Vday: fic: Stuck (SGA)
Written for rageprufrock's 14 Valentines challenge. I . . . I kind of suck at words inspirational and meaningful, so I'll just say: please consider donating money and/or time to Vday.org or another women's charity, local or global. You know why.
Title: Stuck
Author: siegeofangels
Fandom: SGA
Rated PG, gen humor
Disclaimer: Stargate: Atlantis is the property of someone not me. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: "It couldn't just be people with spears. No, it had to be people with spears riding ostriches. Why does this always happen to us?"
John ran into the jumper and flung himself into the pilot's seat in a way that, in any lesser vehicle, would have been preceded by sliding across the hood on his ass.
Rodney collapsed into the seat on his right. "It couldn't just be people with spears. No, it had to be people with spears riding ostriches. Why does this always happen to us?"
Preflight, preflight, John thought, and multicolored displays sprang up in front of him like Christmas lights. Behind him, Teyla and Ronon settled themselves in. The hatch closed, all systems go, except . . .
"What's that?" Rodney said, frantic. One of the diagnostics was blinking, right in front of him.
John looked. "Crap. We're not going to be able to get more than a couple of feet off the ground." He hit the console in disbelief. "And the shields won't come up, either."
Rodney's fingers danced over the display. "It won't take long to figure out, it's probably something to do with those cicada things, you know, the crawling ones? They were everywhere. But it's only, what, five miles to the Stargate and I'd rather not be poking around in the jumper when there are people with spears five feet away. I say chance it; I think we can go faster than flightless birds."
"We are a flightless bird, Rodney," John retorted. "And it's five miles of trees. If I have to weave around them every twenty feet I can't go very fast. How long will it take you?"
There was the bahhhnk! of a large, flightless bird at the rear of the puddlejumper, and then a thump.
Rodney's eyes widened.
"Okay," John said, and the jumper rose a couple of feet in the air, shuddering a little. "Weaving it is."
***
Right, left, right, avoid the ostrich on the left, tree on the right, if he could find a lake or something he might be able to lose them but there really wasn't time for that, because the jumper was going fast enough to do them some serious damage if he hit a sizable tree and there were trees, like, every five yards.
"Find me a lake, Rodney," John said, and swerved again, fishtailing the jumper around a six-foot-wide tree trunk.
Rodney yelped. "Lake? Tree! Tree tree tree! What are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm sorry." He swooped around another tree and avoided a spear. "I haven't had much time to play Red Baron lately."
"No offense to your Sopwith camel, Colonel, but the--Lake! Lake, two o'clock, go!"
Several more trees, too many spears, and one move that left even John's stomach churning later, they were speeding a couple of feet above a sizable lake, blessedly ostrich-free.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
"Aw, crap," John said, and managed to wrench the jumper to shore before it stalled completely.
***
Rodney practically pulled John out of his seat trying to get at the control panel underneath the dash. It wouldn't take long for the ostrich-riders to get to them; they'd only made it around about a quarter of the lake.
"Okay, okay," Rodney said. "Is the diagnostic still up? What's blinking?"
Two green things and a blue thing, basically. "I think it's some kind of loose connection," said John, stepping around Rodney to lean over the dash. "Hey, hold on a second. Let me see if I can--"
"Ah ha," Rodney said, tossing dead chicken-nugget-sized bugs aside. He tugged on John's leg. "Colonel, get down here. I need another pair of hands."
There wasn't enough room down there for a cat, let alone John, but he sat on the floor and twisted his body around the base of the pilot's chair anyway. Rodney elbowed him in the head as John wedged himself alongside under the panel.
"Here, hold this together while I--" Rodney had one hand up in the guts of the jumper, and he pushed one of John's hands up there too. The crystal was loose in its setting, crispy bug bits crumbling out, and as John pushed the pieces together he felt the jumper sort of cough.
"I see," he said. "It's all a plot to electrocute me." He drew his hand back, and the connection came loose again. It wouldn't stay without him holding it.
