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lobelia321Title: From eye to eye or we may die
Author: Lobelia; ; lobelia40@yahoo.com
Part: 1/1
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Dr Radek Zelenka / Dr Carson Beckett. Also features Major John Sheppard.
Summary: Monday morning, and the doctors must gaze into each other's eyes.
Feedback: Yes, please, I would love feedback! Anything, even if it's only one line, one word!
Rating: 12-A.
Length: c. 2,700 words.
Warnings: Dr Zelenka takes off his glasses. Major Sheppard imbibes an opiate.
Spoilers: None. Possibly episodes-to-be. (I wish.)
Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I am not making money. I did not invent these characters.
Author's Notes: Inspired by Carson Beckett's eyebrows. Also, my first posted fic in this fandom. And my first posted fics in months! (Years?) Thank you, SGA!
Html can't do Czech haceks. 'Nuze' should have a hooky-thing above the 'z'. Please insert by hand.
For those who do not know these people: Pics. *g*
Linked to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sga_noticeboard.
1.
On Monday morning, they landed on a desert planet. Cacti waved in the breeze. There were no shadows because the planet's two suns cancelled out each other's darknesses.
"This planet seems uninhibited enough," said Major Sheppard.
"You mean 'uninhabited', I presume," said Dr Zelenka.
"Of course," said Major Sheppard. "Isn't that what I sood?"
"You mean 'said', I presume," said Dr Zelenka.
"Major!" cried out Dr Beckett. "What is that you are eating?"
But it was too late. Not only had the Major's linguistic capabilities deteriorated but now he had fainted into the bargain. His inert form slumped up against one of the bendy cacti. His fist was not closed around the shaft of his rifle but around something else.
"An alien plant specimen!" exclaimed Dr Beckett, drawing forth the something else.
"An alien drug!" exclaimed Dr Zelenka.
Just then, a trap door opened in the hot desert sand. A hive of tiny, skinny people swarmed forth. They wore jerkins, gilets, breeches, mantles and leather G-strings. Doctors Beckett and Zelenka saw no reason to argue with the sharp ivory spears they brandished.
The Major was left to collect sunburn up above. The doctors descended into the depths of the earth. At spear point.
"I wonder where they keep the elephants", whispered Dr Zelenka.
2.
"You must do this," insisted the tiny, skinny chieftain whose Boston accent was consonant perfect. "It is the way of Our People."
"You must understand, though," said Dr Beckett, "that where I come from it's not really the custom to force guests into anything untoward like this."
"It is," repeated the tiny, skinny chieftain, leaning forward and baring his perfect Boston teeth, "the Way of Our People."
"Yes, and I respect that, I do, really," said Dr Beckett. "But I don't think it is very polite to make guests, unarmed guests I might add, do anything they don't want to do."
"Also," interjected Dr Zelenka, "our military friend is frying under your suns up there."
"He has eaten of the Sacred Cactal Flower," said the tiny, skinny chieftain, and a grunt of disapproval went around the hollow walls of the underground cavern. It emanated from the parched throats of the chieftain's followers, a motley lot in hand-stitched garments. "You must atone for this sacrilege. There is a saying among Our People: 'He who eateth of the Sacred Cactal Flower must be atoned for.' I have spoken."
"He has spoken," echoed the multitude.
"What is it he wants us to do?" whispered Dr Zelenka.
"I'm not entirely sure," said Dr Beckett out of the side of his mouth. "But it is not something we would do voluntarily, I can tell you that much."
"Maybe not you," said Dr Zelenka. "Maybe I would do it voluntarily."
"You must now go into the Chamber of the Eye," said the tiny, skinny chieftain. "This ritual must be performed. It is only for the protection of Our People. If you do not atone for the eating of the Sacred Cactal Flower, the Wraith will return!"
"Excuse me," said Dr Zelenka. "Is it possible to place a parasol next to our military friend up there?"
3.
The Chamber of the Eye was dim, dank and circular. It reminded Dr Beckett of a well in the mossy delves of the Highlands.
It did not remind Dr Zelenka of anything.
"Here you must stay, chained to the walls by your ankles," said the tiny, skinny chieftain, "until the suns part ways at the hour of doom. It is the way of..."
"Yes, yes, we know, your people," said Dr Zelenka.
"And you must gaze into the eyes of each other," said the tiny, skinny chieftain, "until atonement has been achieved."
"My, oh my," said Dr Beckett.
Then they were left alone.
Dr Zelenka stared into the eyes of Dr Beckett.
