Growing Pains (Part 3)
And here's the last bit.
Title: Growing Pains (Part 3)
Summary: He just has to say the right thing.
When he emerges from his room, a black cloud hanging over him, Cam knows to nettle him a little less. Vala, on the other hand, does her best to annoy him. And John in turn, tries to keep swearwords down to a minimum. He generally doesn’t succeed.
“Who finished the goddamn milk and didn’t replace it? Howfucking hard can it be to get your fucking asses to the store?!”
Cam shrugs and kindly hands him a cup of coffee. Vala actually answers him.
“That would be me. As it was tomorrow and the day before and I believe… the day before that. But if you feel the need to yell at us because you didn’t wake up in Teyla’s bed, then by all means… go right ahead.”
She kisses his fuming cheek and bounces away to annoy Cam by trying to grab the entertainment section of his paper.
“You only read the sports pages anyway!”
“I’m in the US Air Force and I’m trying to keep in touch with current affairs!”
“Like whether the Hogwipes will beat the Crackpots?!”
A slight tug of war ensues and John seizes the opportunity.
“Vala…”
“Just because you can’t read past the latest development in Brad Pitt’s divorce doesn’t mean…”
“Ha! Shows how in touch you are. It’s been final for months! And…”
“How much do you know about Teyla?”
They both freeze and look at him and he realizes he may not have picked the best moment. The best one would have been included Cam being on another continent and Vala having ingurgitated three bottles of Jack Daniels on her own with no capacity for short-term memory.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you knew her first, recommended her for an apartment here so… where did you meet her? What’s her deal?”
She mulls it over for just one moment and lets go of the paper to explain slowly.
“We can’t really tell other people. You wouldn’t understand.”
Even Cameron is curious. “Understand what?”
“In the support group you meet other people who’ve been through the same ordeal, who also have to carry on… and live with people who…”
“Who…”
“Who are chronically stupid!!”
She grabs the newspaper out of Cam’s hands and does a little dance of joy.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”
She spreads the pages out on the countertop and immediately and expertly flips through them to find her beloved celebrities. The black cloud starts throwing out lightning bolts and John can’t help himself.
“Sometimes Vala, you can be such a bitch!”
She comes into his room a little while later and the event sends both his eyebrows into orbit behind his comic book. Her awkward stance in the door way is far from the carefree way she usually plops down on his bed with both shoes on to declare she’s bored and demands entertaining. This tells him it’s serious.
She picks up a stray item from the dresser and fingers it before flopping down on the bed in a seemingly careless manner. Her fingers are nervously fingering guitar strand. In another life, he’d probably have reason to fear for his life.
“Well, I think you have to agree that being a bitch sometimes is already a definite improvement.”
He keeps his eyes trained on the page, expecting a comment to resuscitate their argument.
“You boys must be getting to me.”
It’s sort of peace offering and generally the way most important disputes are settled in a household inhabited by people who speak their minds freely and don’t do big emotional displays. She’s apologizing, sort of, so does he too… sort of.
“Despite asshole roommates and Sunday morning death matches?”
Vala looks at him, a funny expression on her face and then, in a strangely kind way answers his question.
“I met her outside a bar, actually. She was breaking up a fight between Michael and that big guy who follows her everywhere… Halling. She decked Michael and he limped away, screaming she’d changed him, hurt him somehow. She didn’t even blink. I knew I liked her right there and then.”
She hesitates before walking out:
“You don’t usually ask questions.”
No, he doesn’t. And he hasn’t even begun to contemplate giving answers.
“Well, look at that. Aren’t you all grown up.”
John thinks back but he can’t he remember exactly. It does seem to him though, that he liked Vala right there and then, too.
She steps out of the gym and into the alley, a bag slung over her shoulders holding two wooden rods. Her body is covered with a thin sheen of sweat, shining dully in the afternoon light as she struggles to put on her coat. The skirt she’s wearing with thigh-high slits is just one more incentive to join one of her classes. After all, he’s in the US Air Force, he can probably take her.
“Hey Teyla.”
“John.”
She betrays no surprise and he’s momentarily thrown. He can’t tell if it pleases her to see him or if she’d rather he hadn’t come. He suspects it’s because she doesn’t want him to and is keeping all her emotions bottled up.
He stands close to her to do what he came to do. He should have said it yesterday night but he hopes it isn’t too late. The closed look in her eyes haunted him all night long, interweaving dreams of eyes, guitars and Michael using smoke to make people disappear. But right now, he has a chance, he just has to say the right thing.
“I don’t get along with my family, at all. That’s what I was doing last night, trying to get along. Did you hear me play?”