"Please," said Rodney. "Like we'd be able to tell. Besides, there's no electricity or any other current. You could stick your tongue in here and you'd be fine. The bugs weren't electrocuted: they had a normal lifespan of thirty seconds anyway. They died of perfectly natural causes. Other hand--no, a little bit higher. Yeah, that right there."
"I can't reach that."
"What do you mean, you can't . . . You want to be stuck here? Come on, right there. Yes yes yes, there."
From the back of the jumper came the sound of Ronon trying not to laugh.
"Great idea, Rodney. I'm holding the jumper together. Who's going to fly it?" John said, and there was an altogether different sound from the rear of the puddlejumper.
Baaahhnk!
"Teyla," Rodney barked, and that sound was way too loud when your ear was four inches from it, "we could use your skinny fingers under here right about now."
She scrambled over both of them, managed to almost knee Rodney in the stomach as she twisted onto her back, and replaced John's hands with her own.
"Yeah," he said, spitting out her hair and wriggling out. "Just hold that and, um, brace yourself."
There wasn't actually any room left for his feet--Teyla's knees were there, neatly curled up, and Rodney's legs and he had no idea how they were actually fitting in there--so John sort of perched in the chair, one foot under him and the other leg up over the armrest, and Ronon took shotgun, raising his eyebrows at the tangle of limbs in front of John.
"Tell me about it," said John.
***
Bahnk! Baaahnk!
"Okay, Colonel, hit it," came the muffled voice from beneath him.
Go? Pretty please?, John thought, and the jumper sort of gave a shudder and nothing happened. "No dice," he said, and poked up the diagnostics again. "There's still another loose connection."
Rodney fidgeted and stretched and braced one foot against John's chair. "Okay, try it now."
"Yeah, that one's fine, but you lost the other one."
Baahnk! Thump! went the natives, and Ronon gave a long-suffering sigh, removed the more bristly of his weapons, and slid down to sit on the floor and reach one long arm under the panel. Rodney kicked him reflexively.
"Aaagh! That's my face, Spiderman!"
"Sorry," said Ronon, and shifted.
"If you were aiming for my face," Teyla said calmly, "you missed."
"Sorry," Ronon said again, although he didn't look all that upset to John.
"There, hold that," Rodney said. "Try it again."
Third time was the charm, and although there wasn't anything like the sweet sound of an engine finally roaring into life, they were back in business.
***
John tried to make the flight back to the Stargate as quick and as smooth as possible, but people were still throwing spears at them, and he didn't want to take the jumper too high in case someone's hand slipped and they lost lift again. So he was back to dodging around trees.
Rodney was still performing Fugue for Jumper and Astrophysicist, yelping along with every twist and keeping up a running commentary on John's flying technique, jumper circuitry, dead crunchy bugs, and--"Aaaugh!"
"Sorry," John told him. "Foot slipped."
He had to dial the gate himself, of course--there was no way Rodney was getting out of there without a crowbar--but John did manage to get everything keyed in and send his IDC.
Just let it hold until we get it through, he thought, and carefully led the jumper on a triumphant, wobbly flight home.
***
The landing in the gateroom wasn't the most beautiful one John had ever performed, and it certainly wasn't the quietest, but they were in, they were safe, and they were . . . stuck.
"Stuck?" John said. "In the connections?"
"No, I mean, not my hands, Ronon's on my--ow. OW."
"If you could stop using my arm as a--" and at some point somebody had braced their foot against John's leg, and then someone else had braced against them, and during that one fishtail he'd had to do somebody's boots had gotten hopelessly wedged between parts of the chair, and John tried to stand up, put his weight on the foot he'd been sitting on which was now asleep and wouldn't hold his weight, toppled over onto Ronon, who did something unpleasant under the panel to Rodney, who twitched and must have caught Teyla in the face, because she made a noise and kicked John in the shin. Again.
John stared at the roof of the puddlejumper as his earpiece crackled to life. "Colonel? Everything okay in there?" Elizabeth.
John managed to get an arm free and tapped his radio. "Um, yeah, everything's fine, Elizabeth. Just, uh, give us a minute or two, okay?" he said, because if the hatch opened there would be pictures, he knew there would be pictures, and they would never in their lives live it down.
