Comment drabbles, 'Human Vacillation'-verse snippets

[trinityofone]

James Joyce essay: draft totally finished! Next up: Alexander Pope! I can totally do this! *waves pom poms at self*

But first, the comment drabbles from the other day. 19 this time, mostly McKay/Sheppard with some Lorne/Parrish, Teyla/Michael, and Teyla/Carson (bwah?) thrown in to keep things interesting.

For slodwick: Will you say to them when I’m gone/'I loved your son for his sturdy arms/We both learned to cradle then live without'

John didn’t discover he was a pessimist until he realized that Rodney was an optimist, convinced that since they were now together, everything would be all right. He made allusions to things they would do ten, twenty, forty years from now as he curled into John’s sturdy arms, like the choice to hold on or let go was entirely theirs to make.

John’s own optimism stretches enough to imagine Rodney saying nice things about him when he’s gone; to look ten, twenty, forty years into the future and pretend Rodney will still be able to think of him and smile.

For dogeared: And later, when I say it to you in the dark/ you are the bell/ and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you

He never knew that happiness could be physically painful, but it’s a delicious sort of irony, and he can’t bring himself to mind. Here in the dark with his arms a white ring around Rodney’s neck, but he’s the one that’s trapped, frozen in amber-ecstasy. The moment stretches, like melted amber, like taffy, so sweet it hurts him: shakes his teeth and his spine so that even though he can’t say it back (not yet, not yet, but someday, soon) he knows Rodney can see it, hear it, ringing out from his pores like the wild bells of heaven.

For siriaeve: West of Her Spine

He could write a long list of ways Rodney is and has never been his type, starting with #1—has penis. Somewhere around #297 would be the fact that he is big and broad and, despite the height differential, makes John feel small sometimes, in comparison.

Yet #1 has switched to heading another list; and now, sprawled out across Rodney’s back, tracing patterns down his spine, John realizes that ol’ 297 isn’t what he thought, either. He can’t shelter Rodney’s body with his own, but he can rub the soreness out of tired shoulders, and let the comfort carry them.

For tardis80: He turns his head and John sees them: little plum-colored bruises dotting Rodney’s neck.

He turns his head and John sees them: little plum-colored bruises dotting Rodney’s neck. “God,” he says, shuddering. “Did I do that?”

“Yes,” says Rodney, happily. He kneels, laying his head on John’s thigh. John wants to jerk back, but there isn’t enough room in here. Not enough.

Twelve hours, John thinks, not knowing whether he wants time to move faster or slower. Twelve hours until the switch, until Rodney remembers who he is again: so much more than anybody’s slave. Until John forgets he’s anything other than Rodney’s master.

Maybe this time, Rodney too can leave a mark.

For 20thcenturyvole: Rodney, and how his affections transferred from Sam to John

He carries him away from her, and he should be angry, should be sorry, sad. But his are the strong arms that wrap around his shoulders, and while her voice is still the one that whispers wisdom in his ear, he has whispers, too. They speak an older language.

He sees Sam sometimes. She is still beautiful and wise, and he still loves her. He doubts that’ll ever change.

But it’s something he’s left behind, and he doesn’t regret it. So when John asks that question, whispering late at night, he can with perfect ease answer, “When I met you.”

For adannu: Lay your sleeping head, my love/Human on my faithless arm

John is committed to: his people’s safety, no matter the cost; and his own belief, no matter how wrong, in what he thinks is right. He is not committed to: relationships he knows will only end in anger, in tears. He’s spread so thin already; he can’t afford to give what’s left over to another’s trust.

And yet: instinct wars with desire, watching him as he sleeps. The cost, he believes, will be quite high—to them both. But this feels right, in his heart. He gives it so little quarter.

Tonight, then—tonight he can find certainty in this.

For svmadelyn: I do not give one single shit/for anything less/than my happiest thought

It’s never seemed fair that people aren’t falling at his feet, begging him to love them. He has so many appreciable qualities—they’re all fools if they can’t see it, see him.

