Title: Independence Day
Author: Cesare &
anatsunoPairing: John/Rodney
Ratings/Warnings: PG. This story should be safe for people with triggers. Mentions cruelty to animals.
Summary: Part of the
Foster's Bakery AU, a missing scene from the
first story.Notes: Yet again
chkc has drawn
utterly adorable bakery chibis! I polished up this outtake from the first bakery story to share as thanks.
*
Rodney comes in at his usual time with unusually damp hair, plastered wet on his brow. "I need coffee," he moans. "Soooo much coffee."
There's no point trying to get words out when his head's filled with visions of Rodney in the shower; John just grabs the coffee carafe and holds out his hand for Rodney's travel cup.
Surrendering the cup, Rodney rests both hands on the counter, drooping forward. "Terrible night. No sleep. Dreadful."
"Wow. As bad as dreadful, huh?" John gives him his coffee.
"Possibly worse. Chocolate?"
John's busy foraging for a clean fluffy dishtowel. "Here."
Rodney stares at it blankly. "That's not chocolate."
More gently than he'd like, John says, "Your hair is wet."
"Oh." Rodney vaguely smears at his hair with the towel, complaining, "I thought I'd done that... Is it really-- oh, who cares anyway."
"Hey," John frowns, and knuckles the towel against Rodney's hair some more, a noogie that has the side effect of drying him off.
"Ow, ow!" Rodney clings to his coffee pathetically. "Brute."
"Yeah, yeah, sucks to be you. What do you want to eat?"
"Mocha cupcake, if you made any today."
"Oh yeah. They're going on the regular menu, people love 'em."
The moment he puts it in Rodney's hand, Rodney brightens a little and takes a bite, the point of his nose sinking into the icing and coming away decorated with a white dot.
John puts the towel away and tries not to smile like a dope. "So. Your night was, uh, dreadful?"
Rodney sips from his cup while nodding vigorously, bites off more cupcake, and speaks with his mouth full; John's not even fazed by it any more. "One of the neighbors got a dog and apparently knows nothing about animals. I have no idea what he's done to it, fed it tofu, denied it tennis balls, refused to let it eat its own vomit, who knows-- it was howling all night long."
"Sucks. A neighbor in your apartment building, or somebody else close by?"
"In the building, yeah." Rodney wilts all over the counter. "Very, very close."
"Seems cruel, trying to keep a dog in an apartment. Do you guys even have access to a yard there?"
"I think there's a courtyard, or anyway, something green on the west side. What, do I look like nature guy? I have no idea."
"You look exactly like nature guy," John says. "Sometimes I think you and nature guy have a Clark Kent-Superman thing going on."
Rodney looks at him, wary and wide-eyed, for the second it takes to get it, and then thrusts his cup out. "More coffee. I'm not awake enough for your madness yet."
John snorts a laugh and refills it.
Breathing in the steam, Rodney sighs, "This and a cookie and I'll be fully human again."
"Uh-huh, completing your transformation from Nature Guy, walking plant-man, saver of the earth out of spite. I'm on to you."
Unexpectedly, Rodney grins up at him. "Are you really?"
"Hey, you tell me," John kids back. He could almost think maybe Rodney's finally caught a clue and started flirting back, but he's always sucked at picking up on that kind of thing.
"Of course you're onto me," Rodney says, "there's coffee and chocolate and wifi and comfortable chairs. And a chocolate chip cookie, I hope?"
John checks the timer. "They come outta the oven in two minutes."
"I'll wait," Rodney says, and steps away to drop into one of the comfy chairs. "I need a cookie after a night like that."
John starts to follow him to sit nearby and keep talking, but a couple more people come in. The guy's been in a couple of times, and from his bearing, John suspects he's military out of Cheyenne. Someone apparently taught him nice manners; he steps back and motions for Dr. Keller to go ahead of him.
Carson brought Dr. Keller around with him a few weeks ago, and she's been back pretty steadily since then. Especially in the mornings. Usually around the same time as Rodney.
John greets her and sells her a cup of tea and a whole wheat apple muffin and watches her go sit in the other armchair near Rodney and give him a shy, friendly smile.
"Hi," she says.
"Hmm? Oh, hello." Rodney still looks dazed, intent on his coffee.
"Honey bread and a cuppa joe, please," says the well-mannered guy. John waits on him, keeping an ear out.
"Carson said next time I saw you, I should tell you that they're expecting puppies."
"Puppies?"
Keller nods perkily. "Mm! Carson's been wanting to get Mathilda bred for a while."
Rodney looks a little horrified. "Because two dogs aren't enough."
"Thanks," says the guy. John realizes he just counted out his change without paying a lick of attention, and hopes it's right.
"Have a good one," he tells the well-mannered guy, who waves as he goes.
John has to pull the cookies out of the oven before he can come back and continue to not even pretend not to eavesdrop. Not that either Keller or Rodney seem to notice.
