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Saturday Night in Varney
SGA fic (first one!)
rating G
for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beadattitude, originally posted as comment fic
They're finished the debriefing, which for some unfathomable IOA reason is happening in Toronto and Rodney is standing in the hotel lobby with Jennifer when he catches sight of John leaning against the wall. And suddenly, he loses track of the discussion about the new addition to the ROM vs the new addition to the AGO and Jennifer is saying something about the Henry Moore gallery, but all Rodney can hear is his memory of John's voice plaintively asking if Rodney is going off world on his day off.
And it's one of those moments, those moments that makes Rodney a genius, when he realizes that he's been looking for a logical answer but it's wrongwrongwrong because suddenly all the evidence doesn't support his original, logical, empirical hypothesis - but in one of those leaps he can see that he's been looking in the wrong direction all this time.
"Can't, Jennifer, can't, sorry" Rodney interupts, and then his tone softens and he repeats "Sorry, Jennifer." And he is, really, he is, because she's lovely and he loves her, (in that way that teammates do, a voice whispers in his head) and he holds her eyes for a moment as long as he can make it before he has to go.
Go over to where John is leaning and snap his fingers and abruptly demand "Coming?"
And of course John does, leveraging himself off the wall in an easy curve, his eyes cutting to Keller in a question he doesn't ask aloud.
But Rodney's pulling out his cellphone and dialing a number he's had memorised for years, and within an hour, they've walked through Chinatown and across the campus, Gothic buildings and grassy commons, and are on the tiny front porch of a tall narrow townhouse.
They stay for tea. Even on Earth, in Ontario they're having tea with the natives John is thinking - Rodney can see it on his face. But it's soothing to be back in this room, with his professor and her partner, even if it's hard to see them growing older. They were the first lesbian couple Rodney knew - two professors sharing a house, the physicist and the biologist. The only biologist Rodney didn't belittle, because he could still remember the feeling of a silver plated teaspoon rapping across his knuckles after a "soft science" remark.
They didn't stay long, Rodney was muttering into his teacup (teacup!) about how the Torontonians complained so much about traffic you'd be able to hear them in another galaxy (and got an under the table nudge from John's foot); and they'd better be going.
So then they were through the postage stamp garden to the leaning wooden garage, with a door peeling teal paint and a bare bulb hanging from a chain, and a pale blue eldery pick up truck park inside.
As Rodney navigated his way through back alleys and down busy city streets, John fiddled with the radio, and by the time they were on the highway, he'd found a station playing Hank Snow and Patsy Cline.
"Gonna tell me where we're going?" John asked, as they turned north.
"Nope." Rodney replied.
One smaller highway leads to another, and they stop for supper in a small town restaurant where the fanciest thing on the menu is a side order of onion rings for John's clubhouse sandwich, and Rodney drinks coffee and watches John, and realizes he's being doing those two things for years, in two different galaxies, and he... this is what he wants, even if it's only this.
John steals the keys after supper, and drives with one hand loose on the steering wheel and his other arm resting on the open window. The late August evening is gorgeous, with the sun turning the ripened wheat fields golden, and the road winds around and up and down the hills of the escarpment, and Rodney is afraid he's going to watch John so much he misses the turn, but suddenly it's there, and he's pointing and stuttering "Turn, here, right here, turn" and John is laughing and complaining that a 30 year old pickup truck doesn't exactly handle like a jumper.
But he turns in, and follows the gravel drive up to the parking lot (well, field) and the small stand is there, and the fence just visible, and he turns with his hand still on the keys in the ignition and says "Rodney, what...?"
And Rodney grins and says "Yes, yes. This way." They're just in time for the first race, and everything is so much smaller than he remembers, and he's worried for a moment until they climb up to the upper level of the grandstand and John turns to him with an absolutely shit eating grin and says "Stock car races? Rodney, really?"
The track is tiny, only a quarter mile, and the cars barrel through the heats, accelerating out of the straightaway and bunching into the turns. It's seriously small town (you can buy cowboy hats that proclaim "Hillbilly Racing"), and watching the kids clamber through the stands carrying souvenir checkered flags reminds Rodney of the times he came here as a kid with his cousins.
It's cooler up in the stands after the sun sets, and they drink coffee and eat greasy fries, and sit close enough that their thighs are pressed together.
