Taking 'Styling Glue' to a Whole New Level
Title: Taking 'Styling Glue' to a Whole New Level
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1732 (why oh WHY can I not do drabbles?)
Summary: “Listen to me, Rapunzel, the hair will have to go."
Written for: florahart who thought she was giving me a crazy prompt. I have no idea why this one landed on me first, but there it is. :)
Spoilers: none
Author's Notes: Total sillyness for the ABC prompt challenge on my main journal.
Warnings: none
John leaned against the edge of the jumper Rodney was running around repairing. He’d wanted to get in the air an hour ago, but McKay, he was sure, was stalling in order to put off the inevitable. He sympathized with the man feeling a little queasy about going on a test flight. Rodney had a lousy track record when it came to that sort of thing. But all the same, if they were going to do it, they needed to get going before it got dark.
He shifted to lean on the other hand, running his hand through his hair as he sighed in exasperation. He let out a small squeak as his hand halted of its own accord, twined through his hair. He tugged and realized his hand was truly stuck. “What the hell?” He tugged again and winced when the hair follicles objected to the abuse. He looked back and forth hoping no one milling about the jumper bay had noticed his predicament.
“Hey, McKay!” he hollered, leaning nonchalantly on the side of the jumper, like he was holding his head up with his hand.
“What? You know you’re the one pissing and moaning that you want to get going, that means I have to finish these tests.” Rodney stuck his head through the open jumper hatch to glare at him.
“Yeah, I was just curious. What is this stuff you were putting over the hairline fractures in the jumper’s shell?”
“It’s an epoxy. Why?”
“No reason. Look, you finish your tests. I’m going for a walk. Page me when you’re ready to go.” John stood and straightened, bringing his other hand to his head like he was stretching, not hiding the fact that his hand was apparently glued to his head.
Rodney gave him a funny look. “Um. Okay.” He watched Sheppard for a minute. “You okay?”
“Fine,” John assured him, walking away with both hands behind his head.
“Because you’re walking like a prisoner being marched to his execution,” Rodney called out.
John turned back, both hands still raised. “No trouble. Page me when you’re ready.” He gave McKay his most winning smile before leaving the bay.
He smiled sweetly at the duty nurse as he came through the infirmary doors. “Hey Lucy, is Carson around?”
Lucy sprang up from her chair. “He’s stitching up a marine. Did you hurt your neck?”
“Nah, nothing so serious. Could you let Carson know I need to see him when he gets done?”
“Why don’t you let me have a look first. I’ll start your chart. By then Carson should be done.” Lucy grabbed a pad from the small pile on the shelf behind her and led John to a bed. “Okay, hop up and put your hand down for me.”
John one-handedly levered himself onto the bed. “First part’s easy. Second part… that’s where we find ourselves with a bit of a problem.”
Lucy began experimentally pulling on his arm. “Colonel… Are you stuck to your own hair?”
“Little incident with McKay, some epoxy, my hand and my hair. I was hoping Carson would know of some kind of solvent or something to dissolve the glue.” John couldn’t meet her eyes any longer. This was sounding stupider and stupider and he was sure that by the time the story made it’s way around Atlantis, he’ll have had his hand stuck to every part of his body - and possibly several other bodies - imaginable.
Lucy tugged gently on a few of the hairs to see how completely stuck he was. “Oh boy. You’ve done a number on yourself there, Colonel. Is your arm starting to get stiff?”
John sighed. “Yeah, a little.”
“How long have you been stuck like that?” She gently touched the tips of his fingers.
“Oh, coming up on ten minutes now.”
Lucy shook her head, trying not to look amused by his plight. “Okay, let’s get you laying down at least. Try and get some blood back into your fingertips.”
John let her manipulate him back onto the bed.
“You’ve done what to yourself this time, John?” Carson said by way of greeting as he came out of one of the treatment rooms, examining the chart Lucy had prepared.
John glared. “Rodney was putting some kind of Ancient epoxy over the fractures in the jumpers. Some of it wasn’t quite dry, but McKay doesn’t exactly leave ‘wet glue’ signs on his work. I leaned on it, didn’t realize it, ran my hand through my hair and…” He pointed to where his hand was stuck by way of raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes.
Carson examined his hand, again testing for circulation and adhesiveness. “Lucy, I’m going to need a scissors.”
