FIC: Growing Pains (Part 2)
Ten days and a conference later, I finally finished it. I was writing bits on stray pieces of paper beneath mortality estimates! But finally it's done and I can move on to the next one. I see so much happening to them!
Title: Growing Pains (Part 2)
Summary: John has to follow up on last Saturday night with Teyla. It proves to be way more complicated than he thought.
John/Teyla pre-ship with a little angst and John/Vala friendship.
As usual, Vala slams the door on her way out. Either she wasn’t raised around doors or she’s decided to rebel against society, all the way into the tiny details. Dishes, politeness and closing doors normally mere habits she left by the wayside.
John scowls at the door and knows he’s exaggerating. There’s just something wrong about her having plans on a Saturday night and not him. To tell the truth, there’s been something wrong about this whole week.
Dorky Rodney’s dating cute little Kate and Elizabeth’s been parading around with the words “puppy love” tattooed on her forehead. The evening happened, the opportunity was there and some people seized it. John and his roommates, as it is, did not. Ever since, Cam’s been keeping busy with overtime and Vala parties harder and longer than usual. John packs his guitar and goes singing in bars. Nothing on his mind except his hands strumming away in a smoky atmosphere, it’s been like a lobotomy.
Which isn’t to say he gave up on Teyla. He went to see her as she invited him to. She served coffee and really bad homemade chocolate chip cookies. They sat and talked for a while and he pretended to be admiring of her cooking skills. Then, at some point, he felt the overwhelming urge to leave and not look back. She didn’t try to stop him and still smiles at him in the hallway. It just gets him moving faster, packed quicker to sit on a stool, with his guitar, in a room so thick with smoke he can’t see a soul and he thinks they can’t see him either.
But they can hear. His voice offering up someone else’s words but his own emotions. For a short while, drunken strangers become the closest people to him. As the lights come on again, the feeling fades, he can be aloof and churn out pleasantries again. The closeness ebbs away with a pang but it’s bitterly sweet, like an ice-cream melting on a hot day. At the deepest level, he knows it isn’t meant to last.
He tries to fight it, like he has every night this week. But in the end, the floor and walls seem paper-thin and transparent. He sees her, hears her, approaching to knock and there won’t be anywhere to run. So tonight too, he flees to another bar, another crowd and the same temporary relief.
He’s closing his guitar case when her frame catches his eye. He’s checked her out enough to recognize the legs, the muscular build… the ass. Her reddish brown hair framing her lean shoulders. He surprises himself by naming their exact shade: auburn. Teyla’s in the bar where he just sang and she’s spotted him. Her smile beckons him closer and he has no choice but to surrender. He leaves behind his guitar and any mood extraneous to her presence.
She watches him come closer, her eyes locked with his. She likes what she sees and suddenly the situation is so familiar he feels foolish to have run away from it. She’s a girl and he knows how to handle those. She’s an amazing girl and he likes those. Sexy, assertive, beautiful. Maybe not someone to have and move away from, but right now John is entirely focused on the having.
“John.”
“Teyla.”
She shifts slightly, allowing him room to lean against the bar next to her. The air is still smoky but somehow, he can see her features so clearly.
“So this is how you spend your study group nights?”
“Who…?”
“Vala. She told me you were out tonight so I joined a few friends instead.”
She motions to a table near the window occupied by a group of serious looking people, too serious for a Saturday night. The eclectic clothing in tan and leather and the intense facial expressions identify them as artists. Among those, one face stands out particularly. Michael Kenmore, Teyla’s ex.
“Is that Michael?”
“You know it is.”
“How is good old Mike? Still running genetic experiments on actual people? I thought that’s why you dumped him.”
“That was the laboratory, Michael just works there.”
“Right. Is that why you picketed the lab and dumped him, all in the same week?”
She takes him aback by leaning very close to speak softly in his ear.
“You had much better notice that I meant to be out with you tonight, instead of talking about my ex.”
He likes that she’s direct, the way she speaks her mind but without the harshness Vala, or even Liz on occasion, display. She’s a velvet hand in a silk glove, with coffee toned skin. He’s thought about her in a lot of ways but right now he thinks to kiss her, to run his fingers through her hair and kiss her senseless. Over and over again, just for that last comment.