On the way back to the city, John has one arm stretched out along the long bench seat of the pickup, and when Rodney leans back, he can see constellations that used to be the ones he looked for, and John's warm hand cups the back of his neck for just a moment.
rating G
for
beadattitude, originally posted as comment ficThey're finished the debriefing, which for some unfathomable IOA reason is happening in Toronto and Rodney is standing in the hotel lobby with Jennifer when he catches sight of John leaning against the wall. And suddenly, he loses track of the discussion about the new addition to the ROM vs the new addition to the AGO and Jennifer is saying something about the Henry Moore gallery, but all Rodney can hear is his memory of John's voice plaintively asking if Rodney is going off world on his day off.
And it's one of those moments, those moments that makes Rodney a genius, when he realizes that he's been looking for a logical answer but it's wrongwrongwrong because suddenly all the evidence doesn't support his original, logical, empirical hypothesis - but in one of those leaps he can see that he's been looking in the wrong direction all this time.
"Can't, Jennifer, can't, sorry" Rodney interupts, and then his tone softens and he repeats "Sorry, Jennifer." And he is, really, he is, because she's lovely and he loves her, (in that way that teammates do, a voice whispers in his head) and he holds her eyes for a moment as long as he can make it before he has to go.
Go over to where John is leaning and snap his fingers and abruptly demand "Coming?"
And of course John does, leveraging himself off the wall in an easy curve, his eyes cutting to Keller in a question he doesn't ask aloud.
But Rodney's pulling out his cellphone and dialing a number he's had memorised for years, and within an hour, they've walked through Chinatown and across the campus, Gothic buildings and grassy commons, and are on the tiny front porch of a tall narrow townhouse.
They stay for tea. Even on Earth, in Ontario they're having tea with the natives John is thinking - Rodney can see it on his face. But it's soothing to be back in this room, with his professor and her partner, even if it's hard to see them growing older. They were the first lesbian couple Rodney knew - two professors sharing a house, the physicist and the biologist. The only biologist Rodney didn't belittle, because he could still remember the feeling of a silver plated teaspoon rapping across his knuckles after a "soft science" remark.
They didn't stay long, Rodney was muttering into his teacup (teacup!) about how the Torontonians complained so much about traffic you'd be able to hear them in another galaxy (and got an under the table nudge from John's foot); and they'd better be going.
So then they were through the postage stamp garden to the leaning wooden garage, with a door peeling teal paint and a bare bulb hanging from a chain, and a pale blue eldery pick up truck park inside.
As Rodney navigated his way through back alleys and down busy city streets, John fiddled with the radio, and by the time they were on the highway, he'd found a station playing Hank Snow and Patsy Cline.
"Gonna tell me where we're going?" John asked, as they turned north.
"Nope." Rodney replied.
One smaller highway leads to another, and they stop for supper in a small town restaurant where the fanciest thing on the menu is a side order of onion rings for John's clubhouse sandwich, and Rodney drinks coffee and watches John, and realizes he's being doing those two things for years, in two different galaxies, and he... this is what he wants, even if it's only this.
John steals the keys after supper, and drives with one hand loose on the steering wheel and his other arm resting on the open window. The late August evening is gorgeous, with the sun turning the ripened wheat fields golden, and the road winds around and up and down the hills of the escarpment, and Rodney is afraid he's going to watch John so much he misses the turn, but suddenly it's there, and he's pointing and stuttering "Turn, here, right here, turn" and John is laughing and complaining that a 30 year old pickup truck doesn't exactly handle like a jumper.
But he turns in, and follows the gravel drive up to the parking lot (well, field) and the small stand is there, and the fence just visible, and he turns with his hand still on the keys in the ignition and says "Rodney, what...?"
And Rodney grins and says "Yes, yes. This way." They're just in time for the first race, and everything is so much smaller than he remembers, and he's worried for a moment until they climb up to the upper level of the grandstand and John turns to him with an absolutely shit eating grin and says "Stock car races? Rodney, really?"
The track is tiny, only a quarter mile, and the cars barrel through the heats, accelerating out of the straightaway and bunching into the turns. It's seriously small town (you can buy cowboy hats that proclaim "Hillbilly Racing"), and watching the kids clamber through the stands carrying souvenir checkered flags reminds Rodney of the times he came here as a kid with his cousins.
It's cooler up in the stands after the sun sets, and they drink coffee and eat greasy fries, and sit close enough that their thighs are pressed together.
On the way back to the city, John has one arm stretched out along the long bench seat of the pickup, and when Rodney leans back, he can see constellations that used to be the ones he looked for, and John's warm hand cups the back of his neck for just a moment.