Dr Beckett stared into the eyes of Dr Zelenka.
Dr Zelenka stared into the eyes of Dr Beckett.
Dr Beckett stared into the eyes of Dr Zelenka some more.
"Do you think we have atoned enough yet?" said Dr Zelenka.
The floor was rather hard. The air smelled of burned sesame seeds.
Dr Beckett's eyes started to water.
Dr Beckett blinked.
Dr Zelenka was thinking. This was the gist of his thoughts: 'Hle! How weird eyes are. They are very round and inside their roundness, they have a secondary roundness, and inside that roundness, they have a tertiary roundness, and that tertiary roundness is the centre of the storm. The centre of the storm is black, always black, like the night in the outer reaches of all the galaxies. And the outside roundness is white, always white, like magnesium solution. And the secondary roundness in between, that comes in all colours. And the colour of Dr Beckett's roundness is blue, so blue.'
Dr Beckett blinked again.
"Let me wipe the..." said Dr Zelenka. And wiped away the tiny, skinny tear that had gathered in the outer corner of Dr Beckett's left eye.
"It's difficult," said Dr Beckett, "to keep staring like this."
"Is easy for me," said Dr Zelenka. "I've got spectacles."
"Radek," said Dr Beckett.
"Yes?" said Dr Zelenka.
"That doesn't even make sense," said Dr Beckett.
"I am slightly concerned about the effects of dual solar radiation exposure on Major Sheppard," said Dr Zelenka. "I did not get a chance to take any ultraviolet measurements."
"Let's just concentrate on this atonement, shall we?" said Dr Beckett. "The main thing is to get it over with as quickly as possible so that we can get John down into the shade."
"Do you think maybe they do not have elephants but perhaps a rare kind of tusked desert rat?" said Dr Zelenka.
"Maybe they have giant sandworms," said Dr Beckett. "With ivory horns."
4.
Dr Beckett's eyes were not really blue. At least, not exclusively blue. The circumference of Dr Beckett's irises was rimmed by a dark loop. The colour part of Dr Beckett's irises was shot through with greys and opals. Yellow flecks flashed in the depths of Dr Beckett's pupils. These were reflections from the flames. They licked the edges of Dr Beckett's gaze.
"My eyes are getting tired," said Dr Zelenka. He rubbed them. This made his glasses skewiff.
Dr Beckett reached up to adjust them.
Dr Zelenka reached up to take them off.
In the process, Dr Zelenka's hand brushed Dr Beckett's hand. Dr Beckett's hand was warm against Dr Zelenka's skin. The air was dank against the rest of Dr Zelenka.
"I don't think I've every seen you without your glasses," said Dr Beckett.
"No? I take them off to wash. To go to bed."
"Do you? Of course, you do. You know, it makes you look quite different."
"Really? I cannot tell. I cannot see myself in mirrors without my spectacles."
"It makes you look younger. More..." Dr Beckett cast around for a suitable adjective. "Debonair," was what he finally came up with.
"You know, Dr Beckett," said Dr Zelenka.
"Carson. Please."
"You know, Carson," said Dr Zelenka. "If we weren't twenty feet under the ground on an alien desert planet, I would perhaps say you were going insane. Just a little."
"But as we are twenty feet under the ground on an alien desert planet...?"
"You look debonair yourself," said Dr Zelenka. "Just a little."
5.
The longer Dr Zelenka gazed into Dr Beckett's eyes, the stranger they made him feel.
At first, he felt nothing in particular. He just saw the roundnesses within roundness and had some mental cogitations about those. The roundnesses, he cogitated, were not uniform. The inner roundnesses were flat circles. But the outer roundness was a three-dimensional roundness. It was the three-dimensional rotundity of the orb of the eye. Not all of it was visible. The bulk of the eyeball was hidden in the cavity of Dr Beckett's skull. Only the soft curve of it could be seen, disappearing into the folds of Dr Beckett's upper and lower eye lids.
After a while, a warm sensation crept into Dr Zelenka's veins. This warm sensation seemed to reside somewhere in his circulatory system as it had a direct effect on the relative temperature of his skin. Despite the dankness, despite the smell of burned sesame seed, despite the fingers of ice stealing along his spine from the age-old soil walls of their cell, Dr Zelenka was all aglow.
"Carson," he whispered.
"Yes, Radek?"
"I think I may be getting fever."
Dr Beckett reached up and placed his hand on Dr Zelenka's forehead.
Dr Zelenka stoically kept his gaze trained on Dr Beckett's twin eyes.
