Fic: Androdioecious
Title: Androdioecious
Author: wickedwords
Pairing Evan Lorne/David Parrish
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Recipient: emma_in_oz, who asked for "Lorne/Parrish!"
Summary: Parrish has a roommate who can't tolerate plants
Glancing around the room, David slid into the chair across from Evan. His hands were clenched around his tray, and there was a hint of desperation at the corners of his mouth. Something must have happened, as the last Evan knew, they had stopped the whole 'eating together' thing. At his request, but still....
"You okay, David?" Even if they were cooling things off, Evan still felt, well, protective of the guy. A brotherly kind of thing. Nothing more.
Yeah, right.
"I...I'm fine." David swallowed, and glanced determinedly down at his tray. "Just...a little jumpy is all."
More than a little jumpy, Evan thought, as David splashed his tea on the tray trying to pick up the cup. "Bad day? McKay yell at you or your plants develop teeth or something?"
"Why would Dr. McKay...? Oh! No, no. Nothing like that." David shook his head. His hair was getting a little shaggy, curling at the ends. Evan's hands itched to...tidy it up some. Tidy. Yes. "Despite the rumors, Dr. McKay doesn't spend a lot of time browbeating the other scientists." David shook his head and sighed. "Unless you're a physicist," he muttered. "Usually he just lets the department heads run things."
"So you're having some trouble with Dr. Brown?" It seemed unlikely, but it was possible.
"No. It's.... It's my roommate. Eldon." David dug hurriedly into his black bean stew, taking a huge bite. He spent a lot of time chewing.
"Eldon." Evan tried to cover the annoyance he felt every time the guy's name was mentioned by taking a sip of coffee. "He's the guy from the prison, right?"
"Right." David swallowed, and spooned up the next bite.
"It just seems weird that he moved in with you." Weird. Yeah. That was one way to put it. Evan couldn't stop the little jealous spark that flared in his stomach, making his coffee taste sour.
"Eldon lived with the Athosians for about a month, but he said that the open sky freaked him out." David stuffed the next glob into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed while Evan finished his coffee. "It seemed reasonable, given that you and I weren't going to, ah, be hanging out anymore."
"Yeah, it was really nice of you." It was his own fault, he knew that. After the Genii had kidnapped him and the rest of his team for medical experimentation, he had wanted to put some distance between himself and David, just until he wrapped his head around what had happened. But days became weeks, and before Evan knew what was happening, there was this impenetrable wall between them that he had no idea how to breech.
Then Eldon moved in, and, wow, Evan had jumped to some stupid conclusions that had made the situation a lot worse, so he'd taken to avoiding both of them. But if the guy was making David nervous and jumpy...maybe something was up. Eldon was known to have odd habits. The silence stretched out a little too long as David ate, and Evan shifted in his chair uncomfortably. "How's it working out?"
"It's not." David sighed, dropping his spoon and looking directly at Evan, his tired frustration written on his face. "Not really. It was just supposed to be temporary," David said awkwardly. "Just until space got cleared for new housing, or until he found a place he wanted to stay off-world. Then all the new Daedelus personnel got first dibs, and it wasn't so bad at the beginning, but now--" He sighed, then closed his eyes. "I need you to take care of my plants for me."
"Sure, but why?" Evan blinked. "You love your plants. And you know I have a brown thumb. You leave them with me and they're likely to shrivel up and die. Why don't you take them to the greenhouse?"
David looked startled. "We're not supposed to use them for our personal plants."
"You're the expert. If you think they'll be fine in my room, that's cool."
David shrugged, breaking off bits of his dark honeybread into his stew. "I'll come by your room every day, make sure they're watered and everything. I just need to get them out of the room, because of Eldon's allergies."
"Okay, if you want to." Hey, anything that got David visiting him more often had to be a good thing. "I'll change the security so you can drop in even if I'm off-world or something."
"That would be.... It would be great, thank you." Some of the tension eased from David's face, and he glanced back down at his now-empty tray. "I'll be by later tonight."
"Sounds great. Any time." Evan nodded as David dropped his tray and utensils into the washing trays. Maybe things weren't as hopeless as he'd thought.
***
The plants survived the move, and Evan thought they were kinda nice, though David seldom dropped by to tend them when Evan was in his quarters. Dead leaves and flowers showed up in the garbage, plant food on his shelves, and gardening gloves in the bathroom; so while Evan never saw him, it felt like David was around. And that thought always made him smile as Evan turned out the light.
***
"Oh!'" David stood in the doorway, light flooding Evan's room. "I'm sorry. I thought you were off-world."
