Humantales: Stargate: Atlantis, John/Rodney preslash
This story is something that I wrote for skoosiepants, whose SG:A stories are funny and moving and ridiculous and fabulous. It's impossible to say how many times she's completely lifted my mood with them. Something that she's particularly wonderful at is weaving fairytales with perfect SG:A characterisation; this led to the story that I was inspired by.
The following story is a sort of prequel to skoosiepants' Whatever You Wish For, and will pretty much only make sense if you read that first. Which, for the record, is something that's unbelievably worthwhile, whether or not you decide to read my fic. Seriously, I can't recommend her highly enough. Many thanks to her for letting me play in her sandpit, and also to soupytwist and muffinbutt, who were good enough to let me bug them into looking it over.
This is a gen story, although if you read it in the context of the story that follows, obviously it's pre-slash, McKay/Sheppard.
Humantales
In human years, Rodney was three-hundred and fifty-four.
Fairies counted by lifetimes, though - five, including the little girl who’d died at twelve - and John’s was the only one that ever truly mattered.
-- Whatever You Wish For by skoosiepants
Humans forget how fairytales work.
They remember the breadcrumbs and forget about the parental abandonment. That's the way humans think. The happy endings are what they imprint on, ignoring the fact that for every 'happily ever after' there's a matching 'never to be seen again' and it's rarely deserved. In fairytales, people must travel east of the sun and west of the moon and leave everything they know in search of what was rightfully theirs to begin with. In fairytales, people are snatched away and kept and played with and come back to find that a night a year a hundred has passed and (however long) they find everything is different now. They've been changed.
Humans make sure that the endings are sanitised.
Goldilocks isn't eaten but the witch still burns.
(The only problem with this, of course, is that this isn't how the fairies tell it.)
*
Snow is falling. It's aesthetically pleasing and thematically appropriate and Rodney is angry enough to be sitting on a small patch of clear stone step, the heat radiating off him in waves. The noise of his teeth grinding is almost loud enough to give anyone else in the vicinity a headache, let alone himself, but that is only the reason he's blaming for causing him to frown deeply enough to terrify a goblin.
Radek appears in mid air beside him, wings fluttering pale blue in the dimness of the alley, setting off reflections and refractions until for a moment the world is shining. It's one of the things that just happens when you're a fairy - or a sprite - and Rodney has always detested the needless show of it; it smacks of giving humanity just what it wants, and if wishes are already being granted what more can they really ask? He doesn't have time to look or glare or say anything disparaging now, though, hasn't time to do anything but shoot a sideways glance and snort dismissively; there are rules. And the most important of these rules, writ larger and scored deeper and underlined more times than any of the others, is this: It Is Written. The fairy version of The Show Must Go On.
And on it goes.
(Fairytales work like this: Once upon a time, and he took up his knapsack, and they never came back to bother the people again, and he lived happily ever after.
Except when they don't.)
"Rodney - "
"Not now." He's concentrating.
"I know this is not - "
"Busy, here."
"If you would just listen for a - "
"Working."
Radek subsides with a small sigh, pushing his glasses a little further up his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger. Rodney wouldn't ever ask him to stay, but Radek would never need asking. This is a part of why they are almost friends.
*
(A fairytale works like this:
Once upon a time there was a little match girl, working late and alone in the snow. And although she was cold, and although she had neither hat nor boots, and although her stomach pained her with hunger, she was afraid to go home. Her father would surely beat her, for people had stocked up in advance to welcome the new year, and not a single match had been sold that day.
Driven at last to take shelter in a small alleyway, she lit a match to warm herself, 'though she knew the fleeting warmth could not compare to her father's anger when he found out what she'd done. She forgot that before a moment had passed, though; by the light of the first match she saw a hot iron stove, but the fire was soon dimmed and blown out by the wind that howled about her.)
His role in her life was defined from the first. He didn't bother to look in on her until she was four years old; before they start to form complex sentences children are just messy, loud, demanding, and he has enough of those qualities to spare. She was a stick-thin little pixie, indifferent looking, washed out skin and pale blonde hair and blue eyes far too large for her narrow face. Her smile at the sight of him, though, was lightning fast and gone just as quick, and for a moment in time she was beautiful.