“I’ve been a dud, haven’t I?”
She nods and her eyes augur mischief.
“You can redeem yourself by walking me home.”
He’s not worthy but he’ll take it anyway, without hesitation.
“I’ll grab my stuff.”
“I will ditch my friends.”
A gentle breeze throws her hair to and fro, soft locks in brutal battle with gravity. The strands dance around her face as the silence starts to feel long. He tries to make the first move but she beats him to it.
“Do you always bring your guitar to study sessions?”
“Uh, yes. Cause… sometimes we take breaks and I… play something.”
“Kumbaya perhaps?”
Right. So, she knows he’s full of shit but she doesn’t call him on it. And, she lets him change the subject. She’s toying with him and he finds he likes the thought.
“How long were you in the bar?”
“We had just arrived when I saw you.”
“Good.”
She gives him an unreadable look but John just ploughs on, happy to believe she didn’t hear him sing.
“Cause well, it’s awkward really… hanging out with exes.”
Teyla laughs softly but indulges him by answering his unasked question.
“Michael was my friend before he became something more. We have many friends in common, I did not think that should change.”
“A law student, a mad scientist and leather-wearing artists?”
“It is a long story.”
“It’s a long walk.”
John waits in silence while Teyla makes up her mind but he has little doubt as to whether or not she’ll explain. There’s something in the air, something about they way they came to be here, walking home, talking. There’s an all or nothing feel to it and he’ll commit to it if she does. But as it’s been up till now, she has to make the first move.
“We call ourselves Athosians, like we created a place of origin apart from everyone else’s.”
“I don’t….”
“The Athos Home for Orphans.”
“I didn’t…”
“They are my family now. Except for Michael. He came later, from… a bad place.”
It answers questions he hadn’t even begun to formulate, a sort of light turning on to illuminate her character while casting shade on his own.
“That comment… I didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t mean you were wrong.”
“How do you do that? How do you talk about your family, your past like it doesn’t matter? How are you so confident and so beautiful, like it’s not painful?”
She thinks for a few moments and in that time John can’t feel the cold. Only the expectation of finally being handed another piece of the puzzle.
“I suppose that in the end, you can’t help but walk away. It hurts, but the life you build… I’ve had two very different families but what I have now is in that building, with our friends, the way we are all making a life for ourselves…. It’s rare and it matters.”
“I know.”
She looks deep inside him, layers being peeled away and he hopes she still likes what she sees.
“I do know, Teyla.”
She shivers and hugs herself.
“Could we move on?”
They move on to the Italian ice-cream parlor the girls sometimes trek to, even and maybe especially in cold weather. John settles into the booth across from Teyla and the look she bestows on the pistachio and tiramisu helpings he places before her, makes him think a few steps were missed. Like they jumped straight to the ecstasy part.
“So you like ice-cream, huh?”
“Actually I’m more of a popcorn girl. But ice-cream is good too.”
She picks up her spoon and digs in, careful to scoop up both flavors in quasi-equal amount. She ingests it eyes closed, slowly pulling out the spoon, her tongue licking up the remaining ice-cream.
“How are you a lawyer?”
“Actually, I’m a law student.”
“I thought most people study law to become lawyers.”
“A common misconception. Besides, you should talk. Math instead of Tomcats?.”
“Choppers.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I fly choppers, helicopters.”
Her eating pace picked up since the erotic first bite and John finds himself fascinated by her gluttonous eating. He’s never seen her look so…ungraceful.
“So Teyla, what are you going to do with your degree?”
“You ask a lot of questions for someone who never answers any.”
“I answer questions.”
She pushes her empty bowl away and leans back in the booth, fidgeting to make herself comfortable.
“So… three weeks ago, when the whole building got sprayed for bugs and we all had to go home for Thanksgiving, where did you go?”
It’s not that he doesn’t answer questions. It’s just that he’s usually successful in discouraging people from even asking. It’s not a secret, it never was and he doubts anyone might not understand. After all, he’s one of millions, a perfectly cliché case. And maybe that’s especially why, he’d rather not say.
