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.wee ficlet: Revenge of the SPROINGed (John/Rodney) 1.1
Just a small happy post, because I've had so much fun this week, and I hope I can keep the cheerfulness going into the second half of the semester. Featuring: yarn, pretty trees, and SRPOINGS.
I just bought this yarn from hobbledehoy and OMG OMG OMG I AM SO EXCITED TO KNIT WITH IT I MUST CAPSLOCK OMG OMG OMG. I've wanted to make myself a really nice scarf for a while--there's so much stuff I want to make, really, but this is way up there on the list.
I am back in my hometown for the week, and although it's getting late, the fall colors are still out. The aunt and uncle I'm visiting live in an exceptionally lovely part of upstate New York; whenever I come back it feels like coming back home, but especially now, in the fall, with everything so beautiful.
And how about some more SPROING!? Totally spontaneous and unpremeditated.
Revenge takes a while, but John is patient, and if revenge is best served cold, well, John had been addicted to cold Chef Boyardee ravioli in college.
He waits until one night after a day of no disaster, only Rodney run to the ragged edge of incoherence riding herd on the other scientists. Rodney's kept him updated, faithful and near-instantaneous reports of Slodowski's stunning ignorance of hyperspace manifolds, his conviction that Farrow had run afoul of an Ancient amnesia device because she's somehow forgotten Newtonian physics, I was convinced I was going to be blown to -- no, Jesus Christ, Verbeek, put that down, put it --, and then, two minutes later, quietly ominous: Now is the part where people die.
Tonight, he decides as he packs up his laptop and makes sure the To look at pile of files hasn't mysteriously grown, is the night.
Somewhere around nine o'clock, Rodney staggers into John's quarters, hollow-eyed and twitching from exhaustion and caffeine. He smells of sweat and ozone, accents of burned plastic and coffee, and he has dry-erase marker stains on his face that, when John bends to kiss him, make him want to sneeze. He backs away before he can, because Rodney is never tired enough not to lecture on the horrors of being decorated in another person's snot.
"Uff," Rodney announces to John's cheek. His tablet hits the bed, fortunately, not the floor, when he drops it. "I have seen hell." Usually John pounces on the chance to mock Rodney's religious beliefs, but Rodney's looking at him glassily, watching but not really tracking as John shuffles around his room, turning down lights and closing the window against the cool night air. "Hell, John."
"Take it easy, buddy." John looks up from rearranging the contents of his fridge. "Sleep or something."
"Wargh," Rodney says, and thump as he falls over backwards.
John gives it a slow five-count, a chance to hear the shuffle of bedsheets as Rodney resituates himself on his side. When he looks up from the rearrangement of his Budweiser (to hide the string cheese in the back, where Rodney hardly ever looks for it), Rodney's out, one arm dangling over the side of the bed, jacket stretched over shoulders gone broad in relaxation. Grinning to himself--it's too easy, almost, to be satisfying (but not quite)--John creeps over, thanks be to special ops and stealth tactics, and eases himself down next to Rodney, close enough to see the fine lines around Rodney's eyes, shadow of stubble, details of bone structure that make looking at Rodney's face hard to stop doing.
He has to stop, though, because there's revenge.
As predicted, Rodney's spent most of his day running his fingers through his hair, possibly trying not to tear it out by the roots, and hysteria and fury and frustration have combined to make Rodney's hair determined in standing on end, unflattenable, as though it's still got energy even if Rodney's out like a light.
John reaches, settles his palm just above the soft strands, fine, tawny chestnut, shapes his mouth to the much-hated word.
"Don't even think about it."
Close enough to see the fine lines around Rodney's eyes, shadow of stubble, details of bone structure that make looking at Rodney's face hard to stop doing, close enough to see hazily irritated blue eyes, just opened to slits that make mere irritation look like demonic fury.
"Fuck," John sighs, and drops to sit cross-legged on the floor.
"Your ninja skills need some work," Rodney informs him.
"Shut up." John tries not to glare, but it's hard. It means Rodney's going to be on watch for weeks now, and besides, John always falls asleep before him. No harvest festivals are on the horizon, at least not ones they can get drunk at with any sense of safety. Also, there's Rodney's damned sixth sense when it comes to anything happening to his body without his permission, like he has some weird perimeter sensor system that goes off under imminent threat of being tickled, poked, or having his hair mashed down to a loudly-whispered SPROING.