He didn't look in on her again until she was eight, made sure that she didn't catch a glimpse of him, but he is good at what he does. He started to look at the world around him, collecting the very best.
The iron stove had decorations curled into the door and the sides, leaves and flowers and acorns and ridiculous and impractical as they unarguably were, the stove had been made with love. Made with love and made to sit exactly there, in just that corner of just that kitchen, where it could heat all but the corner where the windows didn't fit quite true to the frame and a bitter draft couldn't ever be quite kept out. The rest of the kitchen was warm and still enough, cats curled on the lowest step of the wooden staircase that led up to their room; they hung herbs from the ceiling to dry without fear that their leaves will ever be shaken off. The one corner, though, was why the stools were placed just far enough from the stove, and just close enough to each other that the two figures - wrapped tightly in warm winter clothing - could trust their weight to each other without fear of toppling.
(The fairy godmother, Samantha, who Rodney was idly courting - although that isn't quite what she had called it - is quite absurdly good at happy endings.)
It made him snort impolitely, in that time and that place, but the image is pervasive and persuasive and kept aside.
(By the light of the second match she saw a table laden with all that was good to eat. Meats and fine-baked breads and gently steaming bowls of vegetables she'd never even seen, fruits and cakes and chocolate by the pile, wines and juices and a strange steaming brown drink that was unfamiliar to her.)
He collected from all over. The food in Canada, in all of the fairy realms, was beautiful and bland and melted in the mouth like snow on a hot day. Fairies are essentially observers and occasional interferers, very rarely innovators. They eat what they have always eaten because they have always eaten it; they do what they have always done because that's the way things are. It's something that humans had definitely got right, and he had sampled cuisine from the finest restaurants in every land, found his way into parties and weddings, castles and cottages and carefully took note of the best of it all, weaving his memories into a banquet.
(Once or twice he remembered a place and went back to appropriate food for himself and Zelenka. For a sprite, Radek is not entirely stupid.)
His experimentation on his own was enthusiastic 'though largely unsuccessful; in fairytales a saucer of milk will have a brownie cleaning your kitchen before the sun rises, but Rodney is not a brownie. He made sure to leave a token - some good fortune, a serendipitous find, a treasured memory previously misremembered - to make up for the state of the kitchens he left.
*
Snow has fallen on him in his inattention, softening his outline but not his expression. Rodney's mouth is a hard cut line, crooked in his face, and the flickering light of the match casts shadows that give only the illusion of movement. Stillness is unusual for him. Ridiculously, his stomach rumbles, loud against the hiss of the soft-falling snow, and when Zelenka rests a hand on his arm for a second the glare he sends sideways is almost vicious for the space of a second. Only a second; it quickly fades into job-distraction, annoyance at interruption, head arrogantly tip-tilted as he focuses on his work - his mouth relaxes.
This is a job, only a job, and he forgets the words he didn't have the time to say.
(This isn't how it should - )
*
(The third match - for the story continues, and this is what is written - showed the little match girl the tallest of Christmas trees lit with a million candles.)
And a little voice in his head had been screaming about fire hazards and untold wildlife hiding in its plentiful branches, and he'd wondered (out loud and at volume) what idiot would anthropomorphise a tree enough to grant the wishes of a lonely one in any case, but the annoying small part of him that would insist on reminding him that he was born a Canadian had a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
It was enough to ensure that he was a little less than entirely vile to the imps by the buffet table, and apparently that was enough to prompt a kiss under the mistletoe - high and harmless against the skin just in front of his ear - from the lovely Samantha. He hadn't stopped smiling for an hour, after that. It had made it all the more fun when talking to people - fairies are idiots, and the sight of a smile was enough to make them forget that they'd been avoiding him for a reason, previously. So rare that mingling with the masses made for a good night.
(Upon lighting the fourth match, she sees her beloved grandmother. And this is where the fairy's part ends. The memories here are as much a part of her as the smile on her frozen lips. This is not your happily ever after.