"'s fine," Evan said from his bed, waving David inside. He yawned sleepily and rolled upright, swinging his legs over the bedside. "Close the door, will you? We just got back."
The door closed and the lights dimmed enough that Evan didn't have to squint. He scratched at his chest through his T-shirt, and tried to find his clock. He'd left it on the edge of the table, but now there were just a couple of...violets or something, in green clay pots. Apparently David had been rearranging his plants while Evan had been gone.
"I didn't mean to intrude." Evan noticed that David had a huge wooden thing in his hands, and a basket of some sort of purple stuff tucked under his arm.
"No problem." Giving up on the clock, Evan stood and stretched, straightening out his boxers, which had started to gap on him. His mouth felt like old tar, so he picked up a glass and headed for the sink, nodding at the stuff David carried as he passed. "What's all that crap?"
"Weaving."
"What?" Evan wasn't sure he heard right over the running water. "You said...?"
"Weaving." With a thump, David set the wooden thing on the floor. "Do you mind if I put it down?"
"Knock yourself out."
David blushed and cleared his throat. "I was hoping.... Well, I was hoping you were still off-planet."
"Sorry," Evan said, finishing the water and setting the glass down on the first flat surface available.
"No, no, nothing like that. It's just...." David sighed. "Eldon doesn't like the sound of the loom, so I've had to, ah, find other places to work. And the mess is too crowded, and everyone asks what I'm doing--"
"What are you doing?"
"Weaving." David said blankly, giving him one of those 'are you an idiot' looks. The one all of the scientists on Atlantis had perfected.
Evan shrugged his 'I just woke up, so give me a break' shrug in response. "Go on."
"Mind if I put this down?" David quickly set the small loom on the floor as Evan shook his head 'no.' "Thanks. Gets heavy hauling it back and forth from my room all the time."
Squatting down next to it, Evan looked the thing over. "Athosian?"
"Yes. One of their smaller looms. I'm working on a side project to evaluate the durability of cloth made from Tractus tabernus fibers, in case the Daedelus is unable to contact us for any length of time." He lifted his chin. "I hope you don't mind that I've been using your room."
"No problem." Evan rubbed his hand over the woven section. It felt nice and soft, a lot better than what they got from the SGC anyway. Whatever was made from it would feel nice. "You did this yourself?" he asked, standing at looking at David. "It's good work."
"Thank you. The Athosians did have to teach me how to weave first." He glanced at Evan out of the corner of his eyes. "It's good to see you."
"Yeah, it's good to see you, too." Evan smiled, glancing down at the floor and back again, flushing as David smiled back. David laid his hand carefully on Evan's arm as they looked at each other, and Evan felt a shiver race up his spine. He laid his hand over David's and squeezed, then rubbed his thumb over David's knuckles. It felt good, it felt right to be touching like this.
Unable to prevent himself, he broke the moment with a huge yawn, and instantly, David was pulling away, a litany of "I'm sorry" and "I shouldn't have disturbed you" dropping from his lips.
"It's okay," Evan said, trying to stem the tide before it swept David and his loom out the door. "I just need some more shut-eye is all." He rubbed his hand over his forehead, yawning again. "Why don't you stay and work? I can't imagine that it's all that noisy, no matter what Eldon says. Besides, I'm so tired, I bet I could sleep through an artillery barrage."
"Well. It's. I usually sit on your bed to work."
Evan glanced around the room. There weren't exactly a ton of chairs in here. "Do you need the whole thing?"
"Well, no, not really, but--"
"Great." Evan squeezed David's shoulder, and padded back to his bed. He crawled under the covers and nodded to David to grab his loom. "It'll be just like when the dog slept with me back home. I just had to squeeze over a bit to give him some room."
Laughing and shaking his head, David set down the loom at the base of the bed, and Evan feel asleep to the click-click of the shuttle weaving through the loom, and the feel of David's thigh pressed against his feet.
It made for some really great dreams.
***
Kaufman's team was in the infirmary when the request came through for a couple of botanists to participate in an 'intellectual exchange' with the Zahang. They wanted to learn about hybridization and how to increase their crop yield though irrigation, and in turn, they would allow the anthropologists access to the oldest scrolls in their library. It wasn't exactly going to earn them a ZPM, but it would build a foundation of goodwill--and the Zahang promised them a share of the harvest, to boot.
Evan tapped his fingers on the table as he thought. There were other teams he could assign, and he didn't know what botanists Dr. Brown would choose to send. Still, hybridization was David's specialty, so it was a fair bet that he would be going.
