Work Text:
From: "Me" <griffith.bn@cheyenne.af.mil>
To: "Him" <griffith.st@cheyenne.af.mil>
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Subject: #847, In Which Our Hero Encounters Temporary Setbacks
So after the first few weeks of what the fucking fuck, it's turning out pretty okay. Yes, I really did just walk into Major Lorne's office to report and walked out with a team. He was largely just a little impatient with my temporary discomfort because really, I'm supposed to be capable or they wouldn't have sent me. But really, it's alright.
Well, okay, Pegasus? Has no sense of proportion. None. Oh no, at home you had your rival System Lords and your little mafia rackets and what-not and it was all very disorganized and people may reminisce fondly about the times when Earth was threatened with total annihilation, but those days are mostly gone now.
On the other hand, Pegasus totally does have soulkilling vampires out to wipe out entire populations*, and if my current understanding of the political situation is correct, they're actually on our side for the next foreseeable twenty-four hours**.
*Not really; they leave breeding stock. Which is in my opinion worse.
**Probably considerably longer than twenty-four hours
But that is not my purview (come out here! It's right up your alley. I'm sure they'd stick you with Dr. Jackson, who spends most of his time with the Wraith/Human hybrids as part of his never-ending quest to convince them that Humans Are Friends, Not Food. You'd love it.) so they've stuck me actually doing chemical engineering which would be so much easier if I knew the first damn thing about trinium (do. not. get me started on naquadah. I am daily thankful that naquaadriah, being the aberrant freak of nature it is, no really, isn't an issue out here). That in between everything else I'm trying to do here.
Der team is still Der Team; Collins is the man of my dreams and our love, alas, is hindered because stunning administrative genius cannot overcome the fact that he looks like a horse and he would obviously be overpowered by my stunning charm; but whatever, I'm pretty sure that between the two of them, he and Ng could build a Stargate out of a pack of Juicy Fruit and fifty paperclips, and possibly keep a stick left over. (What do I want for Christmas? Gum, and a lot of it. It's that or take up smoking, I swear, and you can keep your damn mouth shut).
But how neglectful I am being! I am fairly certain the gibberish you sent me contains a few words which can be strung together to form language, and it might behoove me to reply. Anyway, yes, thank you for including me in Aunt Cindy's flowers, and if the universe does not start cutting her a break shortly I'll have to come out there and make it.
Uncle Carter actually does still owe me $20, and if you want to stick to facts he owes Aunt Cindy $20 too because Uncle Ash was in on me with that bet. If you manage to collect from him, buy beer and send it to me, because Pegasus is more good with the imminent threat of death and less good with the alcohol that does not taste like piss or corn syrup.
So anyway, now it's two days later, because I took a break in devising my missive and then had to go perform actual work, which is oddly strangely preferable to huddling in the city murmuring, "Oh God, please don't let us die." Especially because then you get fights about the efficacy of prayer because as we all know, there are atheists in foxholes. They're just angrier, more uptight atheists than usual.
But anyway, today I went out with Der Team on a tromp-and-poke mission, the mainstay of our trade; galaxies may rise and fall but until then you might find something neat on the next unexplored planet.
Since the mission previous had been to a hot and humid jungle full of impassable foliage that did not give way but did yield a spider the size of my hand which we could not remove from Johnson's pants, (yes you're welcome for the mental image) we were glad to discover that this planet landscaped; the area around the Stargate had lovingly trimmed green grass with a path leading to and from it (flagstone, except obsidian; I must say, quite lovely). What trees there were were enormous and silver with purple flowers, and there were a few tall standing stones which Ng said had some sort of greeting on them, but if we wanted to know more than that we'd have to give him two hours alone with his Ancient-to-English dictionary.
However, Ng is not the kind of man who needs alone time with his Ancient-to-English dictionary, nor desires it overmuch, so we go on our merry way down the path; until down we go to stand on the edge of a ravine, or rather, a valley of waterfalls and sunshine, and happy trout leaping upstream, and six women of comely proportion bathing in an eddy in the river some thirty feet beneath us, or lounging on the banks and combing each other's silken tresses, no really, Pegasus has no sense of proportion.
Further on down the valley (the path goes down the ravine-side in a switchback, then crosses the river on a bridge of Ancient construction) is a little cluster of buildings. We park our asses in a secure location to check things out, while Ng pulls out his camera and goes over the welcome inscription from before. I need not even ask to know that all of them think we should go down directly and make friends.
The general horniness of Atlantis's population cannot be truly overstated, since rather than sex being some hazy far-off when-they-send-me-home prospect, the city indeed has a limited number of civilian women with whom relationships are possible, merely improbable. Indeed, the reason Trudie and I keep our thing mostly under wraps is because general consensus will probably be that I am a jumped-up interloper who has yet to serve his time or "earn" a chance, rather as though she should keep a dance-card for fuckbuddies and arrange them by birthdate, rank, and time served, and I got unfairly lucky, rather than some happy accident of prior acquaintance, and the attractiveness of my own intellect, character, and physique to her tastes. There is also the fact that I somewhat suspect her to be using me merely for my stockpile of chocolate peanut butter cups, and will leave me for the charms of a Jumper pilot the moment the same is depleted. (Please send more) These men have yet to realize that their own lack of effort in cultivating an attractive presentation and affect is their own worst enemy, and not yours truly. It distresses me, dear reader, that some people are entirely insensitive to just how much work goes into making this look good.