Instead he is the fool, and like other fools, he falls in love.

He wants to tell them how lucky they are to be loved by someone like him. But his words fail and catch. I can invent a brighter future for us, he wants to say; or maybe, I could make you happy.

If anyone ever hears him, they’ll be the most fortunate fool in the world.

For aurora_84: I Will Follow You Into the Dark

He knew he was screwed when he rewatched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and thought it had a happy ending.

He doesn’t want to be one of those people. He’s always thought Romeo and Juliet was a shit play with a shittier ending. But he doesn’t—he can no longer conceive of a world with only him in it.

Which is not to say that he’ll be throwing himself on anybody’s coffin, just that...he is suddenly more afraid of living without him than of dying with him.

He’ll do everything in his power to stop both from happening.

For tikiberry: McKay/Sheppard (duh), kiwi (of fruit variety) and erm...lettuce

On M5K-494, they’re served brown, fuzzy...things that even Ronon thinks look appalling. Rodney, however, chirrups, “Ooh! They’re kiwi!” and dives right in, using his field knife to peel away the skin and reveal a soft and juicy center, alarmingly blue and sweet. The juice dribbles down Rodney’s chin as he eats, and John abandons the tatter of lettuce he was picking at, staring, watching the rivulets Rodney sucks noisily from each fingertip, swallowing hard.

The next time the Daedalus arrives, it’s carrying four crates of pineapples, peaches, plums, mangoes, and of course, kiwi.

John believes in forward planning.

For niannah: And what if there were two/Side by side in orbit/Around the fairest sun?

In another life: Mizar and Alcor grow up together in Atlantis. They swim off its docks, stars and moon bright above their heads. They run its halls until they are too old, and then they stride them, the Lanteans’ best hope for the future.

When Alcor is killed in the fight against the Wraith, Mizar at first thinks that he, too, will die. But he does not. He asks, What would Alcor do? and he makes himself stronger.

He Ascends.

He waits. For years he waits, orbiting.

When he feels that pull, he falls to Earth like a shooting star.

For reccea: John, Rodney, 'When the evening is spread out against the sky'

They’ve started taking these walks. Just after sunset, when the sky is purple fading into black. They pace the halls together, often silent, without words: just because. “For the pleasure of your company,” they both have joked, because of course it is ridiculous. They see each other all the time.

They often end up on a balcony, pausing, staring out at the waves. Leaning against the rail, Rodney will turn in toward Sheppard’s face and watch the wind flick his hair across his forehead. Sometimes he thinks about leaning further, but he knows he never, ever will.

He doesn’t dare.

Two for wychwood: Rueful pining

“Have you noticed,” Rodney says, “that you can link almost all of Atlantis together in a giant chain of ‘Love Stinks’? For example, Cadman wants Carson wants Teyla wants Ronon wants Elizabeth wants—”

“Wants?” John prompts.

“Well,” Rodney admits with a shrug. “You.”

“Ahh,” says John. He taps his fingers on the table. “And where do you fit in?”

“Oh, well I want Samantha Carter, obviously. But she’s not here.”

“So you’re out of luck, then,” John says.

“Guess so,” says Rodney. He doesn’t seem too upset.

“Guess so,” echoes John, as with one last dejected tap, he turns away.

wychwood: ...nooo! Man, that was such a bad choice on my part *g*. Poor John.
trinityofone: Okay, here's an addendum:

“But, you know,” John says suddenly, turning back, “there’s always me.”

“Yes, I know,” says Rodney patiently. “Plenty of chains end with you. As I said, Elizabeth, and oh, also Simpson and Katie’s friend Dori and that scary Marine who does splits. And, um, Caldwell, possibly...”

“No,” says John, trying to erase that image from his mind, “What about who I want?”

“I dunno.” Rodney scratches his head. “Novak?”

John considers bashing his forehead against the table, then decides, Fuck it, and hisses, “You.”

“Ohhh...” says Rodney, and they proceed to make love like the many-splendored thing it is.

