SGA-fic: Fractals and Reindeer (John/Rodney, EP-verse)
I have to be at work in four hours and I absolutely cannot sleep. So what do I do? Write silly, fluffy Entangled Particles fic about knitting apparently. If this makes no sense, it's only because I've been up for sixteen hours and I have to stay awake for like eighteen more. Happy New Year!
Read on Ao3
Sometime between last Christmas and this one, Jeannie took up knitting. She doesn’t talk about it much, just the occasional mention during their bi-weekly phone call, about some new yarn she found, or the epic fail of her latest hand-dyeing experiment. Rodney only listens with half an ear because honestly, knitting?
When he and John arrive in Vancouver on Christmas Eve and Rodney sees the state of the Miller’s living room, the bags and baskets and piles of yarn, the only thing he can think of to say is, “Why? Just… why? I mean, with the home cooking and the PTA-meetings and the bake sales and everything, isn’t this taking the stay-at-home-mom stereotype a bit far?”
Judging from John’s exasperated eye-roll, it might not have been the best choice of words, but she’s his sister, and she’s more than capable of giving back in kind. He expects a head slap and a scathing remark about nutty professors, but to Rodney’s surprise, Jeannie just smiles and says, “I miss doing math.”
And math is exactly what she’s doing. Madison is wearing a white sweater covered in leaves and branches in relief, the pattern crawling around her arms and her belly until the tendrils reach the collar where they blossom into a colourful firework display of flowers. Caleb’s long scarf is a puzzle of geometric shapes in different grey shades, clever and classy. The afghan blanket draped over the back of the sofa has a fractal pattern in purple, blue and orange, so intricately perfect that Rodney can’t take his eyes off it.
It turns out Jeannie’s got a knitting blog and her own Etsy store, and she has more people following her tumblr than Rodney does. (He’s not jealous. Really. It’s not like he ever uses that account much, he just got it because his publisher’s PR-person told him he should take more interest in social media. If he actually wrote things there, the fans would surely flock.)
But Rodney gets it. Even after he came to realize that a career-change was in order, he never gave up on physics and he can’t imagine ever doing it. Jeannie chose to take a break from academia when Maddie was born and Rodney supported her decision, even though it was such a terrible waste for the scientific community, because he’s her brother and he had to. She is happy with her life, but it’s only fair that she gets to have something to help keep her passion alive.
In any case, Rodney only complains a little bit when he’s the one who gets stuck holding skeins of yarn while Jeannie winds them into balls and John and Caleb sit in front of the TV and watch curling. (Where John acquired his fondness for curling, Rodney will never understand. He suspects it’s some sort of conspiracy wrought from his brother-in-law’s scheming mind. Everyone knows that ice hockey is the only Canadian sport worth watching.)
Most of the Christmas presents this year are of the soft variety.
John, whose feet are always cold, gets a pair of socks. They’re sky blue with thin strands of wispy clouds and a line of running, leaping black dogs bouncing along the cuff. He puts them on immediately, pulling them up snug against his hairy ankles, grinning like they are the best thing ever. Rodney’s heart twists with a little pang of mixed jealousy and gratitude, the way it always does when other people than him gets to put that expression on John’s face.
Rodney gets a sweater. He has yet to figure out if Jeannie has terrible taste in sweaters or if she just likes to mess with him, but has to admit that the horrid orange fleece she got him back when he and John had just started dating is beginning to get rather worn, and the new one is… well. It looks warm at least, even though he’s never been the fair isle reindeer sweater type.
“You do get that we live in California, right?” he asks, holding it up for inspection. “Not much use for cold weather gear… and…” Okay, she’s definitely messing with him. “Jeannie, what exactly are these reindeer doing?”
John glances over at the sweater and snorts cider through his nose. “Looks like they’re having fun,” he manages to choke out.
“It’s one of a kind, designed especially for you,” Jeannie says, with that evil little smirk of hers. Nothing good ever comes out of that smirk.
Rodney sighs. “Wonderful. So John gets happy dogs and I get what, copulating reindeer?”
Maddie looks up from her new chemistry set. “Uncle Mer, what does ‘copulating’ mean?”
Rodney decides that this is the perfect moment to pull the fractal blanket over his head and hide from the cruel world that just won’t give him a break. “Ask your mother!” he squawks. It comes out rather muffled.
Caleb is folded over in his seat, laughing so hard he can barely breathe, and Rodney decides to never come out from under the blanket.
Just because, Rodney wears the damn sweater for their annual ski trip to Cypress Mountain, revelling in the amused and scandalised looks he gets standing in line to the lifts. After all, the chance that they’ll run into someone he knows is minimal, whereas for Jeannie and Caleb… well. If a large amount of people somehow finds out that the man wearing the sweater full of reindeer making more reindeer happens to be Jeannies brother, it’s really no skin off Rodney’s back.
John just shakes his head and goes to hide out in the ski lodge as usual.
It’s not until they get back home to Sacramento and Rodney is unpacking that he realizes that the fractal blanket somehow has made its way into his suitcase. There’s a little note pinned to it which reads, ‘Merry Christmas! Love J. (P.S - Sorry about the reindeer but you should have seen your face!)’
So, she’s not the worst sister in the word. And Rodney might possibly go out tomorrow and see if he can find one of those yarn winder things for her.
