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sga_flashficTitle: Just Another Day In New York
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bethynyc
Rating: PG-16
Pairing: John/Rodney, Teyla/Ronon, Cat AU, set in contemporary New York City
Word Count: 2760
Written for: Amnesty Animal challenge at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sga_flashfic
Thanks To:tesserae_ for her beta
Disclaimer: I don't own them. But if I did, I probably wouldn't turn them into cats.
Notes: Look for cameos! Sequel to When John Met Rodney, Crack AU, as posted onsga_flashfic. You might want to read that first.
“According to New York One, it is supposed to be in the eighties today.” Teyla called out to Ronon. “Hottest day in April so far.”
Ronon stepped out of the bathroom, rubbing his shoulders with a towel.“We should open up the windows, get some fresh air in here.” He kissed her quickly on the cheek and wandered back into the bathroom. “What’s your schedule today?”
Teyla closed her briefcase. “Depositions in the sexual harassment case. Long, boring day.” She straightened her blouse and checked her skirt in the mirror.
Ronon poked his head out of the bathroom. “So lunch is out?”
“Lunch is out. I will be home in time for our workout, though. What about you?”
With a shrug, Ronon shook out a t-shirt and dragged it on. The front advertised a Jersey Shore surf shop. “Just office hours and supervising Tae Kwan Do club. I’ll probably have lunch here.” He zipped his jeans, making sure she noticed his lack of underwear.
Teyla raised one eyebrow at him. “You know that will distract me throughout the depositions.”
“That’s the point.”
“In addition, we have a new associate who will be observing today. You might like him; he also enjoys martial arts.” Teyla raised one eyebrow, daring him to make a jealous comment.
Ronon shrugged. “See you tonight.”
Teyla laughed, scratched John and Rodney under the chin, and left for her day.
~~~
John jumped up to the window as Ronon opened it. All the scents and sounds! He opened his mouth a little bit to smell better, and didn’t even notice Ronon leaving.
“Hey, Rodney! Get up here—you gotta see all this!” John’s tail twitched in excitement.
Rodney licked his paw and washed one folded ear carefully. “Nah. Same as last year.”
“You weren’t here last year.”
“No, but spring was.” Rodney shifted and stretched a rear leg out, delicately licking his toes.
John pressed his nose to the wire. “You don’t understand. There’s prey out there!”
Rodney yawned and nonchalantly leaped to the windowsill. “Not much room, move over. What kind of prey?” He sniffed at John's ear, hoping to distract him.
“Flyers. Sometimes they come so close…I know I can catch one!”
With a sniff, Rodney looked out. “Ew. Pigeons. Nasty, dirty…you know, there’s a reason why they’re called rats with wings.”
John’s eyes glazed over for a moment. “Mmmm. Rats. Taste kind of like turkey.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and jumped back onto the floor.
~~~
Ronon made his way through the crowds of students up University Place along Union Square, when he noticed a vaguely familiar man walking a cat on a leash. He was pretty sure it wasn't a tamed wildcat; it was huge, furry, with pointed ears and it ignored the dogs barking at him in the dog run with evident disdain. Ronon cut through the Greenmarket and caught up to the guy.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“That a cat?”
“Yep. Maine Coon”
Ronon stared at the cat, who matched his gazed without blinking. It was huge, he thought, with tons of fur that didn’t mask how massive it was. He turned back to the walker. “How hard was he to train to walk on the lead?”
The walker raised an eyebrow. “He was trained when I met him, but he’s pretty mellow. You could probably train yours with patience and enough treats.”
Ronon nodded. Rodney would do anything for a treat, and PetCo was just at the top of Union Square. “Thanks, man.” John might like some exercise as well.
“No problem.” The walker squinted. “Don’t you run the NYU Tae Kwan Do Club?”
“I’m the faculty advisor.”
The other man nodded. “Might see you around, then.” He turned his attention back to the cat, who was accepting adoring pats from a child with an anxious mother.
Ronon walked directly into PetCo.
~~~
“Hey. Hey, Rodney!” John's tail quivered in excitement.