Except when it is.)
*
They leave her lying in the snow - because that's the way it's written - and Rodney kicks violently at snowdrifts and almost overbalances on a stray patch of ice, hands flailing wildly even constricted by coat pockets, his shoulders hunched almost up to his ears for protection - from the cold or the impact, he's not really sure himself. Only that right now hunching in on himself seems appropriate. Radek is quiet beside him, white flakes set swirling by oversized wings.
(It'll be just a job again soon enough - it always has been, eventually - but just now any talk involving the words 'better off' or 'happy ending' or anything about his duty and Rodney won't be responsible for his actions. Radek knows this and, unlike Rodney, knows how to be silent.)
Eventually:
"Well?"
Radek's fluffy head rises sharply - he'd been watching the snowflakes, apparently, most likely calculating odds of ever finding two the same - and his glasses almost slip entirely off the end of his nose. Pushing them back with one finger, he blinks owlishly at Rodney.
"...Well?"
He clicks his fingers rudely, impatiently.
"You have my next assignment, I assume? I doubt you'd have come here for nothing."
"Not for nothing, no," as he rolls his eyes - because Rodney will not even mention it, much less thank him for staying - and motives should never be admitted to for the sake of all that's manly. "You have considered a holiday, perhaps?" Radek continues, fumbling absently through pockets, and really that's not worth the effort of a retort. Rodney just lets out a frustrated breath and lets his hand grow cold in the midnight air, waiting.
It's always simplest when it's like this, stories pinned carefully to paper and told faithfully in black and white, happy ending held securely in place by paper and ink where he can brush his fingers across it. When he says it is written, it is written here, and there's always been something comforting about that.
(He's not sure he can do this forever. He's not sure how to do this forever.
He's not sure he knows how to stop.)
And the assignment, when he goes to see - far sooner than he usually would - blinks muzzily up at him with eyes that were never blue, not even at birth like most children. Instead John has hazel green eyes in a small round face, pointed ears that stick out unflatteringly from the side of his head, and a smile that appears without fail every time Rodney stops by to check on him.
Rodney can't help but smile back.
(This is your happy ending.)
The following story is a sort of prequel to skoosiepants' Whatever You Wish For, and will pretty much only make sense if you read that first. Which, for the record, is something that's unbelievably worthwhile, whether or not you decide to read my fic. Seriously, I can't recommend her highly enough. Many thanks to her for letting me play in her sandpit, and also to soupytwist and muffinbutt, who were good enough to let me bug them into looking it over.
This is a gen story, although if you read it in the context of the story that follows, obviously it's pre-slash, McKay/Sheppard.
Humantales
In human years, Rodney was three-hundred and fifty-four.
Fairies counted by lifetimes, though - five, including the little girl who’d died at twelve - and John’s was the only one that ever truly mattered.
-- Whatever You Wish For by skoosiepants
Humans forget how fairytales work.
They remember the breadcrumbs and forget about the parental abandonment. That's the way humans think. The happy endings are what they imprint on, ignoring the fact that for every 'happily ever after' there's a matching 'never to be seen again' and it's rarely deserved. In fairytales, people must travel east of the sun and west of the moon and leave everything they know in search of what was rightfully theirs to begin with. In fairytales, people are snatched away and kept and played with and come back to find that a night a year a hundred has passed and (however long) they find everything is different now. They've been changed.
Humans make sure that the endings are sanitised.
Goldilocks isn't eaten but the witch still burns.
(The only problem with this, of course, is that this isn't how the fairies tell it.)
*
Snow is falling. It's aesthetically pleasing and thematically appropriate and Rodney is angry enough to be sitting on a small patch of clear stone step, the heat radiating off him in waves. The noise of his teeth grinding is almost loud enough to give anyone else in the vicinity a headache, let alone himself, but that is only the reason he's blaming for causing him to frown deeply enough to terrify a goblin.
