Fic: On the Right Note (SGA) Part 3 of 5
Title: On the Right Note (3/5)
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis AU
Characters: John, Rodney, Jeanne, Ronon and a special guest appearance by Larrin
Word Count: 2036
Prompt: dimples for the stargateland Multimedia Bingo challenge
Disclaimer: I don't own. I only play around with it from time to time.
Summary: John Sheppard's a small town boy wanting to make it big in the music industry. While he loses the family he was born into because of this decision, he gains a whole new one along the way.
They start out on what feels like a Billion Little City tour, a phrase that is coined by Rodney after they enter the city limits of yet another town in the middle of Kansas... or Missouri... or Illinois, that has neither a McDonald's (Ronon's favorite in a strange twist of fate since he is, in fact, a vegetarian) or a nationwide hotel chain. Ronon refuses to eat anywhere that looks like a greasy spoon and Rodney refuses to sleep anywhere that doesn't have a website (as if that means the cleaning staff is any more thorough) so they do a lot of compromising. Or, rather, John does a lot of compromising.
He's thought about throwing both the men from the moving car but the plain truth of the matter is that he needs them. Not only for driving, which is a perk because he rarely has to take a shift behind the wheel of the unwieldily vehicle which drives like a tank mired in mud, but because they both add to his sound in ways he'd never dreamed of. Rodney does have a gift with getting wonderful sound out of low-end sound boards that has proved to be more than useful on this tour of crappy venues. He was also able to remix Thirty-Eight Minutes so that it suddenly made more sense than before. And Ronon may not be much of a conversationalist (although he and Rodney poke at each other like an old, married couple) but he shifts into this amazing performer when he steps onto the stage or into the studio. Put a guitar into his hands and he turns into a virtuoso that just seems to feel where the music needs to go next. While his voice isn't strong, it's very pure and sounds good with John's growl. Many nights, they don't have a set list when they walk into a club and John just lets Ronon go where he thinks the music is taking them.
Teyla tags along when they're closer to home because she doesn't want to leave Torren for too long. She's got family that is more than happy to take care of him but she feels she needs to be a mother first and a band groupie second. When she's around, Rodney whines less and Ronon doesn't grimace quite as much and John is able to let some of the worry ease off his shoulders. It's strange how she completes the group so perfectly. He'd ask her to come by more often but he feels guilty dragging her away from her life. There isn't a night that goes by that he doesn't miss her more than he ever thought he'd miss anyone after the death of his mother.
Jeannie is the other addition to the group from time to time, a fact which makes Rodney's lips thin. He would rather she stayed in her dorm room where he can imagine her safe and sound and doing some sort of math problem with her sewing patterns. When she comes with them, they usually have to lure her away from dark corners where groups of men are intent of buying her drinks and putting their contact information in her phone. The only person who likes this duty less than Rodney is Ronon, who has become strangely protective of the girl. He's also the only one who will let her talk about Kaleb, the love of her life, for hours on end. Even though they've never met the guy in person (he's too busy being serious about getting his Master's in English, which Rodney seems to find worthy of many jabs and insults, to ever join them), they all know far too much about him because Jeannie hasn't learned the value of silence.
The real reason that John lets Jeannie tag along is because she's the one who discovered just what was wrong with Hide and Seek. One night, as they were practicing before a gig, John suddenly hears what's been in his head all along. When he looks over at the sound board, it's Jeannie's curly hair he can barely see and not Rodney's sparse thatch. She waves and gives him a thumbs up. He has Ronon start up in a different key and they take it a little faster and the sound he hears is so amazing he feels tears behind his eyelids, threatening to fall before he can get control of his responses. It's so perfect he doesn't believe they can recreate it again but then Ronon starts playing the beginning notes later that night and the crowd begins to scream along in the chorus as if it's their favorite song instead of the one John rarely plays because he's so unsure of it.
A radio DJ gets hold of a pirated video that some girl shot of the concert and calls up Elizabeth, wanting to know why they don't have a copy of that song to play. She hustles John and Ronon into the studio and has a disc in the mail the next day, with everyone's blessing. In a month's time, the song cracks the top 100 and John is forced to do his first interview. It's a rushed thing so he barely has time to worry about it before he's giving the woman across the table a shy smile and trying to figure out how to explain what his music means. Most of the answers are easy enough and he gives Ronon a lot of credit for their newest song, Runner, because he came up with the melody line. He even finds a way to work in Teyla and Rodney into the interview and is mildly surprised to see that all three names are in the article when it comes out.
