nysalogs | [Open/Closed] There is life outside your apartment...

Entry tags:

[Open/Closed] There is life outside your apartment...

Who: Rodney McKay (

doubledoctornocitrus) & Annie Walker (

smithsonian), & TJ Johansen (

stargatemedic), & Felicity Smoak (

alergictonuts), & Ianto Jones (

torchwoodteaboy), & Various/Open
What: November Catchall
When: Various dates in November
Where: Olympia
Warning(s): Rodney is basically his own warning. I'm sorry.

Evening, Olympia (Closed to Annie Walker)

"You!"

Apropos of Nothing (Closed to Felicity)

Are you planetside?

Do you have a roommate?

Re: Your Destiny. (Closed to TJ)

This time, Rodney avails himself of the tools he's given, and looks up 'Tamara Johansen' in the little social media applet that's been treating him surprisingly well. With her as a medic, he should have figured she'd work in a clinic, and it's convenient that she's actually in Olympia. And, well, it's also convenient that the clinic is in Olympia as well, because he's stopped off at the...healers(????) once or maybe twice and if Beckett had practiced mystic bullshit, this planet's idea of the medical arts is beyond the pale.

Regardless. Rodney shows up at TJ's work with a smile and asks for her specifically.

A Stopped Clock (Closed to Ianto)

Whereas Rodney had, prior to his discussion with John, resolved to be Nice(tm) to Ianto, the discussion had had the surprise side-effect of forcing him to realize he actually needed to make an effort. Conveniently, the cafe-like place within which the discussion took place has pretty good coffee, which is as good an offering as any. And...honestly...Rodney has next-to-no clue what Ianto is actually like or would actually like.

Which probably wasn't good, considering the whole vague hand-gesture-y situation.

Armed with cafe coffee not made by someone whose optimal brew was 'nearly caustic with pesticide levels of caffeine', Rodney attempts to hunt Ianto down using his vague recollections of things that weren't his work and were also people-related, all while nervously trying not to admit to himself that it's important to not fuck up this actual human relationship. It's not even his relationship, which is somehow worse, because if he fucks up then it's not him who is going to be suffering the most.

And so, Ianto, Rodney comes bearing one (1) gift.

Making a Racket (Open -- Thesean Starter Housing)

Rodney keeps odd hours, even considering that they're on new planet and sometimes it can take a while for daily circadian rhythms to synchronize with diurnal cycles. Which means he's up in the middle of the night and there's crackling noises and flickering light coming from beneath his door as he does the Mad Science thing. He's bound and determined to learn how to make this world's technology for himself--and then try and apply a bit of his own know-how to it. But to do that, he's gotta break some eggs. So speak.

It's just very, very late and the apartments aren't very far apart.

Wildcard (Open -- Anywhere)

[Poke me for a custom starter elsewise! I'll match brackets or prose. Plx plot with me. :D]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Are you kidding?" Rodney asks, aghast. "While I acknowledge that you being very drunk was probably most of my good fortune--"

He's gotten used to living around supermodels where he'd be the fourth option, if he even made the cut. He's not bitter about it. (Maybe a little bitter.)

"Dinner? While you're not drunk." The worst part of getting to know someone he was attracted to is past. No first kiss nerves, because he already knew she didn't mind laying one on him. Perfect. Unless she wouldn't want to kiss him while she's not drunk, and he's not that kind of guy? He manages to stammer out a tacked-on, "No--no expectations, er--"

Does he want to introduce her to these supermodels? She'd like to meet them maybe.

"Dinner would be nice. We can do dinner," she tells him, still amused at the way he seems to be stumbling through his offer. And though she'd been weirdly tipsy when she'd kissed him the first time, at the moment, she didn't see a reason she wouldn't do it again under the right circumstances. "No expectations. Got it."

Truth be told, Annie didn't have a lot of shame or guilt about the things she did, so Rodney might be a bit more reserved than she was.

No supermodels until he gets a chance to make a proper impression! He knows how he stacks up. He must wow her with his brain first.

"Great!" Rodney declares. And, since it's dinner time, he adds, "Now?"

