FanFic100: #085 She
“And another poor unsuspecting victim.” He turns to his left side where Maureen Reece just plunked to the ground and raises his eyebrow. “That guy who just tried to tackle Lieutenant Cadman, I mean.”
“You mean because she’ll kick his ass the next time he comes near her?” it comes from Thomas Moore, who’s sitting between him and Reece. Reece’s answer is a snort.
“No, because he thinks that’s the right way to impress her.” Now he snorts. To him, Dr. Abramovich just tried to outmaneuver Laura to get the ball and score a goal. Flirting is something else entirely. Isn’t it?
“You’re not saying he was trying to flirt, right, Captain?” Reece just gives him a suggestive raise of her eyebrows.
“Watch and learn, sir.” That prompts Moore to groan and lie back in the sand. Lightly he nudges Reece with his foot.
“Can’t you stop being a linguist just for once, Kid? This is supposed to be spare time.” She gives him a very light slap on his shin.
“How often do I have to tell you that I enjoy being a linguist, sir?” He looks back at Laura, who’s being ferociously pursued by Abramovich and is running around the improvised soccer field in an impossible zig zag course to get rid of him. Come to think of it… she’s starting to look mighty annoyed, because that guy gets in her way so often and makes it impossible for her to come near the goal. No, that’s definitely not flirting, he decides. Moore and Reece on the other hand… he’ll never get what it is between the two, mainly because he doesn’t ask and Moore doesn’t tell.
The two officers beside him have started one of their little bickering matches that always follow a secret choreography they both seem to know very well, and he turns his gaze back at the field. Thanks to Abramovich, Laura just lost the ball to Körner, one of the IT technicians and she looks ready to drag Abramovich off the field to give him a piece of her mind about his rather blunt method of preventing her from scoring. However, he fails to raise any sympathy for the guy, because he happens to know that Laura simply can’t stand him, and for good reasons. He shakes his head.
“There’s just no way Abramovich is flirting with her.” Moore and Reece immediately cease their fooling around, and he realizes he just said that out loud. They both look at him questioningly and he feels the need to explain. “She hates him. He’s constantly getting on her nerves, and he almost screwed up one of her missions, because he acted just plain stupid.” Now they look at each other and immediately grin at each other. “What?” Smugly, Moore turns back to him.
“And how would you know that?” What kind of a stupid question is that?
“Uh… she told me… two days ago or something.” Another exchange of looks between the two leading officers of SGA4. He shrugs. Laura and he talked about a guy she can’t stand. So what? It’s not unusual for them to talk to each other. In fact… they did that a lot since she came back to Atlantis three weeks ago.
Reece sighs, and for him it sounds just a tad overdramatic. Like that “Men!”-sigh-thing women like to do so much and on every possible occasion. “Well, maybe she hates Abramovich. But Abramovich doesn’t hate her.” Yeah, sure. He just thinks he has some advantage over her because he’s a guy and he holds a PhD in chemistry and she doesn’t. “Look at him. He’s constantly trying to invade her private space or at least get close to her.” He snorts again.
“Yeah, because it’s his job to mark her.” Now Moore sits up again and bends his head a little, following Abramovich and Laura as they try to fulfill their respective duties as members of their soccer teams.
“Actually… I think you have a point, Kid.” Reece looks very much like she can just barely keep from telling him “’Course I have. I’m always right about this kind of thing.” because even between those two some very thin and invisible lines of proper conduct have remained through all the years they have known each other.
The thing is… it isn’t entirely unfounded. He knows Reece’s scores in her field of expertise and he knows how often her talent to understand not only spoken but also non-verbal language has saved the hides of her and her teammates. But still… “Nah, that’s just ridiculous. He’s too old to be pulling pigtails.” Really, Abramovich is 30. Guys at 30 don’t flirt by trying to throw their object of desire to the ground. Apart from that… Abramovich should know that something like that only drives Laura mad and doesn’t do anything to impress her.
