Growing Old Gracelessly

Sheppard's hair goes silver it seems like overnight, and it leads to any amount of teasing (although at this point, what wouldn't?) but Rodney suspects it's less about discrete dye jobs and more like some kind of release. The admission that there aren't missions like there used to be, the acceptance of the fact that 'promotion' looks suspiciously like 'desk job', the recognition that you get to a certain age and joints start bitching loudly when you're trying to flee from the spear-wielding natives. With Rodney it's more gradual and less unexpected - the slow creeping retreat of his hairline, gentle expansion of his waist, a reduction of speed in the flailing hand movements ('though the tongue stays just as quick, just as sharp.)

He supposes that he's accepting it with equanimity, which makes it kind of a shock when Sheppard's birthday present stings, a little. He takes it with good grace, though, sarcastic comments tripping off his tongue easily enough as he places the fedora dead center on his head. Sheppard reaches over to tip it to a rakish angle, carefully suppressed laughter in his eyes as the tips of his fingers ruffle through what's left of Rodney's hair.

The next year, it's a floppy hat like the Doctor's, and he takes it better this time. It's kind of fun to lull the new recruits into a false sense of security, wandering around the lab in white coat and ridiculous head gear and looking like nothing so much as an absent-minded and benevolent professor - until they screw up. Then all hell breaks loose and he relishes the fear in their eyes, looking up sometimes to catch Sheppard watching him from the doorway with some strange mutation of his usual smirk on his lips.

The third year, the replica of Magneto's helmet (and god, Magneto), he finally gets it. Finally works out what it is that Sheppard's saying. About age, and acceptance, and about the fact that they've got to a point now where they can look as ridiculous as they damned well please without anyone saying the first thing about it.

(And when the door to his quarters hisses open that night age means nothing - he feels like a teenager again.)

Next time his birthday comes around he's comfortable enough with it all just to beat John around the head with the Homer Simpson mask until they're both laughing helplessly, gracelessly, thighs pressed against each other under the table.


***




I don't know what it is about this fandom, but I totally delight in the unromantic. More than usual, I mean. No idea what prompted this, actually, but it's kind of nice to write something again, no matter how small. :D

(I so need a McShep icon.)

(no subject)

I forgot that I was allowed to come in half an hour later today, and have been rewarded for my mistake with the sight of a man chasing a duck with a net.

Today's a good day, I think. :D

The rise of nomance

I referred to the ficlet I wrote this morning as 'unromantic' and I've had a bunch of people protesting that designation so I thought I'd clarify since, as is so very often the case with me, I didn't say quite exactly what I meant.

The word 'romance' is a problem for me. I associate it in my head with hearts, flowers, boxes of chocolates, all things which are to me the very antithesis of - well, what I would think of as romantic. Only not. Since I don't use that word. They're traditional, they're clichéd, they require absolutely no thought whatsoever and are therefore about as loving as being nice to someone only on Valentines Day.

I've mentioned before that my idea of the perfect valentines gift is a banana covered in biro'd poetry, but the truth of it is that it would be anything that was aimed specifically at me. Something that someone had taken time to think about rather than just throwing money at it as some sort of trade-off.

There are bands that write about my idea of love (romance); people like the Magnetic Fields, Badly Drawn Boy, the Weakerthans. What my mate would refer to as 'indie bedwetters'. Simplistic songs, references to talking all night, wearing each others' footwear, taping happy notes to heavy machinery.

The same thing applies to fic, see. When I read fics in which John and Rodney declare their undying love in front of the gate techs... well, I say 'read' but I should more accurately say 'come across' because at the first hint of it I'm clicking frantically at the back button. It doesn't work for them, it's not true to the characters (in my opinion), and it doesn't indicate any real thought that's been put into it. Fics about John spending hours at a time teaching Rodney to fire a gun, thwapping him around the back of the head and mocking him and never saying a single thing even remotely involved with feelings? That's way more like it. It's all about the context.

(Needless to say if you can write them declaring their undying love in front of the gate techs and make me believe it, you will have my everlasting respect and awe.)

So it's not so much the idea of romance I protest as the connotations I attach to the word.

Bitching, snarking, receding hairlines, practical jokes, getting old together with ceaseless mocking all the way, that's what I want from romance. (Only not.)

Thankfully, SG:A is absolutely full of it. :D


(ETA: this entry is not showing up on my f-list, so if I get no comments I choose to believe no one read it, rather than the fact that people are all facepalming at me and saying 'well duh'. :D?)