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TITLE: The Barista - Chapter 13: Fortune's Fool
SUMMARY: He’d been lucky. There would have gone John’s chance at the Atlantis Grand, but for the grace of a coffee shop barista.
CATEGORY: AU, Romance, Drama
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: John, Teyla, Ronon, Rodney, Elizabeth, Ladon, Dahlia, Sora, Charin, and Cowan aren't my characters and I'm just mucking around with them in the universe of my choice without even the hope of getting paid for it.
NOTES: And so it ends. With many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
allisnow who beta'd, the people who commented once, twice, halfway through, or on every single chapter, and the people who IM'd me to say they were enjoying the story at various points.
The Barista - Chapter 13: Fortune's Fool
"Why?"
They'd been served drinks, and John had indulged in a double-malt whiskey just to get the courage to ask her the only question that mattered - and enough calm so he wouldn't take her by the shoulders and shake her for not telling him.
She turned, setting the delicate silver of her earrings a-twinkle in the candles that the waiters had quietly lit while taking their drink orders. That same light reflected back out of her eyes as she looked at him. "At first, I did not know," she admitted, looking down at her champagne glass. "And then you mentioned the Atlantis Grand Hotel, and...I did not know how to tell you."
"So you just let me ramble on," John said. The words came out sharper than he liked, even if he was angry about her silence.
"I tried to make space between us," she defended.
"You never said why."
"No." The candlelight glittered off her shoulders as she shrugged, setting afire the fine hairs on her skin, a blaze of beauty as she lifted her face to his. "This dinner is the others' concession," she said. "If you can convince them to negotiate with you, then you will have your pet project."
He eyed her. "And you?"
Her smile was slight and seemed forced, even in the twilight falling down around them. "You have my vote on the council. For whatever it is worth."
"You said this dinner was the others' concession," he said. "You got them to talk to us?"
Teyla paused in the act of turning away. "You felt so strongly about the Atlantis. And you were right - we have not put our full efforts into the running of the hotel." Her gaze rested on the sweeping curves of the terrace and the piers and pontoons that floated down in the bay below them. "My parents were married here, on this terrace, and they would come here every year to celebrate."
She shrugged, and the gesture held much more than just a casual dismissal of the memory. Whatever had happened to her parents, the recollection was painful enough that she'd stopped caring about the hotel.
John bit back his own questions.
She'd offered him the chance to achieve a dream that had been impossible - if he'd only known it - and done so in the face of painful memories. It was only fair to give something back in return. "I was seven," he said. "My grandfather was celebrating his sixtieth birthday and we came here."
He turned his back on the bay and the ocean that lapped below, and looked at the rising coils and spires of the hotel's design, felt the old lump in his throat - an emotional reaction that clogged his throat, making his voice husky as he admitted, "I was in love from the moment I saw it."
"It has that effect on people," Teyla agreed, and John didn't need to look at her to see the agreement - or the indulgence - in her brief smile.
He turned his head to look at the composed outline of her profile, softly tan against the navy sea, and wondered if it was just the Atlantis Hotel he'd fallen for at first sight.
The thought stuck with him through dinner and was still with him when they began serving up coffee. John sipped his latte and thought that it wasn't a patch on the stuff at the café.
"So what are you doing being a barista at the Athos Bean anyway?" Rodney demanded of Teyla during a moment of silence at the table. "Or are you learning from the ground up?"
Ladon Radim's mouth quirked as he glanced at his colleague. "Teyla enjoys making coffee."
"It's the only thing she can make." By contrast, Sora's smile wasn't entirely nice.
"And she does it very well," came Dahlia's sharp retort.
"We have all done time on the shop floors of the various businesses in the Pegasus group," said Teyla, answering Rodney as though the others hadn't spoken and interrupting whatever animosity was between the two women. "However, as Sora has said, I am no great cook, so I take pride in what I can make."
"You're good at coffee," John said, meeting her eyes along the length of the table.