He rubbed his fingers against his temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. There was no reason for him to assign another team to this; things seemed to be better again between David and himself, even though nothing was really resolved. It was just-- He didn't want to do anything to screw that up. They were eating together again, and David no longer acted like some plant-watering elf, coming in and out only when Evan wasn't present. Plus his team was up for the job, eager to get off-planet again.
Feeling dazed, Evan signed off on the assignment. There was no professional reason to say 'no,' and a huge part of him wanted to scream out 'yes.' He followed up by sending out a private note to David, asking him about his field medic certification and weapons training, trying to keep everything professional; he still felt incredibly stupid the moment he sent it.
***
When he got to the firing range, David was waiting. He looked nervous, and he kept rubbing his hands together. "I haven't done this since the last time I went off-world."
"You'll do fine." Evan nodded at the protective equipment sitting out on the counter, trying for casual and feeling like he missed it by several miles. "Just want to see how much your target practice has improved."
With a shrug, David pulled on the acoustic earmuffs and set up the target. He carefully took aim, just the way Evan had showed him before his first trip off-planet. He hit the target with each shot he fired, which was quite an improvement from where he had started.
Evan whistled as he pulled the target in. Good solid body shots, all of 'em. "You've been holding out on me."
"Sergeant Kaufman made sure we all practiced." David looked away, flushing. "Besides, I had incentive."
"Oh? What?" Evan set up another target, and spun it out to the range. "Try it again. Once is chance, twice is science, right?"
"It's just-- I thought. Well. Your team took other scientists on extended educational projects." David sighted, and a couple of the shots went wide this time, into the white. "I thought you considered me a liability. Like Dr. Lindsay. Someone who'd be sent back to the gate if something happened."
"That's standard procedure. All the scientists go back to the gate."
"Dr. McKay doesn't."
"Yeah, well, you're not McKay." He meant it in a 'you ever try to get McKay to do something he didn't want to do' way, but David heard it as something else, his head jerking back like he'd been struck the moment the words left Evan's mouth. He didn't know what to say after that, so he fell silent, watching helplessly as David grew cold. He felt hot with both embarrassment and anger as words of explanation tangled themselves up in Evan's throat, and he couldn't get any of them out.
"They said you were dead," David said suddenly, and bluntly. "I didn't sleep for two days. When I heard you were safe, I thought everything would go back to normal again, but you couldn't keep far enough away from me."
Fuck. Evan shrugged, his heart pounding, but the words still wouldn't come.
"Don't you get it? You were dead. Colonel Sheppard had your dogtags, and no one...." He shook his head. "Katie--Dr. Brown--knew we were close, and offered me a chance to work with the Athosians for a couple of weeks on the Tractus tabernus project. It...gave me something to do." The without you remained unspoken. David rubbed his hand across his face. "I can't do this anymore."
Ignoring Evan completely he set up a third target, and this time, every shot placed. "I think that meets the criteria for off-world certification, doesn't it?" David pulled off the earmuffs, and set them and his weapon down on the counter before stalking out the door.
Evan ran his hand over his hair and sighed. That couldn't have gone worse if he had planned it.
***
Since lack of planning hadn't gone very well, Evan decided it was time he had a plan. After dinner alone in the mess, waiting for David to appear, he headed straight to David's quarters. The door still recognized him, letting Evan in the moment he waved his hand over the entrance light. "Hello?" he called out, as soon as the door opened
"You're not going to beat me up, are you?" Eldon said. He was crouched behind an ancient sculpture, or maybe it was a broken water thing.
"Wasn't planning on it." Evan stepped into the room, and the door closed silently behind him. The place looked weird without all of David's plants sitting around. There was a lot more room here than he was used to. In fact, it looked a little...barren.
"Oh. Good." Eldon stepped out from behind his hiding place. "People have a tendency to hit me, so I kinda want to know up front if it's going to happen. Makes it easier."
Evan slowly turned around, taking in how different the room looked. There were books on physics neatly stacked on the desk, some burned-out ancient crystals beside them next to a laptop, with a soldering iron near the bed. The bed itself was a jumbled pile of sheets and blankets, while the couch--pulled in from the hallway, just as Lorne had done--looked neat and tidy, where it was covered in a standard-issue military blanket, pillows at both ends. "I'm looking for David."
Eldon glanced over at the clock on the laptop. "Check Greenhouse Eight. He's usually there after dinner. He's been staying there a lot lately, says the couch hurts his back."
"Wait." Evan held up his hand, feeling confused. "Wouldn't David have the bed?"