For rokeon: In this whole world/There is only you and I and this boat/On this ocean. And what happens/depends on us or the ocean

Rodney’s not sure when he realizes that Sheppard would go down with her. The bomb and the hive were not an aberration: Sheppard’s willing to risk himself, time and again.

He loves her.

Sometimes Sheppard stands on the balcony, staring at the wide arc of the gate like a captain at his helm. Symbols spinning, the wheel turns and Sheppard follows, and Rodney after him. Rodney knows this, but thinks himself a sorry Starbuck: not strong enough to pull Sheppard back when the time comes, but willing to be his companion at the rail as the waves crash over them.

For rashaka: Dr. Beckett and a little quirk of Asthosian culture

When Teyla started her menses she tells Carson, blank-faced, and Carson swallows, reminding himself that he’s a doctor she was allowed to traverse the Ring of the Ancestors alone for the first time.

Weren’t you frightened? Carson asks, thinking how scared he was, and him a grown man, far from alone.

Perhaps she replies but I was also excited, imagining all the things I would see.

And I knew my father was right behind me.

But that’s not what terrifies Carson. It’s the thought of all that black space, and them just particles in it: even with hands held.

For echoing0comfort: Coconuts, tennis shoes, and someone mocking Rodney's taste in music

On the island, John constructs a coconut phone.

“Brilliant,” Rodney says. “Except you can’t call for help—you can can only call other coconuts!”

John laughs whenever he catches Rodney humming the Gilligan’s Island theme.

He fills Rodney’s sneakers with sand. Barefoot the next morning, he pulls him into the surf. The water crashes over his toes and ticklish, he can’t help smiling.

They have nothing but time, and given enough, John knows he will have Rodney barechested and easy in cutoff shorts. They will make love on rushes laid over the sand as stars rise and set above them.

For delurker: Lorne, and 'a truly noble and impressive fish'

Parrish names the plant gilly weed, and Lorne doesn’t even try to pretend he doesn’t get the joke. But the reasons behind his deep breath are manifold as he leaps off the pier. Parrish is waiting for him. He swims down deep, long legs kicking, ghostly pale in the filtered light.

They float, surrounded by the gleaming bodies of beautiful, monstrous fish, and their own bodies, swept together by the ebb and flow.

Lorne’s mouth tastes bitter from the chewed herb, but Parrish’s lips are welcoming, sweet. It’s a long, long time before they have to come up for air.

For seikaitsukimizu: John and Rodney at dinner on Earth, Sam is at the same place (bonus points for jealous!John)

He comes back from the bathroom and she’s sitting there, leaning in to him as he talks.

“Colonel,” he says, approaching the table with swift steps.

“Colonel Sheppard.” A nod. “I’m sorry, is this your seat?”

Before John can respond, Rodney’s jumping in: “No, don’t get up,” he tells her. “Sheppard can get another chair.”

John is seething as he scoots in between them—furious until the moment that he feels Rodney’s hand on his thigh, squeezing. Suddenly, the physics of the arrangement make sense, John thinks: smiling as if in answer to Carter’s joke, and not to Rodney’s touch.

For megolas: The Good Times Are Killing Me

These were the things he liked about being human:

Strawberry jam and pecan pie. Cello music by Bach, on the iPod they gave him, the one they said was his. Sleep, real sleep when the dreams weren’t bad. The way she’d looked, the way she’d moved, when he had been able to gaze on her without hunger, or at least hunger only of a different kind.

Now he is himself again, and human life nourishes his body just like it used to. But he drops the dry husks unsatisfied, craving something lost, gone before he even knew he had it.

notpoetry and saturnalia both asked for drabbles set in the Human Vacillation-verse. I kind of got carried away, so here are 7 of those, all set pre-HV.

---

John likes numbers because numbers never lie. In the hospital, after blood and sand are washed away, after tests, after his name and face (his old name and face) vanish into a folder marked CLASSIFIED, he weighs and measures himself, comparing the figures to what he knew from before. It doesn’t make sense, these disparate totals of pounds and inches. Like everything else, it should be impossible, a grand, universal lie.