Radek appears in mid air beside him, wings fluttering pale blue in the dimness of the alley, setting off reflections and refractions until for a moment the world is shining. It's one of the things that just happens when you're a fairy - or a sprite - and Rodney has always detested the needless show of it; it smacks of giving humanity just what it wants, and if wishes are already being granted what more can they really ask? He doesn't have time to look or glare or say anything disparaging now, though, hasn't time to do anything but shoot a sideways glance and snort dismissively; there are rules. And the most important of these rules, writ larger and scored deeper and underlined more times than any of the others, is this: It Is Written. The fairy version of The Show Must Go On.
And on it goes.
(Fairytales work like this: Once upon a time, and he took up his knapsack, and they never came back to bother the people again, and he lived happily ever after.
Except when they don't.)
"Rodney - "
"Not now." He's concentrating.
"I know this is not - "
"Busy, here."
"If you would just listen for a - "
"Working."
Radek subsides with a small sigh, pushing his glasses a little further up his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger. Rodney wouldn't ever ask him to stay, but Radek would never need asking. This is a part of why they are almost friends.
*
(A fairytale works like this:
Once upon a time there was a little match girl, working late and alone in the snow. And although she was cold, and although she had neither hat nor boots, and although her stomach pained her with hunger, she was afraid to go home. Her father would surely beat her, for people had stocked up in advance to welcome the new year, and not a single match had been sold that day.
Driven at last to take shelter in a small alleyway, she lit a match to warm herself, 'though she knew the fleeting warmth could not compare to her father's anger when he found out what she'd done. She forgot that before a moment had passed, though; by the light of the first match she saw a hot iron stove, but the fire was soon dimmed and blown out by the wind that howled about her.)
His role in her life was defined from the first. He didn't bother to look in on her until she was four years old; before they start to form complex sentences children are just messy, loud, demanding, and he has enough of those qualities to spare. She was a stick-thin little pixie, indifferent looking, washed out skin and pale blonde hair and blue eyes far too large for her narrow face. Her smile at the sight of him, though, was lightning fast and gone just as quick, and for a moment in time she was beautiful.
He didn't look in on her again until she was eight, made sure that she didn't catch a glimpse of him, but he is good at what he does. He started to look at the world around him, collecting the very best.
The iron stove had decorations curled into the door and the sides, leaves and flowers and acorns and ridiculous and impractical as they unarguably were, the stove had been made with love. Made with love and made to sit exactly there, in just that corner of just that kitchen, where it could heat all but the corner where the windows didn't fit quite true to the frame and a bitter draft couldn't ever be quite kept out. The rest of the kitchen was warm and still enough, cats curled on the lowest step of the wooden staircase that led up to their room; they hung herbs from the ceiling to dry without fear that their leaves will ever be shaken off. The one corner, though, was why the stools were placed just far enough from the stove, and just close enough to each other that the two figures - wrapped tightly in warm winter clothing - could trust their weight to each other without fear of toppling.
(The fairy godmother, Samantha, who Rodney was idly courting - although that isn't quite what she had called it - is quite absurdly good at happy endings.)
It made him snort impolitely, in that time and that place, but the image is pervasive and persuasive and kept aside.
(By the light of the second match she saw a table laden with all that was good to eat. Meats and fine-baked breads and gently steaming bowls of vegetables she'd never even seen, fruits and cakes and chocolate by the pile, wines and juices and a strange steaming brown drink that was unfamiliar to her.)
He collected from all over. The food in Canada, in all of the fairy realms, was beautiful and bland and melted in the mouth like snow on a hot day. Fairies are essentially observers and occasional interferers, very rarely innovators. They eat what they have always eaten because they have always eaten it; they do what they have always done because that's the way things are. It's something that humans had definitely got right, and he had sampled cuisine from the finest restaurants in every land, found his way into parties and weddings, castles and cottages and carefully took note of the best of it all, weaving his memories into a banquet.
(Once or twice he remembered a place and went back to appropriate food for himself and Zelenka. For a sprite, Radek is not entirely stupid.)