There is also the fact that to sleep with one woman of Atlantis is, in effect, to sleep with them all; not in a good way, but in the fact that within the inner sanctum of ladies' poker night they share everything. You will not know they know until you are out in the field with the city's best and brightest and pull some move that is unspeakably stupid, and Colonel Sheppard will not say so, merely look at you with his eyebrows slightly raised, and his alien advisor will turn to him and say, "Colonel, I have heard that men of your culture may feel the need to overcompensate for their physical attributes through impulsive behaviour. Would Private Sommers be an example of this?" and he will merely shrug and say, "Well, Teyla, I don't think I know." She will raise her eyebrows and say, "Is (a number redacted to protect the innocent) an adequate size for your people?" and I was not there at the time but apparently Major Lorne completely lost it (no report on Colonel Sheppard's reply) and it took six of us to coax Sommers out of hiding again the next day, since apparently he'd had a thing for her, and it didn't really work until Trudie showed up and told him Teyla didn't really mean it since I think the women figured he's still only seventeen, even if he is a mathematical genius.
But anyway, Der Team is all looking at me with something between hope and alarm and in a perfect world, this is where I would say, "Of course, Gunnery Sergeant Johnson! Surely the are friendly folk who mean us no harm. Let us go down, then, and frolic in their garden of pleasure and delight. Ever after, there shall be peace between their people and ours."
Back in the real world, if these women have any designs on our persons at all, they will probably be probably planning to render us unconscious by any means necessary and tie our bodies to those really big rocks we saw, as sacrificial offerings to the Wraith.
It happens.
So anyway, our actual plan of action included going down the switchback in a way that made us audible and visible, because if this planet has one of those nudity taboos where they won't let us leave until they've blinded us I am never going to hear the last of it when Lorne's team saves our asses.
So down the switchback we go, which is as you surely know a pretty good tactic in most situations, stealth being often woefully misinterpreted. We get about twenty feet across the bridge, onto a raised path in brush where the bushes are about ten feet tall (still silver) when one of the girls from the riverbank comes out of nowhere and surprises the shit out of Johnson, who fortunately does not shoot her. She's dressed, though the cloth covering her hair is about to fall off. "You must turn back," she says.
There is a certain amount of delicacy in these procedures. May I be the last man to ignore obvious warning signs like "turn back here," "caution: poisonous," and "Aunt Sassy is sleeping" but it looks bad on the mission report not to be a little bit curious, so I say, "Why?"
First two guesses don't count. Of course she says, "They will kill you."
This is a traditional dance; I reply with "Who will kill me?" which is when an angry-looking armed man appears before us on the path. I am not expecting (well, I am, but not as much as I should be) her to pull out a little goddamned crossbow, say, "I told you to leave!" and aim it at my groin. Naturally my self-preservation instincts are more than sufficient to knock her hand out of the way, but not before she pulls the trigger.
I will pause here, and allow you to consider with growing horror the seriousness of the situation.
(Feeling it? How about now?)
So then she reloads absurdly fast and points the crossbow at Collins, who is holding me up and may possibly shift my position a little so that he is slightly more behind me, the fucker, and says, "You will leave now."
(Yes, she moved in time. Quadricep. Missed any important arteries. Damn thing was barbed, though)
We could stand our ground and fight, but 1. why? 2. the man behind her has rather more advanced weaponry. 3. leave while you can, man. There are more fish in the sea than this galaxy. #4 does not exist because I am dealing with my wound in a manly fashion and clearly my desire to be tended to and stop bleeding like a stuck pig and also get the arrow out (no, seriously, barbed) will not interfere with mission objectives, but seeing as I am incapacitated Collins just tells Johnson to put me in a buddy carry and book it back to the Gate and I am together enough to say that sounds like a marvellous idea.
The man with the blaster escorts us at about thirty feet of distance, rather like a sheepdog.
I shall spare you the tedious details (shut up, all of my details are fascinating). Dr. Keller looked unimpressed when I came in; I was probably the sixth person that week to darken her doorway by bleeding all over it and she briefly looked deeply tempted to remove the arrow without the benefit of anaesthesia; I am sure she is a well-trained&competent&c but right now I think this is all a bit much for her.
But end result, they removed it in surgery; I awoke to find Der Team had deserted my bedside utterly for a sketchy kind of mma tournament which I missed, due to being the proud possessor of a Grevious Manly Wound. On being informed of my waking, Trudie appeared bearing caramel popcorn to comfort me in my hour of need, and the nurses made sure I got Dr. Keller's prescription of various and sundry painkillers which I do not know but were impressive enough to overcome even our substantial metabolisms, so while I can feel the muscle being a bit weird the pain is basically absent.
I remain here to languish; when I report for duty Monday morning I will be assisting Major Lorne in various and sundry tactical and strategic matters, and am told to be grateful it's him and not Sheppard. Unless my wound putrifies and the evil space robots decide to leave us alone, I won't get out of here early as Atlantis's infirmary is perfectly capable, and they also apparently love me for my brain and not my body though if I am incapacitated too long they are threatening to ATA me, which I am resisting for reasons that are only mostly sentimental.
I am now reminded that Stephie has of late communicated to me that she has not seen you in church once since my departure, which would be a tragic thing indeed but surely you are just going to different services or something equally reassuring. You know how I hate to nag.
Chocolate. Beer. Gum. Come on over. Let me know how Cindy's doing.
Take care of yourself.
--Skipper