Stir Crazy by Volari (Amnesty/Shark)

[volari.livejournal.com]

Stir Crazy
by volari
Written for the shark challenge, gen, no spoilers, 337 words

Set in McMurdo pre-series.



It’s winter and everyone gets a little stir-crazy at the ass-end of the world with no light but it’s cool ‘cause you were trained to deal with this, this endless waiting with nothing to do and hey, it’s better to be waiting here than to be waiting at the frontlines and feeling helpless on top of restless.

So maybe you’re a little twitchy but you’re forgiven ‘cause the population’s thin and everyone’s forced together by the world closing in and most everyone starts getting a little off; or maybe they were off to begin with, and you never noticed until all the sane people left, because only the crazy ones would even want to stay.

Except that there’s Major Sheppard, who’s not twitchy or hollow-eyed at all, and he damn well ought to be since he just got shipped here from Afghanistan and considering the things he can fly there’s no way he can be anything less than Special Ops and he must’ve seen some shit but there’s no way you can tell from watching him stroll like he’s on a beach, or from hearing him drawl like he’s in Texas, or from almost losing your damn shirt to him the one time you two played in the same poker game.

But not everyone can be eternally cool like the Major so you just focus on breaking down your days into manageable chunks that you can work your way through until the world pulls its phoenix act and the sun comes back and you don’t even realize until it’s happened, but part of your day seems to be mindlessly people-watching and you end up watching Major Sheppard a lot and you realize that he moves almost constantly; even when he’s sitting or standing in the same place, he’s shifting to sprawl in his chair or to lean against any convenient surface.

And then you realize, it just hits you, the man never stops moving and you think, huh, who would’ve thought there’d be sharks in Antarctica.

Comments

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Neat.

[volari.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[bibliokat.livejournal.com]

Oooo, interesting use of the "shark" part!

[volari.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I think I actually learned that sharks need to keep moving from this challenge. (Yay fandom!)

[mercurydraconix.livejournal.com]

I like this. particularly the obvious corollary where if

sharks + stillness = death

and

john = shark

then clearly, this is the only way John can keep it together, keep from breaking completely, and it's all a total act.