He gets the first congratulatory phone call the day the magazine comes out. It's Adam and he wants to book them back at Brody's as soon as they're in the area. "Gotta cash in on your success," he says and John has to laugh because he never thought he'd ever hear those words.
The first groupie encounter is much less exciting. Two girls corner him in a random grocery store in a random town. He'd scraped his elbow on a rough edge of the van and needed a band-aid. While he drips blood on the floor of Aisle 5, he signs a shirt for one of the girls (which she's still wearing at the time) and a sheet of ripped notebook paper for the other one. Their ramblings are mostly unintelligible but John doesn't care what they say because it's the first time anyone's ever noticed him. As he picks out a box of band-aids and hurriedly pays for them, he wonders if this is an indication of things to come or a one-time occurrence. By the time he gets to the van, he's forgotten it happened.
Rodney gets the next interview for some little-known magazine that has him frothing at the mouth because they cut most of what he said. When Ronon makes some quip about wishing he could cut out most of what Rodney says, Rodney actually launchs himself at the much larger man. It takes John several minutes to get them apart and, when he does, he's got more bruises and scratches than the other two. It takes a call from Jeannie to calm them both down but it's three days before there's any conversation while they're in the van. John enjoys the silence.
It's two more months before they find themselves playing a club that can hold more than a hundred people. John's more impressed with the fact that the green room doesn't feel like a converted gym locker room. He almost falls asleep on the couch they have set up, mostly because it reminds him of the one that he slept on while he lived with Teyla. There's an ache in his throat as he realizes that Teyla hasn't been on the road with them for any of this new stuff. She's called him a couple of times but Torren's had the chicken pox and three ear infections so she's spent a fair amount of time in doctor's offices and emergency rooms.
It's odd that his real life is so different from hers now. Not always a good different either. He misses her more than he thought he would, wishing he could share more with her without it feeling like he's just pushing himself further away.
Just as he gets out his cell phone to call her, the door opens. A stunning woman in black leather walks in, looking like every teenage boy's wet dream. John tries to get upright but she's pushing at his chest, keeping him in his prone position. She licks her lips before she starts talking and he finds that he can't look away.
"You're perfect. Just perfect. Every bit the playboy that I heard you were."
"Excuse me?" he stammers, wondering where she might have heard that bit of gossip.
But she continues on like she hasn't heard him. "And that hair. It's like it's own entity. I love it." Her hand snakes through his hair, sending tendrils of desire coiling down his spine even as his head reminds him that women aren't just supposed to walk into the green room and start making love to his hair with a hand full of lethal nails that have got to be fake.
Before he can think about trying to get away, she's got her other hand down at his crotch. "And I think I love this."
"How would you know?" he asks in a voice that's all twisted up because he can't quite remember how to breath. There is something disturbing about how much he likes this. "You've never seen it. Not that I'm not proud of it but, well, I'm not that kind of guy."
"What kind?" She crawls up on him, her knee wedged in where her hand was so that he can't even begin to think about getting away without ending up with a singing voice a couple of octaves higher than normal. "The kind that takes what's offered? You haven't even asked my name."
He's pretty sure that knowing her name isn't going to change his answer. It's been years since he's had sex, not because he doesn't like it but because he had other things on his mind. All his energy goes into his music so that there's barely anything left for the moments that aren't all tied up with orphan lines that need a rhyming couplet or phrases of haunting music that need fulfillment.
But she seems to think it's going to make a difference. "My name is Larrin and I own this joint. My God. You have great dimples."
Of course she does. With a sigh, John tries to figure out just how he's going to get out of this and still have a concert to play tonight. He's almost got the right words when he hears the door open.
"They told me you were up here and that... and that... John?"
With wide eyes full of dread, he turns to stare at Teyla. She's holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a squirming Torren in the other. It's been months since he's seen her and she looks exactly as he remembers but she's done something to her hair and she might be wearing makeup. Right now, he'd give anything to be able to jump up and drag her out of the room so that he can convince her this isn't happening. That she isn't thinking of all the horrible things that are flitting across her eyes right now.
Larrin doesn't let him get up (that knee is beginning to remind him of it's presence in the most painful of ways) and, by the time she finally lets him up, he can't find Teyla before it's time to go up on stage. He searches for her all through the concert, his eyes roaming over the shadows until he's memorized everyone in the place. They tell him it's the best concert he's ever played, the passion really coming through in a way it never has before.
He doesn't bother telling him that it's not passion they heard. It was his heart breaking.