Seen without the aid of spectacles, Dr Beckett's eyes looked monochromely blue, like aquamarines. Each eye had a smudge of schorl at its centre.
Above the roundnesses of Dr Beckett's twin blue eyes, there arched the bridgeheads of Dr Beckett's twin brown eyebrows. And above the bridgeheads of Dr Beckett's twin brown eyebrows, there spread the wrinkles of Dr Beckett's forehead.
These wrinkles no doubt meant that Dr Beckett was concerned about something.
Or maybe they meant something different entirely.
It was difficult to tell. The light was so dim. The torches affixed to sconces in the dank soil walls guttered and spluttered.
Dr Beckett's hand was warm and dry. His thumb made drowsy figures of eight on Dr Zelenka's forehead.
"Do you think they are burning sesame seeds in those torches?" said Dr Zelenka sleepily.
He didn't know why he should be feeling so sleepy. It could not have been more than 36 hours since they had come through the Stargate, after all.
"Because if it is," continued Dr Zelenka, "perhaps we could eat them. If we have to survive in here for any length of time."
Dr Zelenka yawned. This made the skin of his forehead ride up against the skin of Dr Beckett's hand.
It was not clear why Dr Beckett's hand was still on Dr Zelenka's forehead. It was as if he had forgotten it there.
Dr Zelenka's eyes fluttered shut.
"Radek! Radek, stay awake!" said Dr Beckett urgently. "Remember this ritual!"
"Yes, yes," mumbled Dr Zelenka and tore open his lids.
"Let me take your pulse," said Dr Beckett. "Your forehead feels fine, a little moist but that is only to be expected. I have to warn you, though, that taking someone's temperature by touching the forehead is a wee bit like measuring their pulse rate by watching the rate of twitches in their iris."
"Oh," said Dr Zelenka. "Nuze! I did not know that irises could twitch."
"It's just a saying," said Dr Beckett.
"What? A proverb of Your People?"
Dr Beckett laughed.
Dr Zelenka laughed.
"Anyway," said Dr Beckett. "I don't know about anybody else's irises. This is not a medical observation. But your iris twitches."
"Oh?" said Dr Zelenka.
"I have, after all, had occasion to observe it quite closely now for quite some time."
"Is that bad?" said Dr Zelenka. "Should it not be doing that?"
"I have no idea," said Dr Beckett. "I'm not an optician. But it looks quite nice."
"Does it?" said Dr Zelenka. The torches flamed.
"Yes," said Dr Beckett. "Quite."
"I cannot even see your eyes properly now," said Dr Zelenka. "Everything looks blurry without my spectacles."
"Keep on gazing, though," said Dr Beckett.
6.
The floor continued to be hard. The walls continued to be dank. Dr Zelenka was calculating the rate of difference between the surface temperature of this planet and the soil displacement factor squared by humidity levels mitigated by oxygen carbonation levels.
Dr Beckett's eyes swam roundly before his gaze.
Dr Zelenka's glasses rested on the ground, their elbows crossed. Dr Zelenka was not sure why they were not on his nose.
Dr Beckett's face really seemed rather close. This, no doubt, was the effect of seeing it without any lens protection.
Dr Beckett's breath was warm against Dr Zelenka's cheek. Dr Beckett's fingers were warm around Dr Zelenka's wrist.
They were feeling his pulse.
Of course.
Dr Zelenka's skin glowed. Dr Zelenka's wrist burned. Beads of perspiration cascaded down Dr Zelenka's forehead and got tangled in Dr Zelenka's forehead hair.
"You know," said Dr Zelenka.
"Radek," said Dr Beckett.
"I am feeling very strange," said Dr Zelenka.
"Your pulse," said Dr Beckett and took a breath, "is perfectly normal."
"It is perhaps the eye thing," said Dr Zelenka. "I am not used..."
"A wee bit fast perhaps," said Dr Beckett. "But that is only to be expected."
"...to looking at somebody's eyes for such a long time."
"My own pulse is not itself, either."
"They are very round."
"It's racing a little. Here, feel for yourself." Dr Beckett pressed his wrist against Dr Zelenka's wrist.
Their wrists pulsed against each other in soft rhythms.
"Very round," murmured Dr Zelenka.
"Yes," said Dr Beckett, breathlessly. "Eyes tend to be."
Then Dr Beckett leaned forward and kissed Dr Zelenka on the mouth.
Sesame seeds crackled in the troughs of wicks. A grain of sand dislodged from the ceiling.
Somewhere, in the belly of the warren, an animal lowed.