John’s other hand flew up. “Oh no, now come on. You have to have some kind of solvent or something I can just wash the glue out with. I mean, I can feel how close my hand is to my scalp. If you cut my hair from there… I’m going to look like I was scalped!”
Feeling somewhat malicious now that he knew that John really wasn’t in any grave danger, Carson crossed his arms and held one hand up by his face, “How?” he said in his best Native American imitation.
“With your damn scissors is how!” John exclaimed.
“No, I was … nevermind. John, the hair is going to have to go. We need to get your hand down to let normal circulation resume. Your hair will grow back.” Carson looked again at the way John was attached. He shook his head. John was going to lose a good twenty square centimeters of hair. Evening the rest out would probably require a crew cut the Marines would approve of.
Lucy came back with the scissors and Carson set them on the bed as he grabbed a chair so that he would be able to look down at his work when John sat up. “Come on. Hop down. Sit here.”
“Come on, Carson. You have to have some other way -“
“Listen to me, Rapunzel, the hair will have to go. You aren’t losing a limb or a loved one. Your day could be a lot worse.”
John cringed at the tone in Carson’s voice and stopped bitching. He made a mental note to ask Carson what had gone on with his other patients when they got home that night.
“Lucy, call down and find out what McKay was using and then check the Ancient database to see if there’s something we can use to get it off the Colonel’s hand.” Carson turned back and the next thing John heard was the ‘snip snip’ of the scissors.
“This sucks,” John mumbled a few minutes later.
“No, this is going to suck,” Carson said as he slowly maneuvered John’s hand down from the position it had been in for nearly half an hour.
John felt the locked muscles protest just before he felt the pins and needles rush of blood entering his hand again. “Oh fuck!”
“Not right now, love,” Carson said gently as he massaged the stiff shoulder and hand until John relaxed. “Better?”
“Well… partly.” He flipped his hand over and grimaced at the hair-covered palm.
“You know, John, I would have thought I kept you busy enough that you wouldn’t have to worry about getting hairy palms,” Carson quipped.
“I can still beat you with this hand,” John joked, but even as he pulled back he realized he really couldn’t, his shoulder still hurting like a mad thing when he tried to move too far. “Or, you know, maybe not.”
Carson took pity and went back to massaging the lingering soreness out. He paused to run his fingers through John’s hair, hoping the remaining hair could be arranged to cover up the nearly bald spot, but he couldn’t find any way to do it.
“Think I’ll get by with wearing a hat for the next month or so?”
“I don’t know. You’ve always tried to make something of a statement with your hair before. I’m sure this says… something.” Carson ruffled what was left of John’s hair and then went back to massaging his neck.
“Yeah, it says, ‘look at the idiot who doesn’t know hair gel from jumper glue,” John pouted.
“I’ve heard Dr. Cooper in zoology is actually pretty handy with a pair of scissors.” Carson suggested.
“Dr. Cooper is, among other things, a certified dog groomer. No thanks.”
“There’s Dr. McNabe in engineering. Maybe if you’re nice to her…”
“The last time I tried to be nice to her to get her to cut my hair, she thought I was asking her out.” He raised his eyebrows at Carson, daring him to say something.
“Maybe not her then,” Carson conceded.
John stood and headed over to the mirror. He fingered what was left of his hair. “I have a feeling I don’t have a whole lot of choices but to let Lieutenant Willis at me with those clippers so that it’s at least one length for a bit until I can grow it out again.”
Carson stood behind him, watching John watch his reflection. “It’ll grow back, John. You’ll survive this.”
“Maybe we can make up a better story? Say it was some kind of battlefield incident?”
Carson laughed. “Scalped by the Epoxians, were you?”
They both looked up to see the doors whoosh shut. “Carson, we have a problem!” Rodney shouted, out of breath.
“Again, I must ask you, why didn’t you radio?” Carson began grabbing medical equipment.
“It’s not life or death urgent, but um… Zelenka leaned against the jumper I was working on and now his head’s sort of um… stuck.”
John’s eyes got round. Not only did Zelenka have a lot more hair to get stuck, but he’d also apparently done it directly. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite as bad.
Carson dropped most of the things he’d collected and grabbed the scissors he’d just used on John. He turned to address them both. “I’ll have you know, gentlemen, that we have, as a society, gone long past the days when the town doctor was also the barber and vice versa.” He gave Rodney a pointed look. “And you. Watch where you’re sticking your glue from now on, would you?”