"Coffee and companies," said Dahlia with a smile.
Ronon grinned. "And spending money."
"Better than crashing cars," she replied with pointed sweetness.
"Which reminds me," said Rodney. "Why can't Ronon afford another car?"
"He can afford another car," she said with pointed emphasis. "He cannot afford another Murcielago."
John was horrified. "You crashed a Murcielago?"
"A Lamborghini Murcielago?" Mike was similarly shocked.
"He was going nearly two hundred when he spun out and met a telephone pole coming the other way," said Sora with a cool, sideways glance at Ronon. "He was lucky to walk away."
"At two hundred miles an hour?" Elizabeth said, setting down her cup. "I'd say you have a charmed life, not just luck."
Ronon grinned and winked at Elizabeth in response.
But as the conversation turned to the various cars driven by the people around the table, their advantages and luxuries, John figured it wasn't just Ronon who'd been lucky.
--
When the others left, John stayed behind. They'd probably get hold of him tomorrow - the concept of 'weekend' tended to get forgotten at Stargate Enterprises. Right now, he wanted to speak to Teyla.
Sora gave him a hard look as he waited for Teyla out in the lobby, but other than the faint smirk, she said nothing. On the other hand, Ronon eyed him with the look of someone who was debating whether or not to confront an issue head-on or just leave it - at least until Dahlia Radim touched him on the shoulder and drew him away. Ladon Radim smiled thoughtfully as he and Teyla came out of the restaurant, but other than murmuring something in her ear as he pushed her towards John, the slim man said nothing.
John was just as relieved that he wasn't going to get any flak from Teyla's colleagues. Elizabeth and Rodney would be grilling him tomorrow about all this - asking how he couldn't have known or realised.
Teyla glared after Radim, but after only a brief hesitation, she lifted her chin and crossed over to John.
"So," he said. "Are they going to think us over?"
"Yes. Although it will be some time before we get back to you."
John fell into step beside her, gently scuffing the soles of his shoes across the fine old tiles of the lobby floor. "You know, I thought twice about asking you out."
Her sideways glance was carefully neutral. "Perhaps you should have thought a third time."
"It would have been the same answer," John pointed out. "And if I hadn't asked you out, you wouldn't have heard me going on about the Atlantis, so you wouldn't have even listened to our proposal."
From the look on her face, John guessed Teyla had never looked at it that way. "I suppose," she admitted at last, brushing away a wisp of hair that promptly fell back down across her cheek. "We might have considered your offer."
"Or just turned it down." He stopped in a corner of the lobby, using a potted palm as a screen against the curious gazes of the staff on the main floor. Teyla looked up at him quizzically as he asked, "Would you have invited us to dinner?"
Her answer took a moment to come. "No," she admitted. "We would not."
"Then it's lucky for us I asked you out."
"And is that the only good thing that came from it?"
The warm white lighting of the lobby gave the planes of her face a burnished sheen, like polished bronze. In answer, John reached out to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear and let his fingers linger on the warm skin of her neck. "I don't think that even deserves an answer," he said quietly.
Teyla flushed, but her lashes only dipped down for a moment, and John felt his skin mirror her embarrassment. He didn't usually address things so directly. To cover his momentary discomfort, he said, "You know, it's a Friday night again and the T-Bar is open."
One eyebrow quirked at him as she tilted her head. "Are you sure I am dressed for it?" Then she laughed as he made a face at her.
"Just so you know, I've already done my business for the night. We won't be interrupted." And if anyone called him, they were going to voicemail.
"So it is a date, then?"
John took her hand in his own, nervous but not about to back down. "Teyla, this is dating."
This time, he wasn't going to let her make excuses, and he wasn't going to make excuses for himself. If it meant moving a little faster, then he'd step outside his comfort zone and risk it. What was life without risk?
Still, Teyla's silence went long enough for him to break into a sweat and wonder if he'd moved too fast. He'd let her dictate the pace if she wasn’t comfortable with things, but he wasn't going to accept her retreat. They could always throttle back if she wanted, but John had laid his cards down and she wasn't going to get to ignore them.
