[Stargate: Fiction] "Dreamspinner" [John/Rodney, G]
Title: Dreamspinner
Author: Ami Ven
Word Count: 3,073
Rating: G
Prompt: from melagan many moons ago, no idea where the original post is…
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Setting: vaguely early 1900s AU
Summary: Rodney sells Dreams, John has a crushed Dream to trade in for something better.
Dreamspinner
Rodney McKay sold Dreams.
Not the flashy but easily-breakable Dreams sold by other shops - no, his Dreams were always hand-crafted and durably solid, as long as a customer was willing to put in the work they required. Unlike the other Dreamspinners, Rodney’s Dreams were always achievable. It didn’t matter that they were often smaller or less brightly-colored, less appealing to the eager little faces that pressed their noses to his shop window, no McKay-made Dream had ever been turned back in, let alone smashed into a thousand pieces like the ones he took in trade. Most of those weren’t even fixable - he usually had to Spin them down to their base components and begin all over again.
Like he’d done with the one he’d just been traded, the tiny slivers of a Dream to be a glamorous movie star, handed in by a young woman with terrible stage fright who now wanted to be a film director instead. Rodney set the pieces on his work bench, then pulled over his magnifying glass and picked up his tweezers. There were plenty of people who did become movie stars, so there was a reasonable amount of realism to work with, but the glitz-and-glamour would need to be repurposed…
Some part of Rodney’s brain recognized the sound of the shop doorbell from the distant front room, but it didn’t fully register until a voice called, “Hello?”
“Just a moment!” Rodney called back, trying not to sound snappish.
He hated being interrupted while he was working, but he also hadn’t found anyone he could put up with long enough to keep around as an assistant. Rodney meant to get up and help whoever had just come in, but there were delicate components to put away on his work bench, then a new idea to jot down in his battered notebook, then a few stray fragments of Dreams to clear up.
When the shop bell rang again, Rodney scrambled to his feet, sure he would find the room empty and his potential customer gone.
They weren’t.
A dark-haired man held the door open with his hip, using a long-handled broom to sweep dust out onto the street. “Oh, hey,” the man said, smiling, “I hope you don’t mind, but I always hate standing around with nothing to do.”
“I-” Rodney began, completely de-railed. “Yes, no, of course. I, um, can I help you?”
“I’ve got a trade,” he said. He let the door close, the bell tinkling again, and gestured to the counter, where Rodney could see a drab-colored bag sitting. “I heard you were the man to see about it.”
“I am the best Dreamspinner in all of Lantea,” said Rodney. “Let’s see what you have.”
There was a section of counter with a raised edge, to keep any pieces from falling off when he examined them, and Rodney upended the bag onto it.
Usually, pieces of broken Dreams were vaguely the size of spare change, some larger and some smaller, with a scattering of tinier debris. The longer a Dream was held or the more solid it was when it was broken, the more it would result in small pieces rather than large shards. But this Dream…
It was as if Rodney had poured out a pile of sand or glitter, the pieces almost too small to be distinguished from each other. Rodney poked carefully at the Dream with a small stylus he kept handy, revealing a few dime-sized pieces, blue with swirly white.
“The sky?” Rodney asked, looking up.
The man had set the broom back into the corner where, presumably, he’d found it, then picked up a medical-issue cane that Rodney hadn’t noticed and limped over to the counter. “I’m a pilot,” he said, then his expression fell. “Was. The doctors tried everything they could, but…”
Rodney stared at him for a long moment, then glanced down at the Dream dust.
He had never been traded a realized Dream before.
Once a Dream was realized, it could change on its own, shifting to suit the Dreamer’s needs through their life until it became a Memory. Many people did realize their Dreams, but those who discovered that what they had wasn’t actually what they wanted usually traded theirs back in, still whole, for something new.
Rodney had never even heard of a Dream as badly shattered as this one.
“Well?” the man prompted.
“I can take it in trade, yes,” said Rodney, mustering his best customer-service smile. “Did you have something in mind?”
