I'm back. And, fic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two months since I posted. Whatever. Real life is a fucking bitch sometimes.
And sometimes, it just seems like too much trouble to post. Lots of times, actually. I suffer from an inability to concentrate on the best of days . . . add winter depression into the mix and I'm fucked.
So anyway . . . .
I don't watch SGA, I just read the fic. I've caught bits of two episodes, just enough to put faces to names and to get a sense of characters and how they interact.
Since the story of my life is incomplete projects, I'm not sure how far this story will get, but it's taking up valuable space in my head, so out it goes. I've got notes and an outline and everything. Maybe I'll actually *finish* this someday.
Yeah, I can hear you all reaching for the oxygen as you lose your breath laughing. Shaddup.
So, you know, here you go.
Part 1 / ?
John Sheppard pulled off his alligator polo and jammed it under his head to use as a pillow as he lay back on the sand and stared up at the sky, watching the air traffic with barely hidden longing.
Someday, he’d be the guy up there in the plane, flying, he promised himself. One of those big passenger jets, the kind he could see in the distance, sun gleaming on its wings as it banked over the Atlantic.
The discordant buzz of static broke into his daydream, and he rolled over onto his stomach. “Jesus *Christ*,” he drawled as Don Rambo twisted dials on the boom box, “just put on WMMR and stop trying to tune in that New Wave crap.”
Don shook his head ruefully. “Fuck you, Shep,” he answered without heat. “It’s not coming in. Looks like we’ve gotta listen to 98.1 again.”
John groaned and pushed himself to his knees. “I fucking hate that Top 40 shit,” he said. “What happened to ‘The Station That Reaches The Beaches’?”
Don shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t reach today.”
John sighed and climbed slowly to his feet. “It’s fucking hot,” he said unnecessarily. “I’m going in.” He jerked his head at the rolling green water. “You coming?”
Don had shaded his eyes with one hand and was looking inland, lifting one arm to wave when he saw Frank Mancini and Dino Lolli. “Finally,” Don muttered. “They should have the beer for tomorrow night.”
John paused in his amble down to the water. “Shit, Don, I thought Troy’s dad said ‘no parties’. Said it a *lot*.”
Don’s mouth twisted in pain or anger or maybe both. “Then he should’ve given enough of a damn to come down and keep an eye on his fucking kid,” he said, and turned his back to fiddle unnecessarily with the radio.
John stood in the sand, feeling like shit. Don’s dad had dropped dead of a heart attack just that winter, and he always used to be the one to come down to the shore house with all the boys. Sometimes Ronnie Barratt’s dad would come too, but usually it was just Mr. Rambo, making sure they didn’t burn the place down.
This year, Troy’s dad said he couldn’t take the time off from his insurance agency to baby-sit. Mr. McAuliffe told Troy that they were all old enough to know better than to do anything stupid, and if they got arrested, nobody had better call him for bail money.
Mike Reinek said that even if they did get arrested, it wouldn’t matter because *his* dad was a cop.
John’s dad had told him bluntly before he shipped out to Grenada that he’d better think long and hard before engaging in anything that vaguely resembled ‘conduct unbecoming’, because John would never be too old for a horsewhipping.
Ron said his dad, who was the high school coach, was contracted to run a football camp in the Poconos for the whole summer. Privately, he told John that his dad was taking Ronnie’s mom to a fancy hospital in New York for some kind of inpatient treatment.
It might be cancer, or maybe alcoholism. Either way, Ron didn’t seem too worried.
John grimaced and resumed his interrupted trudge through the sand to the ocean’s edge. He didn’t know what to say to either of the guys, anyway. It was all that girly, embarrassing stuff, and if they wanted to talk about it, they could talk to any of the girls at school.
Girls always fell for that emotional bullshit. John had seen that in every school he’d gone to since his mom died. He kicked at the white sand and made a face at a dead horseshoe crab, upside-down and stinking as seagulls fought over its entrails, shrieking loudly.
Behind him, Don was blasting the radio -- Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway of Love”, and somebody’s little kids were screaming. The girls clustered around the lifeguard stand ran from a wave that curled up to wash their feet, giggling and yelling as they dashed away up the beach, all in a line, like a flock of sandpipers.
In the distance, John could hear the sing-song vendor’s call, “Ice cream! Ice cream, iiiiiiiice creeeeeammmmmm!”