-fin-
(Fellow knitters can find the naughty reindeer on Ravelry if you search for 'Fornicating deer chart'. Designs for the rest of the knitwear in this fic sadly only exist in my mind.)
Read on Ao3
Sometime between last Christmas and this one, Jeannie took up knitting. She doesn’t talk about it much, just the occasional mention during their bi-weekly phone call, about some new yarn she found, or the epic fail of her latest hand-dyeing experiment. Rodney only listens with half an ear because honestly, knitting?
When he and John arrive in Vancouver on Christmas Eve and Rodney sees the state of the Miller’s living room, the bags and baskets and piles of yarn, the only thing he can think of to say is, “Why? Just… why? I mean, with the home cooking and the PTA-meetings and the bake sales and everything, isn’t this taking the stay-at-home-mom stereotype a bit far?”
Judging from John’s exasperated eye-roll, it might not have been the best choice of words, but she’s his sister, and she’s more than capable of giving back in kind. He expects a head slap and a scathing remark about nutty professors, but to Rodney’s surprise, Jeannie just smiles and says, “I miss doing math.”
And math is exactly what she’s doing. Madison is wearing a white sweater covered in leaves and branches in relief, the pattern crawling around her arms and her belly until the tendrils reach the collar where they blossom into a colourful firework display of flowers. Caleb’s long scarf is a puzzle of geometric shapes in different grey shades, clever and classy. The afghan blanket draped over the back of the sofa has a fractal pattern in purple, blue and orange, so intricately perfect that Rodney can’t take his eyes off it.
It turns out Jeannie’s got a knitting blog and her own Etsy store, and she has more people following her tumblr than Rodney does. (He’s not jealous. Really. It’s not like he ever uses that account much, he just got it because his publisher’s PR-person told him he should take more interest in social media. If he actually wrote things there, the fans would surely flock.)
But Rodney gets it. Even after he came to realize that a career-change was in order, he never gave up on physics and he can’t imagine ever doing it. Jeannie chose to take a break from academia when Maddie was born and Rodney supported her decision, even though it was such a terrible waste for the scientific community, because he’s her brother and he had to. She is happy with her life, but it’s only fair that she gets to have something to help keep her passion alive.
In any case, Rodney only complains a little bit when he’s the one who gets stuck holding skeins of yarn while Jeannie winds them into balls and John and Caleb sit in front of the TV and watch curling. (Where John acquired his fondness for curling, Rodney will never understand. He suspects it’s some sort of conspiracy wrought from his brother-in-law’s scheming mind. Everyone knows that ice hockey is the only Canadian sport worth watching.)
Most of the Christmas presents this year are of the soft variety.
John, whose feet are always cold, gets a pair of socks. They’re sky blue with thin strands of wispy clouds and a line of running, leaping black dogs bouncing along the cuff. He puts them on immediately, pulling them up snug against his hairy ankles, grinning like they are the best thing ever. Rodney’s heart twists with a little pang of mixed jealousy and gratitude, the way it always does when other people than him gets to put that expression on John’s face.
Rodney gets a sweater. He has yet to figure out if Jeannie has terrible taste in sweaters or if she just likes to mess with him, but has to admit that the horrid orange fleece she got him back when he and John had just started dating is beginning to get rather worn, and the new one is… well. It looks warm at least, even though he’s never been the fair isle reindeer sweater type.
“You do get that we live in California, right?” he asks, holding it up for inspection. “Not much use for cold weather gear… and…” Okay, she’s definitely messing with him. “Jeannie, what exactly are these reindeer doing?”
John glances over at the sweater and snorts cider through his nose. “Looks like they’re having fun,” he manages to choke out.
“It’s one of a kind, designed especially for you,” Jeannie says, with that evil little smirk of hers. Nothing good ever comes out of that smirk.
Rodney sighs. “Wonderful. So John gets happy dogs and I get what, copulating reindeer?”
Maddie looks up from her new chemistry set. “Uncle Mer, what does ‘copulating’ mean?”
Rodney decides that this is the perfect moment to pull the fractal blanket over his head and hide from the cruel world that just won’t give him a break. “Ask your mother!” he squawks. It comes out rather muffled.
Caleb is folded over in his seat, laughing so hard he can barely breathe, and Rodney decides to never come out from under the blanket.
Just because, Rodney wears the damn sweater for their annual ski trip to Cypress Mountain, revelling in the amused and scandalised looks he gets standing in line to the lifts. After all, the chance that they’ll run into someone he knows is minimal, whereas for Jeannie and Caleb… well. If a large amount of people somehow finds out that the man wearing the sweater full of reindeer making more reindeer happens to be Jeannies brother, it’s really no skin off Rodney’s back.
John just shakes his head and goes to hide out in the ski lodge as usual.
It’s not until they get back home to Sacramento and Rodney is unpacking that he realizes that the fractal blanket somehow has made its way into his suitcase. There’s a little note pinned to it which reads, ‘Merry Christmas! Love J. (P.S - Sorry about the reindeer but you should have seen your face!)’
So, she’s not the worst sister in the word. And Rodney might possibly go out tomorrow and see if he can find one of those yarn winder things for her.
-fin-
(Fellow knitters can find the naughty reindeer on Ravelry if you search for 'Fornicating deer chart'. Designs for the rest of the knitwear in this fic sadly only exist in my mind.)