With a long-suffering sigh, Rodney dragged himself out of the comfortable cat bed, stretched up on all four toes before his fore and aft stretches, and padded over to the window. “What are you--John, what are you doing?”
John had pushed at the window screen, separating it from the frame. “I think I can get them if I just push a little harder!”
Rodney jumped to the top of the cat tree, to see John wiggling between the window screen and the frame. A few pigeons fluttered around, and John was completely focused on them, not on the dangerously narrow and slanted sill.
He was halfway through, and Rodney suddenly felt in his whiskers and tail that this would not go well. “John, get back in here!”
~~~
Ronon paid for the cat harnesses and leashes, along with a bag of the treats Rodney adored, grinning to himself at the idea of the cats in harness. The cashier flinched a little at his expression, but managed to give him the correct change. He dropped the change and a five in the jar for the no-kill cat shelter and left the store, dodging a gaggle of girls from the ballet school and a swarm of skate-punks headed down to Union Square.
He turned left onto 19th street and stopped at the favorite deli for two sandwiches and some snacks. John liked to wait for turkey slices to come his way, and Ronon was trying to teach him to sit up on his haunches for it.
~~~
John heard Rodney call out, but it was too late; he had already slipped off the window ledge. The rush of air past John’s ears was exhilarating, and for a brief moment, as he twisted and turned in the wind as he fell, he thought “Flying! Cool!” before the sidewalk rushed up and hit him very very hard.
“Ow,” he thought briefly, before he passed out.
~~~
The doorman ran from his post when he heard a woman scream. “What happened?”
The tall woman with long red hair was unhurt, but upset. “This cat fell from the building, nearly hit me! Is, is he all right?”
The doorman checked to see if the cat was still breathing, and looked at the collar and tag. “I hope so. I wonder how he got out the window? This is Ms. Emmagen’s cat, and she's very careful.” The black cat was limp, but breathing, one foreleg at an unusual angle.
“Poor thing.” The woman leaned over John. “Do you think we can move him?” A few people stopped and stared, but most just glanced away and kept walking.
“At least we can get him inside.” The doorman grabbed a piece of cardboard from behind the reception desk, slid it gently underneath John, and brought him inside the lobby to set him down on the desk.
The woman trailed after him. “Anything I can do?”
The doorman shook his head. “I’ll call the owners and let them know, see if they want me to call their vet.”
At that moment, the cat stirred and gave the most pitiful mew that ever came from the throat of a cat. He tried to get up, but his front leg refused to work. The doorman soothed him with one hand as he picked up the phone with the other and dialed Ronon's cell phone. The woman hovered, worried.
~~~
John hurt. He wanted Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, anyone who could make his foreleg stop hurting so much. The strange lady scared him, and so did the door-holder, who he usually only smelled when he went out in the box, and everything smelled wrong.
~~~
Two blocks from home, Ronon’s phone rang. “Yeah?”
“Mr. Dex? It’s Jim Perkins, your doorman. There’s been an accident.”
Ronon started to run.
~~~
Teyla sighed to herself. These depositions were incredibly boring. She was actually looking forward to lunch.
Her cell phone vibrated with a text message. Probably Ronon, trying to entertain her with movie quotes. Discreetly, she stepped to the back of the room as the witness droned on and checked the message. It was from Ronon,
[John 911] was the entire message. Her heart went cold.
In moments, she had whispered a hurried message to Elizabeth, gathered her things, rushed out of the courthouse and hailed a cab. All she could think about was the gangly black not-quite-a-kitten she had befriended years ago.
~~~
Rodney stared out the window. John was gone. He could see a black mound on the sidewalk, and then humans blocked his view.
John went Out. Would he ever come back? Granted, when they usually went Out in the Box, they went through the door, not the window. Was the window another way to Out? Rodney paced back and forth, wavering between worry about his John and peeved that he was so completely and utterly stupid as to go Out without his humans!
There was a foolproof way to make humans come home. Once Ronon or Teyla was there, he could make them understand that John was missing and needed to be found.
Rodney knocked over the garbage.