But numbers don’t. Neither does science. He knows the law of conservation of matter; he thinks about what he gave up for each new ounce, for every added inch.

*

He lost his virginity on prom night, which was cliché; and he lost it in his own bed, which was lame. The sex itself was also nothing special, but he felt great afterward. Great, like he finally understood: this is what people did—real, adult people—and he was one of them. He belonged.

He snuck out of bed, went into the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror, tried to see if anything was different, if he had changed. But he looked exactly the same as he always had.

He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or reassured.

*

“So,” Rodney says, trying for casual and failing. “Did you sleep with her?”

His first reaction is to snap, That’s none of your business, McKay! But that not very cool, is it? He’s a cool guy, he’s decided: this sort of thing happens to him all the time.

“Yup,” he says. Scratches his chin, relieved anew by the smooth, shaved skin. “I was there six months,” he adds. And, well: she’d asked. She’d asked, and curiosity and boredom and desperation had overwhelmed him. It had been educational.

Rodney shakes himself. “Of course. A man has needs, hm?”

“Exactly,” John says.

*

It’s cold in Antarctica, freezing and isolated and lonely, and after months of not touching himself, John starts masturbating almost constantly.

He splays a hand across his chest as he works himself, running his fingers through soft, thick hair, the hard planes of muscle—and, nails scratching, the tiny peaked buds of his nipples. His other hand pumps his cock, sometimes slow and leisurely, other times hard and fast and violent. His come coats his fingers and the clumps of tissues he starts squirrelling away; sometimes afterward, he pauses, and he stares.

A month, maybe two, and he’s over it.

*

He still never sees it coming. He still isn’t really sure what to do besides accept. Mara stands naked before him, there for the taking, a willing body that he can use to test and pleasure his own. He has many secrets, many things he keeps even from himself. Last week he piloted a jumper to new depths and lifted Rodney up into his arms only to set him back down once he had found his feet. Everything impermanent. John should have his fun while it lasts.

Mara smiles like she knows what she wants. John gives it to her.

*

John’s car is parked right up the road from Ford’s cousin’s house; he walks straight past it, stopping in front of a payphone. He empties his pockets onto the metal shelf, the heavy clink of too much change. Mechanically, he feeds the quarters into the slot, dials the number: eleven digits, pressed too firm and fast.

His mother answers on the fourth ring. “Hello?” she says. “Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?” Then a click as she hangs up.

John puts the receiver down. This is not the first time he has done this. He doubts it will be the last.

*

(And a double one, to cheat finish up:)

He’s—not in love; he won’t say in love—with Rodney before he even knows what’s happening.

It’s not a major revelation. They’re walking back to the puddlejumper, having just defeated the 10,000-year-old Wraith That Wouldn’t Die, and John’s a mass of confused emotions: grief and anger over Abrams and Gaul’s deaths, relief that he and Rodney made it, strength and adrenaline, pride and perverse satisfaction at the retnal burn left by the Wraith’s exploding body. And in all of that, the rage-joy-triumph, he looks over at the man walking next to him and the one clear thought in the muddle is a loud and decisive yes. This is what he wants, right here: strong shoulders and arrogant chin, big ego boosted by bigger brain, bright eyes and wicked mouth and Rodney, Rodney, Rodney. And John laughs, because it’s the most ridiculous, perfect thing he’s even seen or imagined.

Later, back in Atlantis, he comes to his senses. Just because you want something doesn’t mean you could or should have it; he knows that. He won’t let himself forget.

He pushes it away, compartmentalizes: it’s not the quantity of secrets that matter. It’s the quality.

Comments

[midnightquarter.livejournal.com]

These were really good, my favorites were the ones for wychwood and niannah

[zoerayne]

I love all of these (especially the HV-verse ones), but the Michael/Teyla one.... Oh, man. I hurt, but in a good way.

