snip snip snip to my lou

lucitania

desolation angel

Technically, he lives in Arizona, but it's an easy drive to Vegas: an hour or so, depending on how hard he pushes his laboring diesel Mercedes convertible. If he was a mortal man, Methos expects he'd have been dead of exposure long since. Or of skin cancer, at the very least. As it is, his skin heals just ahead of the rate he burns, so his tan always fades by the time he gets anywhere, and anyway he works nights.

He earns a ridiculous amount of money as a croupier at the Bellagio. His paychecks come to him made out to a Desmond Reed, but his pockets bulge with under-reported income, and he only drives into town three times a week. By day, he reads cheap paperbacks in the white glare of noon, feeling the sand work into the seams of his disreputable khaki shorts as he sits on the barren ground in the negligible shade of his Airstream trailer, theoretically sheltered under a flap of canvas awning. It's so dry that there are days he wakes blinking from naps that he's decided were probably fainting spells, perhaps even deaths, due to dehydration. He wonders how immortal healing goes about replenishing his corpse with living water, and then shrugs and returns to his terrible novel.

The Airstream trailer is in and of itself pure affectation, but he likes the shimmer of simmering daylight bouncing off its silver sheen, and he doesn't have to worry about searing the palm of his hand against its metal sides in the heat of the day, when it's just an anvil for the sun's hammer. Inside, it's as hollow as a bell: featureless and unfurnished but for a narrow cot with unfitted sheets.

After three months, he thought, briefly, about calling Mac. Duncan would appreciate the purity of the desert, the endless heat-warped horizon by day, the black bowl of countless white stars at night. Instead he read and re-read half a dozen dreadful romances and Bulfinch's Mythology.

Eight months in, a Japanese business man tips him with a thousand dollar chip, and Methos drives home into the rising dawn and sits on his grassless lawn and stares at the sun until his retinas fuse. He's only blind ten or fifteen minutes, but even as old as he is, he's never been blind in both eyes at once, and he finds that he's profoundly shaken by the experience, the truest desolation he has ever known. The world had seemed silent, but for his own harsh breathing and the heavy throb of blood in his ears. The totality of blackness even as he could feel the heavy press of the sun against his skin was eerie, engulfing, and ultimately chastening.

When he can again see his own shadow drawn sharply on the colorless sand, he fishes in his gaping pocket for his cellular phone, and calls the airport, books a flight to Paris.

END

_minxy_

wine red wool

On the day her people moved to the Lantean mainland, and Halling could only meet her eyes with veiled, sober disappointment, Charin's eyes had been bright and proud. Charin was, to hear Charin tell it, a wicked old woman, one who no doubt had not deserved to live so long. Over many years and many cups of tea, she had regaled Teyla with stories of her indiscretions, her casual dismissal of many an earnest lover, the time she ruined a lucrative trading deal with the stolid farmers of Navuul by seducing the chieftan's son on the eve of his wedding to the head of a neighboring village. "He was very handsome," she'd shrugged, "and his wife-to-be was sixty if she was a day. I was 34 at the time and far more limber, I can tell you."

If she had indeed been wicked, Teyla had never heard tale of it from anyone else in the village. In fact, her father had always been rather proud of Charin's romances. "You can't catch the wind," he'd been fond of saying. "And Charin is the south breeze in spring." And despite the Navuul incident, Charin was a prized negotiator and seldom missed a trading party.

In addition to her passionate love affairs and her shrewd bargaining skills, Charin was known for her fine weaving. Although she'd had to leave her loom in the ashes of Athos, Halling and Zelenka had contrived to build her a new one with Ancient materials, and those first weeks, many a spare, efficient Lantean sleep space had been warmed by a blanket fashioned from the fre wool Charin had bartered for the season past, and had had the presence of mind to cache in the lowland caves by the river.

She was one of the last to leave that day, and as she touched her forehead to Teyla's very tenderly, she pressed a hank of wool and a bundle of weavesticks into Teyla's hands.

The wool was dense and fine, dyed with wine-red gorgot root and combed smooth. The sticks were elegantly long and polished with use.

"You have chosen bravely, Teyla-fal," she said with a raffish smile, her cool hands so light against the backs of Teyla's own. "You must make your own place here," She pressed Teyla's hands closed around the wool. "And I have long despaired of your cooking, my girl. Make your bed, then. And sleep easy in it." Kissing Teyla's temple, she let her go and climbed the jumper ramp, ready for the next new start.

END

rossetti

hop, skip, jump

The first thing they did after Rodney had rented the car (he had refused to let John drive, insisting that he hadn't survived aliens in another galaxy only to be killed in a traffic accident by a speedfreak space cowboy) was go to the bank. They'd had banks on Sateda, but they'd only been used by the very rich, and most real banking done by citizens were transactions through people Rodney had labeled "loan sharks". John has something called a "safe deposit box" there.

Ronon's a little surprised at the smallness of the box, and the lack of guns in it. Mostly it's full of papers (and not the kind you could trade for sandwiches and rooms for the night) and a handful of keys.

"Well what do you know," John had said softly, holding up a narrow brass key with a number 5 stamped on it in red. "I forgot I even still had this."

"What's it for?" Ronon asked.

"It's the key to a storage locker I had in Kansas."

"Oh my god, we are not driving to Kansas," said Rodney, plainly horrified.

"Why not? We've got a month, and anyway we should show Ronon around a little."

Rodney grumbled a little more, muttering about an eight hour road trip to retrieve what would probably turn out to be some pressboard furniture and a stack of old Playboys, but he bought a map and drew on it and Ronon figured it had been settled.