He then spread the garbage all over the floor, dragging empty Chinese food boxes into Teyla’s room and leaving them in the middle of the bedspread. He made sure they were the rice containers and didn’t have any leftover sauce in them. He crunched on a stray green bean absently, still worried about John.
Finally he shredded the paper towels and arranged them artistically in front of the door. He sat back to wait, tail twitching in anticipation.
Sure enough, Ronon came in. Rodney twined around his ankles, meeping “Ronon, John went out the window and I don’t know where he is! Help me find him!”
Ronon ignored him, and went directly to the window. Rodney jumped up next to him and watched him finger the edge of the screen.
Ronon looked at Rodney. “Did you do this?”
Rodney snorted. “Not likely. The Mighty Pigeon Hunter did that. Do you know where he is?”
Shaking his head, Ronon closed the window properly. He then went to the closet and pulled out John’s crate.
Seeing the crate, Rodney got nervous. John hated the Box. Ronon must know where John was, and was using the box to bring him back home. Quickly, Rodney found John’s favorite mousie, scented it liberally with his cheek glands, and performed Melena’s favorite trick. He sat up in front of the door, holding the mousie in his mouth. It was horribly demeaning for a cat of his intelligence, but sometimes the only way to get the attention of humans was to act cute.
Ronon glanced around at the mess and shrugged. “You must have really freaked out when John fell.” He noticed Rodney holding the mousie and smiled. “Think he’ll like that? All right.” Gently, he took the mousie and put it in the box. “Now, leave the trash alone. We’ll be home soon.”
The words “home soon” were familiar, and Rodney relaxed. Ronon would bring John home, and Rodney could box his ears for being so abysmally brainless as to go Out of the window.
~~~
Teyla arrived at the same time as Ronon came downstairs with the crate. “What happened?”
“He got the screen open, somehow, and went out the window.” Ronon shrugged. “He almost hit this lady here.”
The woman stepped forward, pushing her long red hair over her shoulder. “It startled me more than anything else. Will he be all right?”
Teyla eased John into the crate. “I am sure John will be fine. We are going to the vet now.”
John looked at her and said “Woe,” then licked her hand twice. He didn’t even struggle when she put him in the crate. She scratched him gently behind the ears, murmuring to him that he would be all right, her voice sounding a bit shaky to her own ears.
Jim hailed another cab, and Ronon and Teyla were off to the vet.
~~~
Rodney, sure that Ronon had things well in hand, went through the garbage for more green beans, broccoli, and red peppers, and then ate all the dry food that was left in the bowl. He hoped that they would return soon, all of them. Fortunately, there was a good way to make that happen as well.
Carefully, feeling horribly overfull, (a new experience, and not one to repeat) he padded into the bathroom and jumped into the tub. After hacking up the whole mess precisely onto the drain, he propelled himself up and out of the tub and sat on the bath mat to groom. There. That would work. Clearly, he had done everything possible for John, so he went to their favorite sleeping spot and curled up on John’s side.
~~~
The vet came out of the surgery and went directly to where Teyla and Ronon sat their vigil. “He has a fractured right front tibia, some bone bruises on his hindquarters, but he’s fine.” Dr. Keller reassured them. “I’d like to keep him overnight for observation, but you can take him home in the morning.”
“Can we see him?” Teyla asked.
“Of course. He’s still groggy from the anesthesia, but it will be good for him to see you.” She led them into the recovery cages in the back. “We put the blanket and toy in the cage with John, so he’ll smell something familiar when he’s healing.”
John looked pitiful, and not really awake. He had a cast on his leg and a white cone around his head. He had the mousie cupped in his good paw, and blinked his bright green eyes at Teyla. “Woe-eee?”
Teyla opened the cage and gently scratched his chin. “Hello, John. How are you feeling?”
“Meh.” John shook his head, trying to get the cone off.
“I know. It is very annoying, but you must wear it until you are better.” Teyla stroked his forehead with a fingertip. John sighed through his whiskers and lay his head down again. They stayed for a while, talking to John until the office hours ended, before taking the train home.
Once they got to the apartment, Teyla stared at the carnage around them.