She shakes her head and he feels disappointment and relief. The decision is still his.
“You might yet.”
She smiles and all of a sudden she’s closer than she’s ever been. In his arms, against his lips, underneath his hands. She’s soft skin and wet tongue, hands that run through his hair and arms pulling him closer, so close. She kisses him deeply and passionately, simply because he answered her question.
“Oh for God’s sake! Ever since you started dating Major Dull over there, you hardly go out anymore!”
“That is not true. We went to Train the other night and I spent the entire time refusing the advances of a man with so many tattoos he could be a subway map!”
John passes by and purposefully doesn’t hand Vala the popcorn bowl.
“Thanks for taking my girlfriend out to get hit on by strange bikers, by the way.”
Vala rolls her eyes explicitly and looks to Cameron for help.
“Don’t you agree? Don’t you miss him in the sad and uninteresting activities the two of you used to indulge in?”
Cam grabs the popcorn and helps himself to a huge helping before passing it on to Teyla where John knows it’ll remain for the rest of the night. That girl sure loves her popcorn.
“What’s to miss? I get the twins all to myself.”
John clinks beers with him at that remark and Teyla pretends to smack his thigh. It gives him just enough room to grab some popcorn.
Vala’s exaggerating as usual. Yes, Teyla spends a lot more time here than in her tiny apartment where she doesn’t even have a TV because she says she doesn’t need one. A calm routine has installed itself but the two of them have decided to take it slow. Neither is ready nor equipped to handle a big relationship so they leave it at that. They float in a sort of undefined space where he spends most nights with her and then his days thinking about her. He sometimes feels panic at the thought of what not taking it slowly would be like.
But then there are moments, when the two of them are alone. Like after the game ends and Cam leaves, after Vala stares in thin air for a long moment before slamming the door and running up the stairs blindly. Moments when Teyla snuggles up to him and he holds his arms out. She slides next to his body and with every breath he feels her presence.
She absentmindedly strokes his arm as he experiences passing guilt for having brought Grey’s Anatomy into her life and lasting shame at realizing that he actually likes watching it. Not just the show, but watching it with Teyla, discussing the characters, their relationships. The discussions that are never about them because for now, this is them: the ease and togetherness. And the kisses. The long kisses when he cups her cheek and kisses her silly for the longest time. Not for any other reason than wanting to.
Title: Growing Pains (Part 3)
Summary: He just has to say the right thing.
When he emerges from his room, a black cloud hanging over him, Cam knows to nettle him a little less. Vala, on the other hand, does her best to annoy him. And John in turn, tries to keep swearwords down to a minimum. He generally doesn’t succeed.
“Who finished the goddamn milk and didn’t replace it? Howfucking hard can it be to get your fucking asses to the store?!”
Cam shrugs and kindly hands him a cup of coffee. Vala actually answers him.
“That would be me. As it was tomorrow and the day before and I believe… the day before that. But if you feel the need to yell at us because you didn’t wake up in Teyla’s bed, then by all means… go right ahead.”
She kisses his fuming cheek and bounces away to annoy Cam by trying to grab the entertainment section of his paper.
“You only read the sports pages anyway!”
“I’m in the US Air Force and I’m trying to keep in touch with current affairs!”
“Like whether the Hogwipes will beat the Crackpots?!”
A slight tug of war ensues and John seizes the opportunity.
“Vala…”
“Just because you can’t read past the latest development in Brad Pitt’s divorce doesn’t mean…”
“Ha! Shows how in touch you are. It’s been final for months! And…”
“How much do you know about Teyla?”
They both freeze and look at him and he realizes he may not have picked the best moment. The best one would have been included Cam being on another continent and Vala having ingurgitated three bottles of Jack Daniels on her own with no capacity for short-term memory.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you knew her first, recommended her for an apartment here so… where did you meet her? What’s her deal?”
She mulls it over for just one moment and lets go of the paper to explain slowly.
“We can’t really tell other people. You wouldn’t understand.”
Even Cameron is curious. “Understand what?”
“In the support group you meet other people who’ve been through the same ordeal, who also have to carry on… and live with people who…”
“Who…”
“Who are chronically stupid!!”
She grabs the newspaper out of Cam’s hands and does a little dance of joy.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”
She spreads the pages out on the countertop and immediately and expertly flips through them to find her beloved celebrities. The black cloud starts throwing out lightning bolts and John can’t help himself.
“Sometimes Vala, you can be such a bitch!”
She comes into his room a little while later and the event sends both his eyebrows into orbit behind his comic book. Her awkward stance in the door way is far from the carefree way she usually plops down on his bed with both shoes on to declare she’s bored and demands entertaining. This tells him it’s serious.