"We're fine," he repeated, attempting to free his left leg. "Just a little--" it was futile; he stopped struggling and let his head fall, hard, on the floor "--stuck."
Title: Stuck
Author: siegeofangels
Fandom: SGA
Rated PG, gen humor
Disclaimer: Stargate: Atlantis is the property of someone not me. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: "It couldn't just be people with spears. No, it had to be people with spears riding ostriches. Why does this always happen to us?"
John ran into the jumper and flung himself into the pilot's seat in a way that, in any lesser vehicle, would have been preceded by sliding across the hood on his ass.
Rodney collapsed into the seat on his right. "It couldn't just be people with spears. No, it had to be people with spears riding ostriches. Why does this always happen to us?"
Preflight, preflight, John thought, and multicolored displays sprang up in front of him like Christmas lights. Behind him, Teyla and Ronon settled themselves in. The hatch closed, all systems go, except . . .
"What's that?" Rodney said, frantic. One of the diagnostics was blinking, right in front of him.
John looked. "Crap. We're not going to be able to get more than a couple of feet off the ground." He hit the console in disbelief. "And the shields won't come up, either."
Rodney's fingers danced over the display. "It won't take long to figure out, it's probably something to do with those cicada things, you know, the crawling ones? They were everywhere. But it's only, what, five miles to the Stargate and I'd rather not be poking around in the jumper when there are people with spears five feet away. I say chance it; I think we can go faster than flightless birds."
"We are a flightless bird, Rodney," John retorted. "And it's five miles of trees. If I have to weave around them every twenty feet I can't go very fast. How long will it take you?"
There was the bahhhnk! of a large, flightless bird at the rear of the puddlejumper, and then a thump.
Rodney's eyes widened.
"Okay," John said, and the jumper rose a couple of feet in the air, shuddering a little. "Weaving it is."
***
Right, left, right, avoid the ostrich on the left, tree on the right, if he could find a lake or something he might be able to lose them but there really wasn't time for that, because the jumper was going fast enough to do them some serious damage if he hit a sizable tree and there were trees, like, every five yards.
"Find me a lake, Rodney," John said, and swerved again, fishtailing the jumper around a six-foot-wide tree trunk.
Rodney yelped. "Lake? Tree! Tree tree tree! What are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm sorry." He swooped around another tree and avoided a spear. "I haven't had much time to play Red Baron lately."
"No offense to your Sopwith camel, Colonel, but the--Lake! Lake, two o'clock, go!"
Several more trees, too many spears, and one move that left even John's stomach churning later, they were speeding a couple of feet above a sizable lake, blessedly ostrich-free.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
"Aw, crap," John said, and managed to wrench the jumper to shore before it stalled completely.
***
Rodney practically pulled John out of his seat trying to get at the control panel underneath the dash. It wouldn't take long for the ostrich-riders to get to them; they'd only made it around about a quarter of the lake.
"Okay, okay," Rodney said. "Is the diagnostic still up? What's blinking?"
Two green things and a blue thing, basically. "I think it's some kind of loose connection," said John, stepping around Rodney to lean over the dash. "Hey, hold on a second. Let me see if I can--"
"Ah ha," Rodney said, tossing dead chicken-nugget-sized bugs aside. He tugged on John's leg. "Colonel, get down here. I need another pair of hands."
There wasn't enough room down there for a cat, let alone John, but he sat on the floor and twisted his body around the base of the pilot's chair anyway. Rodney elbowed him in the head as John wedged himself alongside under the panel.
"Here, hold this together while I--" Rodney had one hand up in the guts of the jumper, and he pushed one of John's hands up there too. The crystal was loose in its setting, crispy bug bits crumbling out, and as John pushed the pieces together he felt the jumper sort of cough.
"I see," he said. "It's all a plot to electrocute me." He drew his hand back, and the connection came loose again. It wouldn't stay without him holding it.
"Please," said Rodney. "Like we'd be able to tell. Besides, there's no electricity or any other current. You could stick your tongue in here and you'd be fine. The bugs weren't electrocuted: they had a normal lifespan of thirty seconds anyway. They died of perfectly natural causes. Other hand--no, a little bit higher. Yeah, that right there."