Eldon shrugged. "If I sleep on the couch, I snore. He used to sleep in your room, when you were off-planet, but now I guess he sleeps in the greenhouse. I think he misses his plants."
"Oh, hey. How are your allergies?" Evan said, just to be polite.
Eldon snorted. "I don't have allergies. I just snore. David tried shaking me awake a few times, but he says that the entire city could sink, and I'd still be sleeping. I told him I was fine, but he wanted to have some reason to come over to your place even if you weren't talking to him. But you're talking to him now, right? Do you want any coffee?"
Evan felt dazed by the flood of words, and could only process the last sentence. "You have coffee?"
"Not really. But in the movies I've seen, people are always asked in for coffee." He headed to where a couple of glasses were sitting on the desk. "I think this one is clean." He held one up to the light. "And I could wash this if you wanted."
"I'm good," Evan said hurriedly, his mind catching up with what Eldon had said. No allergies. Sleeps soundly. So...the plants and the weaving were just a ploy? Some days, Evan really wished for clear communication. Which meant--he would need to be clear about some things first. "I'll just go find David."
"Oh. Okay." Eldon smiled, looking a little lost. "Don't be a stranger." He waved at Evan as the door was closing behind him.
With a shake of his head, Evan headed for Greenhouse Eight.
***
The greenhouse sat near the middle of the south-west pier, about thirty feet from the transporter. It had good morning exposure and was used for plants that wanted a lot of sun. The Tractus tabernus spread across the back corner of the building, purple cotton-candy flowers stuck on prickly desert bushes. His arms and hands covered with leather protective gear, David was carefully reaching into the stickers to snip off the head of each bloom. He had a basket of the flowers at his feet, and a few scratches on his neck, but otherwise, he looked good.
Evan wiped his hands on his shirt. Okay, time to do this thing. "David!"
"Who--? Oh. Hello, Major." David turned back to his plants. "What brings you to the greenhouses?" He carefully examined each bud before snipping off his next choice.
Evan really couldn't say, but some of the buds he was snipping looked a lot greener than the others. "I was looking for you."
David's hands still. "You were?"
"Yeah. Uh, listen. I need to, uh. Apologize. For what happened after the, uh, Genii thing."
"I'm listening."
"Okay, see, here's the deal. I kind of freaked out after the whole medical experimentation thing, which didn't really have anything to do with you, but I just felt kind of--" He waggled his fingers in the air.
"Not really here?" David hazarded when Evan trailed off.
"Yeah." He sighed, rubbing his hands on his thighs. "I had to work my head around some stuff, and some of it was how I would have felt, what I would have done, had it been you rather than Dr. Lindsay on the team." Licking his lips, he caught David's gaze. "I would have made the same call, David. I would have sent you back to the gate."
"So you don't trust me." David closed his eyes and swallowed. "I'd hoped--"
"No, no. It's not like that. It's just-- Look. Staying here in Atlantis means that we both make some choices, and one of these days, it might not end well. I can't promise you I won't be captured or killed, and you can't promise me that you're not going to uncover some...huge man-eating plant. Or the Wraith could attack. Or someone could come down with a cold that turns out to be fatal a lot of the time."
"There are no guarantees, I know that," David said, ever the practical one.
"But, see, I want to give you that. You're the first guy I ever liked enough to want...to want to come home to. I don't like the thought-- I don't want you to be alone." Evan puffed out his breath. This was so damn hard. He nodded at the pillow poking out from the basket at David's feet. "Seems pretty lonely here."
"It is," David said softly, and Evan pulled him into his arms.
He squeezed David's shoulders, and fit the two of them together, rubbing his hands over David's back. "Did you plan this?"
"Plan what?" David sounded a little dazed.
"The plants. The weaving. All that."
The tips of David's ears flushed red. "Uhm, yes." He shrugged. "I still wanted to see you, and I couldn't think of any other way." He licked his lips, and pressed his fingers to Evan's check. "Let me stay with you tonight," David's said; Evan could feel the heat radiating off his body. "I'm not asking for, for sex, or to move in or anything. I just want. I want to spend the night."
Thinking about the plants and the loom, and the way he'd rearranged the furniture so he'd have a couch for the two of them to sit on, Evan ran his hand down David's arm, catching hold of his hand and squeezing it. "Sounds good. Though I think it may be too late on the not moving in." He leaned in, and David lips met his in a warm and gentle kiss. He pulled back just as the kiss was heating up, and grinned wickedly. "The sex is a done deal too."
