![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hackthis_archiveSo, um, yeah. If you're voting today, this is for you.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
John, Derek (vague John/Derek, maybe. Oh, the shame).
S1 spoilers, PG
Improv: burst, seedy, tequila, sequence
Under the City Lies a Heart Made of Ground
Cameron and John's mom are off stealing supplies and scaring people. It's what they do together and they do it well. A little too well considering how wary John's mom is of Cameron, but John likes to think of them getting along; it's better than living with even more paranoia in his life.
His mom didn't say that she was off to terrorize people, but she took Cameron along and left John at home, and she only tends to do that when there's stuff she doesn't want him involved with. John's mom would never leave him alone at this point if Derek wasn't at home, and Derek never would have made this mess if he wasn't expecting them to be gone a good long while too.
Right now, Derek is sprawled out on the kitchen floor, covered in gun parts, used oily rags and tattoos. Derek has tattoos everywhere. John doesn't mean to stare, but Derek is there taking up all this space and John can't really help himself. When he's stuck at home there's really only so many things he can do, and watching Derek clean guns has become one of them.
Click. Clack.
Click.
John can sort of handle a gun; his mother wouldn't let him not learn. He has a fate, and he has to be prepared, even for the things he doesn't want to do. Especially for the things he doesn't want to do. Guns still make him a little nervous though, even after all this time, at least if he's the one holding said gun. The idea of death in a chamber never gets easier and the smell of gunpowder aggravates John's nostrils and makes him twitch, but maybe that will change. It's going to have to eventually.
"Are you going to stand there watching me all night?" Derek looks up, an eyebrow raised, but his fingers carry on with their work as though Derek were watching them avidly.
Some people do things by rote. Brush their teeth. Wash their hair.
John hacks computer systems. Derek assembles guns.
John drops down besides his uncle, his hair flopping in his eyes.
Judging by the number of grips on the floor, Derek has the parts of four guns before him and John can't help but be a little impressed. A little in awe.
There's a madness to Derek's actions. There's a sequence he's following. Disassemble, reassemble, disassemble again.
"So, what did you learn in school today?" Derek is making conversation; John doesn't know what to do with this. His skills don't really fall in the light conversation category.
"Today, I learned that my government is run by idiots," John says flippantly.
"Oh, well, I could've told you that. Tomorrow stay home and watch porn on your computer."
"Cool. I'll tell my mom that you said truancy was okay."
Derek just snickers.
"You're really good at that," John says. It's a better than asking about his dad. Or about Derek's tattoos. Or about the end of the world and why him and not some other sixteen year-old.
Derek's eyes never leave John's face as puts down one assembled gun and picks up the pieces of another. "Everyone's gotta be good at something," he says with a shrug. There's a pause. "Well, something besides drinking," he amends.
John finds himself picking up an empty gun chamber and turning it over in his hands. "Am I good at drinking?" A pause. "I mean when I'm legal."
Derek's smile is all teeth. "There's not much you're not good at when you put your mind to it."
It's strange to hear about himself in future tense, because he's here, right here, right now and yet, he's also in the future and Derek knows him in that future. "Like what?"
"You fishing for compliments, Connor?" Derek mocks.
John fumbles the gun chamber. "No, I was just, it's weird, you know? You know me in the future and I –"
"You want to know you in the future too."
"Well, mostly I'd just like to get there in one piece."
Derek's laugh is dry, almost like a cough. "You think I'm sitting here doing this for my heath?" he asks, leaning forward and taking the gun piece away from John to finish his second assembly.
"Maybe. No. I dunno," John finishes a bit lamely.
Derek shakes his head. "Kinda hard being the future savior, isn't it?"
"You can do it, if you want," John offers. "I'll give it to you half price."
At this Derek really laughs. It bursts forth like an explosion. "Yeah you said the same thing the time I let you give me a tattoo. I know better than to trust a Connor Cut-Rate Special."
John blinks once. Twice. "I gave you a tattoo? Really?"
At John's query Derek shifts on the kitchen floor, turning to show John his shoulder. The lighting in the kitchen is a little sketchy, so when Derek pulls the neck of his shirt down John can't really see what he's trying to show him.