“Home, of course. Why do you ask?”
He did, really. He went to a hotel and ordered a Turkey dinner from room service. He was the first one back in the building, home.
“You were there, when I came home and I’m usually the first one to return.”
There are a million ways to be similar, probably as many levels on which to feel kinship and experience closeness. Teyla is entirely foreign to John, and indeed, to most people. Alien, in control of her very own universe. But once in a while, when she condescends on visiting the one they all share, in moments like these, John must admit that he feels less alone. One look tells him she feels the same.
“Are you going finish that?”
His double chocolate fudge is melting into a big pile of brown goo and John knows the feeling.
“It’s all yours.”
“Do you miss flying?”
Another question to break the silence and all debating on whether or not he’s going to kiss her flees his mind as images of the cockpit return with biting reality. Clear blues skies and the smell of the air that high up, the one he owns as soon as the big metal machine lifts into it under his guidance. If singing puts him in touch with fellow human beings, flying takes him out of the equation completely, leaving only forces he can and does command.
“I still fly, a little. It’s enough.”
“That is not an answer.”
They arrive in front of her door and she turns towards him, her key jingling in her hand as she motions to the door.
“You could come in and give me one.”
And he really wants to, come in that is.
“The thing is…”
Teyla comes closer but just hovers in his space, unwilling or unable to go the last bit of the way.
“Or you could just come in.”
“Thanksgiving is about the time you started acting differently towards me. Three weeks ago.”
“You were here when I came home.”
She says it like it’s an explanation but John moved into this place, he lives with Cam and Vala, so his past won’t burst out of the closet he assigned it to at every turn. This building, this new life is his clean slate, the chance to start over and leave past mistakes behind. And falling for someone who touched that part of his heart had clearly proved to be a mistake. He won’t make the same one again.
“My Dad dropped me off early, I had calculations to finish up on.”
She steps away instantly, like she was burned, and gazes at him uncomprehending, at a loss. He
leaves her in front of her door feeling like he failed some test. Any thought of a kiss is banished as he bids her goodnight and walks away.
Title: Growing Pains (Part 2)
Summary: John has to follow up on last Saturday night with Teyla. It proves to be way more complicated than he thought.
John/Teyla pre-ship with a little angst and John/Vala friendship.
As usual, Vala slams the door on her way out. Either she wasn’t raised around doors or she’s decided to rebel against society, all the way into the tiny details. Dishes, politeness and closing doors normally mere habits she left by the wayside.
John scowls at the door and knows he’s exaggerating. There’s just something wrong about her having plans on a Saturday night and not him. To tell the truth, there’s been something wrong about this whole week.
Dorky Rodney’s dating cute little Kate and Elizabeth’s been parading around with the words “puppy love” tattooed on her forehead. The evening happened, the opportunity was there and some people seized it. John and his roommates, as it is, did not. Ever since, Cam’s been keeping busy with overtime and Vala parties harder and longer than usual. John packs his guitar and goes singing in bars. Nothing on his mind except his hands strumming away in a smoky atmosphere, it’s been like a lobotomy.
Which isn’t to say he gave up on Teyla. He went to see her as she invited him to. She served coffee and really bad homemade chocolate chip cookies. They sat and talked for a while and he pretended to be admiring of her cooking skills. Then, at some point, he felt the overwhelming urge to leave and not look back. She didn’t try to stop him and still smiles at him in the hallway. It just gets him moving faster, packed quicker to sit on a stool, with his guitar, in a room so thick with smoke he can’t see a soul and he thinks they can’t see him either.
But they can hear. His voice offering up someone else’s words but his own emotions. For a short while, drunken strangers become the closest people to him. As the lights come on again, the feeling fades, he can be aloof and churn out pleasantries again. The closeness ebbs away with a pang but it’s bitterly sweet, like an ice-cream melting on a hot day. At the deepest level, he knows it isn’t meant to last.