[not-sally.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

[wychwood]

I love these! :) Especially the Michael one. And the pecan pie! *g* I don't suppose you'd know that, but the character Connor Trinneer played on Enterprise loved pecan pie.

[aurora]

Eeee, more HV! That universe is killing me in the best possible way.


When he feels that pull, he falls to Earth like a shooting star. *whimper* Ancient!John is such a kink of mine, you wouldn't even believe it.


(ps: I am not here, I'm bravely working on my essay. :p)

[20thcenturyvole.livejournal.com]

Wow! These are all amazing. (I admit partiality for the Michael/Teyla, because that is my Twisted Het OTP O' Doom, and I just love him.)

[randomeliza.livejournal.com]

Okay, the one for niannah NEEDS to be expanded. Because, dude. That's just... past lives? Fucking awesome, is what that is. It would be cheesy in any other fandom, but in SGA...

Yeah. LOVE.

Also love the kiwi thing. Fruitporn is a favourite of mine. *g*

[serialkarma.livejournal.com]

Oh, new Human Vaccillation drabbles! I was just talking about that story with someone the other day and wishing I could read more from that 'verse! I love these!

(also, I have to say, the first time I read that story, I read the title as "Human Vaccination" and was very confused as to what vaccinations had to do with *anything*. Um. Hi, sometimes I wonder that my chosen profession is editor.)

[ceares.livejournal.com]

these were all terrific. The one for tardis80 was particularly intriguing and I loved the island one, the one for wychwood-with addendum, and the lorne/parrish one.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oooooh! More Human Vacillation! Lovely. I still think the character makes more sense if you think of this as his backstory.

And to tell you how shallow I am, I read this:

Rodney’s not sure when he realizes that Sheppard would go down with her.

and seriously, totally thought it stopped at "when he realizes that Sheppard would go down."

Which is a story that somebody needs to write.

[j00j.livejournal.com]

These were all great-- I was especially thrilled to see more HV stories. That story really grabbed my attention, and I'm still curious to see what John will tell Rodney about his life-- the good stuff, the messy stuff, and whatnot. This John's perspective on life, and particularly on gender, intrigues me.

[amalthia]

I loved all these snippets, especially the HV ones.

[temaris.livejournal.com]

HV: Did I get that right? John's 'black mark' was transforming? I'm amazed they sent him to Antarctica. S/he must have done something fairly impressive not to end up in Area 51... and to not have it in his medical records. Antarctica, a new start from a sympathetic military? Do they have some sort of secret protocols on what to do when it happens? I do hope you write more of this :-)

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

I really loved all the HV ones, but in particular I liked John calling his mother, because - *yes* - that's something I've been thinking about, that you lose more than your body, you lose your history with it. And then, when he's masturbating so furiously, and then A month, maybe two, and he’s over it. God.

[stellahobbit.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I liked the pre-Human Vacillation ones, especially the last one.

Do you think you'll write more in this series?

[(Anonymous)]

HV John is still one of the most wonderful things I've ever read. The one about him being there for six months, trying to be what he thinks a cool guy should be - that's my favourite. It's just so... perceptive. Wow. And ahh, when he realizes he's in love with Rodney at the end. If you hadn't already written HV then I think I would have screamed.

[adannu.livejournal.com]

*purr*

I like it. And the Human Vacillation 'verse, too. The last one -- my heart is somewhere on the floor here at the end.

[danceswchopstck.livejournal.com]

Loved Human Vacillation and the follow-up drabbles, especially the one where John calls his mom. (Involuntary estrangement from family--ouch!)

I do hope you'll write more in this 'verse. Thanks!

[radiophonic.livejournal.com]

I know you wrote my drabble ages ago, but I never properly thanked you. Since you're my favorite SGA author I was afraid of leaving a OMG<3LET'SMAKEBABEHS! review. (It was very tempting.) Based on the prompt I gave you, I was expecting pure crack, but you managed to make something beautiful.

So, uh, yeah. :)