She picks up a stray item from the dresser and fingers it before flopping down on the bed in a seemingly careless manner. Her fingers are nervously fingering guitar strand. In another life, he’d probably have reason to fear for his life.
“Well, I think you have to agree that being a bitch sometimes is already a definite improvement.”
He keeps his eyes trained on the page, expecting a comment to resuscitate their argument.
“You boys must be getting to me.”
It’s sort of peace offering and generally the way most important disputes are settled in a household inhabited by people who speak their minds freely and don’t do big emotional displays. She’s apologizing, sort of, so does he too… sort of.
“Despite asshole roommates and Sunday morning death matches?”
Vala looks at him, a funny expression on her face and then, in a strangely kind way answers his question.
“I met her outside a bar, actually. She was breaking up a fight between Michael and that big guy who follows her everywhere… Halling. She decked Michael and he limped away, screaming she’d changed him, hurt him somehow. She didn’t even blink. I knew I liked her right there and then.”
She hesitates before walking out:
“You don’t usually ask questions.”
No, he doesn’t. And he hasn’t even begun to contemplate giving answers.
“Well, look at that. Aren’t you all grown up.”
John thinks back but he can’t he remember exactly. It does seem to him though, that he liked Vala right there and then, too.
She steps out of the gym and into the alley, a bag slung over her shoulders holding two wooden rods. Her body is covered with a thin sheen of sweat, shining dully in the afternoon light as she struggles to put on her coat. The skirt she’s wearing with thigh-high slits is just one more incentive to join one of her classes. After all, he’s in the US Air Force, he can probably take her.
“Hey Teyla.”
“John.”
She betrays no surprise and he’s momentarily thrown. He can’t tell if it pleases her to see him or if she’d rather he hadn’t come. He suspects it’s because she doesn’t want him to and is keeping all her emotions bottled up.
He stands close to her to do what he came to do. He should have said it yesterday night but he hopes it isn’t too late. The closed look in her eyes haunted him all night long, interweaving dreams of eyes, guitars and Michael using smoke to make people disappear. But right now, he has a chance, he just has to say the right thing.
“I don’t get along with my family, at all. That’s what I was doing last night, trying to get along. Did you hear me play?”
She shakes her head and he feels disappointment and relief. The decision is still his.
“You might yet.”
She smiles and all of a sudden she’s closer than she’s ever been. In his arms, against his lips, underneath his hands. She’s soft skin and wet tongue, hands that run through his hair and arms pulling him closer, so close. She kisses him deeply and passionately, simply because he answered her question.
“Oh for God’s sake! Ever since you started dating Major Dull over there, you hardly go out anymore!”
“That is not true. We went to Train the other night and I spent the entire time refusing the advances of a man with so many tattoos he could be a subway map!”
John passes by and purposefully doesn’t hand Vala the popcorn bowl.
“Thanks for taking my girlfriend out to get hit on by strange bikers, by the way.”
Vala rolls her eyes explicitly and looks to Cameron for help.
“Don’t you agree? Don’t you miss him in the sad and uninteresting activities the two of you used to indulge in?”
Cam grabs the popcorn and helps himself to a huge helping before passing it on to Teyla where John knows it’ll remain for the rest of the night. That girl sure loves her popcorn.
“What’s to miss? I get the twins all to myself.”
John clinks beers with him at that remark and Teyla pretends to smack his thigh. It gives him just enough room to grab some popcorn.
Vala’s exaggerating as usual. Yes, Teyla spends a lot more time here than in her tiny apartment where she doesn’t even have a TV because she says she doesn’t need one. A calm routine has installed itself but the two of them have decided to take it slow. Neither is ready nor equipped to handle a big relationship so they leave it at that. They float in a sort of undefined space where he spends most nights with her and then his days thinking about her. He sometimes feels panic at the thought of what not taking it slowly would be like.
But then there are moments, when the two of them are alone. Like after the game ends and Cam leaves, after Vala stares in thin air for a long moment before slamming the door and running up the stairs blindly. Moments when Teyla snuggles up to him and he holds his arms out. She slides next to his body and with every breath he feels her presence.
She absentmindedly strokes his arm as he experiences passing guilt for having brought Grey’s Anatomy into her life and lasting shame at realizing that he actually likes watching it. Not just the show, but watching it with Teyla, discussing the characters, their relationships. The discussions that are never about them because for now, this is them: the ease and togetherness. And the kisses. The long kisses when he cups her cheek and kisses her silly for the longest time. Not for any other reason than wanting to.