i blame the coffee; it's not as tasty as usual

I feel like my purpose now is to link to things or something. It's very, very lowering. In that way that I'm not sure I can define 'lowering' as 'has no hope of original content because I keep thinking of things to write so as to get someone to flame me so I can retaliate with extreme prejudice'. And not even well--I mean, if you have been around here since 2002 (I'm looking at you, emrinalexander et al), my flames are sad, sad flames. They're like, spelling correction: pretty much the internet equivalent of sticking out my tongue and saying "Nya-nya, nya-nya, nya." Very sad.

Yeah. Welcome to my head.

Updates

schronicles is running a flashfic challenge for Sarah Connor Chronicles. Whee flashfic! Go forth and flash! Er, fic.

Five People Who Made My Week Better

svmadelyn - who finally got me able to start a possible prompt for SGA Big Bang.
eleveninches - who cheered the prompt on and said such things as ! and OMG which are inspirational when one is mentally damaging characters for fun.

(Right there, when none of you winced? That means you have been reading here too long. Or know me too well. I bet you didn't think, eww, mental damage! I bet you are thinking, huh, will it be disease, radiation, or torture this week?)

chopchica - because she hasn't mentioned my bright future as the penultimate authority on dragon rape this year. I--seriously, what? Where did that come from? How did that even come up?
fyrdrakken - who showed me a super awesome picture of her new rabbit condo. Super. Awesome.
cereta for the new community shakydismount.

Bonus!

And finally, bonus! A useless bonus. But a bonus. For beadattitude, who wanted ficlets the other day. Very short ficlets. Perhaps one might say, miniscule.



Teyla, Rodney's noted, is usually less sympathetic before her morning coffee, so he comes armed with a carafe, a tray of pancakes, and all the hope he has left in the world.

"It cannot be that hard," she insists, carafe inches away from one preternaturally strong hand. He knows how strong; he has the memories of the bruises.

Clutching his own cup, Rodney stares at her over the rim, trying to imagine a world where that statement could possibly, possibly be true. "I hate you."

Teyla gives him a weary look of exhausted hostility; Rodney has a second to be utterly, utterly grateful he can never, ever knock up John and have to deal with multiple feedings. "I hate you as well, Dr. McKay." Taking a drink of coffee, she purses her lips, then leans back with a sigh as the caffeine does its magic. Thank God. "Perhaps you should simply ask him."

Rodney tried that; oh, how he tried that. Leaving catalogs spread around his-wait-God-just-*face*-it-*their*-quarters; helpfully adding a shortcut to amazon.com (Rodney downloads the database weekly) to John's desktop; staring into John's eyes and subtly asking "What the hell do you want for your birthday?"

And it's all completely not worked.

"He doesn't want anything." It's insane. Utterly, utterly insane-- "He just says he's--" and this part is sick "--happy with anything I get him. And it's not a big deal."

Teyla nods. "Perhaps it is not."

"That," Rodney answers heatedly, pointing his spoon at her, "is not the point." And it's not; birthdays are celebrations of someone's goddamn birth and Rodney wants to fucking *celebrate it* already. "Something--that he'll like."

Surfboard; that bastard Halling got him one last year. Guitar--the bastard *has one*. Car? Puddlejumper. Ferris wheel--

"Ferris wheel?" Teyla says, eyebrows drawn together in thought. Right, talking out loud again. Dammit.

"Won't fit through the gate." And Carter's losing her shower for two weeks for that shit.

Teyla frowns, pouring another cup of coffee, which means it's safe for Rodney to get some for himself, looking moodily at the dark surface. "You know," he tells the coffee, because it's not like he's getting help from anyone sentient, so what the hell, "this isn't a problem I've ever had."

Teyla taps her spoon on the side of his cup, jerking his attention back up. She arches a brow in curiosity. "You haven't?"

"It's the--the guy thing," Rodney admits. When he traded in heterosexuality, he'd thought the gift-angst would go with it, but somehow, it hasn't turned out that way.

It should be *easy*--John's easy. John got excited when the Daedalus brought a *football* for God's sake. DVDs, always welcome. Get him every Batman ever put on film. It's *easy*, except that's the kind of stuff he'd been doing before he started sharing boxers with the man, and that *means something*. The sharing boxers thing. Bed, towels, t-shirts, tents, hell, they'd shared a *sleeping bag* enough times that Rodney knew the exact angle of John's head when he finally fell asleep and that he was a covert snuggler that they had kept at a comfortable level of denial for many deeply repressed years. All things he'd done before, like gifts of DVDs and popcorn.

Rodney sometimes has nightmares that they kept that up for the rest of their lives and wakes in a cold sweat.

But three months, three days ago, Rodney woke up in a bed not his (not new), wearing John's t-shirt (not new), after a long night of unique Atlantean terror (Jesus, so not new), with a headache from too little sleep and too much stress (God, his life is so predictable) and rolled into a John wearing boxers that were not his.

(Later, he finds out John stumbled from the shower, grabbed the first ones he saw, and fell asleep before he realized he didn't own Batman boxers.)

Atlantis dawned pink and gold across the bed while the lights flickered awake above them, the city reminding them they'd survived again, and Rodney didn't see a thing. Rodney was coming against John's stomach and breathing promises into John's shoulder that he'll spend the rest of his life keeping.

So shared boxers require a little more in the way of tender consideration and thought, or at least a good appearance of it. Rodney slumps in his seat and stares at the ocean, then narrows his gaze at Teyla, epically unsympathetic to his plight. "We have a week. John likes spaceships. Ronon likes shooting Wraith. I can find us a Wraith cruiser. Do we really want to go there?"

Teyla stares back. "You would not."

Two nights ago, John crawled into bed after a week on the mainland training the Marines, muttering something like "I hate the outdoors," and "We need a bigger bed" and "Where's my pillow?" and falling asleep across Rodney's chest halfway through the search. Rodney didn't sleep for an hour, feeling John breathe against his throat, freshly washed hair damp and silky against Rodney's chin, and thought, this could be the rest of my life.

It was so terrifyingly comforting that Rodney had woken up the next morning and decided it would be. And it starts right here. With a goddamn birthday.

"Try me."



ETA: Reminder--alternate pairings sign-up for Big Bang is going on here. Several pairings have already been closed due to respondents. Go check it out if you're interested.

Comments

[graceandfire.livejournal.com]

Awwww. Just...awwwwwwww. The word "awwwww" encompasses and perfectly describes. Of course it is awwwww in a Rodney way as only Rodney would offer to find a Wraith cruiser to make John and Ronon happy.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Hee! He would! thanks!