Untitled ficlet for the competition challenge
Written on the go because velocitygrass made bambi eyes at me. Not proofread, so I'd be grateful if you pointed out any mistakes I made. Also, I haven't seen Tabula Rasa yet (and probably won't), so let's pretend that particular episode doesn't exist.
~~~
Weirdly enough, John's rival for Rodney's affection isn't Katie Brown. It's not Atlantis, or coffee, or Sam Carter, or the little Asian mango pudding cups he inhales. It's not even his cat, left behind on Earth and mourned on a regular basis.
It's science.
When prompted, Rodney will tell the story of how he turned to science after his unfeeling piano teacher cruelly told him that his playing had no art. It's a touching story, coming complete with sad waves of his hands and an expression that's a little lost.
It's complete and total bullshit.
Rodney is a scientist through and through. Oh, John has no doubt that there was a piano teacher, or that little Rodney - Meredith, he thinks, and sniggers - had a dream of playing Carnegie. He sure as hell is diva-ish enough to pull it off, too. But behind all that brilliance and ego, poorly hidden by vast amounts of knowledge and intuition concealed as knowledge, Rodney has a curiosity that never would have been satisfied with playing any instrument other than his brain. He gets distracted by numbers, by concepts, by discovery and competition, and while John supposes that all those things might be found in music, too, science delivers them distilled and pure. And though he might scoff at the "pseudo sciences", John knows that Rodney has dabbled in medicine and psychology, economics and biology, geology, philosophy, meteorology, aeronautics, physics, astrophysics, computer programming, engineering.
Knowledge is a drug, and Rodney is a helpless addict.
John isn't stupid, though, and he knows how to deal with Rodney's distractions, how to react when Rodney's eyes glaze over and he's off on a mental tangent that could be something arcane like the effects of wormhole travel on the patterns of inverted dark matter in subspace, or something mundane like how to make sure the sewage system won't clog anymore. Whenever that happens and the solution isn't as easy as dragging Rodney away from whatever laptop or console he's bent over, John plays dirty.
He'll lean back in his chair or stretch until his t-shirt rides up enough to show a slip of skin. Sometimes, with the longer shirts, he has to bend back quite a bit. That usually works like a charm. If it doesn't, he'll point out how he hasn't eaten for hours and watch as Rodney's own weird kind of protectiveness kicks in, ending in himself being dragged off to the mess hall while being lectured on the importance of regular meals. Or he'll yawn pointedly and mutter about trouble sleeping because of nightmares. If they're alone and everything else fails, he'll even throw in a thoughtful, "You know, I've read about rimming, but I've never actually done it," or a casual, "I wonder what it might take to make me come in less than four minutes." Rodney can never resist a challenge.
Science might be Rodney's mistress. But it never learned how to cheat.
~~~
Additional notes: Yes, this story contains a gross overuse of the word "it". Let's just say that I promise to do better and leave it (hah!) at that.
~~~
Weirdly enough, John's rival for Rodney's affection isn't Katie Brown. It's not Atlantis, or coffee, or Sam Carter, or the little Asian mango pudding cups he inhales. It's not even his cat, left behind on Earth and mourned on a regular basis.
It's science.
When prompted, Rodney will tell the story of how he turned to science after his unfeeling piano teacher cruelly told him that his playing had no art. It's a touching story, coming complete with sad waves of his hands and an expression that's a little lost.
It's complete and total bullshit.
Rodney is a scientist through and through. Oh, John has no doubt that there was a piano teacher, or that little Rodney - Meredith, he thinks, and sniggers - had a dream of playing Carnegie. He sure as hell is diva-ish enough to pull it off, too. But behind all that brilliance and ego, poorly hidden by vast amounts of knowledge and intuition concealed as knowledge, Rodney has a curiosity that never would have been satisfied with playing any instrument other than his brain. He gets distracted by numbers, by concepts, by discovery and competition, and while John supposes that all those things might be found in music, too, science delivers them distilled and pure. And though he might scoff at the "pseudo sciences", John knows that Rodney has dabbled in medicine and psychology, economics and biology, geology, philosophy, meteorology, aeronautics, physics, astrophysics, computer programming, engineering.
Knowledge is a drug, and Rodney is a helpless addict.
John isn't stupid, though, and he knows how to deal with Rodney's distractions, how to react when Rodney's eyes glaze over and he's off on a mental tangent that could be something arcane like the effects of wormhole travel on the patterns of inverted dark matter in subspace, or something mundane like how to make sure the sewage system won't clog anymore. Whenever that happens and the solution isn't as easy as dragging Rodney away from whatever laptop or console he's bent over, John plays dirty.
He'll lean back in his chair or stretch until his t-shirt rides up enough to show a slip of skin. Sometimes, with the longer shirts, he has to bend back quite a bit. That usually works like a charm. If it doesn't, he'll point out how he hasn't eaten for hours and watch as Rodney's own weird kind of protectiveness kicks in, ending in himself being dragged off to the mess hall while being lectured on the importance of regular meals. Or he'll yawn pointedly and mutter about trouble sleeping because of nightmares. If they're alone and everything else fails, he'll even throw in a thoughtful, "You know, I've read about rimming, but I've never actually done it," or a casual, "I wonder what it might take to make me come in less than four minutes." Rodney can never resist a challenge.
Science might be Rodney's mistress. But it never learned how to cheat.
~~~
Additional notes: Yes, this story contains a gross overuse of the word "it". Let's just say that I promise to do better and leave it (hah!) at that.