it at the same time he did.
Rodney approached the bars, gauging the distance, then threw it carefully.
“Damn,” he said.
“Didn’t reach?”
“No, it hit him, he just didn’t turn around.” Rodney faced John with a despairing look. “I’m going to starve to death.”
John was going to say something sarcastic such as, and I guess I’ll be having a picnic while this happens, but he suddenly found he didn’t mind so much.
“We’re not going to starve,” he said instead. “Elizabeth will send in another team when we don’t check in, and they won’t get captured like we did.”
“And why not?”
“Because,” John said reasonably. “They won’t.”
Rodney didn’t say anything, but what he meant was “you’re an idiot.”
Twelve hours later, it had been dark for eight hours, and Rodney had been listing foods he would never eat again for three. John had yet to brain him with his combat vest mostly out of sheer amazement that Rodney could still think of food he hadn’t previously listed.
“…pickled eggs, Kraft cheese slices, those plastic spoons dipped in chocolate they give you for coffee, seaweed-flavored potato chips, two percent milk…”
It was actually kind of amazing. Three straight hours of nothing but Rodney’s voice listing godawful foodstuffs like ketchup-and-sugar sandwiches and somehow John’s calm had been damaged not at all. He was lying along the opposite wall, vest folded under his head, playing images of killer string beans in his head. There were little rips in the beans that looked like jagged teeth, and that was how they ate people. They were a hundred feet tall.
“…sugar substitute packets, bacon fat, pomegranate seeds, Nutella, those little strawberry-looking things you find in fields, ostrich-egg ice cream, d-“
“Dolphin?” John sputtered. The string beans in his head all suddenly made dolphin noises.
“You’re silent for squid and salmon eggs but you have a problem with dolphin?” Rodney’s outline was disdainful.
John squinted at him. “I like sushi. And anyway, people eat sushi.” He pointed at Rodney. “You name me one person that goes to SeaWorld, and looks at the little dolphins doing tricks and flapping their flippers, and thinks, I’d like to eat one of those!”
“Dolphin steaks, Major. Clearly you’ve never been to any seafood restaurant worth its sal-“ Rodney stopped. “Wait a minute. I didn’t ever say ‘dolphin.’”
“What are you talking about?” John asked. “Yes, you did. I heard it.”
“No, Major. You didn’t.” The Rodney outline was starting to look agitated. “I had it in my head, I was all ready to say ostrich-egg ice cream, dolphin, crispy noodles, but I never even got to dolphin. You said dolphin. The moment I thought it.”
John sat up and squirmed to face the Rodney outline. “So what are you saying, I’m psychic?”
“Not psychic, not psychic, not psychic,” Rodney said impatiently. “Or maybe yes, okay, psychic, but not in the way that you mean. I mean-“
“Oh,” John said.
“Yes. Exactly,” Rodney said.
“Exac- okay, this is getting a little creepy,” John said at the same time.
“Ha! You’re telling me,” Rodney said. “Having you inside my body? Scary thought.”
“I’m sure your body isn’t all that scary, Rodney,” John said. Then he actually heard what they’d both just said, and he instantly needed to apologize, right that second. “And, okay, wow, I did not mean for that to sound at all suggestive-“
“Neither did – I mean, not in the slightest,” Rodney said, sounding horrified. “A-and I didn’t take it that way, so-“
“So, good,” John said.
“Yes. Good,” Rodney said.
And then they were both profoundly uncomfortable.
Because what Rodney and John had discovered, apparently in tandem, was that the Dtartha didn’t have mental telepathy – they had physical telepathy. They were operating on some kind of frequency that allowed them to share physiological states and qualities. Whether it was Ancient technology, an evolutionary defense against the Wraith, a combination of both, or none of the above, the Dtartha had no need to eat or hear because somewhere on this planet, one Dtartha was doing it for them. And because of this telepathy of the body, the rest of them walked around all day long as if they were eating. They didn’t need ears because they knew instinctively when someone else wanted to talk, and they turned to look at them. John and Rodney had been on this planet for about half a day, and already they were exchanging simple brain waves.
Basically what this meant was if one of them started thinking about sex, their bodies would react accordingly, and they would have a really big problem.
They were silent for a long time, trying very hard not to think about sex.
“You do realize this means you won’t starve to death?” John tried after a while.
“Wonderful. I can only hope for individual cell decay.” The Rodney outline looked like it was pinching the bridge of its nose.
John was vaguely insulted. Grumpily, he squeezed his eyes shut and thought, Not sex not sex not sex not sex.
The Rodney outline looked up and sighed. “Have you read any Freud at all, Major? You’re making this into an elephant.”
“You’re lucky I have telepathy to help me understand what you just said,” John accused.
Rodney sighed again. “Look, this isn’t working. Is it working?”
John shifted. “No,” he said.
“All right. I think the best plan here is to talk about it, get it out of the open, and then change the subject naturally and comfortably, until we’re not thinking about it.”
“Actually, I think that’s a very bad plan,” John said, frowning. “What if we think about it more because we’re talking about it? I think it’ll go away if we ignore it.”
“Spoken like a true military man. You’ll make a wonderfully passive-aggressive parent someday. All right!” Rodney slapped his knees. “Sex. We’re talking about it.”
“I don’t like your plan, Rodney.” John’s eyes wandered to the outline of his combat vest in the dark, to the pocket where his sunglasses were tucked.
“Well, that’s too bad for you. We made a couple of comments about sex, I don’t even remember what we said, and now we’re talking about it. Sex sex sex.”
