Last minute Carnival of Squee entry...
It was going to be a "30-minute break" fic, but I see I've spent over an hour. So now it's back to writing my talk. But yeah, it's the last day for entries to carnivalofsquee as I was reminded by surrealphantast on my flist, and I can't resist SG-1 original team-y-ness. So, a brief unbeta'ed thing, set sometime post-Moebius, ~700 words:
Technique
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"How is this not working?"
Scene: a peaceful lake, on a wooden deck under the sunlight. A calm June breeze rustles the trees, with just enough chill in the air to remind everyone that it's Minnesota June, and not Virginia June, or Egypt June, or whatever passes for June on Chulak or any one of a hundred other tropical or desert worlds.
"Sam, I know you're a brilliant theoretical physicist, but I have a feeling you're an engineer first."
Actors: four people on the deck in various states of recline. A small blonde peers intently at a fishing rod. A dark-haired man, who tends to act smaller than he is, most times, lies on his back across the warm wooden slats, boonie hat over his eyes, knees bent over the edge and toes flirting with the waves.
The woman gives a good-natured snort. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"
Two folding lawn chairs have been salvaged from an old shed. The first is valiantly attempting not to buckle its rounded aluminum legs under the considerable mass of a large, dark-skinned alien. It is lucky in the respect that the alien tends not to shift around much, once he's settled. The second is worn in exactly the right spots for an Air Force General on his days off, next to a knothole in the deck just the right size for the end of a fishing rod, and to a red cooler whose cream-colored lid used to be white, back in another life.
"It means," Jack says, opening a new bottle one-handed out of the cooler and handing it forward to Carter, "that you tinker."
"Bingo," comes Daniel's response from under the hat. "I don't think you've left that rod in one spot for more than two minutes at a stretch."
Sam sets the rod aside, and takes a swig from the proffered beer. "And how would you know anyway?" she asks, indicating his covered eyes with the tip of the bottle, for her teammates' consideration.
"I do have ears," comes the reply. "Plus every time you re-cast, you flick lake water on my arm."
Sam laughs and brings the bottle to her lips. Fifteen yards out into the lake, a fish jumps, and she aborts her drink mid-swig, swallows quickly and takes up the rod. With a practiced flick, she sends her line right into the middle of the expanding ripples.
"Agh, see what I mean?" Daniel sits up, wiping dots of moisture off his arm.
"There is something to be said for patience, in fishing," Jack adds. His own rod hasn't moved in a good hour. The bobber has drifted off somewhere. Possibly under the deck.
"Teal'c is the most patient person I have ever known," Sam says, re-locating her bobber with a few quick clicks of the reel, in accordance to some internal methodology that no-one else is privy to. "And he hasn't caught anything either."
Teal'c raises an eyebrow, and his lawn chair gives a pitiful creak.
"I have caught three fish," he says.
Sam turns to face him. "Oh come on, you can't have caught three fish. I've been here the whole time and I haven't seen you reel a single one in, just empty lines."
Jack tilts his head back, watches as a cloud passes briefly in front of the sun. That star-- it used to be so far away, impossibly far. Now he knows, the four of them on this deck under this star, they've been to places where you couldn't even see their sun, not on the clearest of nights. But it's still something amazing-- that distance and that heat. And he's suddenly so grateful for everything under this particular sun-- three teammates, a cabin, a deck, and a lake full of fish.
"He didn't put a hook on his line," he offers to the argument. "Just ties a worm on the end and casts it out there. Freebies."
Sam smiles even as she shakes her head. Daniel's eyebrows swoop up and down, as he considers a few dozen cultural implications of this fact. Teal'c just nods.
"Indeed," he says. "But perhaps you are correct, Samantha Carter."
"How's that?" she asks.
"I may merely have caught the same fish three times."
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Technique
-------------------------
"How is this not working?"
Scene: a peaceful lake, on a wooden deck under the sunlight. A calm June breeze rustles the trees, with just enough chill in the air to remind everyone that it's Minnesota June, and not Virginia June, or Egypt June, or whatever passes for June on Chulak or any one of a hundred other tropical or desert worlds.
"Sam, I know you're a brilliant theoretical physicist, but I have a feeling you're an engineer first."
Actors: four people on the deck in various states of recline. A small blonde peers intently at a fishing rod. A dark-haired man, who tends to act smaller than he is, most times, lies on his back across the warm wooden slats, boonie hat over his eyes, knees bent over the edge and toes flirting with the waves.
The woman gives a good-natured snort. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"
Two folding lawn chairs have been salvaged from an old shed. The first is valiantly attempting not to buckle its rounded aluminum legs under the considerable mass of a large, dark-skinned alien. It is lucky in the respect that the alien tends not to shift around much, once he's settled. The second is worn in exactly the right spots for an Air Force General on his days off, next to a knothole in the deck just the right size for the end of a fishing rod, and to a red cooler whose cream-colored lid used to be white, back in another life.
"It means," Jack says, opening a new bottle one-handed out of the cooler and handing it forward to Carter, "that you tinker."
"Bingo," comes Daniel's response from under the hat. "I don't think you've left that rod in one spot for more than two minutes at a stretch."
Sam sets the rod aside, and takes a swig from the proffered beer. "And how would you know anyway?" she asks, indicating his covered eyes with the tip of the bottle, for her teammates' consideration.
"I do have ears," comes the reply. "Plus every time you re-cast, you flick lake water on my arm."
Sam laughs and brings the bottle to her lips. Fifteen yards out into the lake, a fish jumps, and she aborts her drink mid-swig, swallows quickly and takes up the rod. With a practiced flick, she sends her line right into the middle of the expanding ripples.
"Agh, see what I mean?" Daniel sits up, wiping dots of moisture off his arm.
"There is something to be said for patience, in fishing," Jack adds. His own rod hasn't moved in a good hour. The bobber has drifted off somewhere. Possibly under the deck.
"Teal'c is the most patient person I have ever known," Sam says, re-locating her bobber with a few quick clicks of the reel, in accordance to some internal methodology that no-one else is privy to. "And he hasn't caught anything either."
Teal'c raises an eyebrow, and his lawn chair gives a pitiful creak.
"I have caught three fish," he says.
Sam turns to face him. "Oh come on, you can't have caught three fish. I've been here the whole time and I haven't seen you reel a single one in, just empty lines."
Jack tilts his head back, watches as a cloud passes briefly in front of the sun. That star-- it used to be so far away, impossibly far. Now he knows, the four of them on this deck under this star, they've been to places where you couldn't even see their sun, not on the clearest of nights. But it's still something amazing-- that distance and that heat. And he's suddenly so grateful for everything under this particular sun-- three teammates, a cabin, a deck, and a lake full of fish.
"He didn't put a hook on his line," he offers to the argument. "Just ties a worm on the end and casts it out there. Freebies."
Sam smiles even as she shakes her head. Daniel's eyebrows swoop up and down, as he considers a few dozen cultural implications of this fact. Teal'c just nods.
"Indeed," he says. "But perhaps you are correct, Samantha Carter."
"How's that?" she asks.
"I may merely have caught the same fish three times."
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