Santa in a Stetson by kho (NC-17)
Jan. 24th, 2011 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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stargateficrecShow: SGA
Rec Category: John Sheppard
Characters:: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Het/Slash/Gen: Slash
Warnings: None
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kho
Author's Website: kHo's Den of Writerdom
Link: Santa in a Stetson
Why This Must Be Read:
I love the songs playing on the jukebox in the bar where John came to rest after his life fell apart. I love the gritty grim reality of John's half-life and how Rodney wakes him up, shakes John out of his depressed acceptance. In the grand tradition of Harlequin romances, I had a lump in my throat at the breakup and a thrill in my heart at the makeup.
The mental picture of John in tight jeans and a Stetson made it even better.
Excerpt:
John Sheppard loves his job. At least, that’s what he tells everyone.
“What’s not to love,” he says when asked, with a lazy smirk. “I get up at two, play some golf, come in at six, and serve alcohol to people who tip me well. Isn’t that everyone’s dream job?”
The Tavern on the Green, which is a kick and a half being that it’s located in the desert, is sixty miles north-northwest of Las Vegas and twenty miles south-southeast of Groom Lake. John gave up a long time ago trying to figure out if the bar did so well being only an hour out from Vegas or being the nearest watering hole for conspiracy-theorists thinking they’re going to sneak into Area 51.
It’s a ramshackle bar, hard worn, the ceiling tiles cracking and the wooden floors coming up at the joins in places. The lights flicker on and off at random intervals with an audible hum. John keeps it clean though, the bathroom stalls and the floor, the bar and the fixtures. He does the best with what he has.
The dry heat of Nevada has a way of making lonely people lonelier and John’s not immune to that, but it also has a way of making people buy a hell of a lot of alcohol. He figures it all washes out in the end when he turns his pockets inside out at the end of the night and always winds up with over $100, even on a Tuesday.
Not that the money stays in his pocket. His rent comes first, his car second, and his gambling habit third. It’s not always that order, but he always means for it to be in that order.
It’s not that he hates his job -- he doesn’t. He just doesn’t love it. It’s not satisfying, it’s not intellectually stimulating, and the company’s not very good.
The music is, though. The jukebox belts out songs by people like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, and Hank Williams Jr., with a little Mississippi Fred MacDowell, RL Burnside, Janis Joplin, and John Lee Hooker thrown in for good measure. It’s the reason John decided to work there. On the nights when he feels like he might go out of his mind with the banality of being the guy that facilitates other people’s drowning of their sorrows, he closes his eyes and lets the music wash over him. Music gets him by better than anything else ever has.
There’s Bob in the corner who always gets three fingers of whiskey served five times over the course of the three hours he’s there. He’s there every day, like clockwork, from seven until ten. He’s got a wife at home, four kids, and a job he hates. He tells John that he’s in love with his secretary, who's fucking his best friend, and that his best friend’s wife and his wife are also best friends.
Steve comes on Tuesdays, gets shitfaced on shooters, and gets shot down by every pretty blonde he hits on.
Todd comes on Wednesdays and Saturdays and fucks guys half his age in the bathroom, sometimes three a night. When he leaves, he leers at John and says, “One day, that’ll be you, son,” and John’s gotten used to the feeling of nausea that passes over him at the thought that one day he’s going hate his life enough that it will be.
Sandra comes in only rarely, and he flirts with her over her martinis and slips her extra olives. He loves the way she sticks her tongue in the hole of the olive and then blushes as she eats the pimento. He thinks it’s endearing that she continues to do it, that she wants him bad enough to mime cocksucking on an olive even though it embarrasses her. It’s not sexy in the slightest bit, but John just likes it all the more for that fact. She’s got a kid who keeps getting locked up in the state prison and a husband who knocks her around. John’s almost positive the only thing that makes her smile is thinking he might fuck her. He thinks he might, too, if she ever actually asked him.
There’s a military contingent that comes in on Thursdays, loud and rowdy and drunk, and familiar in a way that makes John ache for his days in the service. Cadman and Lorne make out in the corner after her fifth vodka tonic and his sixth beer, and Ford blushes and talks to John because Ford’s their ride home. John hates it because it reminds him of all the people he’s lost but he wouldn’t tell Ford to scram for anything. The kid’s too sweet.
“Do you have anything that won’t make me want to kill myself in the morning, but will get me stupid, rip-roaring, forget-my-name-for-the-foreseeable-future drunk?”
John stops wiping the counter down and turns to see the man scowling at him from the other end of the bar. “Well,” John says, tucking the damp rag into his back pocket and walking over to the guy. “Somebody’s had a bad day.”
“Aren’t you fucking observant,” the man grumbles, slamming a twenty onto the bar. “Something potent. Stomach-lining corroding potent."
John rolls his eyes and pulls out his stoutest whiskey, pouring four fingers and sliding it across the bar. “Don’t come in here much anymore, McKay,” he says, smiling and folding his arms across his chest. “You’re my favorite curmudgeon; I was starting to miss you.”
“Yes, well, for a time there I was getting laid regularly, whereas now I am decidedly not because women are the devil with cute asses and pert little breasts designed to suck you in with some sort of weird, fucked up, Pavlovian/Oedipal, knee-jerk response that renders heretofore impossibly intelligent men into weak-kneed, sex-obsessed, blithering idiots.”
Rodney McKay is by far the loudest, rudest, most obnoxious patron John’s had in the past five years that he’s been tending bar in this shithole. He’s also the only person whose tales of woe don’t make John want to shoot himself in the head just so he doesn’t have to listen to them anymore. Not that the tales are less desperate or less depressing, but the way in which Rodney tells them makes John laugh like he hasn’t in years.
