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SGA Saturday Prompt Challenge
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Published:
2024-10-12
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A Break in Flow

Summary:

He wanted them to be very aware that he was busy and that distractions were extremely unwelcome; and to assume that, if necessary, he was happy to reinforce that implication with a broken nose.

Most people got the idea with commendable swiftness.

McKay wasn’t most people.

Notes:

A short Ronon and Rodney friendship fic for the SGA Saturday Prompt: Block

Work Text:

Ronon’s room on Atlantis was a gift, a sanctuary; a space which spoke to him of home and safety and friendship.

But, it felt, right now, less like a sanctum and more like a vampire: blandly sucking all the inspiration out of his brain with a straw. It was the fact that the place was too familiar, perhaps; too settled and comfortable, as unromantic and staid as a Garvian stew.

Very unlike the thoughts and memories he needed to evoke.

Still, he had anticipated no real problems in finding a quiet place to write. There were nooks and crannies all throughout the city, and he only needed to select one and set up a ‘bother me and die’ aura around him, like a protective field. Ronon had struggled, sometimes, when younger, about being perceived as intimidating, regardless of intent. Now, it was one of his most useful features and he embraced it as part of himself.

Anyone who couldn’t see past that aspect of him, when offered the chance, was not worth getting to know.

Sometimes, however, he didn’t want people to see past it. He wanted them to be very aware that he was busy and that distractions were extremely unwelcome; and to assume that, if necessary, he was happy to reinforce that implication with a broken nose.

Occasionally a snarl was required, on top of the level stare and the full-body scowl, but most people got the idea with commendable swiftness.

McKay wasn’t most people.

“Oh, hey, there you are. I was meaning to talk to you about … are you okay? You look like you’ve got toothache up to your eyeballs. Oh, did I ever tell you about the time I thought I needed a filling and it turned out … this is actually quite amusing …”

“I’m busy, McKay. Go bother Sheppard.”

McKay instantly soured, with a touch of melancholy.

“He’s whacking golf balls into the undeserving ocean. I can’t be around the man when he’s playing golf, it sort of hijacks his brain. Like he’s possessed by a Goa'uld, except one less concerned about world domination and more about slices and backswings.”

“Mm. Fair.” Ronon had to concede that one. He loved Sheppard, of course, like he loved all of his team, to the fullest extent of his heart and unbreakable loyalty; but, man, he’d rather tangle with a Wraith - a whole Hive - than go near him in his full-blown golf enthusiast mode.

“So … busy, huh? What are you busy doing?”

It felt typical of McKay that he would regard his own busyness as sacred and other people’s as a curiosity, to be poked and prodded and trampled over. Except that it was clear from the tone, and McKay’s earnest, hopeful, expression, that he had picked this, decidedly inconvenient, moment, to take to heart all the hints and advice (and exasperated yelling) he had been given, over the years, on ‘people skills’; including showing an interest in his friends’ interests (golf being always, and understandably, excepted).

Snapping at, or dismissing, him, when he was genuinely trying, would be a poor way to repay that effort.

“Working on a poem. Can’t get the words to come.”

McKay’s brow wrinkled comically; and Ronon suppressed a smile and a sigh of relief. He should have known that all he needed to do, to expel Rodney McKay like a banished spirit, was to mention poetry.

“Oh. Right. Well, I can’t say that poetry’s exactly my metier, but …”

The relief dissolved into an unaccustomed alarm.

“Not asking for help, McKay.”

“No, no, I can do this! Jeannie’s invited us for Christmas this year and she made some … comments … about a few harmless remarks I made to her husband on the last visit, so I’ve been trying to view the subject of English literature with a more open mind.” McKay’s expression suggested that his mind was strongly resisting being opened. “It’s a little easier if you view poems as equations, where you have to get the syllables to add up.”

“Poems aren’t sums, McKay. They’re about feelings. Meaning. Taking the words from your heart and laying them bare and unafraid.”

“Yes, yes, that too, but there should, at least, be a pattern there and I can get behind patterns. Something with structure and rules. Not those things which are just spilled-out words, like someone shook a dictionary and they all fell out.”

Ronon grinned internally, thinking about his own poems of spilled-out words, like he’d thrown up his emotions on a page. Sometimes that was exactly what he was after. But usually he did crave more order, rhythm, and the satisfaction of creating one of the more demanding forms of Satedan verse.

When he’d been Running, he’d kept his favourite poems with him, as companions and succour, the words running through his blood, repeated in his mind, so that they wouldn’t slip away. Life had become about survival, his priorities forcibly shifted, the skills he had learned in the military coming to the fore and becoming honed by necessity and fury; but he had refused to let that become all he was: a mere mechanical body, moving, but not living, his thoughts and feelings ruthlessly taken from him, along with his whole world.

But seven years still wasn’t long enough to grieve, when you had to do it around the edges of yourself, and he had such a lot of words to say, now that there was time.

Except that sometimes they didn’t come out as he wanted - needed - them to do; his offerings to the memories he cherished, ending up scraped out, limp and thin; a starved and clouded reflection of what was inside.

At other times, like now, it was even worse. There was a loudness in his heart and a silence in his fingers, where he could not get the two to agree. And, usually, that would have been okay. Ronon had learned patience the hard way, carved into him by the fingers of Wraith and his own determination. A block in his mind was frustrating, but it was something which he could shrug and accept, knowing that his words would return when they were ready.

But not today.

“This one’s important.”

McKay, of course, was as oblivious as ever to any subtleties of mood and intonation. He was in one of his most difficult phases to deal with: determinedly, and very sincerely, wanting to help. To shoo him off now, Ronon might have to go beyond blunt into cruel; and, while he could not acquit himself of any cruelty, ever, in his dealings with McKay, he was not proud of those times; and would not deliberately add to them.

His well-meaning nemesis nodded at him, all focus and concentration.

“Okay, so, then we’d better get started. I propose we begin with a grid. Set out the meter and lines first and then you can just slot the words in there to fit.” He mimed slotting the words in place, like Ancient crystals in his beloved technology, then beamed at Ronon, with a growing enthusiasm for the project, clapping his hands together in anticipation. “Right, how long is this thing?”

Ronon stifled a sigh - told himself that this didn’t mean he was getting as bad as Sheppard, rolling over for McKay, every time his eyes lit up even slightly - and swallowed his strong inclination to tell him to go jump off a pier; or, worse, explain to him why this mattered so much, why he had wanted to be alone for it, so that his words and his heart could cry in privacy and silence.

Instead, he gave McKay a sheet of paper and a pen and let him knock himself out with grids and patterns; his mutterings and absorption - and insistence on getting a perfect straight line - neatly distracting Ronon and pulling him back from the black hole of nothing he’d been falling into, spiralling steadily with the grief of an imperfect grief; an anniversary not honoured as he wanted it to be.

Melena’s memory leaned over his shoulder, as he watched the construction effort, and lightly kissed his cheek; her sweet amusement and appreciation of friendship, blowing through him like a gentle breeze.

And words came to him, tumbled and scattered and imperfect; and forever hers.

Ronon took up his own paper and began to write.