Ronon looked guilty. “Forgot to tell you, Rodney got into the garbage?”
She made him clean it up, as well as the cat vomit in the tub once they discovered it.
When they brought John home the next day, he refused to come out of the crate. Only after they put Rodney in another room and laid a trail of Pounce leading him into the main room did he come out.
They couldn’t keep Rodney away from him for long, though.
~~~
Rodney stalked into the living room, tail lashing in annoyance. “You! You…dog! Do you know? You went through, and I didn’t know where you went, and I didn’t know if you would come back.” He paused, and took in the sight of John with a bright orange cast on his leg and a white cone around his head.
Rodney sat down. He laughed in the way that only cats laugh—smugly. “Oh, this is too perfect. I’m never going to forget this moment.”
John looked away from him. “Just shut up.”
“Nope, I’m going to enjoy this.” Rodney walked around John, who was half curled uncomfortably in the brand new cat bed. “What are you moping about?”
“Nothing.”
Rodney huffed and sat next to him. “Come on.”
John was miserable. “I can’t eat like I usually do. This thing around my neck itches like hell. And I can't groom.”
Keeping his amusement under wraps, Rodney licked at John’s neck. “All you had to do was ask.”
John grumbled, but submitted to Rodney’s caresses. Finally, he sighed. “It was great though. For two seconds, I could fly.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Rodney worked on the other side of his neck, which tasted weirdly medicinal from the vet’s office.
“Rodney?”
“What?”
“Can you make wings for me?”
“No.”
“Whyyyyy not?”
“Stop whining. Because (a) the humans will find out about cats being smarter than they are, and (b) I have no opposable thumbs to build wings for you.” He stared at his paws, feeling momentarily inadequate. The moment passed, and he went back to loosening the cone.
“Grff.”
“Shut up and let me get the cone off.”
~~~
Later, Teyla peeked in at the cats. They were spooned together, John on the inside. Both were purring loudly, and John’s cone was lying next to the new cat bed. One of Rodney's paws rested on the upper edge of John's cast. They looked utterly content.
She smiled and closed the door.
Author:
bethynycRating: PG-16
Pairing: John/Rodney, Teyla/Ronon, Cat AU, set in contemporary New York City
Word Count: 2760
Written for: Amnesty Animal challenge at
sga_flashficThanks To:
tesserae_ for her betaDisclaimer: I don't own them. But if I did, I probably wouldn't turn them into cats.
Notes: Look for cameos! Sequel to When John Met Rodney, Crack AU, as posted on
sga_flashfic. You might want to read that first. “According to New York One, it is supposed to be in the eighties today.” Teyla called out to Ronon. “Hottest day in April so far.”
Ronon stepped out of the bathroom, rubbing his shoulders with a towel.“We should open up the windows, get some fresh air in here.” He kissed her quickly on the cheek and wandered back into the bathroom. “What’s your schedule today?”
Teyla closed her briefcase. “Depositions in the sexual harassment case. Long, boring day.” She straightened her blouse and checked her skirt in the mirror.
Ronon poked his head out of the bathroom. “So lunch is out?”
“Lunch is out. I will be home in time for our workout, though. What about you?”
With a shrug, Ronon shook out a t-shirt and dragged it on. The front advertised a Jersey Shore surf shop. “Just office hours and supervising Tae Kwan Do club. I’ll probably have lunch here.” He zipped his jeans, making sure she noticed his lack of underwear.
Teyla raised one eyebrow at him. “You know that will distract me throughout the depositions.”
“That’s the point.”
“In addition, we have a new associate who will be observing today. You might like him; he also enjoys martial arts.” Teyla raised one eyebrow, daring him to make a jealous comment.
Ronon shrugged. “See you tonight.”
Teyla laughed, scratched John and Rodney under the chin, and left for her day.
~~~
John jumped up to the window as Ronon opened it. All the scents and sounds! He opened his mouth a little bit to smell better, and didn’t even notice Ronon leaving.
“Hey, Rodney! Get up here—you gotta see all this!” John’s tail twitched in excitement.
