Closer by Nemesis

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Title: Closer
Author: Nemesis, rogue_planet
Character: John
Rating: PGish?
Length: 106 words
Spoilers: Vague ones for Hive
Summary: John fails


When John was at RPI, he’d lived with a girl named Natasha for almost two years. She was an English major at the college at the bottom of the hill and she spun words like John wove numbers. She’d read aloud to herself and the words nestled in John’s brain beside Stokes' theorem. There just never seemed to be enough paper in the apartment so they’d both taken to writing on the walls during finals, equations and quotations creeping across the living room, Aeschylus and Fermat twining together on the walls. Quagmires of illogic happened when they didn’t start far enough apart. Sometimes, if 1 / (k + 1)< x < 1 / k, then G (x) = Gilgamesh, and “Their ancient happiness of early days was happiness indeed; but now |Fn(x)-F(x)|."

He’d been two weeks from his defense when she’d left him. There’d been no note, no hint that anything was wrong. It would have been kinder if she’d cut his heart out with a spoon. He’d gotten drunk for three days, then he’d thrown four coats of paint on the walls, covering the notes for her honors project and the calculus problems he’d worked out for the undergrad class he’d been teaching. The day after the last coat dried, still covered in the green paint that was now everywhere in the apartment, he’d walked into an Air Force recruitment office and enlisted. He’d do like his father had and fly away from all his problems. John promised he’d never let anyone get that close again.

It wasn’t until Ford’s men took Rodney away he realized he’d failed. Miserably.


Notes: Vaugely Mcshepish, but also contains references to het. Also, very short and meant to be that way. SGA is my drabble fandom

Comments

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

There is no slash fandom that can't do great things with a Gilgamesh reference. *blissful sigh*

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

*reasonably sure that means you liked the story* Thanks for reading!

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[roaringmice.livejournal.com]

I like how you wove English and math together, spinning, weaving...very nice.

[(Anonymous)]

Glad you liked it.

[2naonh3-cl2.livejournal.com]

i'm thrilled, this was an interesting perspective on the shep history. i really liked it. here's hoping you write more and often. ^o^

I try

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

but all my SGA fics tend to be very short. Except for my anniversary fic, but that's another story. Literally.

[anitac588.livejournal.com]

Loved this idea why John enlisted, and every little detail you put into this drabble.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading. I was sitting in Greek Myth today and this just came to me. Glad you liked it.

[cofax7]

Oh, I like that.

... I hope you don't mind if I point out a typo? "walked into an Air Force [office]", I think.

Poor broken-hearted John and the equations all over the walls.

*fixed*

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Thanks, glad you liked it.

[toniabarone.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. Strong piece, for all it's brevity. Thank you for this peek into Shep's past.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

brevity seems to be my strong suit in SGA. Glad you liked it

[sjkasabi.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Good.

*hurts*

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

It hurts? It was only a hundered words! *smiles*

[torakowalski.livejournal.com]

Ooh great Shep back-story... *loves*

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. BTW. Love your icon

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

Nice bit of insight.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. It's fun getting inside John's brain.

[melagan.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this. Thanks.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

[akimi-hime.livejournal.com]

Yay secretgeek!Shep! We really don't see enough of that. Awesome backstory.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

He doesn't actually hide his geekyness very well. Glad you enjoyed.

[ceitie.livejournal.com]

Very cool. Just have this picture in my head of the apartment, walls swirled with math and poetry.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

I've considered doing a little peice of artwork for this, but now I can't find the rest of John's math problem. *sighs*

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Well, ain't that a kick in the head! Awesome little piece; I am a sucker for anything where John does math because this show has EATEN MY BRAIN and left me with no semblance of subtlety or sense.

This is beautiful and pithy and a nice suckerpunch at the end. Thanks!

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. This show hasn't eaten my brain, but it has sucked my soul.

[neery.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this whole ficlet, but especially this line:

Sometimes, if 1 / (k + 1)< x < 1 / k, then G (x) = Gilgamesh, and “Their ancient happiness of early days was happiness indeed; but now |Fn(x)-F(x)|."

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

I really liked that line too. I stole the math snippets from a graduate level math exam and the text is a clip of Oedipus the King.

[ruggerdavey.livejournal.com]

That was just as short and sweet as it could be. Awesome.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

This is lovely.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[ekaterinn.livejournal.com]

This rings very true - I especially liked the writing the walls:

“Their ancient happiness of early days was happiness indeed; but now |Fn(x)-F(x)|."

^_^

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. Everyone loves that line.

go Engineers

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure if I like this because it's terrific or because I got my Masters at RPI! :)

Re: go Engineers

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Cool. I'd like to think it's terrific, but I could be wrong. Glad you liked it.

[amezri.livejournal.com]

Very, very neat look at John. I'm also vaguely amused since I had applied to RPI and was accepted. Didn't go because their art program was more math and less... art.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't know, since I go to that college at the bottom of the hill. *snerks* Glad you liked it.

[asze.livejournal.com]

Play, [damn, that's odd. was going to write 'Okay,' - how did that one come up?! trying again...]

Okay, I gotta admit I'm not a fan of slash in the least, but the summary got me interested, so I took a look, and I gotta say I did like it. I adore the math/quotations mix you did. It's... inventive. Original. Unless you had something like that happen to you, writing on walls and such, in which case maybe I should be a little bit afraid of you. ;-)

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

No, I don't write on the walls. I was sort of channeling Fred from AtS. Glad you liked it.

[pentapus.livejournal.com]

Love love love the mixing math and english on the walls.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

Me too. *Smiles*

[clairshadows.livejournal.com]

Beautiful in a heart breaking way. The walls are a wonderful image.

[myystic.livejournal.com]

I never reviewed this??? Well now the meme tells me to!

I love the imagery and the idea of them both writing on the walls, and the fact that John had to cover those walls in four coats of paint before he left, summarily burying his past. Though I can't help but wonder what Santilli would think of it. She might like the idea of math and English breeding on the walls like that, but your vision of Gilgamesh would break her.

[rogue-planet.livejournal.com]

... I only reference him in the story, (John doesn't ship Gilgamesh/Enkidu) so it would be okay, but I never show her my fic. The next line is actually from Oedipus Rex.

This story is one of my favorite background pieces to Truth. Glad you liked.