Dr Zelenka made a great effort to keep on gazing into Dr Beckett's eyes.
Dr Beckett's tongue was doing all sorts of amazing things on the inside of Dr Zelenka's mouth.
Dr Beckett's left eye blinked. A tear squeezed out but Dr Zelenka's hands were too busy to wipe it away.
Dr Beckett's eyebrows shifted and lifted. The wrinkles on Dr Beckett's forehead furrowed and burrowed. "Mmmm," said Dr Beckett's throat.
The roundnesses in Dr Beckett's eyes rotated and merged. The blue of his irises spilled into the white of his eyeballs. The black of his pupils spun into outer space.
All of this was a result of not having his spectacles, of course. Lenslessness was playing havoc with his sight.
Dr Beckett's eyelashes brushed Dr Zelenka's cheek, and now it was Dr Zelenka's throat that said, "Mmmm."
And then things sped up. Things got faster, things got out of hand, things fell into hand. Dr Zelenka wanted to say, 'Hang on' and 'Let me' and 'Ach, ano' but that would have meant taking his tongue out of Dr Beckett's mouth and he did not want to do that.
It was getting very hard, very hard, to keep the focus tight on Dr Beckett's eyes.
Everything was getting very hard.
So very, very hard.
After a while, everything got soft again. Even the ground went soft, for just one melting, molten moment.
Then the familiar liquidyness.
Dr Zelenka groped around with shaking, sticky hands. He pulled his spectacles onto his nose.
There were Dr Beckett's eyes. Huge. Round. Eyebrows agog. Lids half-closed.
Underneath the eyes, there were Dr Beckett's cheeks.
And underneath Dr Beckett's cheeks, there were Dr Beckett's dimples.
Because Dr Beckett was smiling. Oh yes.
7.
As soon as the desert planet suns parted ways at the hour of doom, the atoners were released onto the purple surface of the eternal sands.
Purple because the dual sunset was tingeing the skies lilac and rose and washing the dunes with indigo.
Major Sheppard sat under a makeshift umbrella, concocted from tusks and rough hides. His hair looked dazed.
"Z'lenka," he mumbled in a thick voice. "Carson. How long have we been here?"
"Oh, not long," said Dr Beckett cheerily.
"Is this..." Major Sheppard struggled to his bootshod feet. "This planet is uninhabited, right?"
"I built this parasol myself," said Dr Zelenka.
"Are you sure we haven't been here for very long?" said Major Sheppard. He squinted into the left sunset, then into the right sunset.
"Not long at all," said Dr Beckett.
"Not long enough," said Dr Zelenka. "My pulse, it is racing again."
"Why, Radek," said Dr Beckett and laughed. "Don't tell me that this off-world visit is playing haywire with your heart?"
Major Sheppard looked at Dr Beckett. Major Sheppard looked at Dr Zelenka.
"Am I missing something here?" Major Sheppard asked.
The suns sank behind the horizon in perfect synchrony. Dr Beckett's eyes turned from blue to plum to black.
On the way back to the Gate, Dr Beckett took Dr Zelenka's wrist.
"Pulse feels perfectly normal," he said.
But still, he kept hold of Zelenka's wrist, all the way into the event horizon.
-----
The End.
23 March 2006
All original elements of this story are copyright to Lobelia.
Feedback? I would love some. One line, even -- anything at all!
Thanks so much for reading.
(This page: http://lobelia321.livejournal.com/425021.html)
Author: Lobelia; ; lobelia40@yahoo.com
Part: 1/1
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Dr Radek Zelenka / Dr Carson Beckett. Also features Major John Sheppard.
Summary: Monday morning, and the doctors must gaze into each other's eyes.
Feedback: Yes, please, I would love feedback! Anything, even if it's only one line, one word!
Rating: 12-A.
Length: c. 2,700 words.
Warnings: Dr Zelenka takes off his glasses. Major Sheppard imbibes an opiate.
Spoilers: None. Possibly episodes-to-be. (I wish.)
Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I am not making money. I did not invent these characters.
Author's Notes: Inspired by Carson Beckett's eyebrows. Also, my first posted fic in this fandom. And my first posted fics in months! (Years?) Thank you, SGA!
Html can't do Czech haceks. 'Nuze' should have a hooky-thing above the 'z'. Please insert by hand.
For those who do not know these people: Pics. *g*
Linked to
sga_noticeboard.1.
On Monday morning, they landed on a desert planet. Cacti waved in the breeze. There were no shadows because the planet's two suns cancelled out each other's darknesses.