He eyed the ocean speculatively. There were some decent waves today . . . watching them made him wish he had his surfboard. Not that you could do any *serious* surfing, not off New Jersey beaches, anyway, but it would be fun just to paddle out and drift with the waves.
John went to the water’s edge and watched as the ebb and flow of the waves slowly covered his toes with sand. He’d never been anywhere that had such soft, white sand. The fine grains were more like powder than the coarser California sand he was accustomed to, and it clouded the churning waves.
He waded out to the big sandbar that had developed after the last winter storm. There was an actual channel now, deep enough that even John, as tall as he was, couldn’t keep his head above water. He ducked under, to wet his hair, tossing it out of his eyes and paddling leisurely until he could stand on the bar.
The sun was high in the sky, sparking off the water, and John heard the lifeguards whistling swimmers closer to the shore as they hung the red banners that warned of rip currents. He squinted against the brightness and drifted on his back, letting the tide carry him a dozen or so yards further away from the crowd of splashing children, enjoying the soothing rhythm of the waves.
“Hey, Shep!”
John opened his eyes and turned towards the voice, just about to speak, and then all hell broke loose.
Two seagulls exploded from the water nearby in a frenzy of battering wings and screeching voices, fighting over some tidbit. An unexpected swell washed over John as he startled at the noise, and he sucked down seawater, coughing and choking as he struggled to find his footing.
“Catch!” somebody yelled, and pain exploded in John’s ear and the left side of his face.
He doubled over, clutching his head, flailing helplessly, struggling in vain to catch his breath and only managing to inhale more salt water. It burned his throat and sinuses and he gagged weakly as he tumbled, caught now in the ebb of the tide and unable to find the bottom.
John knew that the blinding white light and the sensation of floating couldn’t possibly mean anything good, but it seemed like too much trouble to care any more.
He let go.
**********************
I'm going to try to have another section ready to fly before I leave work today. We'll see how it goes. I'm not accustomed to writing from notes or an outline, so this is going to be an interesting experiment.
I thought I'd try it, though, seeing as how it's been SO FUCKING LONG since I was able to do any writing at all.
I feel like I've lost my edge.
Hold me!
And sometimes, it just seems like too much trouble to post. Lots of times, actually. I suffer from an inability to concentrate on the best of days . . . add winter depression into the mix and I'm fucked.
So anyway . . . .
I don't watch SGA, I just read the fic. I've caught bits of two episodes, just enough to put faces to names and to get a sense of characters and how they interact.
Since the story of my life is incomplete projects, I'm not sure how far this story will get, but it's taking up valuable space in my head, so out it goes. I've got notes and an outline and everything. Maybe I'll actually *finish* this someday.
Yeah, I can hear you all reaching for the oxygen as you lose your breath laughing. Shaddup.
So, you know, here you go.
Part 1 / ?
John Sheppard pulled off his alligator polo and jammed it under his head to use as a pillow as he lay back on the sand and stared up at the sky, watching the air traffic with barely hidden longing.
Someday, he’d be the guy up there in the plane, flying, he promised himself. One of those big passenger jets, the kind he could see in the distance, sun gleaming on its wings as it banked over the Atlantic.
The discordant buzz of static broke into his daydream, and he rolled over onto his stomach. “Jesus *Christ*,” he drawled as Don Rambo twisted dials on the boom box, “just put on WMMR and stop trying to tune in that New Wave crap.”
Don shook his head ruefully. “Fuck you, Shep,” he answered without heat. “It’s not coming in. Looks like we’ve gotta listen to 98.1 again.”
John groaned and pushed himself to his knees. “I fucking hate that Top 40 shit,” he said. “What happened to ‘The Station That Reaches The Beaches’?”
Don shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t reach today.”
John sighed and climbed slowly to his feet. “It’s fucking hot,” he said unnecessarily. “I’m going in.” He jerked his head at the rolling green water. “You coming?”
Don had shaded his eyes with one hand and was looking inland, lifting one arm to wave when he saw Frank Mancini and Dino Lolli. “Finally,” Don muttered. “They should have the beer for tomorrow night.”
John paused in his amble down to the water. “Shit, Don, I thought Troy’s dad said ‘no parties’. Said it a *lot*.”