"What's Kansas like?" Ronon still wasn't so clear on the concept of countries and state lines, and having never traveled widely other than by gate, he'd actually been kind of fascinated to learn that one planet could hold as many landscapes as the Lantean's claimed their Earth did. ("There are places that are frozen year round, like Ni-Ma? And there's more than one desert?") It hadn't occurred to him that each planet might hold more than the lands immediately around the gate. It made him itch to return to Sateda, to see it by puddle jumper, since he'd been unconscious the last time.

"It's... corny," John said gravely, and Rodney slapped a hand over his eyes and groaned.

"Can I drive?" Ronon asked.

"No. Also no, and no, and hmm, oh yeah, a thousand times no."

Eventually, though, Rodney pulled over on a straight away in the middle of fields of grain that John assured him was corn, and let Ronon get behind the wheel. ("I can feel him staring at me. It's interfering with my concentration!") John had pointed out that the SGC had fitted Ronon out with a driver's license, so he might as well get a chance to use it.

"If you see another vehicle, just... don't hit it," Rodney said with a longsuffering sigh. "And also, if you see a restaurant, pull over. I need coffee."

He drove for eighty six miles with Rodney barking in his ear about the speed limit, but mostly just insisting that Ronon keep both hands on the wheel at "ten and two". At the next gas station (Rodney refused to piss on the side of the road, even though he did it all the time on missions), Ronon gave the keys back to Rodney and stretched out sideways on the back seat. He'd decided to just sleep until they got where they were going; Kansas was boring, as far as Ronon could tell, and the summer glare was hard on his eyes. He wondered if Teyla was enjoying Washington D.C., and if Elizabeth was letting her drive.

Once they finally got where they were going, Ronon was disappointed. There was an ugly, boxy set of buildings made out of flimsy looking metal and a large lot full of various ugly, rusting vehicles. The box that had been assigned to John was at the end of a row of units that all looked the same but for the numbers painted on the ribbed whitewashed doors.

"Hmm, climate controlled," Rodney said, and Ronon thought he sounded approving.

John unlocked the heavy brass padlock and lifted the door with a rattling screech. He looked relaxed and quietly satisfied at the cool gush of air that floated out to meet them, and Ronon saw a small room full of brown cardboard boxes. What was with these Lanteans and boxes, anyway? John crouched down next to one and ran his knife along the taped seam, opening it to reveal… Ronon wasn't sure. John heaved out a stack of brightly colored cardboard squares, thin and flat like Rodney's file folders, but printed with pictures and words he could read but didn't make much sense.

"Vinyl?" Rodney said. "You've got a vinyl collection?" He sounded incredulous.

"And a Swiss turntable," John said amiably. He was smiling down at the cardboard square he held in his hand, Ronon leaned over his shoulder and read, "Greetings from Asbury Park." Maybe they were letters from friends of his? But the next one in the stack had a picture on it Ronon recognized; Johnny Cash.

Rodney was reading off what sounded like names, or maybe places: Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Dolly Parton, Elvis Costello, Ramones, ACDC, Joan Jett.

"I'm only surprised you don't have a Cher album in this mess."

"No comment," John deadpanned.

"So this stuff is all music?"

"They're the old-fashioned versions of those CDs I lent you," Rodney said absently. "Hey, Ray Charles!"

"Who's that? Is he like Johnny Cash?"

"No one's like Johnny Cash," John said reprovingly, rummaging in another box.

"No, no, he was a famous pianist." At Ronon's blank look, Rodney continued, "Piano. It's an instrument, you play it—this is a picture, anyway." He held up the "vinyl" in his hand and tapped the glossy cover. There was a guy on a bench sitting next to a big box with teeth. "He was blind, but he played anyway. Really, he was an amazing artist."

Ronon studied the cover again; except for the glasses, Ray Charles looked like his first sergeant at corps.

"Can we play some on the way back to Colorado?"

"No. They aren't made to play in a moving vehicle. You know, you could have told me," Rodney said to John. "We'll have to rent a van now to get this stuff back. And I'm not driving another eight hours, so we'll have to find a decent hotel in this wasteland."

Ronon picked up a box and balanced it on his shoulder.

"Can we rent one here?" he asked.

John lifted his hands and tugged the box out of Ronon's grip, staggering a little before stacking it on top of some other boxes.

"We don't need to rent a van," John said soothingly.

"But-- but it's your stuff!" Rodney looked sort of outraged on John's behalf. "We can't just leave it here. Although, maybe you're right, I bet we can get them to ship it—"

"Rodney, I don't need it. I never did. I mean, if I had needed it, I wouldn't have forgotten about it anyway. It was just kind of nice to know it was here." John shrugged a little. "Now give me the keys," he said in a wheedling tone.

Rodney clutched them to his chest, giving John a narrow eyed look.

"I told you, we're staying the night here. We can drive back in the morning, after I have had a dinner that involves barbecue and a breakfast features home fries."

"It just so happens that I know a great place," John promised. "Farley's. Best barbecue in the state."

"What do you need the keys for, then? Just give me the directions."

"Well, it so happens that this key," he said, showcasing a little silver key in the palm of his creased hand, "is to my old Cessna 210, which is sitting in a hangar at Hutchinson about forty minutes away. I sold it to Hal Brown before I left, but if it's still there, he'll lend it to me with a full tank of fuel. And from there, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to Barton Field."

"And where's that?"

"Just outside of Vegas," John grinned at Ronon full force and Ronon ("You know, Vegas," John had said. "Showgirls in fancy costumes, high-stakes poker—" "Buffets," Rodney had broken in.) grinned back.

END