David tilted his head back and laughed.
The End.
Author: wickedwords
Pairing Evan Lorne/David Parrish
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Recipient: emma_in_oz, who asked for "Lorne/Parrish!"
Summary: Parrish has a roommate who can't tolerate plants
Glancing around the room, David slid into the chair across from Evan. His hands were clenched around his tray, and there was a hint of desperation at the corners of his mouth. Something must have happened, as the last Evan knew, they had stopped the whole 'eating together' thing. At his request, but still....
"You okay, David?" Even if they were cooling things off, Evan still felt, well, protective of the guy. A brotherly kind of thing. Nothing more.
Yeah, right.
"I...I'm fine." David swallowed, and glanced determinedly down at his tray. "Just...a little jumpy is all."
More than a little jumpy, Evan thought, as David splashed his tea on the tray trying to pick up the cup. "Bad day? McKay yell at you or your plants develop teeth or something?"
"Why would Dr. McKay...? Oh! No, no. Nothing like that." David shook his head. His hair was getting a little shaggy, curling at the ends. Evan's hands itched to...tidy it up some. Tidy. Yes. "Despite the rumors, Dr. McKay doesn't spend a lot of time browbeating the other scientists." David shook his head and sighed. "Unless you're a physicist," he muttered. "Usually he just lets the department heads run things."
"So you're having some trouble with Dr. Brown?" It seemed unlikely, but it was possible.
"No. It's.... It's my roommate. Eldon." David dug hurriedly into his black bean stew, taking a huge bite. He spent a lot of time chewing.
"Eldon." Evan tried to cover the annoyance he felt every time the guy's name was mentioned by taking a sip of coffee. "He's the guy from the prison, right?"
"Right." David swallowed, and spooned up the next bite.
"It just seems weird that he moved in with you." Weird. Yeah. That was one way to put it. Evan couldn't stop the little jealous spark that flared in his stomach, making his coffee taste sour.
"Eldon lived with the Athosians for about a month, but he said that the open sky freaked him out." David stuffed the next glob into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed while Evan finished his coffee. "It seemed reasonable, given that you and I weren't going to, ah, be hanging out anymore."
"Yeah, it was really nice of you." It was his own fault, he knew that. After the Genii had kidnapped him and the rest of his team for medical experimentation, he had wanted to put some distance between himself and David, just until he wrapped his head around what had happened. But days became weeks, and before Evan knew what was happening, there was this impenetrable wall between them that he had no idea how to breech.
Then Eldon moved in, and, wow, Evan had jumped to some stupid conclusions that had made the situation a lot worse, so he'd taken to avoiding both of them. But if the guy was making David nervous and jumpy...maybe something was up. Eldon was known to have odd habits. The silence stretched out a little too long as David ate, and Evan shifted in his chair uncomfortably. "How's it working out?"
"It's not." David sighed, dropping his spoon and looking directly at Evan, his tired frustration written on his face. "Not really. It was just supposed to be temporary," David said awkwardly. "Just until space got cleared for new housing, or until he found a place he wanted to stay off-world. Then all the new Daedelus personnel got first dibs, and it wasn't so bad at the beginning, but now--" He sighed, then closed his eyes. "I need you to take care of my plants for me."
"Sure, but why?" Evan blinked. "You love your plants. And you know I have a brown thumb. You leave them with me and they're likely to shrivel up and die. Why don't you take them to the greenhouse?"
David looked startled. "We're not supposed to use them for our personal plants."
"You're the expert. If you think they'll be fine in my room, that's cool."
David shrugged, breaking off bits of his dark honeybread into his stew. "I'll come by your room every day, make sure they're watered and everything. I just need to get them out of the room, because of Eldon's allergies."
"Okay, if you want to." Hey, anything that got David visiting him more often had to be a good thing. "I'll change the security so you can drop in even if I'm off-world or something."
"That would be.... It would be great, thank you." Some of the tension eased from David's face, and he glanced back down at his now-empty tray. "I'll be by later tonight."
"Sounds great. Any time." Evan nodded as David dropped his tray and utensils into the washing trays. Maybe things weren't as hopeless as he'd thought.
***
The plants survived the move, and Evan thought they were kinda nice, though David seldom dropped by to tend them when Evan was in his quarters. Dead leaves and flowers showed up in the garbage, plant food on his shelves, and gardening gloves in the bathroom; so while Evan never saw him, it felt like David was around. And that thought always made him smile as Evan turned out the light.
***
"Oh!'" David stood in the doorway, light flooding Evan's room. "I'm sorry. I thought you were off-world."
