Stargate Atlantis Ficlet: Priorities
Jun. 3rd, 2019 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Author notes: Written during a boozy Scribblers’ Fangirl Weekend to a randomly assigned fandom and prompt ‘business’. My fifth fic for our 100 Fandoms Challenge. Betaed by HanHathma.
“Thank you,” Zelenka said, taking a wrapped item from a marine and handing another one in return. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
This was a third of such exchanges today and it was driving Rodney to distraction.
It’s not that he didn’t know what the little Czech was doing, of course he did. Just because Rodney didn’t much care for the personal lives of his underlings, didn’t mean he was blind or deaf, and the rumour that Zelenka had a distillery set up on the lower levels of Atlantis wasn’t so much a rumour as a solid, and unofficially sanctioned fact.
It certainly wasn’t that he disapproved. Rodney liked a drink as much as the next guy, and the kind of entrepreneurial spirit his second-in-command was showing was exactly what had set him apart from the countless other applicants to the Atlantis expedition.
However, there was a time and a place. And in their lab, in the middle of what was supposed to be a brainstorming-slash-experimental session on ‘let’s try this and see what blows up’ was. not. it.
So when the fourth person knocked on the doorframe, face lighting up at the sight of Radek, Rodney had had more than enough of it.
“No, no, no,” he said, marching over and physically pushing the guy – one of Carson’s nurses he vaguely recognised – right back into the corridor. “Not today, maybe not even tomorrow, we are closed for business, thank you and goodbye.”
He slammed the door with maybe too much force but right in that moment he didn’t care.
Zelenka, oddly, didn’t seem particularly upset either. He did tilt his head a little, raising an eyebrow.
“Look,” Rodney said, blustering at an explanation even though the other man hadn’t actually asked for one. “I don’t care what you do in your own time, or how many favours you exchange for booze, but this?” He waived a finger at the lab, the two of them, the half-gutted Ancient artefact sitting on the work bench. “This is work time. And I need your focus hundred percent on me.”
Rodney blinked. Radek’s other eyebrow joined its partner, both now practically disappearing into his flyaway hair.
“I mean, our work. The project.” Rodney crossed his arms defensively and turned to stare at the whiteboard, pretending to study the equations and hoping the flush he could feel creeping up his neck wasn’t visible. Even though he knew it would be. And now Zelenka would laugh at him, and never want to work with him again, and also definitely not sell his alcohol to Rodney at a special discount price and then…
“You are right,” Radek’s voice said, close enough that if not for the months of field experience Rodney had been forced to gain, he would’ve jumped right out of his skin. “Our project,” and there was just a slightest emphasis on the word, one that Rodney chose not to examine too closely but one that warmed him anyway, “is far more important and deserves all of my attention. Our attention.”
Rodney bit his lip to stop himself from blurting out anything else, and blinked hard at the numbers in front of him.
The silence stretched on for just a beat too long and then Radek sighed softly, almost disappointed. “Alright,” said finally. “Let’s try the model C again, but this time with a time delay on the third phase.”
Rodney got the distinctive impression that this wasn’t all that Zelanka had wanted to say but that he was at least willing to wait a bit longer to do it. It was a reprieve Rodney could work with, quite literally in fact, and his shoulders relaxed as the conversation turned back to more familiar, and infinitely safer topics.
And if Radek’s eyes kept catching him for a bit longer than necessary over the lab table, or the little smile in the corner of his mouth never quite went away, well then… that was the kind of distraction that Rodney didn’t mind at all.
***
Title: Priorities
Author: kat_lair / Mistress Kat
kat_lair / Mistress KatFandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: McKay/Zelenka
Rating: PG
Word count: 669
Disclaimer: Not mine, only playing
Summary: “Look,” Rodney said, blustering at an explanation even though the other man hadn’t actually asked for one. “I don’t care what you do in your own time, or how many favours you exchange for booze, but this?” He waived a finger at the lab, the two of them, the half-gutted Ancient artefact sitting on the work bench. “This is work time. And I need your focus hundred percent on me.”
Author notes: Written during a boozy Scribblers’ Fangirl Weekend to a randomly assigned fandom and prompt ‘business’. My fifth fic for our 100 Fandoms Challenge. Betaed by HanHathma.
“Thank you,” Zelenka said, taking a wrapped item from a marine and handing another one in return. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
This was a third of such exchanges today and it was driving Rodney to distraction.
It’s not that he didn’t know what the little Czech was doing, of course he did. Just because Rodney didn’t much care for the personal lives of his underlings, didn’t mean he was blind or deaf, and the rumour that Zelenka had a distillery set up on the lower levels of Atlantis wasn’t so much a rumour as a solid, and unofficially sanctioned fact.
It certainly wasn’t that he disapproved. Rodney liked a drink as much as the next guy, and the kind of entrepreneurial spirit his second-in-command was showing was exactly what had set him apart from the countless other applicants to the Atlantis expedition.
However, there was a time and a place. And in their lab, in the middle of what was supposed to be a brainstorming-slash-experimental session on ‘let’s try this and see what blows up’ was. not. it.
So when the fourth person knocked on the doorframe, face lighting up at the sight of Radek, Rodney had had more than enough of it.
“No, no, no,” he said, marching over and physically pushing the guy – one of Carson’s nurses he vaguely recognised – right back into the corridor. “Not today, maybe not even tomorrow, we are closed for business, thank you and goodbye.”
He slammed the door with maybe too much force but right in that moment he didn’t care.
Zelenka, oddly, didn’t seem particularly upset either. He did tilt his head a little, raising an eyebrow.
“Look,” Rodney said, blustering at an explanation even though the other man hadn’t actually asked for one. “I don’t care what you do in your own time, or how many favours you exchange for booze, but this?” He waived a finger at the lab, the two of them, the half-gutted Ancient artefact sitting on the work bench. “This is work time. And I need your focus hundred percent on me.”
Rodney blinked. Radek’s other eyebrow joined its partner, both now practically disappearing into his flyaway hair.
“I mean, our work. The project.” Rodney crossed his arms defensively and turned to stare at the whiteboard, pretending to study the equations and hoping the flush he could feel creeping up his neck wasn’t visible. Even though he knew it would be. And now Zelenka would laugh at him, and never want to work with him again, and also definitely not sell his alcohol to Rodney at a special discount price and then…
“You are right,” Radek’s voice said, close enough that if not for the months of field experience Rodney had been forced to gain, he would’ve jumped right out of his skin. “Our project,” and there was just a slightest emphasis on the word, one that Rodney chose not to examine too closely but one that warmed him anyway, “is far more important and deserves all of my attention. Our attention.”
Rodney bit his lip to stop himself from blurting out anything else, and blinked hard at the numbers in front of him.
The silence stretched on for just a beat too long and then Radek sighed softly, almost disappointed. “Alright,” said finally. “Let’s try the model C again, but this time with a time delay on the third phase.”
Rodney got the distinctive impression that this wasn’t all that Zelanka had wanted to say but that he was at least willing to wait a bit longer to do it. It was a reprieve Rodney could work with, quite literally in fact, and his shoulders relaxed as the conversation turned back to more familiar, and infinitely safer topics.
And if Radek’s eyes kept catching him for a bit longer than necessary over the lab table, or the little smile in the corner of his mouth never quite went away, well then… that was the kind of distraction that Rodney didn’t mind at all.
***