He tries to fight it, like he has every night this week. But in the end, the floor and walls seem paper-thin and transparent. He sees her, hears her, approaching to knock and there won’t be anywhere to run. So tonight too, he flees to another bar, another crowd and the same temporary relief.
He’s closing his guitar case when her frame catches his eye. He’s checked her out enough to recognize the legs, the muscular build… the ass. Her reddish brown hair framing her lean shoulders. He surprises himself by naming their exact shade: auburn. Teyla’s in the bar where he just sang and she’s spotted him. Her smile beckons him closer and he has no choice but to surrender. He leaves behind his guitar and any mood extraneous to her presence.
She watches him come closer, her eyes locked with his. She likes what she sees and suddenly the situation is so familiar he feels foolish to have run away from it. She’s a girl and he knows how to handle those. She’s an amazing girl and he likes those. Sexy, assertive, beautiful. Maybe not someone to have and move away from, but right now John is entirely focused on the having.
“John.”
“Teyla.”
She shifts slightly, allowing him room to lean against the bar next to her. The air is still smoky but somehow, he can see her features so clearly.
“So this is how you spend your study group nights?”
“Who…?”
“Vala. She told me you were out tonight so I joined a few friends instead.”
She motions to a table near the window occupied by a group of serious looking people, too serious for a Saturday night. The eclectic clothing in tan and leather and the intense facial expressions identify them as artists. Among those, one face stands out particularly. Michael Kenmore, Teyla’s ex.
“Is that Michael?”
“You know it is.”
“How is good old Mike? Still running genetic experiments on actual people? I thought that’s why you dumped him.”
“That was the laboratory, Michael just works there.”
“Right. Is that why you picketed the lab and dumped him, all in the same week?”
She takes him aback by leaning very close to speak softly in his ear.
“You had much better notice that I meant to be out with you tonight, instead of talking about my ex.”
He likes that she’s direct, the way she speaks her mind but without the harshness Vala, or even Liz on occasion, display. She’s a velvet hand in a silk glove, with coffee toned skin. He’s thought about her in a lot of ways but right now he thinks to kiss her, to run his fingers through her hair and kiss her senseless. Over and over again, just for that last comment.
“I’ve been a dud, haven’t I?”
She nods and her eyes augur mischief.
“You can redeem yourself by walking me home.”
He’s not worthy but he’ll take it anyway, without hesitation.
“I’ll grab my stuff.”
“I will ditch my friends.”
A gentle breeze throws her hair to and fro, soft locks in brutal battle with gravity. The strands dance around her face as the silence starts to feel long. He tries to make the first move but she beats him to it.
“Do you always bring your guitar to study sessions?”
“Uh, yes. Cause… sometimes we take breaks and I… play something.”
“Kumbaya perhaps?”
Right. So, she knows he’s full of shit but she doesn’t call him on it. And, she lets him change the subject. She’s toying with him and he finds he likes the thought.
“How long were you in the bar?”
“We had just arrived when I saw you.”
“Good.”
She gives him an unreadable look but John just ploughs on, happy to believe she didn’t hear him sing.
“Cause well, it’s awkward really… hanging out with exes.”
Teyla laughs softly but indulges him by answering his unasked question.
“Michael was my friend before he became something more. We have many friends in common, I did not think that should change.”
“A law student, a mad scientist and leather-wearing artists?”
“It is a long story.”
“It’s a long walk.”
John waits in silence while Teyla makes up her mind but he has little doubt as to whether or not she’ll explain. There’s something in the air, something about they way they came to be here, walking home, talking. There’s an all or nothing feel to it and he’ll commit to it if she does. But as it’s been up till now, she has to make the first move.
“We call ourselves Athosians, like we created a place of origin apart from everyone else’s.”
“I don’t….”
“The Athos Home for Orphans.”
“I didn’t…”
“They are my family now. Except for Michael. He came later, from… a bad place.”
It answers questions he hadn’t even begun to formulate, a sort of light turning on to illuminate her character while casting shade on his own.
“That comment… I didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t mean you were wrong.”
“How do you do that? How do you talk about your family, your past like it doesn’t matter? How are you so confident and so beautiful, like it’s not painful?”