This entry was cross posted at dreamwidth - where the cool kids hang out.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis AU
Characters: John, Rodney, Jeanne, Ronon and a special guest appearance by Larrin
Word Count: 2036
Prompt: dimples for the stargateland Multimedia Bingo challenge
Disclaimer: I don't own. I only play around with it from time to time.
Summary: John Sheppard's a small town boy wanting to make it big in the music industry. While he loses the family he was born into because of this decision, he gains a whole new one along the way.
They start out on what feels like a Billion Little City tour, a phrase that is coined by Rodney after they enter the city limits of yet another town in the middle of Kansas... or Missouri... or Illinois, that has neither a McDonald's (Ronon's favorite in a strange twist of fate since he is, in fact, a vegetarian) or a nationwide hotel chain. Ronon refuses to eat anywhere that looks like a greasy spoon and Rodney refuses to sleep anywhere that doesn't have a website (as if that means the cleaning staff is any more thorough) so they do a lot of compromising. Or, rather, John does a lot of compromising.
He's thought about throwing both the men from the moving car but the plain truth of the matter is that he needs them. Not only for driving, which is a perk because he rarely has to take a shift behind the wheel of the unwieldily vehicle which drives like a tank mired in mud, but because they both add to his sound in ways he'd never dreamed of. Rodney does have a gift with getting wonderful sound out of low-end sound boards that has proved to be more than useful on this tour of crappy venues. He was also able to remix Thirty-Eight Minutes so that it suddenly made more sense than before. And Ronon may not be much of a conversationalist (although he and Rodney poke at each other like an old, married couple) but he shifts into this amazing performer when he steps onto the stage or into the studio. Put a guitar into his hands and he turns into a virtuoso that just seems to feel where the music needs to go next. While his voice isn't strong, it's very pure and sounds good with John's growl. Many nights, they don't have a set list when they walk into a club and John just lets Ronon go where he thinks the music is taking them.
Teyla tags along when they're closer to home because she doesn't want to leave Torren for too long. She's got family that is more than happy to take care of him but she feels she needs to be a mother first and a band groupie second. When she's around, Rodney whines less and Ronon doesn't grimace quite as much and John is able to let some of the worry ease off his shoulders. It's strange how she completes the group so perfectly. He'd ask her to come by more often but he feels guilty dragging her away from her life. There isn't a night that goes by that he doesn't miss her more than he ever thought he'd miss anyone after the death of his mother.
Jeannie is the other addition to the group from time to time, a fact which makes Rodney's lips thin. He would rather she stayed in her dorm room where he can imagine her safe and sound and doing some sort of math problem with her sewing patterns. When she comes with them, they usually have to lure her away from dark corners where groups of men are intent of buying her drinks and putting their contact information in her phone. The only person who likes this duty less than Rodney is Ronon, who has become strangely protective of the girl. He's also the only one who will let her talk about Kaleb, the love of her life, for hours on end. Even though they've never met the guy in person (he's too busy being serious about getting his Master's in English, which Rodney seems to find worthy of many jabs and insults, to ever join them), they all know far too much about him because Jeannie hasn't learned the value of silence.
The real reason that John lets Jeannie tag along is because she's the one who discovered just what was wrong with Hide and Seek. One night, as they were practicing before a gig, John suddenly hears what's been in his head all along. When he looks over at the sound board, it's Jeannie's curly hair he can barely see and not Rodney's sparse thatch. She waves and gives him a thumbs up. He has Ronon start up in a different key and they take it a little faster and the sound he hears is so amazing he feels tears behind his eyelids, threatening to fall before he can get control of his responses. It's so perfect he doesn't believe they can recreate it again but then Ronon starts playing the beginning notes later that night and the crowd begins to scream along in the chorus as if it's their favorite song instead of the one John rarely plays because he's so unsure of it.
A radio DJ gets hold of a pirated video that some girl shot of the concert and calls up Elizabeth, wanting to know why they don't have a copy of that song to play. She hustles John and Ronon into the studio and has a disc in the mail the next day, with everyone's blessing. In a month's time, the song cracks the top 100 and John is forced to do his first interview. It's a rushed thing so he barely has time to worry about it before he's giving the woman across the table a shy smile and trying to figure out how to explain what his music means. Most of the answers are easy enough and he gives Ronon a lot of credit for their newest song, Runner, because he came up with the melody line. He even finds a way to work in Teyla and Rodney into the interview and is mildly surprised to see that all three names are in the article when it comes out.
