Second to the Right
Title: Second to the Right
Summary: "Damn," Evan says from the grass next to him; he's got one arm tucked behind his head, his other hand twisting a blade of grass between the pads of thumb and index finger as he chews on the tip. "I just cannot get over the sky out here."
Details: SGA, Chuck/Lorne, ~1,250 words, not explicit. And here you all thought you knew how I rolled.
Notes: This story is for kisahawklin, tropes, indy_go, and shaenie. Two of them have had birthdays this week, all four of them have had weeks this week, and I had an idea that didn't go where I thought it would. Unbetaed and written way past my bedtime. Also, my characterization of both Chuck and Lorne is indebted to thingswithwings' The New Atlantean Dictionary of Literary Terms: A Complete Reference in Four Volumes.
It's summer on the southwestern continent, closing in on midnight, and down in the valley the party's still going strong. Chuck can't see it from where he's lying, but the breeze carries the laughter and conversation indistinctly up the hill, a contented background hum that sounds a lot like the bonfires looked from above last time he checked. There's a half-open jug of ale propped against the rock above him, and he curls his fingers around the clay neck and brings it to his mouth.
"Damn," Evan says from the grass next to him; he's got one arm tucked behind his head, his other hand twisting a blade of grass between the pads of thumb and index finger as he chews on the tip. "I just cannot get over the sky out here."
Chuck takes a second swallow, studying the expanse above them dutifully. "Don't you have a tube of paint that color?"
Evan rolls his head sideways, teeth gleaming around the blade of grass as his mouth splits into a grin. "Phthalo blue. Good eye."
"You used it in that one you did of the north pier. I liked that one." He holds the jug out. Evan squints for a moment, then waves it off. Chuck sets it back up above the rock and settles his weight onto his elbows, eying the scattered trails and clusters of stars overhead. "Do you know any of the constellations?"
"No. I gave up on keeping track back in my second year in the SGC," Evan says. "Went to so many planets that it seemed kind of ridiculous to try." He pulls another blade of grass up and replaces the one he's been chewing on. Chuck can hear the faint crunch as he bites down on the stem. "Why, do you?"
"Well, not names, but I can tell you what's what in some of them." He searches the low horizon for a bit, then points at a bright spot a few degrees east. "That purple one -- that's M6I-283."
Evan lifts his head to look at it. "The Khildax settlement?"
"Right. And see the misty blob over there, looks kind of like the Pleiades? I forget what the nebula's called, but MC2-908's just on the other side. And somewhere ..." Chuck twists to look behind them; it takes a moment to find what he's looking for, then he jabs a finger in triumph. "Got it. That line of five stars over there? Look off to the left from the bottom of the line, there's kind of a faint reddish one?"
Evan half-rolls, shoulder propped under him. "Yeah?"
"Asuran home system."
"You're kidding."
Chuck raises his eyebrows. "Do I kid?"
"Frequently," Evan shoots back dryly, and sits up as he reaches for the ale. "Okay, so how many do you know?"
"What, of the systems we've sent teams to?" He thinks for a moment. "Well, you can't see a lot of them from down here, and the patterns are different this far south. But last time I counted, I think I knew ... hmm, fifty or sixty."
"Seriously?"
Chuck shifts his elbows a little wider, lets his head hang back on his neck. "Sure. Back on Lantea, I knew all the ones you could see from the city without a telescope." Evan offers the jug and Chuck takes it. The neck is warm where Evan's fingers were, and he swirls the ale around the inside for a minute before taking a drink.
Evan switches out his blade of grass again. Out of his periphery, Chuck can see that Evans's still turned towards him. "Why?"
Chuck's mouth twists at the corner, smile flattened a little against the mouth of the jug. "Five years as a gate tech, you spend a long time staring at addresses and coordinates. Letting them just be lists got boring." Evan tilts his head sideways, and Chuck sets the jug down and plucks his own blade of grass, inserting it between his teeth. The juice from the stem is surprisingly sweet. "What, you're going to give me shit for this?" he asks around the grass. "Mr. Still Life with Puddlejumper?"
"Hey, that was Still Life with P-90, get your facts straight." Evan slides the grass out from between his lips and holds it up for a moment to study it, then flicks it at Chuck. It falls short.
After a moment, Evan offers, "If you wanted, you could sub in on one of the gate teams sometime. I know the guy who writes the schedule."