When the tints of a smile softened the austere angles of cheekbone and jaw, John almost laughed in relief. "You enjoy going fast, John."
He confined his elation to a slight smile. "You were warned in advance."
"I was," she agreed. "So I will have to learn to like college football, then?"
"Yeah." John slid an arm around her, and let himself enjoy the feel of her arm slipping around and under the edge of his jacket. "I'll try not to be jealous of Kermit and we'll make it a deal, huh?"
Her laughter rang through the entranceway of the Atlantis Grand Hotel as they sauntered out to collect John's car.
John grinned into her hair. Lucky, indeed.
- fin -
NOTES: And then they drive off into the sunset in a Maserati Spyder.
Thank you to everyone who read this all the way through to the end, and particularly to those who have left feedback!
The original idea was based in a point made bylierdumoa during the last SGA racewank (a.k.a. Barista!Wank). Her observation was that Teyla and Ronon usually get assigned the 'low socioeconomic roles' in AU stories - 'low socioeconomic status' usually being an authorial shorthand for 'unimportant characters unworthy of my interest'.
This began as an attempt to turn the tables on the trend: have characters of 'low socioeconomic status' that are nevertheless important to the main plot. Somewhere along the way, the attempt at ideology kinda got lost, and it turned into just another story to be told.
For those who are asking where Carson is...I don't have a satsifactory answer for you or myself. I'm sorry. I strongly encourage you to prod me to write In Life's Name and Requiem For A Healer, both of which will feature Carson in a key role.
SUMMARY: He’d been lucky. There would have gone John’s chance at the Atlantis Grand, but for the grace of a coffee shop barista.
CATEGORY: AU, Romance, Drama
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: John, Teyla, Ronon, Rodney, Elizabeth, Ladon, Dahlia, Sora, Charin, and Cowan aren't my characters and I'm just mucking around with them in the universe of my choice without even the hope of getting paid for it.
NOTES: And so it ends. With many thanks to
allisnow who beta'd, the people who commented once, twice, halfway through, or on every single chapter, and the people who IM'd me to say they were enjoying the story at various points.The Barista - Chapter 13: Fortune's Fool
"Why?"
They'd been served drinks, and John had indulged in a double-malt whiskey just to get the courage to ask her the only question that mattered - and enough calm so he wouldn't take her by the shoulders and shake her for not telling him.
She turned, setting the delicate silver of her earrings a-twinkle in the candles that the waiters had quietly lit while taking their drink orders. That same light reflected back out of her eyes as she looked at him. "At first, I did not know," she admitted, looking down at her champagne glass. "And then you mentioned the Atlantis Grand Hotel, and...I did not know how to tell you."
"So you just let me ramble on," John said. The words came out sharper than he liked, even if he was angry about her silence.
"I tried to make space between us," she defended.
"You never said why."
"No." The candlelight glittered off her shoulders as she shrugged, setting afire the fine hairs on her skin, a blaze of beauty as she lifted her face to his. "This dinner is the others' concession," she said. "If you can convince them to negotiate with you, then you will have your pet project."
He eyed her. "And you?"
Her smile was slight and seemed forced, even in the twilight falling down around them. "You have my vote on the council. For whatever it is worth."
"You said this dinner was the others' concession," he said. "You got them to talk to us?"
Teyla paused in the act of turning away. "You felt so strongly about the Atlantis. And you were right - we have not put our full efforts into the running of the hotel." Her gaze rested on the sweeping curves of the terrace and the piers and pontoons that floated down in the bay below them. "My parents were married here, on this terrace, and they would come here every year to celebrate."
She shrugged, and the gesture held much more than just a casual dismissal of the memory. Whatever had happened to her parents, the recollection was painful enough that she'd stopped caring about the hotel.
John bit back his own questions.