He gets the first congratulatory phone call the day the magazine comes out. It's Adam and he wants to book them back at Brody's as soon as they're in the area. "Gotta cash in on your success," he says and John has to laugh because he never thought he'd ever hear those words.
The first groupie encounter is much less exciting. Two girls corner him in a random grocery store in a random town. He'd scraped his elbow on a rough edge of the van and needed a band-aid. While he drips blood on the floor of Aisle 5, he signs a shirt for one of the girls (which she's still wearing at the time) and a sheet of ripped notebook paper for the other one. Their ramblings are mostly unintelligible but John doesn't care what they say because it's the first time anyone's ever noticed him. As he picks out a box of band-aids and hurriedly pays for them, he wonders if this is an indication of things to come or a one-time occurrence. By the time he gets to the van, he's forgotten it happened.
Rodney gets the next interview for some little-known magazine that has him frothing at the mouth because they cut most of what he said. When Ronon makes some quip about wishing he could cut out most of what Rodney says, Rodney actually launchs himself at the much larger man. It takes John several minutes to get them apart and, when he does, he's got more bruises and scratches than the other two. It takes a call from Jeannie to calm them both down but it's three days before there's any conversation while they're in the van. John enjoys the silence.
It's two more months before they find themselves playing a club that can hold more than a hundred people. John's more impressed with the fact that the green room doesn't feel like a converted gym locker room. He almost falls asleep on the couch they have set up, mostly because it reminds him of the one that he slept on while he lived with Teyla. There's an ache in his throat as he realizes that Teyla hasn't been on the road with them for any of this new stuff. She's called him a couple of times but Torren's had the chicken pox and three ear infections so she's spent a fair amount of time in doctor's offices and emergency rooms.
It's odd that his real life is so different from hers now. Not always a good different either. He misses her more than he thought he would, wishing he could share more with her without it feeling like he's just pushing himself further away.
Just as he gets out his cell phone to call her, the door opens. A stunning woman in black leather walks in, looking like every teenage boy's wet dream. John tries to get upright but she's pushing at his chest, keeping him in his prone position. She licks her lips before she starts talking and he finds that he can't look away.
"You're perfect. Just perfect. Every bit the playboy that I heard you were."
"Excuse me?" he stammers, wondering where she might have heard that bit of gossip.
But she continues on like she hasn't heard him. "And that hair. It's like it's own entity. I love it." Her hand snakes through his hair, sending tendrils of desire coiling down his spine even as his head reminds him that women aren't just supposed to walk into the green room and start making love to his hair with a hand full of lethal nails that have got to be fake.
Before he can think about trying to get away, she's got her other hand down at his crotch. "And I think I love this."
"How would you know?" he asks in a voice that's all twisted up because he can't quite remember how to breath. There is something disturbing about how much he likes this. "You've never seen it. Not that I'm not proud of it but, well, I'm not that kind of guy."
"What kind?" She crawls up on him, her knee wedged in where her hand was so that he can't even begin to think about getting away without ending up with a singing voice a couple of octaves higher than normal. "The kind that takes what's offered? You haven't even asked my name."
He's pretty sure that knowing her name isn't going to change his answer. It's been years since he's had sex, not because he doesn't like it but because he had other things on his mind. All his energy goes into his music so that there's barely anything left for the moments that aren't all tied up with orphan lines that need a rhyming couplet or phrases of haunting music that need fulfillment.
But she seems to think it's going to make a difference. "My name is Larrin and I own this joint. My God. You have great dimples."
Of course she does. With a sigh, John tries to figure out just how he's going to get out of this and still have a concert to play tonight. He's almost got the right words when he hears the door open.
"They told me you were up here and that... and that... John?"
With wide eyes full of dread, he turns to stare at Teyla. She's holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a squirming Torren in the other. It's been months since he's seen her and she looks exactly as he remembers but she's done something to her hair and she might be wearing makeup. Right now, he'd give anything to be able to jump up and drag her out of the room so that he can convince her this isn't happening. That she isn't thinking of all the horrible things that are flitting across her eyes right now.
Larrin doesn't let him get up (that knee is beginning to remind him of it's presence in the most painful of ways) and, by the time she finally lets him up, he can't find Teyla before it's time to go up on stage. He searches for her all through the concert, his eyes roaming over the shadows until he's memorized everyone in the place. They tell him it's the best concert he's ever played, the passion really coming through in a way it never has before.
He doesn't bother telling him that it's not passion they heard. It was his heart breaking.
This entry was cross posted at dreamwidth - where the cool kids hang out.