"'s fine," Evan said from his bed, waving David inside. He yawned sleepily and rolled upright, swinging his legs over the bedside. "Close the door, will you? We just got back."
The door closed and the lights dimmed enough that Evan didn't have to squint. He scratched at his chest through his T-shirt, and tried to find his clock. He'd left it on the edge of the table, but now there were just a couple of...violets or something, in green clay pots. Apparently David had been rearranging his plants while Evan had been gone.
"I didn't mean to intrude." Evan noticed that David had a huge wooden thing in his hands, and a basket of some sort of purple stuff tucked under his arm.
"No problem." Giving up on the clock, Evan stood and stretched, straightening out his boxers, which had started to gap on him. His mouth felt like old tar, so he picked up a glass and headed for the sink, nodding at the stuff David carried as he passed. "What's all that crap?"
"Weaving."
"What?" Evan wasn't sure he heard right over the running water. "You said...?"
"Weaving." With a thump, David set the wooden thing on the floor. "Do you mind if I put it down?"
"Knock yourself out."
David blushed and cleared his throat. "I was hoping.... Well, I was hoping you were still off-planet."
"Sorry," Evan said, finishing the water and setting the glass down on the first flat surface available.
"No, no, nothing like that. It's just...." David sighed. "Eldon doesn't like the sound of the loom, so I've had to, ah, find other places to work. And the mess is too crowded, and everyone asks what I'm doing--"
"What are you doing?"
"Weaving." David said blankly, giving him one of those 'are you an idiot' looks. The one all of the scientists on Atlantis had perfected.
Evan shrugged his 'I just woke up, so give me a break' shrug in response. "Go on."
"Mind if I put this down?" David quickly set the small loom on the floor as Evan shook his head 'no.' "Thanks. Gets heavy hauling it back and forth from my room all the time."
Squatting down next to it, Evan looked the thing over. "Athosian?"
"Yes. One of their smaller looms. I'm working on a side project to evaluate the durability of cloth made from Tractus tabernus fibers, in case the Daedelus is unable to contact us for any length of time." He lifted his chin. "I hope you don't mind that I've been using your room."
"No problem." Evan rubbed his hand over the woven section. It felt nice and soft, a lot better than what they got from the SGC anyway. Whatever was made from it would feel nice. "You did this yourself?" he asked, standing at looking at David. "It's good work."
"Thank you. The Athosians did have to teach me how to weave first." He glanced at Evan out of the corner of his eyes. "It's good to see you."
"Yeah, it's good to see you, too." Evan smiled, glancing down at the floor and back again, flushing as David smiled back. David laid his hand carefully on Evan's arm as they looked at each other, and Evan felt a shiver race up his spine. He laid his hand over David's and squeezed, then rubbed his thumb over David's knuckles. It felt good, it felt right to be touching like this.
Unable to prevent himself, he broke the moment with a huge yawn, and instantly, David was pulling away, a litany of "I'm sorry" and "I shouldn't have disturbed you" dropping from his lips.
"It's okay," Evan said, trying to stem the tide before it swept David and his loom out the door. "I just need some more shut-eye is all." He rubbed his hand over his forehead, yawning again. "Why don't you stay and work? I can't imagine that it's all that noisy, no matter what Eldon says. Besides, I'm so tired, I bet I could sleep through an artillery barrage."
"Well. It's. I usually sit on your bed to work."
Evan glanced around the room. There weren't exactly a ton of chairs in here. "Do you need the whole thing?"
"Well, no, not really, but--"
"Great." Evan squeezed David's shoulder, and padded back to his bed. He crawled under the covers and nodded to David to grab his loom. "It'll be just like when the dog slept with me back home. I just had to squeeze over a bit to give him some room."
Laughing and shaking his head, David set down the loom at the base of the bed, and Evan feel asleep to the click-click of the shuttle weaving through the loom, and the feel of David's thigh pressed against his feet.
It made for some really great dreams.
***
Kaufman's team was in the infirmary when the request came through for a couple of botanists to participate in an 'intellectual exchange' with the Zahang. They wanted to learn about hybridization and how to increase their crop yield though irrigation, and in turn, they would allow the anthropologists access to the oldest scrolls in their library. It wasn't exactly going to earn them a ZPM, but it would build a foundation of goodwill--and the Zahang promised them a share of the harvest, to boot.
Evan tapped his fingers on the table as he thought. There were other teams he could assign, and he didn't know what botanists Dr. Brown would choose to send. Still, hybridization was David's specialty, so it was a fair bet that he would be going.
