[Stargate: Drabble] "Manifesto" [John/Rodney, G]
Title: Manifesto
Author: Ami Ven
Rating: G
Word Count: 650
Prompt: mcsheplets challenge 281 ‘letter’
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Summary: “A letter. Your handwriting, on paper.”
Manifesto
Rodney dumped his laptop onto the standard-issue dresser, ready to turn and flop onto the bed in his standard-issue SGC guest room, when he spotted something on the standard-issue desk.
It wasn’t standard-issue, just a cheap memo pad and an even cheaper pen, not even with the SGC logo on it, like you’d find on the ones they had in hotels. But it was real paper, and he’d made a promise.
Rodney had been called back to Earth at short notice, to help Bill Lee and his team fix a tracking satellite they’d put into orbit around one of the planets SG-1 had freed from the Ori, which used an algorithm Rodney had developed in his pre-Atlantis pre-stargate government contracting days. Normally, they wouldn’t have needed him, but Sam was stuck in D.C. for a week of boring meetings and half of the scientists were out with the flu - ordinary Earth flu, he’d checked - and there had been an alarming amount of Lucien Alliance traffic in the area before the satellite had gone down.
And normally, John would come along with him, but at such short notice they couldn’t make arrangements for them both to leave Atlantis. Before he stepped through the wormhole, Rodney had half-jokingly asked if the colonel wanted him to bring anything back - a golf magazine that was actually current, maybe, or a slice of coconut cream pie straight from the SGC mess - but John had just reeled him in by the strap of his laptop bag.
“Write me a letter,” he said.
Rodney had frowned. “A what?”
“A letter,” John repeated. “Your handwriting, on paper. I know you can’t mail it, you can just bring it back yourself. Write what you’d tell me if I was there. Tell me you miss me.”
“Of course I’ll miss you,” Rodney had scoffed, but John just grinned and kissed him, before sending him through the gate back to Earth.
Now, Rodney stared at the memo pad for a long moment, then sat down to write. It was easy once he got started - he was more used to typing on his laptop, but his fingers hadn’t forgotten how - and even easier than talking, letting him write things he wasn’t sure he’d be able to say to John in person.
He reached the end of the first page and turned to the second, then the next and the next, filling each line with increasingly-messy handwriting, until there was only just enough space to scrawl Love, Rodney at the bottom of the last page.
Rodney left the pages attached to the pad, then scrounged through the desk drawers until he found a manila envelope large enough to put it in, which didn’t seem weird until he’d pulled it from his bag, from under a pile of dirty laundry, and set it on John’s side of their bed.
John grinned. “I asked for a letter, not a manifesto,” he joked.
“You asked me to write down what I was thinking,” Rodney said, “You should have known what you were getting into.”
“Oh, I know,” said John. He opened the envelope, dumping out the memo pad, then fell silent, flipping through the pages. “Is this… You wrote all this about me?”
“You told me to,” said Rodney, starting to feel defensive.
John caught his hand, tugging him closer. “No, I know that. But I expected… I should have known you’d take it seriously. Thank you.”
“You’re not going to read all of it?”
“I will,” John promised, and set the pad carefully on his nightstand. “But now, I want to welcome my husband back home.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “Oh.”
And weeks later, when Rodney was looking for a physics journal he’d misplaced, he found the memo pad still beside their bed, the ink a little smeared and the pages now worn as though John had read it, over and over, John, I miss you…”
THE END
Current Mood:
hot
Author: Ami Ven
Rating: G
Word Count: 650
Prompt: mcsheplets challenge 281 ‘letter’
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Summary: “A letter. Your handwriting, on paper.”
Manifesto
Rodney dumped his laptop onto the standard-issue dresser, ready to turn and flop onto the bed in his standard-issue SGC guest room, when he spotted something on the standard-issue desk.
It wasn’t standard-issue, just a cheap memo pad and an even cheaper pen, not even with the SGC logo on it, like you’d find on the ones they had in hotels. But it was real paper, and he’d made a promise.
Rodney had been called back to Earth at short notice, to help Bill Lee and his team fix a tracking satellite they’d put into orbit around one of the planets SG-1 had freed from the Ori, which used an algorithm Rodney had developed in his pre-Atlantis pre-stargate government contracting days. Normally, they wouldn’t have needed him, but Sam was stuck in D.C. for a week of boring meetings and half of the scientists were out with the flu - ordinary Earth flu, he’d checked - and there had been an alarming amount of Lucien Alliance traffic in the area before the satellite had gone down.
And normally, John would come along with him, but at such short notice they couldn’t make arrangements for them both to leave Atlantis. Before he stepped through the wormhole, Rodney had half-jokingly asked if the colonel wanted him to bring anything back - a golf magazine that was actually current, maybe, or a slice of coconut cream pie straight from the SGC mess - but John had just reeled him in by the strap of his laptop bag.
“Write me a letter,” he said.
Rodney had frowned. “A what?”
“A letter,” John repeated. “Your handwriting, on paper. I know you can’t mail it, you can just bring it back yourself. Write what you’d tell me if I was there. Tell me you miss me.”
“Of course I’ll miss you,” Rodney had scoffed, but John just grinned and kissed him, before sending him through the gate back to Earth.
Now, Rodney stared at the memo pad for a long moment, then sat down to write. It was easy once he got started - he was more used to typing on his laptop, but his fingers hadn’t forgotten how - and even easier than talking, letting him write things he wasn’t sure he’d be able to say to John in person.
He reached the end of the first page and turned to the second, then the next and the next, filling each line with increasingly-messy handwriting, until there was only just enough space to scrawl Love, Rodney at the bottom of the last page.
Rodney left the pages attached to the pad, then scrounged through the desk drawers until he found a manila envelope large enough to put it in, which didn’t seem weird until he’d pulled it from his bag, from under a pile of dirty laundry, and set it on John’s side of their bed.
John grinned. “I asked for a letter, not a manifesto,” he joked.
“You asked me to write down what I was thinking,” Rodney said, “You should have known what you were getting into.”
“Oh, I know,” said John. He opened the envelope, dumping out the memo pad, then fell silent, flipping through the pages. “Is this… You wrote all this about me?”
“You told me to,” said Rodney, starting to feel defensive.
John caught his hand, tugging him closer. “No, I know that. But I expected… I should have known you’d take it seriously. Thank you.”
“You’re not going to read all of it?”
“I will,” John promised, and set the pad carefully on his nightstand. “But now, I want to welcome my husband back home.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “Oh.”
And weeks later, when Rodney was looking for a physics journal he’d misplaced, he found the memo pad still beside their bed, the ink a little smeared and the pages now worn as though John had read it, over and over, John, I miss you…”
THE END
Current Mood:
hot