"This planet seems uninhibited enough," said Major Sheppard.
"You mean 'uninhabited', I presume," said Dr Zelenka.
"Of course," said Major Sheppard. "Isn't that what I sood?"
"You mean 'said', I presume," said Dr Zelenka.
"Major!" cried out Dr Beckett. "What is that you are eating?"
But it was too late. Not only had the Major's linguistic capabilities deteriorated but now he had fainted into the bargain. His inert form slumped up against one of the bendy cacti. His fist was not closed around the shaft of his rifle but around something else.
"An alien plant specimen!" exclaimed Dr Beckett, drawing forth the something else.
"An alien drug!" exclaimed Dr Zelenka.
Just then, a trap door opened in the hot desert sand. A hive of tiny, skinny people swarmed forth. They wore jerkins, gilets, breeches, mantles and leather G-strings. Doctors Beckett and Zelenka saw no reason to argue with the sharp ivory spears they brandished.
The Major was left to collect sunburn up above. The doctors descended into the depths of the earth. At spear point.
"I wonder where they keep the elephants", whispered Dr Zelenka.
2.
"You must do this," insisted the tiny, skinny chieftain whose Boston accent was consonant perfect. "It is the way of Our People."
"You must understand, though," said Dr Beckett, "that where I come from it's not really the custom to force guests into anything untoward like this."
"It is," repeated the tiny, skinny chieftain, leaning forward and baring his perfect Boston teeth, "the Way of Our People."
"Yes, and I respect that, I do, really," said Dr Beckett. "But I don't think it is very polite to make guests, unarmed guests I might add, do anything they don't want to do."
"Also," interjected Dr Zelenka, "our military friend is frying under your suns up there."
"He has eaten of the Sacred Cactal Flower," said the tiny, skinny chieftain, and a grunt of disapproval went around the hollow walls of the underground cavern. It emanated from the parched throats of the chieftain's followers, a motley lot in hand-stitched garments. "You must atone for this sacrilege. There is a saying among Our People: 'He who eateth of the Sacred Cactal Flower must be atoned for.' I have spoken."
"He has spoken," echoed the multitude.
"What is it he wants us to do?" whispered Dr Zelenka.
"I'm not entirely sure," said Dr Beckett out of the side of his mouth. "But it is not something we would do voluntarily, I can tell you that much."
"Maybe not you," said Dr Zelenka. "Maybe I would do it voluntarily."
"You must now go into the Chamber of the Eye," said the tiny, skinny chieftain. "This ritual must be performed. It is only for the protection of Our People. If you do not atone for the eating of the Sacred Cactal Flower, the Wraith will return!"
"Excuse me," said Dr Zelenka. "Is it possible to place a parasol next to our military friend up there?"
3.
The Chamber of the Eye was dim, dank and circular. It reminded Dr Beckett of a well in the mossy delves of the Highlands.
It did not remind Dr Zelenka of anything.
"Here you must stay, chained to the walls by your ankles," said the tiny, skinny chieftain, "until the suns part ways at the hour of doom. It is the way of..."
"Yes, yes, we know, your people," said Dr Zelenka.
"And you must gaze into the eyes of each other," said the tiny, skinny chieftain, "until atonement has been achieved."
"My, oh my," said Dr Beckett.
Then they were left alone.
Dr Zelenka stared into the eyes of Dr Beckett.
Dr Beckett stared into the eyes of Dr Zelenka.
Dr Zelenka stared into the eyes of Dr Beckett.
Dr Beckett stared into the eyes of Dr Zelenka some more.
"Do you think we have atoned enough yet?" said Dr Zelenka.
The floor was rather hard. The air smelled of burned sesame seeds.
Dr Beckett's eyes started to water.
Dr Beckett blinked.
Dr Zelenka was thinking. This was the gist of his thoughts: 'Hle! How weird eyes are. They are very round and inside their roundness, they have a secondary roundness, and inside that roundness, they have a tertiary roundness, and that tertiary roundness is the centre of the storm. The centre of the storm is black, always black, like the night in the outer reaches of all the galaxies. And the outside roundness is white, always white, like magnesium solution. And the secondary roundness in between, that comes in all colours. And the colour of Dr Beckett's roundness is blue, so blue.'
Dr Beckett blinked again.
"Let me wipe the..." said Dr Zelenka. And wiped away the tiny, skinny tear that had gathered in the outer corner of Dr Beckett's left eye.
"It's difficult," said Dr Beckett, "to keep staring like this."
"Is easy for me," said Dr Zelenka. "I've got spectacles."
