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Fiction Main
Written for the Zelenka ficathon, for qwirky, who wanted cuteness.
Warning: I almost titled this "Ode to Radek Zelenka". Consider yourself warned.
Connection
by Frostfire
Rodney's sprawled across the conforms-to-your-body-or-bodies Ancient Bed, Radek snoring softly next to him, and he thinks, I've really got something going, here.
Which is odd, and new, because most people can't stand to be around Rodney for very long. He's seen it before--okay, and he sees it now--how by the end of the day, people are edging away from him, and they bolt for the door as soon as the project's over, heading for cover with the coworkers who are their actual friends.
Or, there are his own friends--kind of, people he spends time with--they can take him for so long, but eventually--goodnight, had a nice time, maybe next time Rodney will let some of us talk for awhile--
Anyway. It just makes this odd. Because with Radek, he has stuff like yesterday, which was totally routine, and during which they spent two hours arguing over the little power sources in the Wraith stunners, and how maybe they could be reengineered to do something actually useful--
"Oh, yes, feel free to try it your way," sarcastic Czech eyebrow-raise. "I will just take five minutes, if you please, and move to a part of the city that will not explode if you hook that up to the generator. East Pier, maybe. It is good that I know how to swim."
"Fine, fine, but we're at least going to run some simulations," Rodney insisted, "because we need to find out if Wraith power is at all compatible with ours--"
"Well, simulations, yes, Rodney. We'll watch labs blow up on computer screen, and maybe we will eat popcorn, and then we go back to doing useful science. I think I will go take another one of them apart now."
So Rodney tried it on his own, and Radek snickered his way through the first fourteen simulated trials, during which Rodney managed to blow up the labs fourteen times, and during attempt eleven, actually sink the city. But attempt fifteen turned something up, something that had Rodney snapping his fingers at Radek, who'd wandered off to do his useful science.
"Labs are still blown up," Radek pointed out. "Although--what is that?"
"It's perfect, is what it is, it's just what we need, because you can see here--"
"Yes, Rodney, I can see, but the question is, can you see this here--"
And another hour of arguing, but the thing is, he's never worked with anyone where the arguing's so perfect, where they pause in the middle of yelling at each other, stare for a second, and then go, "That's it!" because the argument gets them there somehow. Instead of antagonizing, they're synergizing. And it works so well.
So there's that. He could work with Radek Zelenka the rest of his life and never, ever get bored.
It's amazing enough. But there's more.
Today at lunch, they were eating their pretend tuna fish--the fish part was at least real--and Radek leaned forward and said, "Nancy the biochemist? With the big," hand gesture, raised eyebrows.
"Yeah?" Rodney said around a mouthful of pretend lettuce.
"I hear she is making a still."
Rodney sat up. "Yeah?"
"The grain Stackhouse brings back from the planet with the taboo against wearing animal fibers, I think it makes good vodka, hm? I think maybe soon we do not have to depend on Lessner's stash of bad whiskey."
The pretend tuna fish was rapidly becoming the best thing Rodney had ever tasted. "Radek, that is the greatest news since the last time I learned I wasn't actually going to die. I will worship Nancy for the rest of my days--and hey, you know what this means?"
"Drunken soccer in the hallways?"
Rodney paused for a second to give that thought the mild horror it deserved. "Okay, that too. But it means we can finally appreciate the hockey Stillson brought on DVD. Hours and hours of hockey and alcohol--"
"I think the date is now set for first pretend Friday after the still is set up."
"You, my friend, are on."
"I also think we get as high barter prices as possible from any liquor we may have hidden away now. Today, soon."
"Right, right. Good idea."
So now they're waiting on that, and today Rodney traded his private alcohol stash for coffee, weight-for-weight, which he promptly divided in half to share with Radek once Radek produced the M&M's he'd somehow--how, God?--gotten for his. And tonight they had coffee and M&M's and fabulous, fabulous sex--
Which is another thing. Because not only is Radek brilliant and so, so easy to work with, not only can he do the hockey-and-drinks buddy thing that Rodney's never really been able to pull off--well, there's this thing he does with his mouth that Rodney's never been able to figure out. He tried, earlier tonight, lying on his back with his brains absolutely fried, and eventually gave up and asked.
"I do not plan it, Rodney, I just do it. Would tell you while it is going on, but," and Rodney swears he shrugs in Czech, sometimes, "cannot talk with my mouth full."
So there's that. Which is amazing, no, more than amazing, he never thought--
It's like--he worships Samantha Carter as a goddess, but he has a Vulcan mind-meld with Radek Zelenka. And it's so much better, because not only does it not make Rodney feel like a crawling little bug, it seems to be a lot more fun for Radek, too.
Sam never spent half an hour laughing her ass off when collaborating with Rodney in order to successfully make Kavanagh's hair fluorescent green only when under natural light.
And then--well. The most fabulous thing he and Radek do together is save the world, which is the craziest rush he's ever had, different and better than the oh-shit-gonna-die Major Sheppard patented adrenaline, because in the labs he's doing something about it, and that synergy between him and Radek just spirals up and up and up. The pressure and stress is a nightmare, but figuring it out and saving the day--working under the clock and saving the whole city from dying, using their brains and their hands and the craziest ideas he's ever seen in science, which is saying something.
It's insane. It's amazing. And then they stumble back to one of their rooms and rinse themselves off and maybe Radek does that thing with his mouth, and maybe Rodney does that other thing that Radek likes so much, and they collapse together in a sticky heap of adrenaline crash and--
And it's the best thing he's ever had.
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