"I can't reach that."
"What do you mean, you can't . . . You want to be stuck here? Come on, right there. Yes yes yes, there."
From the back of the jumper came the sound of Ronon trying not to laugh.
"Great idea, Rodney. I'm holding the jumper together. Who's going to fly it?" John said, and there was an altogether different sound from the rear of the puddlejumper.
Baaahhnk!
"Teyla," Rodney barked, and that sound was way too loud when your ear was four inches from it, "we could use your skinny fingers under here right about now."
She scrambled over both of them, managed to almost knee Rodney in the stomach as she twisted onto her back, and replaced John's hands with her own.
"Yeah," he said, spitting out her hair and wriggling out. "Just hold that and, um, brace yourself."
There wasn't actually any room left for his feet--Teyla's knees were there, neatly curled up, and Rodney's legs and he had no idea how they were actually fitting in there--so John sort of perched in the chair, one foot under him and the other leg up over the armrest, and Ronon took shotgun, raising his eyebrows at the tangle of limbs in front of John.
"Tell me about it," said John.
***
Bahnk! Baaahnk!
"Okay, Colonel, hit it," came the muffled voice from beneath him.
Go? Pretty please?, John thought, and the jumper sort of gave a shudder and nothing happened. "No dice," he said, and poked up the diagnostics again. "There's still another loose connection."
Rodney fidgeted and stretched and braced one foot against John's chair. "Okay, try it now."
"Yeah, that one's fine, but you lost the other one."
Baahnk! Thump! went the natives, and Ronon gave a long-suffering sigh, removed the more bristly of his weapons, and slid down to sit on the floor and reach one long arm under the panel. Rodney kicked him reflexively.
"Aaagh! That's my face, Spiderman!"
"Sorry," said Ronon, and shifted.
"If you were aiming for my face," Teyla said calmly, "you missed."
"Sorry," Ronon said again, although he didn't look all that upset to John.
"There, hold that," Rodney said. "Try it again."
Third time was the charm, and although there wasn't anything like the sweet sound of an engine finally roaring into life, they were back in business.
***
John tried to make the flight back to the Stargate as quick and as smooth as possible, but people were still throwing spears at them, and he didn't want to take the jumper too high in case someone's hand slipped and they lost lift again. So he was back to dodging around trees.
Rodney was still performing Fugue for Jumper and Astrophysicist, yelping along with every twist and keeping up a running commentary on John's flying technique, jumper circuitry, dead crunchy bugs, and--"Aaaugh!"
"Sorry," John told him. "Foot slipped."
He had to dial the gate himself, of course--there was no way Rodney was getting out of there without a crowbar--but John did manage to get everything keyed in and send his IDC.
Just let it hold until we get it through, he thought, and carefully led the jumper on a triumphant, wobbly flight home.
***
The landing in the gateroom wasn't the most beautiful one John had ever performed, and it certainly wasn't the quietest, but they were in, they were safe, and they were . . . stuck.
"Stuck?" John said. "In the connections?"
"No, I mean, not my hands, Ronon's on my--ow. OW."
"If you could stop using my arm as a--" and at some point somebody had braced their foot against John's leg, and then someone else had braced against them, and during that one fishtail he'd had to do somebody's boots had gotten hopelessly wedged between parts of the chair, and John tried to stand up, put his weight on the foot he'd been sitting on which was now asleep and wouldn't hold his weight, toppled over onto Ronon, who did something unpleasant under the panel to Rodney, who twitched and must have caught Teyla in the face, because she made a noise and kicked John in the shin. Again.
John stared at the roof of the puddlejumper as his earpiece crackled to life. "Colonel? Everything okay in there?" Elizabeth.
John managed to get an arm free and tapped his radio. "Um, yeah, everything's fine, Elizabeth. Just, uh, give us a minute or two, okay?" he said, because if the hatch opened there would be pictures, he knew there would be pictures, and they would never in their lives live it down.
"We're fine," he repeated, attempting to free his left leg. "Just a little--" it was futile; he stopped struggling and let his head fall, hard, on the floor "--stuck."