The man rubbed at the back of his neck, then winced at the motion. “No, I - No.”
“Take a look around,” Rodney suggested.
“Sure,” the man agreed, without much enthusiasm, and limped across the room toward the large display shelves.
Rodney ducked back into his workshop to retrieve an empty bottle and a small brush, and began carefully collecting the tiny Dream pieces. Broken realized Dreams were a very rare commodity, and he would have to come up with something very, very special to create with this one. He sealed the jar, scrawled realized dream, pilot on the tag, then looked up to see its original owner carefully rotating a sturdy-looking Dream on a middle shelf.
He blinked. “You want to be an orthodontist?”
“What?” The man frowned at the Dream, as though only just seeing it. “No, definitely not. Um, no offence. I’m sure it’s a very… well-made Dream.”
“It is,” said Rodney, smugly, then, “You’re sure there’s nothing else that catches your eye?”
He shook his head. “I don’t… I don’t think I can start all over. I can’t go back to school, but I don’t want something… easy.”
“Okay,” said Rodney. “I don’t make ‘easy’ Dreams, anyway. Hmm, something engaging then, something… Have you ever thought about modeling?”
“Are you kidding?” the guy demanded, suddenly scowling. “You really think I’m up for walking around and looking pretty?”
“Maybe not the walking,” Rodney allowed. “But even with that hair… photography, maybe?”
“What about my hair?” he said, but there was a smile tugging at his lips.
“We’ll steer away from the arts, then,” said Rodney. “Look, um… Is there something I can call you?”
“Sheppard,” the man supplied. “And you’re McKay?”
“That’s what the sign outside says,” Rodney said. “Look, Sheppard, with what you’re trading in, I can spin you a custom-made Dream, if that’s what you’re interested in. What type of Dream were you looking for?”
“I… I don’t know.” Sheppard gripped the handle of his cane so hard that his knuckles turned white. “I only ever wanted to fly. I… I honestly thought I was going to die doing it. I never needed to think about anything else.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “Okay, I, um… Let me get some charts, we can…”
He turned toward the register, where he usually tossed the brightly-colored flow charts he kept for helping particularly indecisive children choose their Dreams. Then, he frowned - the laminated pages were all nearly arranged in the little metal rack where he never bothered to put them back, grouped by color in rainbow order.
“Did you do this?”
“Sorry,” said Sheppard. “I told you, I don’t like feeling useless.”
Rodney stared at him, long enough that the former pilot started shifting warily, then he said, “You’re hired.”
Sheppard frowned. “What makes you think I need a job?”
“Do you?” Rodney replied, bluntly.
“How do you know I can do the job?”
“Because you did about eighty percent of it just now. And I assume that if you’re smart enough to fly planes or whatever, you’d be able to operate a register and order supplies.”
“I could probably manage,” drawled Sheppard. “Is that your only requirement?”
Rodney sighed. “The only real problem I’ve had finding or keeping an assistant is that none of them seem able to put up with me for very long. I’m petty and bad with people and I often insult people without meaning to. And you’re still smiling at me.”
He was, and Sheppard didn’t try to hide it. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Okay, I’ll take it. Do you pay well?”
“Of course!” said Rodney. “I have a highly accurate algorithm to help me calculate a very competitive wage. What’s your current rent?”
“Oh, um,” said Sheppard. “I haven’t found a place here yet, I’ve been staying at the hostel nearby. You know any cheap apartments available around here?”
Rodney knew of only one place. “Would you mind a roommate?” he asked. “Can you manage stairs?”
“I’m a pretty easy guy to get along with,” said Sheppard. “And I can do one flight of steps, maybe two on a good day.”
“There’s only one flight, if you’re interested. The apartment above the shop here is a two bedroom, and I don’t need that much space all to myself.”
Sheppard glanced up. “You live by yourself, then?”
