I promised you fic!
This is a continuation of Rodney, After, which has been renamed, with an official title and everything!
Bonus points to the person who figures out the provenance of the phrase I used. ;)
**************************
7.
It's easier than Rodney would have suspected.
He moves through Atlantis like a shadow, like a shade, and out of the corners of his eyes, he tries not to see how so many people pull away from him, avoiding even the merest physical proximity.
After a while, it's almost like it doesn't hurt any more, that avoidance. It's so much easier to focus on his work, with so many fewer distractions.
Zelenka hasn't spoken more than ten words to him since it happened, and their easy working camaraderie has frozen into something stilted and formal, like the dinners Rodney remembers from his preteen years at home . . . filled with icy distance and unspoken accusations.
It's all right, really. Rodney was meant for bigger, better things than managing a flock of addle-brained wannabe-scientists and their crackheaded theories. Everything runs more smoothly now, with Zelenka in charge, no matter how informal his new status might be.
Miko's eyes still fill with tears whenever she spots him, and Simpson flushes with anger and embarrassment. That idiot boy pretending to be a scientist who Rodney used to think of, persistently, as Hartnett dogs his steps. He misses Dumais and even Kavanaugh, though, and sometimes he thinks that the two of them would never have let him get away with his own stupidity.
The guilt drives him from the lab every time, seeking the newfound solace of the distant balcony or the even more-distant mainland.
************************
Well? Please feed the squirrels . . . we're saving up for winter, you know!
Bonus points to the person who figures out the provenance of the phrase I used. ;)
**************************
7.
It's easier than Rodney would have suspected.
He moves through Atlantis like a shadow, like a shade, and out of the corners of his eyes, he tries not to see how so many people pull away from him, avoiding even the merest physical proximity.
After a while, it's almost like it doesn't hurt any more, that avoidance. It's so much easier to focus on his work, with so many fewer distractions.
Zelenka hasn't spoken more than ten words to him since it happened, and their easy working camaraderie has frozen into something stilted and formal, like the dinners Rodney remembers from his preteen years at home . . . filled with icy distance and unspoken accusations.
It's all right, really. Rodney was meant for bigger, better things than managing a flock of addle-brained wannabe-scientists and their crackheaded theories. Everything runs more smoothly now, with Zelenka in charge, no matter how informal his new status might be.
Miko's eyes still fill with tears whenever she spots him, and Simpson flushes with anger and embarrassment. That idiot boy pretending to be a scientist who Rodney used to think of, persistently, as Hartnett dogs his steps. He misses Dumais and even Kavanaugh, though, and sometimes he thinks that the two of them would never have let him get away with his own stupidity.
The guilt drives him from the lab every time, seeking the newfound solace of the distant balcony or the even more-distant mainland.
************************
Well? Please feed the squirrels . . . we're saving up for winter, you know!