There's a series of squiggles and lines that run together, but they don't make much sense.
John gets to his knees and crawls a bit closer. "What's it say?"
Derek lets go of his collar and looks up at John. "You can't read English?"
John mouth thins out automatically. "That's not English! At least not any English I know."
Derek shakes his head. "Our savior can't read. We're screwed."
John falls back on his ass when Derek pulls out a huge Bowie knife from somewhere on his person. "Okay, if you stab me, nobody's going to get saved," John isn't nervous. Okay, maybe a little.
Derek just snorts and gives him the knife. "Read the reflection, smartass."
John doggedly doesn't drop the knife as he crawls closer to Derek and then leans over his right side. When Derek yanks down his shirt collar again and leans in to John, John doesn't twitch. He's not really used to being this close to anyone that's not a terminator or his mom. Derek smells like soap and oil and sweat. It's –-
"Any day now, kid," Derek prompts. "And if you stab me, I'll be really pissed off."
John's rolling his eyes, but Derek can't see it. The weak lighting bounces off of the knife once, twice and then John can't quite get the angle right.
NOFA…
NOFAT…
NO FATE.
Oh.
John exhales softly. "I gave you that tattoo?" He doesn't realize he's touching it, until Derek twitches underneath his fingers and John immediately moves away
"Yeah" Derek says, taking the knife back from John. "After I didn't die for the third time."
John nods thoughtfully. "That's pretty cool."
"It was a fucking nightmare," Derek scoffs good-naturedly. "I got shot in the leg, and they used this shitty tequila to sterilize the wound. I drank the rest. We don't really have anesthetic for anything less than major surgery."
"I can see how that could happen."
"You offered to give me the tattoo to take my mind of the doc cutting open my leg in the middle of the hallway."
John can't really see this, but in a way he can. You have to get comfort where you can.
Derek laughs wryly. "It took your ass longer to give me the tat than it did for the doc to fix my leg."
"So it worked."
"Yeah, but after that I made you leave the tattooing to me."
"You did all these yourself?" John gestures towards the ink covering Derek's arms. He can only imagine the tattoos that he can't even see right now.
Derek shrugs again. "Gotta kill time somehow."
"Wow. Will you do one for me?"
Derek looks at John out the corner of his eye and nods. "Not today. But one day."
"But I'm old enough now," John wheedles.
Derek nods. "Yeah, but you don't need them now."
John frowns. "But I want one now."
Derek shakes his head and goes back to assembling gun parts. "Can't always get what you want, kid."
"Wow, you're quoting the Rolling Stones? That's just sad."
Derek smirks. "You want your first tat? Disassemble and reassemble that gun in the next sixty seconds and we'll talk."
John looks down at the pieces on the floor, which double before his eyes as Derek disassembles the gun in his hand and adds to the mess. "You want it, you gotta earn it."
John scowls. "You think I can't do it."
Derek hands the remaining assembled gun. "Prove me wrong."
When John yanks the gun away, Derek smirks. Except that John isn't Derek and he has to look at what he's doing. Not all of it, but a good part of it. It doesn't help that Derek's counting aloud and giving a running commentary
"Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds. You're taking apart a gun not a piece of meat. Thirty-three seconds. Forty seconds. I hope you don’t have sex like you jam that gun together. Fifty seconds."
"DONE!" John says proudly.
Derek takes the gun from John's fingers with an amused twist of his lips and points it at the floor. It fires blankly,
Victory is a sweet thing.
"Okay," John says excitedly, "Can I have my tattoo now?"
Derek snorts and hands the gun back to John. "No," he says, getting to his feet.
"What do you mean 'no'!?" John sputters.
Derek pats him on the head idly. "I mean your mom would kill me if I gave you a tattoo and it'd suck if I came all this way just to get killed now."
"You suck," John says bitterly.
Derek crouches down to John's eye level. "Yeah, but you don't get to hear about that until much later."
John's nostrils flare. He doesn't even know what to say to that, which is obviously why he's still sitting among random gun parts when his mom and Cameron come home.
"What are you doing?" Cameron asks before his mother can question him.
"I have no idea," John admits truthfully. "I have no fricking idea."