Rodney licked his paw and washed one folded ear carefully. “Nah. Same as last year.”
“You weren’t here last year.”
“No, but spring was.” Rodney shifted and stretched a rear leg out, delicately licking his toes.
John pressed his nose to the wire. “You don’t understand. There’s prey out there!”
Rodney yawned and nonchalantly leaped to the windowsill. “Not much room, move over. What kind of prey?” He sniffed at John's ear, hoping to distract him.
“Flyers. Sometimes they come so close…I know I can catch one!”
With a sniff, Rodney looked out. “Ew. Pigeons. Nasty, dirty…you know, there’s a reason why they’re called rats with wings.”
John’s eyes glazed over for a moment. “Mmmm. Rats. Taste kind of like turkey.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and jumped back onto the floor.
~~~
Ronon made his way through the crowds of students up University Place along Union Square, when he noticed a vaguely familiar man walking a cat on a leash. He was pretty sure it wasn't a tamed wildcat; it was huge, furry, with pointed ears and it ignored the dogs barking at him in the dog run with evident disdain. Ronon cut through the Greenmarket and caught up to the guy.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“That a cat?”
“Yep. Maine Coon”
Ronon stared at the cat, who matched his gazed without blinking. It was huge, he thought, with tons of fur that didn’t mask how massive it was. He turned back to the walker. “How hard was he to train to walk on the lead?”
The walker raised an eyebrow. “He was trained when I met him, but he’s pretty mellow. You could probably train yours with patience and enough treats.”
Ronon nodded. Rodney would do anything for a treat, and PetCo was just at the top of Union Square. “Thanks, man.” John might like some exercise as well.
“No problem.” The walker squinted. “Don’t you run the NYU Tae Kwan Do Club?”
“I’m the faculty advisor.”
The other man nodded. “Might see you around, then.” He turned his attention back to the cat, who was accepting adoring pats from a child with an anxious mother.
Ronon walked directly into PetCo.
~~~
“Hey. Hey, Rodney!” John's tail quivered in excitement.
With a long-suffering sigh, Rodney dragged himself out of the comfortable cat bed, stretched up on all four toes before his fore and aft stretches, and padded over to the window. “What are you--John, what are you doing?”
John had pushed at the window screen, separating it from the frame. “I think I can get them if I just push a little harder!”
Rodney jumped to the top of the cat tree, to see John wiggling between the window screen and the frame. A few pigeons fluttered around, and John was completely focused on them, not on the dangerously narrow and slanted sill.
He was halfway through, and Rodney suddenly felt in his whiskers and tail that this would not go well. “John, get back in here!”
~~~
Ronon paid for the cat harnesses and leashes, along with a bag of the treats Rodney adored, grinning to himself at the idea of the cats in harness. The cashier flinched a little at his expression, but managed to give him the correct change. He dropped the change and a five in the jar for the no-kill cat shelter and left the store, dodging a gaggle of girls from the ballet school and a swarm of skate-punks headed down to Union Square.
He turned left onto 19th street and stopped at the favorite deli for two sandwiches and some snacks. John liked to wait for turkey slices to come his way, and Ronon was trying to teach him to sit up on his haunches for it.
~~~
John heard Rodney call out, but it was too late; he had already slipped off the window ledge. The rush of air past John’s ears was exhilarating, and for a brief moment, as he twisted and turned in the wind as he fell, he thought “Flying! Cool!” before the sidewalk rushed up and hit him very very hard.
“Ow,” he thought briefly, before he passed out.
~~~
The doorman ran from his post when he heard a woman scream. “What happened?”
The tall woman with long red hair was unhurt, but upset. “This cat fell from the building, nearly hit me! Is, is he all right?”
The doorman checked to see if the cat was still breathing, and looked at the collar and tag. “I hope so. I wonder how he got out the window? This is Ms. Emmagen’s cat, and she's very careful.” The black cat was limp, but breathing, one foreleg at an unusual angle.
“Poor thing.” The woman leaned over John. “Do you think we can move him?” A few people stopped and stared, but most just glanced away and kept walking.