Annie would be amused at the idea that he hasn't made a proper impression. Still, she nods.

"Now is good. Do you have a favorite place?"

"I, uh--" and Rodney stops, blinks, and realizes that he's literally stopped a woman on the street and asked her to dinner without thinking. It's a bit too late for a retroactive panic attack (...well, no it's not, but he's got bigger fish to fry at the moment), so he just freezes, blinking at her. "Not yet? I, um, I haven't..."

He takes a couple of mental steps back and tries, "I interrupted you, though?" I mean, now? What was he thinking? What was she thinking?

It's not hard to figure out that maybe asking people out isn't Rodney's strong suit and yet, it's kind of endearing.

"How about we find a place as we walk. There can't be a place too far, probably on the next block," she tells him, reaching over to thread her arm through his. She hopes it calms him a little and then she starts to walk again rather than run.

Taking into account that she's not really dressed for a meal out, she has to ask. "It's okay I'm not dressed for a nice place, right?"

"Did you want to go someplace nice?" The question is clearly just shy of panic and he dearly wishes he had something to occupy his hands. He almost takes out his tablet just so he can fiddle with it and give himself something else to focus on besides the full attention of a very beautiful woman and her arm through his. "Because we can, I was just--"

He forcibly stops himself because he has learned, there has been experience. He reins himself in pats her arm and says, "We can walk. Yes. Do that." It's still a bit on the rough side (Rodney's track record of only ever being smooth by accident seems to be holding), but he's game for anything. "Pick"--he catches himself at the last second and revises his broad gesture and grandiose statement to something he can actually back up--"almost anywhere."

"I'll go wherever," she tells him, still in an agreeable mood. The more agreeable she seems to be, however, the more stressed he becomes and she wonders why that is.

The fidgeting and the stammering and finally, the pat to her arm, cause her to slow to a stop and, when he offers to let her pick (almost) anywhere, she takes a breath and puts it on pause.

"Are you okay?" She motions to the cafe to one side and more sit-down diner a couple paces down the road. "Either of these are fine, but you seem a little bit." How to put it politely? "Stressed out. If this isn't-- We don't have to."

Her smile is encouraging.

"I'm just, er, not used to..." He gestures with his free hand, a little helplessly. However, he's adjusting to the fact that maybe this isn't actually a fluke and nobody is playing one of the nastier sorts of jokes on him. With a bit more strength (and an equal amount of hauteur), he says, "I'm not used to people recognizing just how fantastic of company I can provide."

He peers between the two places she's indicated and aims for the whole enchilada: sit down, no doubt about it. "There looks like a good one. And no we don't have to, but we're going to. I absolutely want to." And there, there's Rodney's conviction. Took him a minute to find it, sure, but what's he going to say when challenged like that? No?

Certain he's joking about his style of company, Annie laughs as he gestures and motions for him to continue.

"Now that I've clearly seen through it all to your obviously fantastic personality, I'm glad we're going to lunch," she responds, hopefully in on the joke that he's telling and, once he picks the place they're going to, she nods her agreement. "That one looks good to me, too. I've never been, but I'm always up for something new."

And she is. Adventurer to her core.

Rodney knows the truth of his words in this sitation, so he just offers her a bright grin that's only about 12% awkward and ushers her towards the sit-down place that they've chosen. Never let it be said that Rodney ran from something he'd decided he was absolutely going to do. Have to drive him off with a stick. Or an explosion.

Come to think of it, it's usually explosions that do it. Or governments in lieu of explosions.

Like that moment before the tsunami when the tide goes out, the place is mostly empty in the hour before the full dinner rush, and they're able to be seated pretty swiftly. Rodney's trying to be polite and maybe also a little bit smooth, but he's in uncharted territory insomuch as he's not had much recent practice; by the time he'd been back on Earth to go on dates there, his currently relationship had been a bit more advanced than this. He's wrong-footed and trying to impress her at the same time and he's already got that sense of impending doom that this is going to go very poorly.

"So this...place is nice."