“Yes, yes, all alone,” said Rodney. “I’ve never really found time for other - But, of course, if you don’t want to, I could help you find -”
“No, that sounds perfect,” Sheppard interrupted, then smiled again. “John.”
Rodney blinked, confused, and his new roommate laughed - not mocking, but like he really thought Rodney was fun.
“That’s my first name,” Sheppard said. “John. I figure if you’re asking me to move in with you, you should probably know that, at least. Right, McKay?”
“Oh,” he said. “Oh! Yes, right, I’m Rodney.”
“Rodney,” repeated Sheppard - John - in a low drawl, and all Rodney could think was that when this assistant finally got fed up and quit, he’d actually be sorry to see him go.
*
To Rodney’s amazement, John didn’t leave.
He had started by giving the shop a thorough cleaning - Rodney had sheepishly admitted that the room hadn’t been swept or dusted since his last assistant quit several months earlier - and John ended each day by wiping down the counters, even when they were already clean. He went through the entire storeroom, calling back questions like How often do you use this? or How much of that comes in a box? and Rodney hadn’t run out of anything since. Rodney had made a few, probably tactless, comments about whether John should be lifting heavy boxes, crippled like he was, but the former pilot was never offended. He just laughed and promised that he wouldn’t overdo it.
John was a natural salesman, too. He won over the children instantly, able to lead even the most indecisive to choose a Dream. He charmed all the parents, able to convince even the most practical that whatever Dream their kid had picked was exactly right. And the retirees, usually so set in their ideas of a second-chance Dream before they set foot in his shop, listened intently to his suggestions.
Rodney suddenly found himself with much more time in his workshop - even with John’s frequent questions, because he only needed to be aware enough to answer correctly and didn’t have to worry about being polite about it. He thought he was done with customer service altogether, until John tugged him out into the shop to discuss the construction of one of his Dreams.
Normally, Rodney avoided that - either the customer knew nothing about Dreamspinning and his explanations were meaningless, or they thought they did know and tried to tell him how to do his job, and neither of those went over very well. But John had a way of guiding the conversation so that Rodney seemed friendly and personable, and highlighted his genius. That alone would have been enough to make him keep John on as his assistant, even if he’d been a terrible roommate.
Which, of course, he wasn’t.
Rodney generally kept things clean out of necessity, his allergies making him more susceptible to dust and germs. John seemed to do it out of habit, probably the same military training that had him awake, coffee made and reading the newspaper, by the time Rodney stumbled into the kitchen. John had taken over preparing their supper, too, on the condition that Rodney wash the dishes, which he gladly accepted - the former pilot was an excellent cook.
Sometimes, though, Rodney found himself staring at the glass jar still holding the dust of John’s flying Dream. John still hadn’t asked him to Spin a new Dream, but Rodney knew it was only a matter of time. They closed the shop for an extra hour at lunch every Wednesday so that John could go for his physical therapy appointments, and he seemed to be getting stronger by the week. Not better enough to fly, but more than enough for something more exciting than… than this.
But it was still something of a surprise when it happened at breakfast one morning no different than any other morning.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” John said, folding up the paper and setting it aside.
“Sure,” said Rodney, with a fortifying swallow of coffee. “Okay.”
“Okay,” John repeated. “Well, I’m almost finished my PT, and it’s going better than the doctors originally thought. Working here, I’ve been able to keep moving but sit when I need to, and work my way up to lifting more weight, so… you’ve been a really big help, Rodney. Thanks.”
“Um, you’re welcome,” said Rodney.
John smiled. “So,” he said, “I didn’t want to say anything before I was up to it, but I’ve been thinking… we should rearrange the shop show room.”
Rodney blinked. “That’s it?”
“It’s gonna be a pretty big job,” he said, frowning. “We’re going to have to move all the display cases, there might be repairs that need to-”
John broke off, frown deepening. “Wait. You’ve been acting weird for a while now. You thought I was going to leave.”
“I-” Rodney began. “It was a distinct possibility.”