John couldn’t help himself. He just had to start whistling a little tune from “The Barber of Seville.”
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1732 (why oh WHY can I not do drabbles?)
Summary: “Listen to me, Rapunzel, the hair will have to go."
Written for: florahart who thought she was giving me a crazy prompt. I have no idea why this one landed on me first, but there it is. :)
Spoilers: none
Author's Notes: Total sillyness for the ABC prompt challenge on my main journal.
Warnings: none
John leaned against the edge of the jumper Rodney was running around repairing. He’d wanted to get in the air an hour ago, but McKay, he was sure, was stalling in order to put off the inevitable. He sympathized with the man feeling a little queasy about going on a test flight. Rodney had a lousy track record when it came to that sort of thing. But all the same, if they were going to do it, they needed to get going before it got dark.
He shifted to lean on the other hand, running his hand through his hair as he sighed in exasperation. He let out a small squeak as his hand halted of its own accord, twined through his hair. He tugged and realized his hand was truly stuck. “What the hell?” He tugged again and winced when the hair follicles objected to the abuse. He looked back and forth hoping no one milling about the jumper bay had noticed his predicament.
“Hey, McKay!” he hollered, leaning nonchalantly on the side of the jumper, like he was holding his head up with his hand.
“What? You know you’re the one pissing and moaning that you want to get going, that means I have to finish these tests.” Rodney stuck his head through the open jumper hatch to glare at him.
“Yeah, I was just curious. What is this stuff you were putting over the hairline fractures in the jumper’s shell?”
“It’s an epoxy. Why?”
“No reason. Look, you finish your tests. I’m going for a walk. Page me when you’re ready to go.” John stood and straightened, bringing his other hand to his head like he was stretching, not hiding the fact that his hand was apparently glued to his head.
Rodney gave him a funny look. “Um. Okay.” He watched Sheppard for a minute. “You okay?”
“Fine,” John assured him, walking away with both hands behind his head.
“Because you’re walking like a prisoner being marched to his execution,” Rodney called out.
John turned back, both hands still raised. “No trouble. Page me when you’re ready.” He gave McKay his most winning smile before leaving the bay.
He smiled sweetly at the duty nurse as he came through the infirmary doors. “Hey Lucy, is Carson around?”
Lucy sprang up from her chair. “He’s stitching up a marine. Did you hurt your neck?”
“Nah, nothing so serious. Could you let Carson know I need to see him when he gets done?”
“Why don’t you let me have a look first. I’ll start your chart. By then Carson should be done.” Lucy grabbed a pad from the small pile on the shelf behind her and led John to a bed. “Okay, hop up and put your hand down for me.”
John one-handedly levered himself onto the bed. “First part’s easy. Second part… that’s where we find ourselves with a bit of a problem.”
Lucy began experimentally pulling on his arm. “Colonel… Are you stuck to your own hair?”
“Little incident with McKay, some epoxy, my hand and my hair. I was hoping Carson would know of some kind of solvent or something to dissolve the glue.” John couldn’t meet her eyes any longer. This was sounding stupider and stupider and he was sure that by the time the story made it’s way around Atlantis, he’ll have had his hand stuck to every part of his body - and possibly several other bodies - imaginable.
Lucy tugged gently on a few of the hairs to see how completely stuck he was. “Oh boy. You’ve done a number on yourself there, Colonel. Is your arm starting to get stiff?”
John sighed. “Yeah, a little.”
“How long have you been stuck like that?” She gently touched the tips of his fingers.
“Oh, coming up on ten minutes now.”
Lucy shook her head, trying not to look amused by his plight. “Okay, let’s get you laying down at least. Try and get some blood back into your fingertips.”
John let her manipulate him back onto the bed.
“You’ve done what to yourself this time, John?” Carson said by way of greeting as he came out of one of the treatment rooms, examining the chart Lucy had prepared.
John glared. “Rodney was putting some kind of Ancient epoxy over the fractures in the jumpers. Some of it wasn’t quite dry, but McKay doesn’t exactly leave ‘wet glue’ signs on his work. I leaned on it, didn’t realize it, ran my hand through my hair and…” He pointed to where his hand was stuck by way of raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes.
Carson examined his hand, again testing for circulation and adhesiveness. “Lucy, I’m going to need a scissors.”
John’s other hand flew up. “Oh no, now come on. You have to have some kind of solvent or something I can just wash the glue out with. I mean, I can feel how close my hand is to my scalp. If you cut my hair from there… I’m going to look like I was scalped!”