“Some guys are never too old to be pulling pigtails.” Reece answers with a certain amount of annoyed eye-rolling that he gets the strong suspicion she’s speaking from daily experience. And yes, just as if on cue, Moore grins and briefly pulls her short ponytail. It earns him a slap on the shoulder, which in turn results in a spray of sand for the Captain. Good God, get a fucking room, people.
Trying to forget his role as their CO just for once - because this is one of their rare spare days on the mainland - he turns his gaze back at the field, pretending that it’s totally normal for a team leader and his 2IC to be acting like Moore and Reece are. On the field, there’s a bit of a commotion, because Zelenka just scored a goal for Laura’s team and everyone is high-fiving him. In the mix-up of the little celebration Abramovich manages to sneak up to Laura… and takes the liberty of giving her a slap on the backside.
Okay, that’s enough. Everyone knows that it’s only a question of time until Laura is Carson Beckett’s girl again, and besides no one treats his soldiers like this. Without a word, he gets up, ready to show Abramovich how he thinks about someone manhandling one of his soldiers, but Moore is faster.
“Hey, hey, easy, buddy. You know as well as I that she can handle that herself. He’s already toast. And you’d be too if you’d interfere.” A firm hand is planted on his shoulder, exerting just enough pressure to keep him in his place. He frowns. Thomas Moore of all people. The guy whose nickname changed from “Major Survival Exercise Monster” to “Major Green-eyed Monster” in his first year on Atlantis, after the first time a guy tried to get better acquainted with Reece in his vicinity.
On the field, the game is in full swing again, and now it seems as if Laura has managed to turn tables on Abramovich. Frowning he lightly shakes Moore’s hand off and sits down again. It’s evident that Laura has decided to take off the velvet gloves. Every time Abramovich comes even remotely close to the ball, she’s there. And as far as he can tell, she’s not cutting him any slack.
She chases him over the field and a few times she comes very close to fouling him. “Such an idiot. He really doesn’t get it.” Reece grumbles, and he has to agree with her. Even though he must be already sporting a few bruises, Abramovich doesn’t back off and time and again gets closer to her than would be wise.
And suddenly, he gets to see them up close and personal, because the ball just flew in his direction. Abramovich sprints to get it, but just a few seconds before he can actually touch it, Laura suddenly throws herself to the ground and kicks the ball back into the field. A nice side effect is that she knocks him off his feet and he hits the sand rather hard. Ouch. All three of them wince, but hey… that guy deserved it.
And Laura knows that. She gets up looking smug and dusting the sand off her bare legs and arms. She catches his eyes and a big grin appears on her face. He can’t help but mirror it and call out to her, “Nice one, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks, sir.” She still looks smug, but the look on her face says something else: If you want to leave the field without a scratch… don’t mess with me. It’s a warning he should take seriously. Suddenly he’s glad he listened to Moore.
On the ground, Abramovich looks very much like this was his last soccer match for an extended period of time. Not that he’s injured seriously… but his pride seems to have suffered quite the blow. Without looking back, he gets up and walks over to the far end to lick his wounds.
He’s about to sit down beside Moore again when Abramovich’s team realize they just lost a man and desperately need someone else to mark Laura. For reasons unknown to him, they suddenly are asking him. He tries to deny - he never could get into soccer - but then Laura says, “Afraid I might be better than you?” and that does it.
“Not in a million years. Can we get on with the game now? There’s a cheeky jarhead here who needs to be taught a lesson.” As someone tosses him the ball, immediately Laura starts attacking him again and his ambition is sparked. So much, in fact, that he never sees Reece and Moore high-fiving each other and congratulating themselves to the brilliant idea of subtly pointing to a certain zoomie Major as a substitute for Abramovich.
~*~
“She’s like fever, you want her back
This is deeper than anything from before
Just a moment ago it was boiling hot
And suddenly it gets cold like dry ice
She’s unbelievable, she makes you sad
Your style doesn’t help you here, just scoot or you’ll lose everything
Boy, please believe us, it’s happened to thousand other guys here before.”
Fettes Brot, “Emmanuela”