"Radek," said Dr Beckett.
"Yes?" said Dr Zelenka.
"That doesn't even make sense," said Dr Beckett.
"I am slightly concerned about the effects of dual solar radiation exposure on Major Sheppard," said Dr Zelenka. "I did not get a chance to take any ultraviolet measurements."
"Let's just concentrate on this atonement, shall we?" said Dr Beckett. "The main thing is to get it over with as quickly as possible so that we can get John down into the shade."
"Do you think maybe they do not have elephants but perhaps a rare kind of tusked desert rat?" said Dr Zelenka.
"Maybe they have giant sandworms," said Dr Beckett. "With ivory horns."
4.
Dr Beckett's eyes were not really blue. At least, not exclusively blue. The circumference of Dr Beckett's irises was rimmed by a dark loop. The colour part of Dr Beckett's irises was shot through with greys and opals. Yellow flecks flashed in the depths of Dr Beckett's pupils. These were reflections from the flames. They licked the edges of Dr Beckett's gaze.
"My eyes are getting tired," said Dr Zelenka. He rubbed them. This made his glasses skewiff.
Dr Beckett reached up to adjust them.
Dr Zelenka reached up to take them off.
In the process, Dr Zelenka's hand brushed Dr Beckett's hand. Dr Beckett's hand was warm against Dr Zelenka's skin. The air was dank against the rest of Dr Zelenka.
"I don't think I've every seen you without your glasses," said Dr Beckett.
"No? I take them off to wash. To go to bed."
"Do you? Of course, you do. You know, it makes you look quite different."
"Really? I cannot tell. I cannot see myself in mirrors without my spectacles."
"It makes you look younger. More..." Dr Beckett cast around for a suitable adjective. "Debonair," was what he finally came up with.
"You know, Dr Beckett," said Dr Zelenka.
"Carson. Please."
"You know, Carson," said Dr Zelenka. "If we weren't twenty feet under the ground on an alien desert planet, I would perhaps say you were going insane. Just a little."
"But as we are twenty feet under the ground on an alien desert planet...?"
"You look debonair yourself," said Dr Zelenka. "Just a little."
5.
The longer Dr Zelenka gazed into Dr Beckett's eyes, the stranger they made him feel.
At first, he felt nothing in particular. He just saw the roundnesses within roundness and had some mental cogitations about those. The roundnesses, he cogitated, were not uniform. The inner roundnesses were flat circles. But the outer roundness was a three-dimensional roundness. It was the three-dimensional rotundity of the orb of the eye. Not all of it was visible. The bulk of the eyeball was hidden in the cavity of Dr Beckett's skull. Only the soft curve of it could be seen, disappearing into the folds of Dr Beckett's upper and lower eye lids.
After a while, a warm sensation crept into Dr Zelenka's veins. This warm sensation seemed to reside somewhere in his circulatory system as it had a direct effect on the relative temperature of his skin. Despite the dankness, despite the smell of burned sesame seed, despite the fingers of ice stealing along his spine from the age-old soil walls of their cell, Dr Zelenka was all aglow.
"Carson," he whispered.
"Yes, Radek?"
"I think I may be getting fever."
Dr Beckett reached up and placed his hand on Dr Zelenka's forehead.
Dr Zelenka stoically kept his gaze trained on Dr Beckett's twin eyes.
Seen without the aid of spectacles, Dr Beckett's eyes looked monochromely blue, like aquamarines. Each eye had a smudge of schorl at its centre.
Above the roundnesses of Dr Beckett's twin blue eyes, there arched the bridgeheads of Dr Beckett's twin brown eyebrows. And above the bridgeheads of Dr Beckett's twin brown eyebrows, there spread the wrinkles of Dr Beckett's forehead.
These wrinkles no doubt meant that Dr Beckett was concerned about something.
Or maybe they meant something different entirely.
It was difficult to tell. The light was so dim. The torches affixed to sconces in the dank soil walls guttered and spluttered.
Dr Beckett's hand was warm and dry. His thumb made drowsy figures of eight on Dr Zelenka's forehead.
"Do you think they are burning sesame seeds in those torches?" said Dr Zelenka sleepily.
He didn't know why he should be feeling so sleepy. It could not have been more than 36 hours since they had come through the Stargate, after all.
"Because if it is," continued Dr Zelenka, "perhaps we could eat them. If we have to survive in here for any length of time."
Dr Zelenka yawned. This made the skin of his forehead ride up against the skin of Dr Beckett's hand.