“Do you want me to leave?” John asked.
The Dreamspinner hesitated. “I don’t want to make you stay.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No,” said Rodney. “I don’t want you to leave.”
John grinned. “Then, I’ll stay.”
Rodney started to smile back, but there was still one more thing he needed to know. “Have you thought about your new Dream?”
John’s expression softened. “Yeah,” he said. “Nothing fancy. Just a good, honest life. A shopkeeper, maybe. With a little apartment above the store, and a cranky genius for a boss. Think you can whip me up something like that, buddy?”
“Yeah,” Rodney echoed. “Of course I can. Like you said, I’m a genius.”
“Yes, you are,” John agreed. He drank the last of his coffee and stood, his cane nowhere in sight. “Well, time to open the store.”
Rodney sat at the table, his own coffee cooling in front of him, as he listened to John walk, slow but steady, down the stairs and out into the shop. When he heard the jingle of the front door bell, he got up and hurried to his workshop.
The glass jar of John’s shattered Dream was still sitting on the shelf above his work table, but now its glittering seemed more hopeful. Rodney took it down, then paused.
A Dream as badly broken as this couldn’t be re-Spun without adding something else. But what did he have that could possibly be good enough for John’s new Dream?
High on a shelf, he knew, way at the very back, sat another, unremarkable glass jar. It had been years since Rodney had even looked at it, but from the moment he picked it up, he knew it was exactly what he needed.
Grinning broadly, he set to work.
*
It was fully dark outside when John rapped lightly on the workshop door, startling Rodney awake.
“What!?” he said, shooting upright in his chair, then slumped again. “Oh, it’s you.”
“And earlier, you said you wanted me to stay,” John drawled, teasing.
“I do!” Rodney said. “I just - I didn’t want anyone else to see this before you did.”
“Me? See what?”
Rodney pushed his chair back from the desk, letting John see the object sitting there.
It was a Dream, probably the most beautiful one Rodney had ever Spun. John reached a hand out toward it, then stopped. “Is this… Did you make this out of my Dream?”
“Yes,” said Rodney. “Well, mostly. But, yes, this is your Dream. A new one.”
“A new…” said John. “I only just said something at breakfast. I thought you could use a side project, I didn’t expect you to finish it today!”
“You will never be a side project, John Sheppard,” Rodney told him.
John grinned, then reached out to brush delicate fingers against the surface of the Dream. “Rodney,” he said. “This is… it’s beautiful.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course! It’s… Wait, you said ‘mostly’, right? What else did you put in here?”
“Oh,” said Rodney. He took a deep breath and pushed an empty glass jar into view. “Um, this.”
The jar was still dusty in places and the faded paper label said, in a child’s deliberate scrawl, my dream, abandoned.
John drew in a shaky breath. “Rodney, is that…?”
“Mine?” the Dreamspinner finished. “Yes, it was. I wanted to be a scientist. But then Dad died and Mom got sick and my little sister, Jeannie… Well, I did have some natural talent, and this shop was the only place that would hire a fifteen-year-old. And I don’t regret my choices. I like my life. I like who I am.”
John caught his hand, gently. “I like who you are, too. But I only traded in my Dream. Doesn’t seem fair.”
“It is,” Rodney insisted, but John shook his head. He rested his free hand on the Dream and closed his eyes.
It changed.
Rodney had never seen anything like it - no one was supposed to be able to alter their own dreams, even trained Dreamspinners had trouble working once a Dream had begun to set.
But there it was, no longer the vague future of happiness that Rodney created, but now a solid vision. Inside, it was a life, John working and laughing and loving-”
“Me?” Rodney squeaked. “I find out you can change dreams and what you want is me!?”
“Yeah,” said John. His ears had gone pink, but his gaze was steady. “You interested?”
“Am I…” Rodney repeated. “Are you insane? No, of course you are. Of course I’m… c’mere, you idiot, and kiss me!”
Laughing, John did just that - and neither of them saw the moment their Dream crystalized into reality.