“At least we can get him inside.” The doorman grabbed a piece of cardboard from behind the reception desk, slid it gently underneath John, and brought him inside the lobby to set him down on the desk.
The woman trailed after him. “Anything I can do?”
The doorman shook his head. “I’ll call the owners and let them know, see if they want me to call their vet.”
At that moment, the cat stirred and gave the most pitiful mew that ever came from the throat of a cat. He tried to get up, but his front leg refused to work. The doorman soothed him with one hand as he picked up the phone with the other and dialed Ronon's cell phone. The woman hovered, worried.
~~~
John hurt. He wanted Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, anyone who could make his foreleg stop hurting so much. The strange lady scared him, and so did the door-holder, who he usually only smelled when he went out in the box, and everything smelled wrong.
~~~
Two blocks from home, Ronon’s phone rang. “Yeah?”
“Mr. Dex? It’s Jim Perkins, your doorman. There’s been an accident.”
Ronon started to run.
~~~
Teyla sighed to herself. These depositions were incredibly boring. She was actually looking forward to lunch.
Her cell phone vibrated with a text message. Probably Ronon, trying to entertain her with movie quotes. Discreetly, she stepped to the back of the room as the witness droned on and checked the message. It was from Ronon,
[John 911] was the entire message. Her heart went cold.
In moments, she had whispered a hurried message to Elizabeth, gathered her things, rushed out of the courthouse and hailed a cab. All she could think about was the gangly black not-quite-a-kitten she had befriended years ago.
~~~
Rodney stared out the window. John was gone. He could see a black mound on the sidewalk, and then humans blocked his view.
John went Out. Would he ever come back? Granted, when they usually went Out in the Box, they went through the door, not the window. Was the window another way to Out? Rodney paced back and forth, wavering between worry about his John and peeved that he was so completely and utterly stupid as to go Out without his humans!
There was a foolproof way to make humans come home. Once Ronon or Teyla was there, he could make them understand that John was missing and needed to be found.
Rodney knocked over the garbage.
He then spread the garbage all over the floor, dragging empty Chinese food boxes into Teyla’s room and leaving them in the middle of the bedspread. He made sure they were the rice containers and didn’t have any leftover sauce in them. He crunched on a stray green bean absently, still worried about John.
Finally he shredded the paper towels and arranged them artistically in front of the door. He sat back to wait, tail twitching in anticipation.
Sure enough, Ronon came in. Rodney twined around his ankles, meeping “Ronon, John went out the window and I don’t know where he is! Help me find him!”
Ronon ignored him, and went directly to the window. Rodney jumped up next to him and watched him finger the edge of the screen.
Ronon looked at Rodney. “Did you do this?”
Rodney snorted. “Not likely. The Mighty Pigeon Hunter did that. Do you know where he is?”
Shaking his head, Ronon closed the window properly. He then went to the closet and pulled out John’s crate.
Seeing the crate, Rodney got nervous. John hated the Box. Ronon must know where John was, and was using the box to bring him back home. Quickly, Rodney found John’s favorite mousie, scented it liberally with his cheek glands, and performed Melena’s favorite trick. He sat up in front of the door, holding the mousie in his mouth. It was horribly demeaning for a cat of his intelligence, but sometimes the only way to get the attention of humans was to act cute.
Ronon glanced around at the mess and shrugged. “You must have really freaked out when John fell.” He noticed Rodney holding the mousie and smiled. “Think he’ll like that? All right.” Gently, he took the mousie and put it in the box. “Now, leave the trash alone. We’ll be home soon.”
The words “home soon” were familiar, and Rodney relaxed. Ronon would bring John home, and Rodney could box his ears for being so abysmally brainless as to go Out of the window.
~~~
Teyla arrived at the same time as Ronon came downstairs with the crate. “What happened?”
“He got the screen open, somehow, and went out the window.” Ronon shrugged. “He almost hit this lady here.”
The woman stepped forward, pushing her long red hair over her shoulder. “It startled me more than anything else. Will he be all right?”
Teyla eased John into the crate. “I am sure John will be fine. We are going to the vet now.”