She'd offered him the chance to achieve a dream that had been impossible - if he'd only known it - and done so in the face of painful memories. It was only fair to give something back in return. "I was seven," he said. "My grandfather was celebrating his sixtieth birthday and we came here."
He turned his back on the bay and the ocean that lapped below, and looked at the rising coils and spires of the hotel's design, felt the old lump in his throat - an emotional reaction that clogged his throat, making his voice husky as he admitted, "I was in love from the moment I saw it."
"It has that effect on people," Teyla agreed, and John didn't need to look at her to see the agreement - or the indulgence - in her brief smile.
He turned his head to look at the composed outline of her profile, softly tan against the navy sea, and wondered if it was just the Atlantis Hotel he'd fallen for at first sight.
The thought stuck with him through dinner and was still with him when they began serving up coffee. John sipped his latte and thought that it wasn't a patch on the stuff at the café.
"So what are you doing being a barista at the Athos Bean anyway?" Rodney demanded of Teyla during a moment of silence at the table. "Or are you learning from the ground up?"
Ladon Radim's mouth quirked as he glanced at his colleague. "Teyla enjoys making coffee."
"It's the only thing she can make." By contrast, Sora's smile wasn't entirely nice.
"And she does it very well," came Dahlia's sharp retort.
"We have all done time on the shop floors of the various businesses in the Pegasus group," said Teyla, answering Rodney as though the others hadn't spoken and interrupting whatever animosity was between the two women. "However, as Sora has said, I am no great cook, so I take pride in what I can make."
"You're good at coffee," John said, meeting her eyes along the length of the table.
"Coffee and companies," said Dahlia with a smile.
Ronon grinned. "And spending money."
"Better than crashing cars," she replied with pointed sweetness.
"Which reminds me," said Rodney. "Why can't Ronon afford another car?"
"He can afford another car," she said with pointed emphasis. "He cannot afford another Murcielago."
John was horrified. "You crashed a Murcielago?"
"A Lamborghini Murcielago?" Mike was similarly shocked.
"He was going nearly two hundred when he spun out and met a telephone pole coming the other way," said Sora with a cool, sideways glance at Ronon. "He was lucky to walk away."
"At two hundred miles an hour?" Elizabeth said, setting down her cup. "I'd say you have a charmed life, not just luck."
Ronon grinned and winked at Elizabeth in response.
But as the conversation turned to the various cars driven by the people around the table, their advantages and luxuries, John figured it wasn't just Ronon who'd been lucky.
--
When the others left, John stayed behind. They'd probably get hold of him tomorrow - the concept of 'weekend' tended to get forgotten at Stargate Enterprises. Right now, he wanted to speak to Teyla.
Sora gave him a hard look as he waited for Teyla out in the lobby, but other than the faint smirk, she said nothing. On the other hand, Ronon eyed him with the look of someone who was debating whether or not to confront an issue head-on or just leave it - at least until Dahlia Radim touched him on the shoulder and drew him away. Ladon Radim smiled thoughtfully as he and Teyla came out of the restaurant, but other than murmuring something in her ear as he pushed her towards John, the slim man said nothing.
John was just as relieved that he wasn't going to get any flak from Teyla's colleagues. Elizabeth and Rodney would be grilling him tomorrow about all this - asking how he couldn't have known or realised.
Teyla glared after Radim, but after only a brief hesitation, she lifted her chin and crossed over to John.
"So," he said. "Are they going to think us over?"
"Yes. Although it will be some time before we get back to you."
John fell into step beside her, gently scuffing the soles of his shoes across the fine old tiles of the lobby floor. "You know, I thought twice about asking you out."
Her sideways glance was carefully neutral. "Perhaps you should have thought a third time."
"It would have been the same answer," John pointed out. "And if I hadn't asked you out, you wouldn't have heard me going on about the Atlantis, so you wouldn't have even listened to our proposal."
From the look on her face, John guessed Teyla had never looked at it that way. "I suppose," she admitted at last, brushing away a wisp of hair that promptly fell back down across her cheek. "We might have considered your offer."