THE END
Current Mood:
working
Author: Ami Ven
Word Count: 3,073
Rating: G
Prompt: from melagan many moons ago, no idea where the original post is…
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Setting: vaguely early 1900s AU
Summary: Rodney sells Dreams, John has a crushed Dream to trade in for something better.
Dreamspinner
Rodney McKay sold Dreams.
Not the flashy but easily-breakable Dreams sold by other shops - no, his Dreams were always hand-crafted and durably solid, as long as a customer was willing to put in the work they required. Unlike the other Dreamspinners, Rodney’s Dreams were always achievable. It didn’t matter that they were often smaller or less brightly-colored, less appealing to the eager little faces that pressed their noses to his shop window, no McKay-made Dream had ever been turned back in, let alone smashed into a thousand pieces like the ones he took in trade. Most of those weren’t even fixable - he usually had to Spin them down to their base components and begin all over again.
Like he’d done with the one he’d just been traded, the tiny slivers of a Dream to be a glamorous movie star, handed in by a young woman with terrible stage fright who now wanted to be a film director instead. Rodney set the pieces on his work bench, then pulled over his magnifying glass and picked up his tweezers. There were plenty of people who did become movie stars, so there was a reasonable amount of realism to work with, but the glitz-and-glamour would need to be repurposed…
Some part of Rodney’s brain recognized the sound of the shop doorbell from the distant front room, but it didn’t fully register until a voice called, “Hello?”
“Just a moment!” Rodney called back, trying not to sound snappish.
He hated being interrupted while he was working, but he also hadn’t found anyone he could put up with long enough to keep around as an assistant. Rodney meant to get up and help whoever had just come in, but there were delicate components to put away on his work bench, then a new idea to jot down in his battered notebook, then a few stray fragments of Dreams to clear up.
When the shop bell rang again, Rodney scrambled to his feet, sure he would find the room empty and his potential customer gone.
They weren’t.
A dark-haired man held the door open with his hip, using a long-handled broom to sweep dust out onto the street. “Oh, hey,” the man said, smiling, “I hope you don’t mind, but I always hate standing around with nothing to do.”
“I-” Rodney began, completely de-railed. “Yes, no, of course. I, um, can I help you?”
“I’ve got a trade,” he said. He let the door close, the bell tinkling again, and gestured to the counter, where Rodney could see a drab-colored bag sitting. “I heard you were the man to see about it.”
“I am the best Dreamspinner in all of Lantea,” said Rodney. “Let’s see what you have.”
There was a section of counter with a raised edge, to keep any pieces from falling off when he examined them, and Rodney upended the bag onto it.
Usually, pieces of broken Dreams were vaguely the size of spare change, some larger and some smaller, with a scattering of tinier debris. The longer a Dream was held or the more solid it was when it was broken, the more it would result in small pieces rather than large shards. But this Dream…
It was as if Rodney had poured out a pile of sand or glitter, the pieces almost too small to be distinguished from each other. Rodney poked carefully at the Dream with a small stylus he kept handy, revealing a few dime-sized pieces, blue with swirly white.
“The sky?” Rodney asked, looking up.
The man had set the broom back into the corner where, presumably, he’d found it, then picked up a medical-issue cane that Rodney hadn’t noticed and limped over to the counter. “I’m a pilot,” he said, then his expression fell. “Was. The doctors tried everything they could, but…”
Rodney stared at him for a long moment, then glanced down at the Dream dust.
He had never been traded a realized Dream before.
Once a Dream was realized, it could change on its own, shifting to suit the Dreamer’s needs through their life until it became a Memory. Many people did realize their Dreams, but those who discovered that what they had wasn’t actually what they wanted usually traded theirs back in, still whole, for something new.
Rodney had never even heard of a Dream as badly shattered as this one.
“Well?” the man prompted.
“I can take it in trade, yes,” said Rodney, mustering his best customer-service smile. “Did you have something in mind?”