While it's entirely clear that Rodney's feeling awkward, Annie's not trying to add to his anxiety, so she hopes that the gentle teasing helps in some manner. There's just something about him that hits at her core. He's just so... emphatic. About everything.

She's glad the restaurant is nearly empty; it'll give her time to relax after her run and maybe her companion will calm down a little. Maybe not, she thinks, but maybe. When he starts the conversation, she doesn't laugh, exactly, but it's a close thing.

"Rodney." She grins and leans forward to take his hands in hers. "Calm down." Tilting her head, she looks around. "It is nice." Looking back at him, she says, "You know I'm a spy, right?"

There. That'll calm him down.

Hand-holding is not an emergency, but Rodney stiffens a little before he can force himself to relax. He's doing this, and not acting like a moron is step one. He is a grown adult human being who has successfully interacted with people his entire life.

"I'm very calm. I'm just adjusting to the...ambiance. I--"

Record scratch. The statement is legitimately too out of left field for Rodney to do more but blink at her. Honestly, she's going to need to clarify before he can react.

"I'm sorry. You just said you're a what?"

His insisting that he's calm does nothing to ensure her that he is - quite the opposite, actually, and her eyebrows go up as a smile plays along her lips, listening to him go on about the ambiance.

When he gets to what she's said, she grins. "I'm a spy. I work for the CIA. Not here," she amends with a shrug of her shoulders, letting go of his hand so she can take a drink from her glass. "I'm pretty sure that this place has nothing to do with the Agency, which is why I'm telling you." Also, because he'd just been going on and on and needed a diversion. "But I thought you should know."

"Well, of course not here. There's no CIA here. Or at least I hope not. I could see them attempting to set up here, given enough personnel. That seems just like something they'd do, regardless if there was a United States to protect. Which I can say, because I worked with an international expeditionary force. From Canada. I am, that is. The expedition was US-based. At first."

He's rambling while he's thinking, letting go so she can drink and forgetting his hand on the table. It remains extended while he talks at her, working through some of the implications. When he finishes processing, he remembers to retract his limbs, and he mirrors her water-drinking.

Then, a little like it's almost too cool to be true and also maybe a lot intimidating, he asks, "So an actual spy? Like with the infiltrating fancy parties and running from machine-gun fire? Like what kind of spy are we talking here?"

Listening to Rodney ramble, Annie realizes her mistake in thinking that a distraction would be the appropriate thing to stop Rodney from talking excessively and she goes back to observing as he goes on and on.

"I've infiltrated a party or two," she concedes, then adds, "And maybe had a few guns fired in my direction." Like, directly into her chest. It's less fun to talk about like that, though, so she goes back to what he's mentioned and motions with her hand. "But you said something about being part of an international expeditionary force? That sounds interesting. What was that like?"

Tell her more.

"Oh, so you're a little bit James Bond. Alright. That's," and Rodney's distracted by the idea of her in a slinky dress maybe with a gun strapped to her thigh. Unfortunately for Annie, Rodney's ability to ramble cannot be curtailed by anything short of duct tape over his mouth, even as he short-circuits on just how terrifyingly hot that sounds. In a...a respectful sort of way. Right. "That's a reference you get, right? You're from Earth, you said CIA, and you didn't balk at Canada. Yes. So."

He misses entirely that he's being distracted from the topic with her conversational gambit, and rolls straight into a possibly not-quite-so-brief explanation of the Atlantis expedition, starting with a, "How comfortable are you with the concept of Aliens and wormhole travel?"

"James Bond saw way more action," she assures him. "A lot of my job is waiting."

For everything. But he's distracted by something and she waits for his thoughts to come to fruition, not wanting to interrupt - yes, dresses and thigh holsters - and when he asks about her being comfortable with wormholes and aliens, she tilts her head at him and says, "What?"

Not because she's not comfortable, it's just not what she was expecting.

"I admit that it's a little bit of a, well, not a stupid question"--Rodney doesn't ask stupid questions, thank you very much--"but one that lacks certain context. Granted, we are literally on an alien planet among aliens, so that a certain amount of comfort is going to be implied, but I mean with the concept of aliens mixing with the reality of Earth as you knew it. Because this--"

He waves a hand at the rather nice restaurant and the rather nice waitstaff.