It was not clear why Dr Beckett's hand was still on Dr Zelenka's forehead. It was as if he had forgotten it there.
Dr Zelenka's eyes fluttered shut.
"Radek! Radek, stay awake!" said Dr Beckett urgently. "Remember this ritual!"
"Yes, yes," mumbled Dr Zelenka and tore open his lids.
"Let me take your pulse," said Dr Beckett. "Your forehead feels fine, a little moist but that is only to be expected. I have to warn you, though, that taking someone's temperature by touching the forehead is a wee bit like measuring their pulse rate by watching the rate of twitches in their iris."
"Oh," said Dr Zelenka. "Nuze! I did not know that irises could twitch."
"It's just a saying," said Dr Beckett.
"What? A proverb of Your People?"
Dr Beckett laughed.
Dr Zelenka laughed.
"Anyway," said Dr Beckett. "I don't know about anybody else's irises. This is not a medical observation. But your iris twitches."
"Oh?" said Dr Zelenka.
"I have, after all, had occasion to observe it quite closely now for quite some time."
"Is that bad?" said Dr Zelenka. "Should it not be doing that?"
"I have no idea," said Dr Beckett. "I'm not an optician. But it looks quite nice."
"Does it?" said Dr Zelenka. The torches flamed.
"Yes," said Dr Beckett. "Quite."
"I cannot even see your eyes properly now," said Dr Zelenka. "Everything looks blurry without my spectacles."
"Keep on gazing, though," said Dr Beckett.
6.
The floor continued to be hard. The walls continued to be dank. Dr Zelenka was calculating the rate of difference between the surface temperature of this planet and the soil displacement factor squared by humidity levels mitigated by oxygen carbonation levels.
Dr Beckett's eyes swam roundly before his gaze.
Dr Zelenka's glasses rested on the ground, their elbows crossed. Dr Zelenka was not sure why they were not on his nose.
Dr Beckett's face really seemed rather close. This, no doubt, was the effect of seeing it without any lens protection.
Dr Beckett's breath was warm against Dr Zelenka's cheek. Dr Beckett's fingers were warm around Dr Zelenka's wrist.
They were feeling his pulse.
Of course.
Dr Zelenka's skin glowed. Dr Zelenka's wrist burned. Beads of perspiration cascaded down Dr Zelenka's forehead and got tangled in Dr Zelenka's forehead hair.
"You know," said Dr Zelenka.
"Radek," said Dr Beckett.
"I am feeling very strange," said Dr Zelenka.
"Your pulse," said Dr Beckett and took a breath, "is perfectly normal."
"It is perhaps the eye thing," said Dr Zelenka. "I am not used..."
"A wee bit fast perhaps," said Dr Beckett. "But that is only to be expected."
"...to looking at somebody's eyes for such a long time."
"My own pulse is not itself, either."
"They are very round."
"It's racing a little. Here, feel for yourself." Dr Beckett pressed his wrist against Dr Zelenka's wrist.
Their wrists pulsed against each other in soft rhythms.
"Very round," murmured Dr Zelenka.
"Yes," said Dr Beckett, breathlessly. "Eyes tend to be."
Then Dr Beckett leaned forward and kissed Dr Zelenka on the mouth.
Sesame seeds crackled in the troughs of wicks. A grain of sand dislodged from the ceiling.
Somewhere, in the belly of the warren, an animal lowed.
Dr Zelenka made a great effort to keep on gazing into Dr Beckett's eyes.
Dr Beckett's tongue was doing all sorts of amazing things on the inside of Dr Zelenka's mouth.
Dr Beckett's left eye blinked. A tear squeezed out but Dr Zelenka's hands were too busy to wipe it away.
Dr Beckett's eyebrows shifted and lifted. The wrinkles on Dr Beckett's forehead furrowed and burrowed. "Mmmm," said Dr Beckett's throat.
The roundnesses in Dr Beckett's eyes rotated and merged. The blue of his irises spilled into the white of his eyeballs. The black of his pupils spun into outer space.
All of this was a result of not having his spectacles, of course. Lenslessness was playing havoc with his sight.
Dr Beckett's eyelashes brushed Dr Zelenka's cheek, and now it was Dr Zelenka's throat that said, "Mmmm."
And then things sped up. Things got faster, things got out of hand, things fell into hand. Dr Zelenka wanted to say, 'Hang on' and 'Let me' and 'Ach, ano' but that would have meant taking his tongue out of Dr Beckett's mouth and he did not want to do that.
It was getting very hard, very hard, to keep the focus tight on Dr Beckett's eyes.
