Ficlet:: Freshers' Week
Aug. 22nd, 2005 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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minttown1 wanted Daniel/Rodney, but had no thoughts on setting. I happened to get her comment while making my first excavations of the massive paper mountain the college sent to me, so a topic for her fic naturally suggested itself. Oxford, 1988
“Shaded Items Are Absolutely Compulsory,” said a voice. It was the sort of voice that could pronounce capital letters.
After a moment, Daniel rolled over and stared upwards to see another boy looking down at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, “were you talking to me?”
“Seeing as how you’re the only person within a fifty-metre radius, I would say so,” replied the first speaker, flumping himself down on the grass next to Daniel. “I suppose I could be addressing the trees or the flowers, or perhaps the little birds fluttering about or maybe even the universe in general, but no, let’s think radical and say I’m talking to you.”
“Oh,” said Daniel. He didn’t move, and there was a long pause before he asked, “What did you mean, shaded items are absolutely compulsory?”
“Absolutely Compulsory,” the other boy corrected, and once again Daniel could hear the initial capitals. “Don’t you have one of these?”
This time Daniel had to sit up slightly to see the crumpled sheet of paper that was being held out. “Timetable of Freshers’ Week,” he read. “Yeah, I’ve got mine somewhere.” His own copy was possibly even more dog-eared than the one in front of him, but he wasn’t telling the stranger that. “So what?”
“So, and I quote: your attendance at the shaded items on this timetable is required without fail, blah, blah, so on and so forth, and yet here you are out on the grass by yourself, not attending a shaded item – the talk on welfare in college, I believe it is.”
“So are you,” Daniel replied with implacable logic. “You’re not at the talk on welfare in college, you’re out here talking to me.”
The boy looked unnerved for a minute, then appeared to come to a decision. “I’m Rodney McKay,” he said. “I’m reading Physics here.”
Daniel smiled. “Hello, Rodney. I’m Daniel. So why aren’t you at the talk?”
“They get so tedious, and we’ve heard it all before,” Rodney said waspishly. “Make friends and be a nice person and don’t be afraid to ask for help and keep out of the way of the Dean and if your central heating goes boom in the middle of the night then go and talk to Doctor Who...”
“Excuse me?” interrupted Daniel, confused.
“That would be the Welfare and Housing Officer. See, I read the leaflets!” Rodney uprooted a piece of grass and threw it upwards. “I read everything they sent me. I object to having it all regurgitated at me by well-meaning JCR officers. Why aren’t you there?”
The abrupt change of tack made Daniel pause before answering. “I don’t like people much,” he said carefully. “Unless they’re dead and have books written about them, I mean.”
Rodney’s eyes narrowed. “Historian?”
“Archaeology and Anthropology, actually.”
Rodney seemed to think about it. “And you don’t like people?”
“I just don’t like being around them,” Daniel explained. “I’m sort of on my own a lot. I don’t socialise well, and all the talks so far have had lots of people.”
“I wish I had your problem,” said Rodney sincerely. “Mine is that people don’t like me.”
“I do,” said Daniel quietly, and was surprised to realise he meant it. He did like this strange person with the strange accent and even stranger sense of humour. He was different.
“You don’t mean that,” Rodney said with resignation. “Or maybe you think you do, but then you’ll see me in a bad mood or just after I’ve had something citrus and you’ll change your mind.”
“What does citrus have to do with it?”
“Allergies.” Rodney waved an expansive hand. “My mother once nearly killed me with a key lime pie.”
“Oh,” said Daniel. “I’m allergic to, well, most things. I sneeze a lot.”
“I could deal with that,” Rodney said. “I don’t mind people sneezing. I can say ‘bless you’ and look sympathetic.”
“I could call for an ambulance,” said Daniel tentatively. “If you ever ate a lemon, I mean.”
There was a silence while they both stared at each other. Finally, Rodney breathed a sigh. “Well, Daniel... sorry, what’s your last name?”
“Um, Jackson. Daniel Jackson.”
“Well, Daniel Jackson, I think I like you, too,” Rodney said.
Daniel didn’t say anything for a minute, but he smiled. “Let’s go back inside,” he said at last.
Rodney nodded and stood up. They slipped into the JCR from the side entrance and found two chairs near the back, next to each other. “Now that the stragglers have joined us,” said the speaker severely, “I’ll go back to what I was saying about steps to take in case of medical emergency...”
Apparently, medical emergency included everything from colds and flu to fractures, burns, the more severe forms of meningitis and death by pathogens unknown to science courtesy of the medics leaving their bedroom windows open.
Still, Daniel thought, exchanging glances with Rodney, he was going to like it here.
finis
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on 2005-08-22 10:10 pm (UTC)Hah! And oh man, that sounds like every health and safety speech I've ever sat through.
That was cute and sweet beyond all belief. I love this shy and benignly misanthropic Daniel.
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on 2005-08-22 10:17 pm (UTC)And, oh, Daniel; he was my first fannish crush, if you don't count Remus Lupin, and I can't believe I'm still writing fic about him after all these years.
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on 2005-08-22 10:25 pm (UTC)Very sweet, in a prickly sort of way. :)
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