"It's okay," Rodney says, despite his smug grin, despite the sleep-inarticulate hand that fumbles around for a second, and settles like a clumsy benediction on John's cowlicks. "Sproing."
-end-
I just bought this yarn from hobbledehoy and OMG OMG OMG I AM SO EXCITED TO KNIT WITH IT I MUST CAPSLOCK OMG OMG OMG. I've wanted to make myself a really nice scarf for a while--there's so much stuff I want to make, really, but this is way up there on the list.
I am back in my hometown for the week, and although it's getting late, the fall colors are still out. The aunt and uncle I'm visiting live in an exceptionally lovely part of upstate New York; whenever I come back it feels like coming back home, but especially now, in the fall, with everything so beautiful.
And how about some more SPROING!? Totally spontaneous and unpremeditated.
Revenge takes a while, but John is patient, and if revenge is best served cold, well, John had been addicted to cold Chef Boyardee ravioli in college.
He waits until one night after a day of no disaster, only Rodney run to the ragged edge of incoherence riding herd on the other scientists. Rodney's kept him updated, faithful and near-instantaneous reports of Slodowski's stunning ignorance of hyperspace manifolds, his conviction that Farrow had run afoul of an Ancient amnesia device because she's somehow forgotten Newtonian physics, I was convinced I was going to be blown to -- no, Jesus Christ, Verbeek, put that down, put it --, and then, two minutes later, quietly ominous: Now is the part where people die.
Tonight, he decides as he packs up his laptop and makes sure the To look at pile of files hasn't mysteriously grown, is the night.
Somewhere around nine o'clock, Rodney staggers into John's quarters, hollow-eyed and twitching from exhaustion and caffeine. He smells of sweat and ozone, accents of burned plastic and coffee, and he has dry-erase marker stains on his face that, when John bends to kiss him, make him want to sneeze. He backs away before he can, because Rodney is never tired enough not to lecture on the horrors of being decorated in another person's snot.
"Uff," Rodney announces to John's cheek. His tablet hits the bed, fortunately, not the floor, when he drops it. "I have seen hell." Usually John pounces on the chance to mock Rodney's religious beliefs, but Rodney's looking at him glassily, watching but not really tracking as John shuffles around his room, turning down lights and closing the window against the cool night air. "Hell, John."
"Take it easy, buddy." John looks up from rearranging the contents of his fridge. "Sleep or something."
"Wargh," Rodney says, and thump as he falls over backwards.
John gives it a slow five-count, a chance to hear the shuffle of bedsheets as Rodney resituates himself on his side. When he looks up from the rearrangement of his Budweiser (to hide the string cheese in the back, where Rodney hardly ever looks for it), Rodney's out, one arm dangling over the side of the bed, jacket stretched over shoulders gone broad in relaxation. Grinning to himself--it's too easy, almost, to be satisfying (but not quite)--John creeps over, thanks be to special ops and stealth tactics, and eases himself down next to Rodney, close enough to see the fine lines around Rodney's eyes, shadow of stubble, details of bone structure that make looking at Rodney's face hard to stop doing.
He has to stop, though, because there's revenge.
As predicted, Rodney's spent most of his day running his fingers through his hair, possibly trying not to tear it out by the roots, and hysteria and fury and frustration have combined to make Rodney's hair determined in standing on end, unflattenable, as though it's still got energy even if Rodney's out like a light.
John reaches, settles his palm just above the soft strands, fine, tawny chestnut, shapes his mouth to the much-hated word.
"Don't even think about it."
Close enough to see the fine lines around Rodney's eyes, shadow of stubble, details of bone structure that make looking at Rodney's face hard to stop doing, close enough to see hazily irritated blue eyes, just opened to slits that make mere irritation look like demonic fury.
"Fuck," John sighs, and drops to sit cross-legged on the floor.
"Your ninja skills need some work," Rodney informs him.
"Shut up." John tries not to glare, but it's hard. It means Rodney's going to be on watch for weeks now, and besides, John always falls asleep before him. No harvest festivals are on the horizon, at least not ones they can get drunk at with any sense of safety. Also, there's Rodney's damned sixth sense when it comes to anything happening to his body without his permission, like he has some weird perimeter sensor system that goes off under imminent threat of being tickled, poked, or having his hair mashed down to a loudly-whispered SPROING.
"It's okay," Rodney says, despite his smug grin, despite the sleep-inarticulate hand that fumbles around for a second, and settles like a clumsy benediction on John's cowlicks. "Sproing."
-end-