“I don’t like your plan, Rodney,” John said again. His voice sounded somehow tighter, and that made him even angrier - and whoa, when did he get angry?
“Sex is normal, biological, therefore probably not an issue on this planet-“
“Shut up, Rodney.”
“-healthy, beneficial, pretty damn fun, not that I can make much of an informed commentary on it-“
“Rodney, shut up.” John was glaring at the outline across from him, which would have shut Rodney up in the daylight, but it was nighttime and Rodney couldn’t see John any better than John could see him.
“-which I consider a personal choice, really, not at all a reflection of my social life, which of course would be hard to believe for someone like you, who probably gets laid all the-“
“Rodney!” John veritably bellowed.
Rodney’s outline stilled.
In the absence of bellowing, something welled up in John, something big and difficult that hurt.
“Ow,” Rodney said softly.
John looked at the ground, though Rodney couldn’t see his expression. He took a breath and said lightly, “I’m sorry. Guess the strain of not thinking is getting to me.”
“Really? I would think that would be your state of rest, Major,” Rodney said, but John could feel Rodney watching him in the dark.
John’s ribs ached, like they were holding something in. “What would you know about resting, Rodney? You’ve been talking nonstop for three hours.”
Instead of taking the bait, Rodney said, “Sorry.” And then, “Don’t apologize again, for God’s sake.” When John said nothing, surprised, Rodney said, “Huh. Some advantages to this telepathy thing. But, seriously, can you get over it and stop giving me a stomachache, please? Because my hypochondria certainly doesn’t know that this isn’t the beginning of a long series of increasingly painful hunger pangs.” He slapped his knees, which John was beginning to recognize as Rodney-code for “I am uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, well, so am I,” John muttered.
“Major,” Rodney said, and his voice was suddenly serious.
John looked up at Rodney. He could see the outline of his shoulder, the quick curve of his neck, the splintered light on his hair.
“Whatever we’re talking about, repressing it only makes it stronger,” Rodney said firmly.
Almost idly, John said, “Sometimes, things just go away.” If he really looked, he could see the faintest thread of an outline of Rodney’s jaw.
“And sometimes they give me a stomachache that feels like starvation,” Rodney snapped. “God, am I really that – “ He stopped.
John snapped out of it. “What?” But he knew, because there was shame in his belly now. “No,” he said, and the vehemence in his voice startled him. “No.” He shook his head emphatically. “No. No. You’re - “ But then it was his turn to stop.
“Ow,” Rodney said again.
John felt the corner of his mouth quirk. “Yeah. Ow.”
For a minute they were both still hurting. Then they were both a little breathless.
“Okay,” Rodney said. “I think you should know that I’m thinking about sex again.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” John’s voice was getting scratchy.
“Ohhh, shit. John – John – “
Somehow they met in the middle of the cell. And somebody was feeling shaky, and somebody was sort of in shock, and somebody was allergic to dust, and somebody was happy, but they were all rolled together and swirled around and for once, they were totally and completely on the same wavelength.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 10:44 am (UTC)“God, am I really that – “ He stopped.
John snapped out of it. “What?” But he knew, because there was shame in his belly now. “No,” he said, and the vehemence in his voice startled him. “No.” He shook his head emphatically. “No. No. You’re - “ But then it was his turn to stop.
There's just enough spelled out to make the emotions accessible, and not too much more.
And the ending rocks. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 11:49 pm (UTC)Also, I loved His calm usually involved sunglasses. And the whole translation of types of hunger.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 11:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 01:31 pm (UTC)How you worked hard not to tell too much, so we'd have to try and pick it up from what little they said, and the way the story spooled out.
I too thought the last paragraph was lovely, and effective in sweeping me away at that last minute - leaving me feeling smiley and happy. Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 01:44 pm (UTC)Comment
Date: 2005-10-19 03:40 pm (UTC)I can't personally see any problem with the pacing, but maybe that's just me.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 04:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 04:26 pm (UTC)Great work,
Alex
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 05:10 pm (UTC)Very, very nice, though. You continue to amaze me with your writing. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 07:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-19 09:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 09:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-21 06:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-26 11:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-31 02:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-16 09:53 am (UTC)“Yes, I realize now that that doesn’t make much sense, but I was being threatened at the time with starvation and death, as were you, Major!”
“So naturally, insane with fear, I decided to keep time to a song?”
I love the tone of this. I'm not sure that Rodney does go illogical when stressed, but it made me laugh anyway :)
He’d be damned if Rodney in hyper, imminent-death mode was going to affect his calm. He worked very hard on his calm. It kept him from – well, it kept him from doing what Rodney was doing right now, with the possible addition of shooting things John probably wasn’t supposed to shoot. His calm usually involved sunglasses. Right now, it involved sitting with his arm slung across one knee and finishing his sentences, interruptions or no.
And this paragraph is great. I love the image of John "working on his calm", and the sunglasses, because yes.
Rodney didn’t say anything, but what he meant was “you’re an idiot.”
Brilliant :)
He was lying along the opposite wall, vest folded under his head, playing images of killer string beans in his head. There were little rips in the beans that looked like jagged teeth, and that was how they ate people. They were a hundred feet tall.
This is adorable. I can totally see John doing that. And I love the image of the killer beans *g*
The string beans in his head all suddenly made dolphin noises.
*giggles helplessly*
I agree that the pacing isn't all perfect, but I liked it anyway. Your John and Rodney are very believable, very them. And I like the last paragraph very much.