Chuck grins and shakes his head. "Have you seen me with a gun? I make McKay look like Annie Oakley." Evan snorts, and Chuck sucks a little more of the moisture out of the grass. It makes a faint whistling noise between his teeth. "Thanks -- really, I mean that, thanks -- but I'm not actually bored; I like my job, I just ..." He settles back down into the grass again.
"You ever think about gate travel?" he asks, directing the question upward at the tiny flickering light of the star two systems over from MR0-739. "I mean, what it really means to get somewhere by wormhole? It makes distance irrelevant. When you think about it, every planet with a stargate on it is in the same relative position -- 'just on the other side of that ring.' You can call me old-fashioned, but even though I'm not the one going anywhere, I like to have a concrete idea of where I'm sending all of you."
"Second star to the right," Evan murmurs, with a faint edge in his voice that Chuck doesn't recognize.
The conversation isn't where he'd thought it was, and he isn't sure which direction to point it in now. "It's kind of disturbing, but I think that makes Colonel Sheppard Peter Pan," he says.
There's a rustle of grass as Evan shifts over, and then he's propped up on one elbow right next to Chuck, looking down at him with narrowed eyes and his expression mostly lost in shadow. After three years of sharing beer and stupid high school stories in their off-hours, Chuck is used to the dichotomy between Major Lorne, career military officer, and Evan, who can slip three jokes into two sentences and who keeps a travel easel set up on his balcony. He's got a weird feeling that he isn't talking to either of those guys now. "And what about the rest of us?" Evan asks in a low voice.
Evan's forearm is braced against the ground right next to Chuck's shoulder -- not quite touching, but Chuck can feel the heat of his skin through the thin knit of his shirt. He swallows, covers for it by rolling the blade of grass against the roof of his mouth with his tongue. "You?" He thinks of all the missions he's manned the control room for, and how they ended -- the friendship offerings, the trade agreements, the unscheduled offworld activations, the bullets flying through the event horizon. The ones where not everyone came back.
"That's easy," Chuck says softly, "you're the lost boys," and Evan lets out a sharp puff of breath and yanks the grass out from between Chuck's teeth. When he pushes his mouth down onto Chuck's, his lips taste green and tart, sweet from the sap of the alien grass they've been chewing, and with the whole universe curving out above them, Chuck lifts his hands up to Evan's shoulders, lets his mouth slide open, lets him in.
Summary: "Damn," Evan says from the grass next to him; he's got one arm tucked behind his head, his other hand twisting a blade of grass between the pads of thumb and index finger as he chews on the tip. "I just cannot get over the sky out here."
Details: SGA, Chuck/Lorne, ~1,250 words, not explicit. And here you all thought you knew how I rolled.
Notes: This story is for kisahawklin, tropes, indy_go, and shaenie. Two of them have had birthdays this week, all four of them have had weeks this week, and I had an idea that didn't go where I thought it would. Unbetaed and written way past my bedtime. Also, my characterization of both Chuck and Lorne is indebted to thingswithwings' The New Atlantean Dictionary of Literary Terms: A Complete Reference in Four Volumes.
It's summer on the southwestern continent, closing in on midnight, and down in the valley the party's still going strong. Chuck can't see it from where he's lying, but the breeze carries the laughter and conversation indistinctly up the hill, a contented background hum that sounds a lot like the bonfires looked from above last time he checked. There's a half-open jug of ale propped against the rock above him, and he curls his fingers around the clay neck and brings it to his mouth.
"Damn," Evan says from the grass next to him; he's got one arm tucked behind his head, his other hand twisting a blade of grass between the pads of thumb and index finger as he chews on the tip. "I just cannot get over the sky out here."
Chuck takes a second swallow, studying the expanse above them dutifully. "Don't you have a tube of paint that color?"
Evan rolls his head sideways, teeth gleaming around the blade of grass as his mouth splits into a grin. "Phthalo blue. Good eye."
"You used it in that one you did of the north pier. I liked that one." He holds the jug out. Evan squints for a moment, then waves it off. Chuck sets it back up above the rock and settles his weight onto his elbows, eying the scattered trails and clusters of stars overhead. "Do you know any of the constellations?"
"No. I gave up on keeping track back in my second year in the SGC," Evan says. "Went to so many planets that it seemed kind of ridiculous to try." He pulls another blade of grass up and replaces the one he's been chewing on. Chuck can hear the faint crunch as he bites down on the stem. "Why, do you?"
"Well, not names, but I can tell you what's what in some of them." He searches the low horizon for a bit, then points at a bright spot a few degrees east. "That purple one -- that's M6I-283."