-end-
Title from 'A Horse With No Name' by America. I got it from a telly advert.
Are you happy now![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ethrosdemon?
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
John, Derek (vague John/Derek, maybe. Oh, the shame).
S1 spoilers, PG
Improv: burst, seedy, tequila, sequence
Cameron and John's mom are off stealing supplies and scaring people. It's what they do together and they do it well. A little too well considering how wary John's mom is of Cameron, but John likes to think of them getting along; it's better than living with even more paranoia in his life.
His mom didn't say that she was off to terrorize people, but she took Cameron along and left John at home, and she only tends to do that when there's stuff she doesn't want him involved with. John's mom would never leave him alone at this point if Derek wasn't at home, and Derek never would have made this mess if he wasn't expecting them to be gone a good long while too.
Right now, Derek is sprawled out on the kitchen floor, covered in gun parts, used oily rags and tattoos. Derek has tattoos everywhere. John doesn't mean to stare, but Derek is there taking up all this space and John can't really help himself. When he's stuck at home there's really only so many things he can do, and watching Derek clean guns has become one of them.
Click. Clack.
Click.
John can sort of handle a gun; his mother wouldn't let him not learn. He has a fate, and he has to be prepared, even for the things he doesn't want to do. Especially for the things he doesn't want to do. Guns still make him a little nervous though, even after all this time, at least if he's the one holding said gun. The idea of death in a chamber never gets easier and the smell of gunpowder aggravates John's nostrils and makes him twitch, but maybe that will change. It's going to have to eventually.
"Are you going to stand there watching me all night?" Derek looks up, an eyebrow raised, but his fingers carry on with their work as though Derek were watching them avidly.
Some people do things by rote. Brush their teeth. Wash their hair.
John hacks computer systems. Derek assembles guns.
John drops down besides his uncle, his hair flopping in his eyes.
Judging by the number of grips on the floor, Derek has the parts of four guns before him and John can't help but be a little impressed. A little in awe.
There's a madness to Derek's actions. There's a sequence he's following. Disassemble, reassemble, disassemble again.
"So, what did you learn in school today?" Derek is making conversation; John doesn't know what to do with this. His skills don't really fall in the light conversation category.
"Today, I learned that my government is run by idiots," John says flippantly.
"Oh, well, I could've told you that. Tomorrow stay home and watch porn on your computer."
"Cool. I'll tell my mom that you said truancy was okay."
Derek just snickers.
"You're really good at that," John says. It's a better than asking about his dad. Or about Derek's tattoos. Or about the end of the world and why him and not some other sixteen year-old.
Derek's eyes never leave John's face as puts down one assembled gun and picks up the pieces of another. "Everyone's gotta be good at something," he says with a shrug. There's a pause. "Well, something besides drinking," he amends.
John finds himself picking up an empty gun chamber and turning it over in his hands. "Am I good at drinking?" A pause. "I mean when I'm legal."
Derek's smile is all teeth. "There's not much you're not good at when you put your mind to it."
It's strange to hear about himself in future tense, because he's here, right here, right now and yet, he's also in the future and Derek knows him in that future. "Like what?"
"You fishing for compliments, Connor?" Derek mocks.
John fumbles the gun chamber. "No, I was just, it's weird, you know? You know me in the future and I –"
"You want to know you in the future too."
"Well, mostly I'd just like to get there in one piece."
Derek's laugh is dry, almost like a cough. "You think I'm sitting here doing this for my heath?" he asks, leaning forward and taking the gun piece away from John to finish his second assembly.
"Maybe. No. I dunno," John finishes a bit lamely.
Derek shakes his head. "Kinda hard being the future savior, isn't it?"
"You can do it, if you want," John offers. "I'll give it to you half price."
At this Derek really laughs. It bursts forth like an explosion. "Yeah you said the same thing the time I let you give me a tattoo. I know better than to trust a Connor Cut-Rate Special."
John blinks once. Twice. "I gave you a tattoo? Really?"
At John's query Derek shifts on the kitchen floor, turning to show John his shoulder. The lighting in the kitchen is a little sketchy, so when Derek pulls the neck of his shirt down John can't really see what he's trying to show him.