Everything was getting very hard.
So very, very hard.
After a while, everything got soft again. Even the ground went soft, for just one melting, molten moment.
Then the familiar liquidyness.
Dr Zelenka groped around with shaking, sticky hands. He pulled his spectacles onto his nose.
There were Dr Beckett's eyes. Huge. Round. Eyebrows agog. Lids half-closed.
Underneath the eyes, there were Dr Beckett's cheeks.
And underneath Dr Beckett's cheeks, there were Dr Beckett's dimples.
Because Dr Beckett was smiling. Oh yes.
7.
As soon as the desert planet suns parted ways at the hour of doom, the atoners were released onto the purple surface of the eternal sands.
Purple because the dual sunset was tingeing the skies lilac and rose and washing the dunes with indigo.
Major Sheppard sat under a makeshift umbrella, concocted from tusks and rough hides. His hair looked dazed.
"Z'lenka," he mumbled in a thick voice. "Carson. How long have we been here?"
"Oh, not long," said Dr Beckett cheerily.
"Is this..." Major Sheppard struggled to his bootshod feet. "This planet is uninhabited, right?"
"I built this parasol myself," said Dr Zelenka.
"Are you sure we haven't been here for very long?" said Major Sheppard. He squinted into the left sunset, then into the right sunset.
"Not long at all," said Dr Beckett.
"Not long enough," said Dr Zelenka. "My pulse, it is racing again."
"Why, Radek," said Dr Beckett and laughed. "Don't tell me that this off-world visit is playing haywire with your heart?"
Major Sheppard looked at Dr Beckett. Major Sheppard looked at Dr Zelenka.
"Am I missing something here?" Major Sheppard asked.
The suns sank behind the horizon in perfect synchrony. Dr Beckett's eyes turned from blue to plum to black.
On the way back to the Gate, Dr Beckett took Dr Zelenka's wrist.
"Pulse feels perfectly normal," he said.
But still, he kept hold of Zelenka's wrist, all the way into the event horizon.
-----
The End.
23 March 2006
All original elements of this story are copyright to Lobelia.
Feedback? I would love some. One line, even -- anything at all!
Thanks so much for reading.
(This page: http://lobelia321.livejournal.com/425021.html)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 12:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 12:06 am (UTC)*stares at your icon*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 01:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 12:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 03:06 am (UTC)"You must atone for this sacrilege. There is a saying among Our People: 'He who eateth of the Sacred Cactal Flower must be atoned for.' I have spoken."
*snicker*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 12:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 04:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 12:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 08:48 am (UTC)EEEeeeee, congrats on posting your first SGA fic!!!! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 12:29 pm (UTC)Thank you for feedback, readery, commentary, and, of course, getting-me-sucked-into-canonery! Ah, the delights of Beckett's eyes are all down to your excellent DVD loans. And yes, isn't it amazing, I posted an entire finished fic, and it is not 80,000 words long and full of angst!! I checked my records: the last thing I posted was in November 2004. it is an intensely nostalgic experience, getting into the posting rhythm, exciting, also kind of dizzy-making, even sick-making. I stayed up way too late last night, in a sort of post-post state!
Thanks so much for your kind comments on insanity and beauty. Both things, as you know, are dear to my heart. How to make the crack spill over at one point into the poignant.
Also, guess what, this was really fun to write. Humour is the way back in! *lures you*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 06:13 pm (UTC)Luring me in, eh. Well. I may just possibly have written a paragraph of Beckett fic today. I'm hoping his mum will feature. Two fics at once, yay verily it is a miracle! They're bound to be a bit crap though, after this year of drought. Hmm, I can't decide what part of Scotland Beckett's from. I'm tempted to stick him in Dumfries, purely because I have been there.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 09:14 pm (UTC)Hah! You are writing! This makes me feel good! This makes me feel very expectant!
Yeah, with the drought and with the crapness, I worried about that. But you know, it felt so good just to post. It's worth the it-may-not-be-perfect thing. Which, as you know, I have in an enormous way. I have had a bit of a different kind of drought from you because I have actually intermittently been writing quite a lot. But I have not posted. I had not realised what posting meant to me! Or I had, but I had forgotten how fantastic it feels.
I don't think I'm cut out for the novel-writing life.
And Beckett, I want to read your Beckett so much!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 10:25 am (UTC)Dr Zelenka laughed.
"Anyway," said Dr Beckett.
This made me laugh out loud. So deadpan. So brilliant. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 12:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-25 01:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-25 12:38 pm (UTC)