His experimentation on his own was enthusiastic 'though largely unsuccessful; in fairytales a saucer of milk will have a brownie cleaning your kitchen before the sun rises, but Rodney is not a brownie. He made sure to leave a token - some good fortune, a serendipitous find, a treasured memory previously misremembered - to make up for the state of the kitchens he left.
*
Snow has fallen on him in his inattention, softening his outline but not his expression. Rodney's mouth is a hard cut line, crooked in his face, and the flickering light of the match casts shadows that give only the illusion of movement. Stillness is unusual for him. Ridiculously, his stomach rumbles, loud against the hiss of the soft-falling snow, and when Zelenka rests a hand on his arm for a second the glare he sends sideways is almost vicious for the space of a second. Only a second; it quickly fades into job-distraction, annoyance at interruption, head arrogantly tip-tilted as he focuses on his work - his mouth relaxes.
This is a job, only a job, and he forgets the words he didn't have the time to say.
(This isn't how it should - )
*
(The third match - for the story continues, and this is what is written - showed the little match girl the tallest of Christmas trees lit with a million candles.)
And a little voice in his head had been screaming about fire hazards and untold wildlife hiding in its plentiful branches, and he'd wondered (out loud and at volume) what idiot would anthropomorphise a tree enough to grant the wishes of a lonely one in any case, but the annoying small part of him that would insist on reminding him that he was born a Canadian had a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
It was enough to ensure that he was a little less than entirely vile to the imps by the buffet table, and apparently that was enough to prompt a kiss under the mistletoe - high and harmless against the skin just in front of his ear - from the lovely Samantha. He hadn't stopped smiling for an hour, after that. It had made it all the more fun when talking to people - fairies are idiots, and the sight of a smile was enough to make them forget that they'd been avoiding him for a reason, previously. So rare that mingling with the masses made for a good night.
(Upon lighting the fourth match, she sees her beloved grandmother. And this is where the fairy's part ends. The memories here are as much a part of her as the smile on her frozen lips. This is not your happily ever after.
Except when it is.)
*
They leave her lying in the snow - because that's the way it's written - and Rodney kicks violently at snowdrifts and almost overbalances on a stray patch of ice, hands flailing wildly even constricted by coat pockets, his shoulders hunched almost up to his ears for protection - from the cold or the impact, he's not really sure himself. Only that right now hunching in on himself seems appropriate. Radek is quiet beside him, white flakes set swirling by oversized wings.
(It'll be just a job again soon enough - it always has been, eventually - but just now any talk involving the words 'better off' or 'happy ending' or anything about his duty and Rodney won't be responsible for his actions. Radek knows this and, unlike Rodney, knows how to be silent.)
Eventually:
"Well?"
Radek's fluffy head rises sharply - he'd been watching the snowflakes, apparently, most likely calculating odds of ever finding two the same - and his glasses almost slip entirely off the end of his nose. Pushing them back with one finger, he blinks owlishly at Rodney.
"...Well?"
He clicks his fingers rudely, impatiently.
"You have my next assignment, I assume? I doubt you'd have come here for nothing."
"Not for nothing, no," as he rolls his eyes - because Rodney will not even mention it, much less thank him for staying - and motives should never be admitted to for the sake of all that's manly. "You have considered a holiday, perhaps?" Radek continues, fumbling absently through pockets, and really that's not worth the effort of a retort. Rodney just lets out a frustrated breath and lets his hand grow cold in the midnight air, waiting.
It's always simplest when it's like this, stories pinned carefully to paper and told faithfully in black and white, happy ending held securely in place by paper and ink where he can brush his fingers across it. When he says it is written, it is written here, and there's always been something comforting about that.
(He's not sure he can do this forever. He's not sure how to do this forever.
He's not sure he knows how to stop.)
And the assignment, when he goes to see - far sooner than he usually would - blinks muzzily up at him with eyes that were never blue, not even at birth like most children. Instead John has hazel green eyes in a small round face, pointed ears that stick out unflatteringly from the side of his head, and a smile that appears without fail every time Rodney stops by to check on him.
Rodney can't help but smile back.
(This is your happy ending.)