...
Rec Category: John Sheppard
Characters:: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Het/Slash/Gen: Slash
Warnings: None
Author on LJ:
khoAuthor's Website: kHo's Den of Writerdom
Link: Santa in a Stetson
Why This Must Be Read:
I love the songs playing on the jukebox in the bar where John came to rest after his life fell apart. I love the gritty grim reality of John's half-life and how Rodney wakes him up, shakes John out of his depressed acceptance. In the grand tradition of Harlequin romances, I had a lump in my throat at the breakup and a thrill in my heart at the makeup.
The mental picture of John in tight jeans and a Stetson made it even better.
Excerpt:
John Sheppard loves his job. At least, that’s what he tells everyone.
“What’s not to love,” he says when asked, with a lazy smirk. “I get up at two, play some golf, come in at six, and serve alcohol to people who tip me well. Isn’t that everyone’s dream job?”
The Tavern on the Green, which is a kick and a half being that it’s located in the desert, is sixty miles north-northwest of Las Vegas and twenty miles south-southeast of Groom Lake. John gave up a long time ago trying to figure out if the bar did so well being only an hour out from Vegas or being the nearest watering hole for conspiracy-theorists thinking they’re going to sneak into Area 51.
It’s a ramshackle bar, hard worn, the ceiling tiles cracking and the wooden floors coming up at the joins in places. The lights flicker on and off at random intervals with an audible hum. John keeps it clean though, the bathroom stalls and the floor, the bar and the fixtures. He does the best with what he has.
The dry heat of Nevada has a way of making lonely people lonelier and John’s not immune to that, but it also has a way of making people buy a hell of a lot of alcohol. He figures it all washes out in the end when he turns his pockets inside out at the end of the night and always winds up with over $100, even on a Tuesday.
Not that the money stays in his pocket. His rent comes first, his car second, and his gambling habit third. It’s not always that order, but he always means for it to be in that order.
It’s not that he hates his job -- he doesn’t. He just doesn’t love it. It’s not satisfying, it’s not intellectually stimulating, and the company’s not very good.
The music is, though. The jukebox belts out songs by people like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, and Hank Williams Jr., with a little Mississippi Fred MacDowell, RL Burnside, Janis Joplin, and John Lee Hooker thrown in for good measure. It’s the reason John decided to work there. On the nights when he feels like he might go out of his mind with the banality of being the guy that facilitates other people’s drowning of their sorrows, he closes his eyes and lets the music wash over him. Music gets him by better than anything else ever has.
There’s Bob in the corner who always gets three fingers of whiskey served five times over the course of the three hours he’s there. He’s there every day, like clockwork, from seven until ten. He’s got a wife at home, four kids, and a job he hates. He tells John that he’s in love with his secretary, who's fucking his best friend, and that his best friend’s wife and his wife are also best friends.
Steve comes on Tuesdays, gets shitfaced on shooters, and gets shot down by every pretty blonde he hits on.
Todd comes on Wednesdays and Saturdays and fucks guys half his age in the bathroom, sometimes three a night. When he leaves, he leers at John and says, “One day, that’ll be you, son,” and John’s gotten used to the feeling of nausea that passes over him at the thought that one day he’s going hate his life enough that it will be.
Sandra comes in only rarely, and he flirts with her over her martinis and slips her extra olives. He loves the way she sticks her tongue in the hole of the olive and then blushes as she eats the pimento. He thinks it’s endearing that she continues to do it, that she wants him bad enough to mime cocksucking on an olive even though it embarrasses her. It’s not sexy in the slightest bit, but John just likes it all the more for that fact. She’s got a kid who keeps getting locked up in the state prison and a husband who knocks her around. John’s almost positive the only thing that makes her smile is thinking he might fuck her. He thinks he might, too, if she ever actually asked him.
There’s a military contingent that comes in on Thursdays, loud and rowdy and drunk, and familiar in a way that makes John ache for his days in the service. Cadman and Lorne make out in the corner after her fifth vodka tonic and his sixth beer, and Ford blushes and talks to John because Ford’s their ride home. John hates it because it reminds him of all the people he’s lost but he wouldn’t tell Ford to scram for anything. The kid’s too sweet.
“Do you have anything that won’t make me want to kill myself in the morning, but will get me stupid, rip-roaring, forget-my-name-for-the-foreseeable-future drunk?”
John stops wiping the counter down and turns to see the man scowling at him from the other end of the bar. “Well,” John says, tucking the damp rag into his back pocket and walking over to the guy. “Somebody’s had a bad day.”
“Aren’t you fucking observant,” the man grumbles, slamming a twenty onto the bar. “Something potent. Stomach-lining corroding potent."
John rolls his eyes and pulls out his stoutest whiskey, pouring four fingers and sliding it across the bar. “Don’t come in here much anymore, McKay,” he says, smiling and folding his arms across his chest. “You’re my favorite curmudgeon; I was starting to miss you.”
“Yes, well, for a time there I was getting laid regularly, whereas now I am decidedly not because women are the devil with cute asses and pert little breasts designed to suck you in with some sort of weird, fucked up, Pavlovian/Oedipal, knee-jerk response that renders heretofore impossibly intelligent men into weak-kneed, sex-obsessed, blithering idiots.”
Rodney McKay is by far the loudest, rudest, most obnoxious patron John’s had in the past five years that he’s been tending bar in this shithole. He’s also the only person whose tales of woe don’t make John want to shoot himself in the head just so he doesn’t have to listen to them anymore. Not that the tales are less desperate or less depressing, but the way in which Rodney tells them makes John laugh like he hasn’t in years.
...