There's a series of squiggles and lines that run together, but they don't make much sense.
John gets to his knees and crawls a bit closer. "What's it say?"
Derek lets go of his collar and looks up at John. "You can't read English?"
John mouth thins out automatically. "That's not English! At least not any English I know."
Derek shakes his head. "Our savior can't read. We're screwed."
John falls back on his ass when Derek pulls out a huge Bowie knife from somewhere on his person. "Okay, if you stab me, nobody's going to get saved," John isn't nervous. Okay, maybe a little.
Derek just snorts and gives him the knife. "Read the reflection, smartass."
John doggedly doesn't drop the knife as he crawls closer to Derek and then leans over his right side. When Derek yanks down his shirt collar again and leans in to John, John doesn't twitch. He's not really used to being this close to anyone that's not a terminator or his mom. Derek smells like soap and oil and sweat. It's –-
"Any day now, kid," Derek prompts. "And if you stab me, I'll be really pissed off."
John's rolling his eyes, but Derek can't see it. The weak lighting bounces off of the knife once, twice and then John can't quite get the angle right.
NOFA…
NOFAT…
NO FATE.
Oh.
John exhales softly. "I gave you that tattoo?" He doesn't realize he's touching it, until Derek twitches underneath his fingers and John immediately moves away
"Yeah" Derek says, taking the knife back from John. "After I didn't die for the third time."
John nods thoughtfully. "That's pretty cool."
"It was a fucking nightmare," Derek scoffs good-naturedly. "I got shot in the leg, and they used this shitty tequila to sterilize the wound. I drank the rest. We don't really have anesthetic for anything less than major surgery."
"I can see how that could happen."
"You offered to give me the tattoo to take my mind of the doc cutting open my leg in the middle of the hallway."
John can't really see this, but in a way he can. You have to get comfort where you can.
Derek laughs wryly. "It took your ass longer to give me the tat than it did for the doc to fix my leg."
"So it worked."
"Yeah, but after that I made you leave the tattooing to me."
"You did all these yourself?" John gestures towards the ink covering Derek's arms. He can only imagine the tattoos that he can't even see right now.
Derek shrugs again. "Gotta kill time somehow."
"Wow. Will you do one for me?"
Derek looks at John out the corner of his eye and nods. "Not today. But one day."
"But I'm old enough now," John wheedles.
Derek nods. "Yeah, but you don't need them now."
John frowns. "But I want one now."
Derek shakes his head and goes back to assembling gun parts. "Can't always get what you want, kid."
"Wow, you're quoting the Rolling Stones? That's just sad."
Derek smirks. "You want your first tat? Disassemble and reassemble that gun in the next sixty seconds and we'll talk."
John looks down at the pieces on the floor, which double before his eyes as Derek disassembles the gun in his hand and adds to the mess. "You want it, you gotta earn it."
John scowls. "You think I can't do it."
Derek hands the remaining assembled gun. "Prove me wrong."
When John yanks the gun away, Derek smirks. Except that John isn't Derek and he has to look at what he's doing. Not all of it, but a good part of it. It doesn't help that Derek's counting aloud and giving a running commentary
"Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds. You're taking apart a gun not a piece of meat. Thirty-three seconds. Forty seconds. I hope you don’t have sex like you jam that gun together. Fifty seconds."
"DONE!" John says proudly.
Derek takes the gun from John's fingers with an amused twist of his lips and points it at the floor. It fires blankly,
Victory is a sweet thing.
"Okay," John says excitedly, "Can I have my tattoo now?"
Derek snorts and hands the gun back to John. "No," he says, getting to his feet.
"What do you mean 'no'!?" John sputters.
Derek pats him on the head idly. "I mean your mom would kill me if I gave you a tattoo and it'd suck if I came all this way just to get killed now."
"You suck," John says bitterly.
Derek crouches down to John's eye level. "Yeah, but you don't get to hear about that until much later."
John's nostrils flare. He doesn't even know what to say to that, which is obviously why he's still sitting among random gun parts when his mom and Cameron come home.
"What are you doing?" Cameron asks before his mother can question him.