The man rubbed at the back of his neck, then winced at the motion. “No, I - No.”
“Take a look around,” Rodney suggested.
“Sure,” the man agreed, without much enthusiasm, and limped across the room toward the large display shelves.
Rodney ducked back into his workshop to retrieve an empty bottle and a small brush, and began carefully collecting the tiny Dream pieces. Broken realized Dreams were a very rare commodity, and he would have to come up with something very, very special to create with this one. He sealed the jar, scrawled realized dream, pilot on the tag, then looked up to see its original owner carefully rotating a sturdy-looking Dream on a middle shelf.
He blinked. “You want to be an orthodontist?”
“What?” The man frowned at the Dream, as though only just seeing it. “No, definitely not. Um, no offence. I’m sure it’s a very… well-made Dream.”
“It is,” said Rodney, smugly, then, “You’re sure there’s nothing else that catches your eye?”
He shook his head. “I don’t… I don’t think I can start all over. I can’t go back to school, but I don’t want something… easy.”
“Okay,” said Rodney. “I don’t make ‘easy’ Dreams, anyway. Hmm, something engaging then, something… Have you ever thought about modeling?”
“Are you kidding?” the guy demanded, suddenly scowling. “You really think I’m up for walking around and looking pretty?”
“Maybe not the walking,” Rodney allowed. “But even with that hair… photography, maybe?”
“What about my hair?” he said, but there was a smile tugging at his lips.
“We’ll steer away from the arts, then,” said Rodney. “Look, um… Is there something I can call you?”
“Sheppard,” the man supplied. “And you’re McKay?”
“That’s what the sign outside says,” Rodney said. “Look, Sheppard, with what you’re trading in, I can spin you a custom-made Dream, if that’s what you’re interested in. What type of Dream were you looking for?”
“I… I don’t know.” Sheppard gripped the handle of his cane so hard that his knuckles turned white. “I only ever wanted to fly. I… I honestly thought I was going to die doing it. I never needed to think about anything else.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “Okay, I, um… Let me get some charts, we can…”
He turned toward the register, where he usually tossed the brightly-colored flow charts he kept for helping particularly indecisive children choose their Dreams. Then, he frowned - the laminated pages were all nearly arranged in the little metal rack where he never bothered to put them back, grouped by color in rainbow order.
“Did you do this?”
“Sorry,” said Sheppard. “I told you, I don’t like feeling useless.”
Rodney stared at him, long enough that the former pilot started shifting warily, then he said, “You’re hired.”
Sheppard frowned. “What makes you think I need a job?”
“Do you?” Rodney replied, bluntly.
“How do you know I can do the job?”
“Because you did about eighty percent of it just now. And I assume that if you’re smart enough to fly planes or whatever, you’d be able to operate a register and order supplies.”
“I could probably manage,” drawled Sheppard. “Is that your only requirement?”
Rodney sighed. “The only real problem I’ve had finding or keeping an assistant is that none of them seem able to put up with me for very long. I’m petty and bad with people and I often insult people without meaning to. And you’re still smiling at me.”
He was, and Sheppard didn’t try to hide it. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Okay, I’ll take it. Do you pay well?”
“Of course!” said Rodney. “I have a highly accurate algorithm to help me calculate a very competitive wage. What’s your current rent?”
“Oh, um,” said Sheppard. “I haven’t found a place here yet, I’ve been staying at the hostel nearby. You know any cheap apartments available around here?”
Rodney knew of only one place. “Would you mind a roommate?” he asked. “Can you manage stairs?”
“I’m a pretty easy guy to get along with,” said Sheppard. “And I can do one flight of steps, maybe two on a good day.”
“There’s only one flight, if you’re interested. The apartment above the shop here is a two bedroom, and I don’t need that much space all to myself.”
Sheppard glanced up. “You live by yourself, then?”
