Unwind Together
Title: Unwind Together
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: SG-1
Characters: John Sheppard, ensemble cast from Atlantis & SG-1
Word Count: 512
Rating: G
Notes: 1. Plotless vignette written for reeby10's prompt of any, any, living in a commune over on comment-fic.
2. Part 1 of the Stargate Commune Verse
They work hard, seven to ten hours a day, every day with no vacations (because cows and sheep and crops don't care for themselves when you feel like being lazy), but every evening after supper they unwind together.
Tonight, Vala works the piano with plenty of enthusiasm (perhaps more than talent, but she puts her heart into it and everyone who's listening is smiling). Teyla and Cam dance with the children-now in a circle, now in a line winding around the loom and the card table and the easy chair where Daniel sits, book open in his lap, eyes trained on Vala. Teal’c and Carson play checkers by the fireplace which won’t be lit for another two months, while Sam and Jack, near the corner, fix a set of fishing poles in comfortable silence. Elizabeth’s finally set aside the farm’s account books and is reading Dr. Seuss to Torren, who’s propped up comfortably in Ronon’s lap. David and Radek have another checkerboard on the big sofa, but the game they’re playing doesn’t resemble any game of checkers John has ever seen.
Cassie, Janet, and Paul stepped out a minute ago, but John smells the sweet spice scent of apple cider starting to float in from the kitchen, and he bets they’ll bring some out in a second. John can’t see Jennifer or Laura or Evan or Aiden, either, but he hears the occasional whoop of beer-augmented laughter from the work shed and assumes they’re working on another ‘project’ that will no doubt make its appearance once they reopen the farm to visitors in two weeks. There’ll be plenty of work to do before then, longer days while they spiff the place up for tourists and finish canning and pickling the extra goods they mean to sell. It’ll be him and Rodney and Sam pulling working late tomorrow, fixing up the tractor they use for the hay rides. They’re workaholics, all of them, he knows, and they’d work straight through until morning every other day, except-
-except that, even as he hears the punks outside lock up the shed and head towards the kitchen door, Paul and Cassie walk back in with trays full of steaming mugs, little Jack bumps into the piano bench and Vala breaks off with a cackle and grabs him, tickling him mercilessly, and Rodney, head resting in John’s lap, huffs an put-upon sigh at the sudden noise (the same way he does when someone fiddles with his telescope, showily aggravated but entirely devoid of any actual anger) and flips through to the next Sudoku puzzle in his book. John flips his battered copy of War and Peace shut on the couch arm as he grabs them both mugs of cider from Cassie’s tray with a smile and cards the fingers of his free hand through Rodney’s close-cropped hair and braces for the inevitable calls to push the loveseat out of the way and dance that’ll come as soon as Laura and the others find their way inside and wash up.
Even the satisfaction of work pales in comparison.
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: SG-1
Characters: John Sheppard, ensemble cast from Atlantis & SG-1
Word Count: 512
Rating: G
Notes: 1. Plotless vignette written for reeby10's prompt of any, any, living in a commune over on comment-fic.
2. Part 1 of the Stargate Commune Verse
They work hard, seven to ten hours a day, every day with no vacations (because cows and sheep and crops don't care for themselves when you feel like being lazy), but every evening after supper they unwind together.
Tonight, Vala works the piano with plenty of enthusiasm (perhaps more than talent, but she puts her heart into it and everyone who's listening is smiling). Teyla and Cam dance with the children-now in a circle, now in a line winding around the loom and the card table and the easy chair where Daniel sits, book open in his lap, eyes trained on Vala. Teal’c and Carson play checkers by the fireplace which won’t be lit for another two months, while Sam and Jack, near the corner, fix a set of fishing poles in comfortable silence. Elizabeth’s finally set aside the farm’s account books and is reading Dr. Seuss to Torren, who’s propped up comfortably in Ronon’s lap. David and Radek have another checkerboard on the big sofa, but the game they’re playing doesn’t resemble any game of checkers John has ever seen.
Cassie, Janet, and Paul stepped out a minute ago, but John smells the sweet spice scent of apple cider starting to float in from the kitchen, and he bets they’ll bring some out in a second. John can’t see Jennifer or Laura or Evan or Aiden, either, but he hears the occasional whoop of beer-augmented laughter from the work shed and assumes they’re working on another ‘project’ that will no doubt make its appearance once they reopen the farm to visitors in two weeks. There’ll be plenty of work to do before then, longer days while they spiff the place up for tourists and finish canning and pickling the extra goods they mean to sell. It’ll be him and Rodney and Sam pulling working late tomorrow, fixing up the tractor they use for the hay rides. They’re workaholics, all of them, he knows, and they’d work straight through until morning every other day, except-
-except that, even as he hears the punks outside lock up the shed and head towards the kitchen door, Paul and Cassie walk back in with trays full of steaming mugs, little Jack bumps into the piano bench and Vala breaks off with a cackle and grabs him, tickling him mercilessly, and Rodney, head resting in John’s lap, huffs an put-upon sigh at the sudden noise (the same way he does when someone fiddles with his telescope, showily aggravated but entirely devoid of any actual anger) and flips through to the next Sudoku puzzle in his book. John flips his battered copy of War and Peace shut on the couch arm as he grabs them both mugs of cider from Cassie’s tray with a smile and cards the fingers of his free hand through Rodney’s close-cropped hair and braces for the inevitable calls to push the loveseat out of the way and dance that’ll come as soon as Laura and the others find their way inside and wash up.
Even the satisfaction of work pales in comparison.