"Or just turned it down." He stopped in a corner of the lobby, using a potted palm as a screen against the curious gazes of the staff on the main floor. Teyla looked up at him quizzically as he asked, "Would you have invited us to dinner?"
Her answer took a moment to come. "No," she admitted. "We would not."
"Then it's lucky for us I asked you out."
"And is that the only good thing that came from it?"
The warm white lighting of the lobby gave the planes of her face a burnished sheen, like polished bronze. In answer, John reached out to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear and let his fingers linger on the warm skin of her neck. "I don't think that even deserves an answer," he said quietly.
Teyla flushed, but her lashes only dipped down for a moment, and John felt his skin mirror her embarrassment. He didn't usually address things so directly. To cover his momentary discomfort, he said, "You know, it's a Friday night again and the T-Bar is open."
One eyebrow quirked at him as she tilted her head. "Are you sure I am dressed for it?" Then she laughed as he made a face at her.
"Just so you know, I've already done my business for the night. We won't be interrupted." And if anyone called him, they were going to voicemail.
"So it is a date, then?"
John took her hand in his own, nervous but not about to back down. "Teyla, this is dating."
This time, he wasn't going to let her make excuses, and he wasn't going to make excuses for himself. If it meant moving a little faster, then he'd step outside his comfort zone and risk it. What was life without risk?
Still, Teyla's silence went long enough for him to break into a sweat and wonder if he'd moved too fast. He'd let her dictate the pace if she wasn’t comfortable with things, but he wasn't going to accept her retreat. They could always throttle back if she wanted, but John had laid his cards down and she wasn't going to get to ignore them.
When the tints of a smile softened the austere angles of cheekbone and jaw, John almost laughed in relief. "You enjoy going fast, John."
He confined his elation to a slight smile. "You were warned in advance."
"I was," she agreed. "So I will have to learn to like college football, then?"
"Yeah." John slid an arm around her, and let himself enjoy the feel of her arm slipping around and under the edge of his jacket. "I'll try not to be jealous of Kermit and we'll make it a deal, huh?"
Her laughter rang through the entranceway of the Atlantis Grand Hotel as they sauntered out to collect John's car.
John grinned into her hair. Lucky, indeed.
- fin -
NOTES: And then they drive off into the sunset in a Maserati Spyder.
Thank you to everyone who read this all the way through to the end, and particularly to those who have left feedback!
The original idea was based in a point made by
lierdumoa during the last SGA racewank (a.k.a. Barista!Wank). Her observation was that Teyla and Ronon usually get assigned the 'low socioeconomic roles' in AU stories - 'low socioeconomic status' usually being an authorial shorthand for 'unimportant characters unworthy of my interest'.This began as an attempt to turn the tables on the trend: have characters of 'low socioeconomic status' that are nevertheless important to the main plot. Somewhere along the way, the attempt at ideology kinda got lost, and it turned into just another story to be told.
For those who are asking where Carson is...I don't have a satsifactory answer for you or myself. I'm sorry. I strongly encourage you to prod me to write In Life's Name and Requiem For A Healer, both of which will feature Carson in a key role.
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Well done!
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And I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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Just a quick question...In the game? next chapter soon??
wella (SC)
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AUs are scarily crackerrific fun, actually. I have at least three others presently in the works. I'll see what I can get out of them in the next few days...
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But.
It didn't. You wrote a wonderful story with plenty of tension, kept them "in" character, and gave us enough of a happy, yet open, ending.
*loves*
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Really people, have you no faith?!?
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(That's a compliment btw)
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And, yeah, I sorta figured: she can make coffee...and nothing else. "Teyla made it? Do Not Eat. Really."
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Looking forward to the continuation of the high school series...hint, hint.
And...the In Life's Name and Requiem For A Healer sounds interesting.
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Working on it. (demanding people!)
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I really enjoy how you write these characters.
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