“Yes, yes, all alone,” said Rodney. “I’ve never really found time for other - But, of course, if you don’t want to, I could help you find -”
“No, that sounds perfect,” Sheppard interrupted, then smiled again. “John.”
Rodney blinked, confused, and his new roommate laughed - not mocking, but like he really thought Rodney was fun.
“That’s my first name,” Sheppard said. “John. I figure if you’re asking me to move in with you, you should probably know that, at least. Right, McKay?”
“Oh,” he said. “Oh! Yes, right, I’m Rodney.”
“Rodney,” repeated Sheppard - John - in a low drawl, and all Rodney could think was that when this assistant finally got fed up and quit, he’d actually be sorry to see him go.
*
To Rodney’s amazement, John didn’t leave.
He had started by giving the shop a thorough cleaning - Rodney had sheepishly admitted that the room hadn’t been swept or dusted since his last assistant quit several months earlier - and John ended each day by wiping down the counters, even when they were already clean. He went through the entire storeroom, calling back questions like How often do you use this? or How much of that comes in a box? and Rodney hadn’t run out of anything since. Rodney had made a few, probably tactless, comments about whether John should be lifting heavy boxes, crippled like he was, but the former pilot was never offended. He just laughed and promised that he wouldn’t overdo it.
John was a natural salesman, too. He won over the children instantly, able to lead even the most indecisive to choose a Dream. He charmed all the parents, able to convince even the most practical that whatever Dream their kid had picked was exactly right. And the retirees, usually so set in their ideas of a second-chance Dream before they set foot in his shop, listened intently to his suggestions.
Rodney suddenly found himself with much more time in his workshop - even with John’s frequent questions, because he only needed to be aware enough to answer correctly and didn’t have to worry about being polite about it. He thought he was done with customer service altogether, until John tugged him out into the shop to discuss the construction of one of his Dreams.
Normally, Rodney avoided that - either the customer knew nothing about Dreamspinning and his explanations were meaningless, or they thought they did know and tried to tell him how to do his job, and neither of those went over very well. But John had a way of guiding the conversation so that Rodney seemed friendly and personable, and highlighted his genius. That alone would have been enough to make him keep John on as his assistant, even if he’d been a terrible roommate.
Which, of course, he wasn’t.
Rodney generally kept things clean out of necessity, his allergies making him more susceptible to dust and germs. John seemed to do it out of habit, probably the same military training that had him awake, coffee made and reading the newspaper, by the time Rodney stumbled into the kitchen. John had taken over preparing their supper, too, on the condition that Rodney wash the dishes, which he gladly accepted - the former pilot was an excellent cook.
Sometimes, though, Rodney found himself staring at the glass jar still holding the dust of John’s flying Dream. John still hadn’t asked him to Spin a new Dream, but Rodney knew it was only a matter of time. They closed the shop for an extra hour at lunch every Wednesday so that John could go for his physical therapy appointments, and he seemed to be getting stronger by the week. Not better enough to fly, but more than enough for something more exciting than… than this.
But it was still something of a surprise when it happened at breakfast one morning no different than any other morning.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” John said, folding up the paper and setting it aside.
“Sure,” said Rodney, with a fortifying swallow of coffee. “Okay.”
“Okay,” John repeated. “Well, I’m almost finished my PT, and it’s going better than the doctors originally thought. Working here, I’ve been able to keep moving but sit when I need to, and work my way up to lifting more weight, so… you’ve been a really big help, Rodney. Thanks.”
“Um, you’re welcome,” said Rodney.
John smiled. “So,” he said, “I didn’t want to say anything before I was up to it, but I’ve been thinking… we should rearrange the shop show room.”
Rodney blinked. “That’s it?”
“It’s gonna be a pretty big job,” he said, frowning. “We’re going to have to move all the display cases, there might be repairs that need to-”
John broke off, frown deepening. “Wait. You’ve been acting weird for a while now. You thought I was going to leave.”
“I-” Rodney began. “It was a distinct possibility.”
“Do you want me to leave?” John asked.