She thinks for a few moments and in that time John can’t feel the cold. Only the expectation of finally being handed another piece of the puzzle.
“I suppose that in the end, you can’t help but walk away. It hurts, but the life you build… I’ve had two very different families but what I have now is in that building, with our friends, the way we are all making a life for ourselves…. It’s rare and it matters.”
“I know.”
She looks deep inside him, layers being peeled away and he hopes she still likes what she sees.
“I do know, Teyla.”
She shivers and hugs herself.
“Could we move on?”
They move on to the Italian ice-cream parlor the girls sometimes trek to, even and maybe especially in cold weather. John settles into the booth across from Teyla and the look she bestows on the pistachio and tiramisu helpings he places before her, makes him think a few steps were missed. Like they jumped straight to the ecstasy part.
“So you like ice-cream, huh?”
“Actually I’m more of a popcorn girl. But ice-cream is good too.”
She picks up her spoon and digs in, careful to scoop up both flavors in quasi-equal amount. She ingests it eyes closed, slowly pulling out the spoon, her tongue licking up the remaining ice-cream.
“How are you a lawyer?”
“Actually, I’m a law student.”
“I thought most people study law to become lawyers.”
“A common misconception. Besides, you should talk. Math instead of Tomcats?.”
“Choppers.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I fly choppers, helicopters.”
Her eating pace picked up since the erotic first bite and John finds himself fascinated by her gluttonous eating. He’s never seen her look so…ungraceful.
“So Teyla, what are you going to do with your degree?”
“You ask a lot of questions for someone who never answers any.”
“I answer questions.”
She pushes her empty bowl away and leans back in the booth, fidgeting to make herself comfortable.
“So… three weeks ago, when the whole building got sprayed for bugs and we all had to go home for Thanksgiving, where did you go?”
It’s not that he doesn’t answer questions. It’s just that he’s usually successful in discouraging people from even asking. It’s not a secret, it never was and he doubts anyone might not understand. After all, he’s one of millions, a perfectly cliché case. And maybe that’s especially why, he’d rather not say.
“Home, of course. Why do you ask?”
He did, really. He went to a hotel and ordered a Turkey dinner from room service. He was the first one back in the building, home.
“You were there, when I came home and I’m usually the first one to return.”
There are a million ways to be similar, probably as many levels on which to feel kinship and experience closeness. Teyla is entirely foreign to John, and indeed, to most people. Alien, in control of her very own universe. But once in a while, when she condescends on visiting the one they all share, in moments like these, John must admit that he feels less alone. One look tells him she feels the same.
“Are you going finish that?”
His double chocolate fudge is melting into a big pile of brown goo and John knows the feeling.
“It’s all yours.”
“Do you miss flying?”
Another question to break the silence and all debating on whether or not he’s going to kiss her flees his mind as images of the cockpit return with biting reality. Clear blues skies and the smell of the air that high up, the one he owns as soon as the big metal machine lifts into it under his guidance. If singing puts him in touch with fellow human beings, flying takes him out of the equation completely, leaving only forces he can and does command.
“I still fly, a little. It’s enough.”
“That is not an answer.”
They arrive in front of her door and she turns towards him, her key jingling in her hand as she motions to the door.
“You could come in and give me one.”
And he really wants to, come in that is.
“The thing is…”
Teyla comes closer but just hovers in his space, unwilling or unable to go the last bit of the way.
“Or you could just come in.”
“Thanksgiving is about the time you started acting differently towards me. Three weeks ago.”
“You were here when I came home.”
She says it like it’s an explanation but John moved into this place, he lives with Cam and Vala, so his past won’t burst out of the closet he assigned it to at every turn. This building, this new life is his clean slate, the chance to start over and leave past mistakes behind. And falling for someone who touched that part of his heart had clearly proved to be a mistake. He won’t make the same one again.
“My Dad dropped me off early, I had calculations to finish up on.”
She steps away instantly, like she was burned, and gazes at him uncomprehending, at a loss. He
leaves her in front of her door feeling like he failed some test. Any thought of a kiss is banished as he bids her goodnight and walks away.