John looked at her and said “Woe,” then licked her hand twice. He didn’t even struggle when she put him in the crate. She scratched him gently behind the ears, murmuring to him that he would be all right, her voice sounding a bit shaky to her own ears.
Jim hailed another cab, and Ronon and Teyla were off to the vet.
~~~
Rodney, sure that Ronon had things well in hand, went through the garbage for more green beans, broccoli, and red peppers, and then ate all the dry food that was left in the bowl. He hoped that they would return soon, all of them. Fortunately, there was a good way to make that happen as well.
Carefully, feeling horribly overfull, (a new experience, and not one to repeat) he padded into the bathroom and jumped into the tub. After hacking up the whole mess precisely onto the drain, he propelled himself up and out of the tub and sat on the bath mat to groom. There. That would work. Clearly, he had done everything possible for John, so he went to their favorite sleeping spot and curled up on John’s side.
~~~
The vet came out of the surgery and went directly to where Teyla and Ronon sat their vigil. “He has a fractured right front tibia, some bone bruises on his hindquarters, but he’s fine.” Dr. Keller reassured them. “I’d like to keep him overnight for observation, but you can take him home in the morning.”
“Can we see him?” Teyla asked.
“Of course. He’s still groggy from the anesthesia, but it will be good for him to see you.” She led them into the recovery cages in the back. “We put the blanket and toy in the cage with John, so he’ll smell something familiar when he’s healing.”
John looked pitiful, and not really awake. He had a cast on his leg and a white cone around his head. He had the mousie cupped in his good paw, and blinked his bright green eyes at Teyla. “Woe-eee?”
Teyla opened the cage and gently scratched his chin. “Hello, John. How are you feeling?”
“Meh.” John shook his head, trying to get the cone off.
“I know. It is very annoying, but you must wear it until you are better.” Teyla stroked his forehead with a fingertip. John sighed through his whiskers and lay his head down again. They stayed for a while, talking to John until the office hours ended, before taking the train home.
Once they got to the apartment, Teyla stared at the carnage around them.
Ronon looked guilty. “Forgot to tell you, Rodney got into the garbage?”
She made him clean it up, as well as the cat vomit in the tub once they discovered it.
When they brought John home the next day, he refused to come out of the crate. Only after they put Rodney in another room and laid a trail of Pounce leading him into the main room did he come out.
They couldn’t keep Rodney away from him for long, though.
~~~
Rodney stalked into the living room, tail lashing in annoyance. “You! You…dog! Do you know? You went through, and I didn’t know where you went, and I didn’t know if you would come back.” He paused, and took in the sight of John with a bright orange cast on his leg and a white cone around his head.
Rodney sat down. He laughed in the way that only cats laugh—smugly. “Oh, this is too perfect. I’m never going to forget this moment.”
John looked away from him. “Just shut up.”
“Nope, I’m going to enjoy this.” Rodney walked around John, who was half curled uncomfortably in the brand new cat bed. “What are you moping about?”
“Nothing.”
Rodney huffed and sat next to him. “Come on.”
John was miserable. “I can’t eat like I usually do. This thing around my neck itches like hell. And I can't groom.”
Keeping his amusement under wraps, Rodney licked at John’s neck. “All you had to do was ask.”
John grumbled, but submitted to Rodney’s caresses. Finally, he sighed. “It was great though. For two seconds, I could fly.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Rodney worked on the other side of his neck, which tasted weirdly medicinal from the vet’s office.
“Rodney?”
“What?”
“Can you make wings for me?”
“No.”
“Whyyyyy not?”
“Stop whining. Because (a) the humans will find out about cats being smarter than they are, and (b) I have no opposable thumbs to build wings for you.” He stared at his paws, feeling momentarily inadequate. The moment passed, and he went back to loosening the cone.
“Grff.”
“Shut up and let me get the cone off.”
~~~
Later, Teyla peeked in at the cats. They were spooned together, John on the inside. Both were purring loudly, and John’s cone was lying next to the new cat bed. One of Rodney's paws rested on the upper edge of John's cast. They looked utterly content.
She smiled and closed the door.