"Is more or less what the Atlantis expedition was for."

Aliens. Not date nights.

"So, not Atlantis underwater, but Atlantis out in space."

She watches him for a moment to see if he's going to say he's joking, but when he doesn't she nods a little, then sits back in her chair. "I went to Space Camp. I always thought being an astronaut would be fun. But that's... that's something else."

Leaning forward again, she looks at him. "Go on."

Yup, not joking, and he's very proud of it, thank you. Life's work and all. Her mentioning Space Camp gets a little bit of a dismissive wave, but he does try to answer positively, "It's very much a step way beyond that, and honestly if I could show you Atlantis, I would. It's different than Thesa station, smaller for one. Were you woke up."

As if she might not know what he's talking about. His enthusiasm leaks into his words as he speaks, though, and he lights up. Hands animated and his smile quick, he sketches a rough snowflake in the air.

There's a gentle tide of babble as he gives her a rundown of how important he was on Atlantis, how he'd save the day, and all his friends (John gets a mention, as do the others of his team, and a few more). His ego shines through, of course, but beyond that he wants to lay out all of the things he's excited about and proud of, because he wants her to know so that she can share them with him.

When the waitstaff interrupts him before he gets too far, though, he distractedly requests some sort of meal and then very visibly checks his monologue.

"Um."

Despite the company she's currently keeping and the way he's rambling, Annie's actually a very good listener. Even though he's dismissed her claim of Space Camp - rude - she continues to focus on what he's saying with an open mind, his stories overlapping and running into each other as he describes the various days and things that have happened.

Seeing him be this excited about something, even if some of it is his ego talking, is interesting and she's got her chin propped in her hand as he finishes. When he lands at 'um', she actually grins at him.

"Did you run out?"

"Oh, no, I, uh." He blinks at her a bit, now that he's not on a roll, he's scrambling for the social skills that Atlantis had...let's say gently encouraged him to develop. Because he'd been about to mention Jennifer, for one, and for two...

"I just. Have been monopolizing the conversation." That seems like a safe sort of comment with the benefit of being true while also avoiding what he realized might be an actual issue he will need to deal with at a later date. Or on a later date, so to speak. "And I. Would like to know more about you. Since all I really know is that you're a spy and incredibly hot, so..."

Incredibly hot. Annie ducks her head with a smile before looking up at him and shaking her head.

"That isn't something you know about me, that's something you can see," she tells him without denying that she's good looking. She is. It helps with the 'being a spy' and then she watches him for a moment before turning her expression curious. "I'm not sure what you want to know about me. I like being outdoors, I'm an adrenaline junkie, I can speak eighteen languages," she says as if it's perfectly normal, "nine of them fluently. I've been to six continents and I've been dead."

Her smile turns teasing. "I've never been married. You?"

"Well, it's very obvious that you're hot," Rodney tells her with a touch of asperity. He's not registering the distinction between 'know' and 'see,' because he's a firm believer in empirical evidence.

He nods along with her list of things-about-her, though, and perks up a little bit at the eighteen languages thing. That's an excellent sign of intelligence and maybe he's shallow, but the fact that it's more than he can speak suggests she might not immediately fail to be an intellectually challenging conversationalist. He subconsciously shifts her from 'random blonde who kissed me' more into 'someone who I might actively engage with as an individual.' He ticks a notch more comfortable around her.

His eyes widen at the 'dead' thing, though. That sounds suspiciously like the nonsense he'd gotten up to with the SGC. He answers her question, his mind half on the 'dead' thing and still faintly preoccupied with Jennifer, by mushing them together and saying, "Oh, no, I almost proposed once before I realized I couldn't do that to her and I was well on my way there again before the Storm caught me up, but never actually married, either. Seriously, though, dead? Were you resuscitated? Or was there some fancy CIA technology involved?"

(no subject)

smithsonian - 2019-01-24 05:21 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only