He rubbed his fingers against his temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. There was no reason for him to assign another team to this; things seemed to be better again between David and himself, even though nothing was really resolved. It was just-- He didn't want to do anything to screw that up. They were eating together again, and David no longer acted like some plant-watering elf, coming in and out only when Evan wasn't present. Plus his team was up for the job, eager to get off-planet again.
Feeling dazed, Evan signed off on the assignment. There was no professional reason to say 'no,' and a huge part of him wanted to scream out 'yes.' He followed up by sending out a private note to David, asking him about his field medic certification and weapons training, trying to keep everything professional; he still felt incredibly stupid the moment he sent it.
***
When he got to the firing range, David was waiting. He looked nervous, and he kept rubbing his hands together. "I haven't done this since the last time I went off-world."
"You'll do fine." Evan nodded at the protective equipment sitting out on the counter, trying for casual and feeling like he missed it by several miles. "Just want to see how much your target practice has improved."
With a shrug, David pulled on the acoustic earmuffs and set up the target. He carefully took aim, just the way Evan had showed him before his first trip off-planet. He hit the target with each shot he fired, which was quite an improvement from where he had started.
Evan whistled as he pulled the target in. Good solid body shots, all of 'em. "You've been holding out on me."
"Sergeant Kaufman made sure we all practiced." David looked away, flushing. "Besides, I had incentive."
"Oh? What?" Evan set up another target, and spun it out to the range. "Try it again. Once is chance, twice is science, right?"
"It's just-- I thought. Well. Your team took other scientists on extended educational projects." David sighted, and a couple of the shots went wide this time, into the white. "I thought you considered me a liability. Like Dr. Lindsay. Someone who'd be sent back to the gate if something happened."
"That's standard procedure. All the scientists go back to the gate."
"Dr. McKay doesn't."
"Yeah, well, you're not McKay." He meant it in a 'you ever try to get McKay to do something he didn't want to do' way, but David heard it as something else, his head jerking back like he'd been struck the moment the words left Evan's mouth. He didn't know what to say after that, so he fell silent, watching helplessly as David grew cold. He felt hot with both embarrassment and anger as words of explanation tangled themselves up in Evan's throat, and he couldn't get any of them out.
"They said you were dead," David said suddenly, and bluntly. "I didn't sleep for two days. When I heard you were safe, I thought everything would go back to normal again, but you couldn't keep far enough away from me."
Fuck. Evan shrugged, his heart pounding, but the words still wouldn't come.
"Don't you get it? You were dead. Colonel Sheppard had your dogtags, and no one...." He shook his head. "Katie--Dr. Brown--knew we were close, and offered me a chance to work with the Athosians for a couple of weeks on the Tractus tabernus project. It...gave me something to do." The without you remained unspoken. David rubbed his hand across his face. "I can't do this anymore."
Ignoring Evan completely he set up a third target, and this time, every shot placed. "I think that meets the criteria for off-world certification, doesn't it?" David pulled off the earmuffs, and set them and his weapon down on the counter before stalking out the door.
Evan ran his hand over his hair and sighed. That couldn't have gone worse if he had planned it.
***
Since lack of planning hadn't gone very well, Evan decided it was time he had a plan. After dinner alone in the mess, waiting for David to appear, he headed straight to David's quarters. The door still recognized him, letting Evan in the moment he waved his hand over the entrance light. "Hello?" he called out, as soon as the door opened
"You're not going to beat me up, are you?" Eldon said. He was crouched behind an ancient sculpture, or maybe it was a broken water thing.
"Wasn't planning on it." Evan stepped into the room, and the door closed silently behind him. The place looked weird without all of David's plants sitting around. There was a lot more room here than he was used to. In fact, it looked a little...barren.
"Oh. Good." Eldon stepped out from behind his hiding place. "People have a tendency to hit me, so I kinda want to know up front if it's going to happen. Makes it easier."
Evan slowly turned around, taking in how different the room looked. There were books on physics neatly stacked on the desk, some burned-out ancient crystals beside them next to a laptop, with a soldering iron near the bed. The bed itself was a jumbled pile of sheets and blankets, while the couch--pulled in from the hallway, just as Lorne had done--looked neat and tidy, where it was covered in a standard-issue military blanket, pillows at both ends. "I'm looking for David."
Eldon glanced over at the clock on the laptop. "Check Greenhouse Eight. He's usually there after dinner. He's been staying there a lot lately, says the couch hurts his back."
"Wait." Evan held up his hand, feeling confused. "Wouldn't David have the bed?"