Don’s mouth twisted in pain or anger or maybe both. “Then he should’ve given enough of a damn to come down and keep an eye on his fucking kid,” he said, and turned his back to fiddle unnecessarily with the radio.
John stood in the sand, feeling like shit. Don’s dad had dropped dead of a heart attack just that winter, and he always used to be the one to come down to the shore house with all the boys. Sometimes Ronnie Barratt’s dad would come too, but usually it was just Mr. Rambo, making sure they didn’t burn the place down.
This year, Troy’s dad said he couldn’t take the time off from his insurance agency to baby-sit. Mr. McAuliffe told Troy that they were all old enough to know better than to do anything stupid, and if they got arrested, nobody had better call him for bail money.
Mike Reinek said that even if they did get arrested, it wouldn’t matter because *his* dad was a cop.
John’s dad had told him bluntly before he shipped out to Grenada that he’d better think long and hard before engaging in anything that vaguely resembled ‘conduct unbecoming’, because John would never be too old for a horsewhipping.
Ron said his dad, who was the high school coach, was contracted to run a football camp in the Poconos for the whole summer. Privately, he told John that his dad was taking Ronnie’s mom to a fancy hospital in New York for some kind of inpatient treatment.
It might be cancer, or maybe alcoholism. Either way, Ron didn’t seem too worried.
John grimaced and resumed his interrupted trudge through the sand to the ocean’s edge. He didn’t know what to say to either of the guys, anyway. It was all that girly, embarrassing stuff, and if they wanted to talk about it, they could talk to any of the girls at school.
Girls always fell for that emotional bullshit. John had seen that in every school he’d gone to since his mom died. He kicked at the white sand and made a face at a dead horseshoe crab, upside-down and stinking as seagulls fought over its entrails, shrieking loudly.
Behind him, Don was blasting the radio -- Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway of Love”, and somebody’s little kids were screaming. The girls clustered around the lifeguard stand ran from a wave that curled up to wash their feet, giggling and yelling as they dashed away up the beach, all in a line, like a flock of sandpipers.
In the distance, John could hear the sing-song vendor’s call, “Ice cream! Ice cream, iiiiiiiice creeeeeammmmmm!”
He eyed the ocean speculatively. There were some decent waves today . . . watching them made him wish he had his surfboard. Not that you could do any *serious* surfing, not off New Jersey beaches, anyway, but it would be fun just to paddle out and drift with the waves.
John went to the water’s edge and watched as the ebb and flow of the waves slowly covered his toes with sand. He’d never been anywhere that had such soft, white sand. The fine grains were more like powder than the coarser California sand he was accustomed to, and it clouded the churning waves.
He waded out to the big sandbar that had developed after the last winter storm. There was an actual channel now, deep enough that even John, as tall as he was, couldn’t keep his head above water. He ducked under, to wet his hair, tossing it out of his eyes and paddling leisurely until he could stand on the bar.
The sun was high in the sky, sparking off the water, and John heard the lifeguards whistling swimmers closer to the shore as they hung the red banners that warned of rip currents. He squinted against the brightness and drifted on his back, letting the tide carry him a dozen or so yards further away from the crowd of splashing children, enjoying the soothing rhythm of the waves.
“Hey, Shep!”
John opened his eyes and turned towards the voice, just about to speak, and then all hell broke loose.
Two seagulls exploded from the water nearby in a frenzy of battering wings and screeching voices, fighting over some tidbit. An unexpected swell washed over John as he startled at the noise, and he sucked down seawater, coughing and choking as he struggled to find his footing.
“Catch!” somebody yelled, and pain exploded in John’s ear and the left side of his face.
He doubled over, clutching his head, flailing helplessly, struggling in vain to catch his breath and only managing to inhale more salt water. It burned his throat and sinuses and he gagged weakly as he tumbled, caught now in the ebb of the tide and unable to find the bottom.
John knew that the blinding white light and the sensation of floating couldn’t possibly mean anything good, but it seemed like too much trouble to care any more.
He let go.
**********************
I'm going to try to have another section ready to fly before I leave work today. We'll see how it goes. I'm not accustomed to writing from notes or an outline, so this is going to be an interesting experiment.
I thought I'd try it, though, seeing as how it's been SO FUCKING LONG since I was able to do any writing at all.
I feel like I've lost my edge.
Hold me!