Feeling somewhat malicious now that he knew that John really wasn’t in any grave danger, Carson crossed his arms and held one hand up by his face, “How?” he said in his best Native American imitation.
“With your damn scissors is how!” John exclaimed.
“No, I was … nevermind. John, the hair is going to have to go. We need to get your hand down to let normal circulation resume. Your hair will grow back.” Carson looked again at the way John was attached. He shook his head. John was going to lose a good twenty square centimeters of hair. Evening the rest out would probably require a crew cut the Marines would approve of.
Lucy came back with the scissors and Carson set them on the bed as he grabbed a chair so that he would be able to look down at his work when John sat up. “Come on. Hop down. Sit here.”
“Come on, Carson. You have to have some other way -“
“Listen to me, Rapunzel, the hair will have to go. You aren’t losing a limb or a loved one. Your day could be a lot worse.”
John cringed at the tone in Carson’s voice and stopped bitching. He made a mental note to ask Carson what had gone on with his other patients when they got home that night.
“Lucy, call down and find out what McKay was using and then check the Ancient database to see if there’s something we can use to get it off the Colonel’s hand.” Carson turned back and the next thing John heard was the ‘snip snip’ of the scissors.
“This sucks,” John mumbled a few minutes later.
“No, this is going to suck,” Carson said as he slowly maneuvered John’s hand down from the position it had been in for nearly half an hour.
John felt the locked muscles protest just before he felt the pins and needles rush of blood entering his hand again. “Oh fuck!”
“Not right now, love,” Carson said gently as he massaged the stiff shoulder and hand until John relaxed. “Better?”
“Well… partly.” He flipped his hand over and grimaced at the hair-covered palm.
“You know, John, I would have thought I kept you busy enough that you wouldn’t have to worry about getting hairy palms,” Carson quipped.
“I can still beat you with this hand,” John joked, but even as he pulled back he realized he really couldn’t, his shoulder still hurting like a mad thing when he tried to move too far. “Or, you know, maybe not.”
Carson took pity and went back to massaging the lingering soreness out. He paused to run his fingers through John’s hair, hoping the remaining hair could be arranged to cover up the nearly bald spot, but he couldn’t find any way to do it.
“Think I’ll get by with wearing a hat for the next month or so?”
“I don’t know. You’ve always tried to make something of a statement with your hair before. I’m sure this says… something.” Carson ruffled what was left of John’s hair and then went back to massaging his neck.
“Yeah, it says, ‘look at the idiot who doesn’t know hair gel from jumper glue,” John pouted.
“I’ve heard Dr. Cooper in zoology is actually pretty handy with a pair of scissors.” Carson suggested.
“Dr. Cooper is, among other things, a certified dog groomer. No thanks.”
“There’s Dr. McNabe in engineering. Maybe if you’re nice to her…”
“The last time I tried to be nice to her to get her to cut my hair, she thought I was asking her out.” He raised his eyebrows at Carson, daring him to say something.
“Maybe not her then,” Carson conceded.
John stood and headed over to the mirror. He fingered what was left of his hair. “I have a feeling I don’t have a whole lot of choices but to let Lieutenant Willis at me with those clippers so that it’s at least one length for a bit until I can grow it out again.”
Carson stood behind him, watching John watch his reflection. “It’ll grow back, John. You’ll survive this.”
“Maybe we can make up a better story? Say it was some kind of battlefield incident?”
Carson laughed. “Scalped by the Epoxians, were you?”
They both looked up to see the doors whoosh shut. “Carson, we have a problem!” Rodney shouted, out of breath.
“Again, I must ask you, why didn’t you radio?” Carson began grabbing medical equipment.
“It’s not life or death urgent, but um… Zelenka leaned against the jumper I was working on and now his head’s sort of um… stuck.”
John’s eyes got round. Not only did Zelenka have a lot more hair to get stuck, but he’d also apparently done it directly. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite as bad.
Carson dropped most of the things he’d collected and grabbed the scissors he’d just used on John. He turned to address them both. “I’ll have you know, gentlemen, that we have, as a society, gone long past the days when the town doctor was also the barber and vice versa.” He gave Rodney a pointed look. “And you. Watch where you’re sticking your glue from now on, would you?”
John couldn’t help himself. He just had to start whistling a little tune from “The Barber of Seville.”