Eldon shrugged. "If I sleep on the couch, I snore. He used to sleep in your room, when you were off-planet, but now I guess he sleeps in the greenhouse. I think he misses his plants."
"Oh, hey. How are your allergies?" Evan said, just to be polite.
Eldon snorted. "I don't have allergies. I just snore. David tried shaking me awake a few times, but he says that the entire city could sink, and I'd still be sleeping. I told him I was fine, but he wanted to have some reason to come over to your place even if you weren't talking to him. But you're talking to him now, right? Do you want any coffee?"
Evan felt dazed by the flood of words, and could only process the last sentence. "You have coffee?"
"Not really. But in the movies I've seen, people are always asked in for coffee." He headed to where a couple of glasses were sitting on the desk. "I think this one is clean." He held one up to the light. "And I could wash this if you wanted."
"I'm good," Evan said hurriedly, his mind catching up with what Eldon had said. No allergies. Sleeps soundly. So...the plants and the weaving were just a ploy? Some days, Evan really wished for clear communication. Which meant--he would need to be clear about some things first. "I'll just go find David."
"Oh. Okay." Eldon smiled, looking a little lost. "Don't be a stranger." He waved at Evan as the door was closing behind him.
With a shake of his head, Evan headed for Greenhouse Eight.
***
The greenhouse sat near the middle of the south-west pier, about thirty feet from the transporter. It had good morning exposure and was used for plants that wanted a lot of sun. The Tractus tabernus spread across the back corner of the building, purple cotton-candy flowers stuck on prickly desert bushes. His arms and hands covered with leather protective gear, David was carefully reaching into the stickers to snip off the head of each bloom. He had a basket of the flowers at his feet, and a few scratches on his neck, but otherwise, he looked good.
Evan wiped his hands on his shirt. Okay, time to do this thing. "David!"
"Who--? Oh. Hello, Major." David turned back to his plants. "What brings you to the greenhouses?" He carefully examined each bud before snipping off his next choice.
Evan really couldn't say, but some of the buds he was snipping looked a lot greener than the others. "I was looking for you."
David's hands still. "You were?"
"Yeah. Uh, listen. I need to, uh. Apologize. For what happened after the, uh, Genii thing."
"I'm listening."
"Okay, see, here's the deal. I kind of freaked out after the whole medical experimentation thing, which didn't really have anything to do with you, but I just felt kind of--" He waggled his fingers in the air.
"Not really here?" David hazarded when Evan trailed off.
"Yeah." He sighed, rubbing his hands on his thighs. "I had to work my head around some stuff, and some of it was how I would have felt, what I would have done, had it been you rather than Dr. Lindsay on the team." Licking his lips, he caught David's gaze. "I would have made the same call, David. I would have sent you back to the gate."
"So you don't trust me." David closed his eyes and swallowed. "I'd hoped--"
"No, no. It's not like that. It's just-- Look. Staying here in Atlantis means that we both make some choices, and one of these days, it might not end well. I can't promise you I won't be captured or killed, and you can't promise me that you're not going to uncover some...huge man-eating plant. Or the Wraith could attack. Or someone could come down with a cold that turns out to be fatal a lot of the time."
"There are no guarantees, I know that," David said, ever the practical one.
"But, see, I want to give you that. You're the first guy I ever liked enough to want...to want to come home to. I don't like the thought-- I don't want you to be alone." Evan puffed out his breath. This was so damn hard. He nodded at the pillow poking out from the basket at David's feet. "Seems pretty lonely here."
"It is," David said softly, and Evan pulled him into his arms.
He squeezed David's shoulders, and fit the two of them together, rubbing his hands over David's back. "Did you plan this?"
"Plan what?" David sounded a little dazed.
"The plants. The weaving. All that."
The tips of David's ears flushed red. "Uhm, yes." He shrugged. "I still wanted to see you, and I couldn't think of any other way." He licked his lips, and pressed his fingers to Evan's check. "Let me stay with you tonight," David's said; Evan could feel the heat radiating off his body. "I'm not asking for, for sex, or to move in or anything. I just want. I want to spend the night."
Thinking about the plants and the loom, and the way he'd rearranged the furniture so he'd have a couch for the two of them to sit on, Evan ran his hand down David's arm, catching hold of his hand and squeezing it. "Sounds good. Though I think it may be too late on the not moving in." He leaned in, and David lips met his in a warm and gentle kiss. He pulled back just as the kiss was heating up, and grinned wickedly. "The sex is a done deal too."
David tilted his head back and laughed.
The End.