Evan lifts his head to look at it. "The Khildax settlement?"
"Right. And see the misty blob over there, looks kind of like the Pleiades? I forget what the nebula's called, but MC2-908's just on the other side. And somewhere ..." Chuck twists to look behind them; it takes a moment to find what he's looking for, then he jabs a finger in triumph. "Got it. That line of five stars over there? Look off to the left from the bottom of the line, there's kind of a faint reddish one?"
Evan half-rolls, shoulder propped under him. "Yeah?"
"Asuran home system."
"You're kidding."
Chuck raises his eyebrows. "Do I kid?"
"Frequently," Evan shoots back dryly, and sits up as he reaches for the ale. "Okay, so how many do you know?"
"What, of the systems we've sent teams to?" He thinks for a moment. "Well, you can't see a lot of them from down here, and the patterns are different this far south. But last time I counted, I think I knew ... hmm, fifty or sixty."
"Seriously?"
Chuck shifts his elbows a little wider, lets his head hang back on his neck. "Sure. Back on Lantea, I knew all the ones you could see from the city without a telescope." Evan offers the jug and Chuck takes it. The neck is warm where Evan's fingers were, and he swirls the ale around the inside for a minute before taking a drink.
Evan switches out his blade of grass again. Out of his periphery, Chuck can see that Evans's still turned towards him. "Why?"
Chuck's mouth twists at the corner, smile flattened a little against the mouth of the jug. "Five years as a gate tech, you spend a long time staring at addresses and coordinates. Letting them just be lists got boring." Evan tilts his head sideways, and Chuck sets the jug down and plucks his own blade of grass, inserting it between his teeth. The juice from the stem is surprisingly sweet. "What, you're going to give me shit for this?" he asks around the grass. "Mr. Still Life with Puddlejumper?"
"Hey, that was Still Life with P-90, get your facts straight." Evan slides the grass out from between his lips and holds it up for a moment to study it, then flicks it at Chuck. It falls short.
After a moment, Evan offers, "If you wanted, you could sub in on one of the gate teams sometime. I know the guy who writes the schedule."
Chuck grins and shakes his head. "Have you seen me with a gun? I make McKay look like Annie Oakley." Evan snorts, and Chuck sucks a little more of the moisture out of the grass. It makes a faint whistling noise between his teeth. "Thanks -- really, I mean that, thanks -- but I'm not actually bored; I like my job, I just ..." He settles back down into the grass again.
"You ever think about gate travel?" he asks, directing the question upward at the tiny flickering light of the star two systems over from MR0-739. "I mean, what it really means to get somewhere by wormhole? It makes distance irrelevant. When you think about it, every planet with a stargate on it is in the same relative position -- 'just on the other side of that ring.' You can call me old-fashioned, but even though I'm not the one going anywhere, I like to have a concrete idea of where I'm sending all of you."
"Second star to the right," Evan murmurs, with a faint edge in his voice that Chuck doesn't recognize.
The conversation isn't where he'd thought it was, and he isn't sure which direction to point it in now. "It's kind of disturbing, but I think that makes Colonel Sheppard Peter Pan," he says.
There's a rustle of grass as Evan shifts over, and then he's propped up on one elbow right next to Chuck, looking down at him with narrowed eyes and his expression mostly lost in shadow. After three years of sharing beer and stupid high school stories in their off-hours, Chuck is used to the dichotomy between Major Lorne, career military officer, and Evan, who can slip three jokes into two sentences and who keeps a travel easel set up on his balcony. He's got a weird feeling that he isn't talking to either of those guys now. "And what about the rest of us?" Evan asks in a low voice.
Evan's forearm is braced against the ground right next to Chuck's shoulder -- not quite touching, but Chuck can feel the heat of his skin through the thin knit of his shirt. He swallows, covers for it by rolling the blade of grass against the roof of his mouth with his tongue. "You?" He thinks of all the missions he's manned the control room for, and how they ended -- the friendship offerings, the trade agreements, the unscheduled offworld activations, the bullets flying through the event horizon. The ones where not everyone came back.
"That's easy," Chuck says softly, "you're the lost boys," and Evan lets out a sharp puff of breath and yanks the grass out from between Chuck's teeth. When he pushes his mouth down onto Chuck's, his lips taste green and tart, sweet from the sap of the alien grass they've been chewing, and with the whole universe curving out above them, Chuck lifts his hands up to Evan's shoulders, lets his mouth slide open, lets him in.