"I have no idea," John admits truthfully. "I have no fricking idea."
-end-
Title from 'A Horse With No Name' by America. I got it from a telly advert.
Are you happy now
ethrosdemon?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-04 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-04 09:15 pm (UTC)Our Savior can't read, we're screwed This needs to be an icon, seriously.
Great story.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:23 pm (UTC)It's the unofficial motto of the current US government. Really.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-04 09:35 pm (UTC)Ok, I uploaded some music you might like on my journal.
Cameron and John's mom are off stealing supplies and scaring people. It's what they do together and they do it well.
YES. That's exactly it.
Right now, Derek is sprawled out on the kitchen floor, covered in gun parts, used oily rags and tattoos.
Is there one for me, plz? I can be good. Or bad, as needed.
Some people do things by rote. Brush their teeth. Wash their hair.
John hacks computer systems. Derek assembles guns.
Um. Yeah. So, this fandom, fun, huh? Excellent. I thought you said you had no mojo. Lies, all lies!
Derek's eyes never leave John's face as puts down one assembled gun and picks up the pieces of another. "Everyone's gotta be good at something," he says with a shrug. There's a pause. "Well, something besides drinking," he amends.
John finds himself picking up an empty gun chamber and turning it over in his hands. "Am I good at drinking?" A pause. "I mean when I'm legal."
Derek's smile is all teeth. "There's not much you're not good at when you put your mind to it."
I KNOW this isn't supposed to be porny, but I can. not. help. myself. It's a disease, and you can't judge if it's a disease, like alcoholism.
"You can do it, if you want," John offers. "I'll give it to you half price."
At this Derek really laughs. It bursts forth like an explosion. "Yeah you said the same thing the time I let you give me a tattoo. I know better than to trust a Connor Cut-Rate Special."
EXCUSE ME WOT? You do love me. Like, a lot, apparently. SIIIIIGH!
"Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds. You're taking apart a gun not a piece of meat. Thirty-three seconds. Forty seconds. I hope you don’t have sex like you jam that gun together. Fifty seconds."
You know, this is PRETTY slashy for someone who was all "talk to the hand" earlier!
OMG, I SEE NOW. Dear GOD! Ok, what do I have to trade for this?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:26 pm (UTC)Okay, first of all, I'd just like to say that I was trying for gen, but you know that's hard for me. And I don't have any mojo! If I did I'd be thinking about that Blaise/Theodore story that I keep eying curiously.
I KNOW this isn't supposed to be porny, but I can. not. help. myself. It's a disease, and you can't judge if it's a disease, like alcoholism.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-04 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 06:35 am (UTC)My vote: repress your desire to write gen fic and write John/Derek slash instead.
do it. :D
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 06:20 pm (UTC)LOL!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 03:21 am (UTC)*flails more*
I was just telling
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 06:24 pm (UTC)(also, hi, there WAS a slash in your notes, so :PPPPP)
Do tell me about this bad wrong ide--er, that is, resist! Resist the bad wrong idea! Be strong!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 06:28 pm (UTC)Yes, but I figured you were never going to read it and find this out. *snicker* Future fic. Like resistence time. John knows something Derek doesn't and he goes through with it anyway... and then the guilt gets to him and that's why he sends Derek back. That would be wrong. And awesome. I am going to write that, aren't I?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 05:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-15 02:21 am (UTC)I don't know if she is, but I am. One of the things I love about Cameron (and Derek) is that they hold JOHN CONNOR on a bit of a pedestal, but John the sixteen yo? Is still sixteen and needs to learn things. And is less scary than his mother. I think you got that flavor here.
Your terminator stuff
Date: 2008-03-18 10:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-20 07:22 pm (UTC)There's a strange tension between John and Derek on the show and this whole story feels like a scene that's been deleted -- you capture that perfectly.
You've also got the whole surrealness of the fact that the John Conner Derek knows is not the John Conner he's meeting now, and then there's the fact that Future JC is going to meet Derek and ....
(I love the gordian knot posed by good time travel stories.)
Anyhow, thank you very much. This story was simply wonderful and I'm looking forward to keeping up with your SCC stories.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-11 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-22 07:22 am (UTC)