The Dreamspinner hesitated. “I don’t want to make you stay.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No,” said Rodney. “I don’t want you to leave.”
John grinned. “Then, I’ll stay.”
Rodney started to smile back, but there was still one more thing he needed to know. “Have you thought about your new Dream?”
John’s expression softened. “Yeah,” he said. “Nothing fancy. Just a good, honest life. A shopkeeper, maybe. With a little apartment above the store, and a cranky genius for a boss. Think you can whip me up something like that, buddy?”
“Yeah,” Rodney echoed. “Of course I can. Like you said, I’m a genius.”
“Yes, you are,” John agreed. He drank the last of his coffee and stood, his cane nowhere in sight. “Well, time to open the store.”
Rodney sat at the table, his own coffee cooling in front of him, as he listened to John walk, slow but steady, down the stairs and out into the shop. When he heard the jingle of the front door bell, he got up and hurried to his workshop.
The glass jar of John’s shattered Dream was still sitting on the shelf above his work table, but now its glittering seemed more hopeful. Rodney took it down, then paused.
A Dream as badly broken as this couldn’t be re-Spun without adding something else. But what did he have that could possibly be good enough for John’s new Dream?
High on a shelf, he knew, way at the very back, sat another, unremarkable glass jar. It had been years since Rodney had even looked at it, but from the moment he picked it up, he knew it was exactly what he needed.
Grinning broadly, he set to work.
*
It was fully dark outside when John rapped lightly on the workshop door, startling Rodney awake.
“What!?” he said, shooting upright in his chair, then slumped again. “Oh, it’s you.”
“And earlier, you said you wanted me to stay,” John drawled, teasing.
“I do!” Rodney said. “I just - I didn’t want anyone else to see this before you did.”
“Me? See what?”
Rodney pushed his chair back from the desk, letting John see the object sitting there.
It was a Dream, probably the most beautiful one Rodney had ever Spun. John reached a hand out toward it, then stopped. “Is this… Did you make this out of my Dream?”
“Yes,” said Rodney. “Well, mostly. But, yes, this is your Dream. A new one.”
“A new…” said John. “I only just said something at breakfast. I thought you could use a side project, I didn’t expect you to finish it today!”
“You will never be a side project, John Sheppard,” Rodney told him.
John grinned, then reached out to brush delicate fingers against the surface of the Dream. “Rodney,” he said. “This is… it’s beautiful.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course! It’s… Wait, you said ‘mostly’, right? What else did you put in here?”
“Oh,” said Rodney. He took a deep breath and pushed an empty glass jar into view. “Um, this.”
The jar was still dusty in places and the faded paper label said, in a child’s deliberate scrawl, my dream, abandoned.
John drew in a shaky breath. “Rodney, is that…?”
“Mine?” the Dreamspinner finished. “Yes, it was. I wanted to be a scientist. But then Dad died and Mom got sick and my little sister, Jeannie… Well, I did have some natural talent, and this shop was the only place that would hire a fifteen-year-old. And I don’t regret my choices. I like my life. I like who I am.”
John caught his hand, gently. “I like who you are, too. But I only traded in my Dream. Doesn’t seem fair.”
“It is,” Rodney insisted, but John shook his head. He rested his free hand on the Dream and closed his eyes.
It changed.
Rodney had never seen anything like it - no one was supposed to be able to alter their own dreams, even trained Dreamspinners had trouble working once a Dream had begun to set.
But there it was, no longer the vague future of happiness that Rodney created, but now a solid vision. Inside, it was a life, John working and laughing and loving-”
“Me?” Rodney squeaked. “I find out you can change dreams and what you want is me!?”
“Yeah,” said John. His ears had gone pink, but his gaze was steady. “You interested?”
“Am I…” Rodney repeated. “Are you insane? No, of course you are. Of course I’m… c’mere, you idiot, and kiss me!”
Laughing, John did just that - and neither of them saw the moment their Dream crystalized into reality.
THE END
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