"They're giving the puppies away," Keller's saying. "I think all but one have been accounted for already. Carson mentioned you're not a dog person though."
"Definitely not. Just last night I nearly killed one with my own two hands."
"Oh! Why, what happened? Did you get hurt?"
"I couldn't sleep all night, so yes! But only in a quality of life sense; I wasn't wounded."
John goes into the back to start some more bread while Rodney reiterates his complaints about his neighbor's dog. When he comes back, John has to smile a little at Keller's earnest focus on Rodney. He also has to bite the inside of his lip a little, but hey.
"That poor dog," Keller's saying when her cellphone goes off. She looks at it and glances up apologetically. "I've got to go, it looks like our results came in early," and then she adds sunnily, "I hope you get some sleep soon! Take care of yourself."
"Not likely-- I mean, that is. Have a good day?" Rodney winces a little even as he returns Keller's sprightly little wave.
John watches his timer count off several endless minutes, goes back to pull the bread out of the ovens, racks it, gets Rodney's cookie, comes back out, and makes himself wait some more, until Rodney's tipping his coffee cup at the obtuse angle that means it's almost empty. He brings the carafe and the cookie with him and sits down.
"Oh thank god," Rodney says, falling upon the coffee.
He waits until Rodney tips and swallows a few times before he says, as neutrally as he possibly can, "She's nice. Dr. Keller."
Rodney nods. "Very. And... um. Bouncy. I mean, she's very enthusiastic, huh?"
John can't help it, even though he's kicking himself as he answers, "Well, around you, yeah."
"Oh...?" Rodney straightens. "Really? Of course, there's no reason that a young and pretty, impressionable-- That is to say, I'm, um, I have two PhD's, you know, and obviously any woman would do well to-- but. But. Really?"
"She's some kind of Doogie Howser prodigy," John says. "Maybe she thinks there's a, you know, genius kinship."
"There isn't. I know, I've met several. Most of them were assholes. No kind of kinship at all there, none wanted."
"No? Carson mentioned something about a Sam Carter you had some kind of thing going with, for a while there."
"I thought so! But I was wrong. On several counts."
"Huh. Carson made it sound like she was pretty much your dream girl."
Rodney sniffs. "My dream girl has the good sense to appreciate me back." Deflating a little, he adds, "So I don't really have one anymore."
"Jennifer seems pretty appreciative," John says. He's been called masochistic before, but he always denied it; he's starting to wonder.
Bewildered, Rodney asks, "Who's Jennifer?"
"Dr. Keller."
"Oh. Jennifer. Right. I don't think I'm awake enough to think about that. Is she even of age?"
"She's not that young. You've maybe got ten years on her."
"Hmm. Still." Rodney mulls it over, sloshing the last of the coffee in his cup. "It's very flattering, of course! And richly deserved, to state the obvious. And yet. Far too much bounciness in the morning, for one thing. Far too much interest in dogs."
John shakes his head. "Picky, picky."
"Is that news?" Rodney pours himself the rest of the carafe and chomps into the cookie with a sleepy little smile.
"Guess not." John lapses into a relieved and comfortable silence, slouching in his chair.
"You know... there might be space for a lounger or two in here, if you sacrificed that table," Rodney says contemplatively. "For food coma recovery purposes."
"And your purposes?"
"Yes, yes, and for me, admittedly; I'm sleepy, it's warm, I could nap right there in the sun if there were a lounger there. Just because it comes of a self-interested motive doesn't mean it's not a potentially good idea."
John can't help chuckling a little. "I don't think I'm gonna encourage people to treat this place like a flophouse. You can grab a nap upstairs if you want. I don't have a lounger but there's a sofa." Somehow he manages to say it with a reasonable amount of cool, though his ears feel a little hot, just from the thought of inviting Rodney into his space.
"So no sleeping down here, but I'm allowed to treat your hallowed loft as a flophouse?"
"Hallowed?" John asks in bemusement. "Yeah, just be careful not to trip over the altar and fall through the stained glass window."
Rodney dismisses, "You know what I mean." He yawns expansively. "I gave everyone the day off if they wanted it, since the US scientists made a fuss. I was going to go in anyway, I'm sure some of the other expats will."
"Sofa's open if you want it," John shrugs with elaborate carelessness. "I could maybe even be convinced to rustle you up a duvet."
"A duvet? How very Continental of you."
"C'est moi," says John.
Rodney actually laughs at that, something that's too rare, in John's opinion. "Tempting," he says. "But I really should put in an appearance at the lab. It's nice of you to, you know. Is that an offer you extend to a lot of customers, is there a coupon? Sofa and duvet after fifty visits?"
"It wouldn't be very hallowed if it was," says John, but he pushes himself to be more honest and adds, "Just you."
"Maybe after the proper rites and solemnities are observed, I'll take you up on that, then," says Rodney. "I mean. Thank you."
John still can't tell if they're talking about the same thing, even speaking the same language, so all he can do is say what he means: "No problem. Any time."
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