A teenie little bit more of Out Of Bounds - John/Rodney - NC-17 (eventually....)

[icarus]

Just a little snippet more of Out Of Bounds (all the prior parts are added here).

Hey, I promised.


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Out Of Bounds
by Icarus


Sweat dripping into his eyes, John had to shoulder his way through a group of teenage boys in padded hockey uniforms to find where his jacket and gym bag had been shoved out of the way. He found a clear bench in the back and wondered if he'd ever been as young as these kids laughing and arguing with each other, shouting over the echoes of the rink. Sticks flailed in the air and John was fairly that sure when he'd played, he'd never been allowed to use them for sword-fighting.

"Hey! Knock it off!" Their coach, a balding man with fierce assessing eyes and a strong chin appeared, yanking a stick out of one boy's hand. He wore an old satin baseball jacket and a whistle dangling around his neck. He glowered at the two boys, one of whom shrank away.

"Yes, sir," said the other with an insolent smirk, thick eyelashes flickering, accepting his stick back.

John snickered down at his skates, earning a cynical glance from the coach.

"Okay, all of you, listen up! Your buddies here just earned everyone twenty-five penalty laps. This is a team. Which means when you screw up, everyone pays." He clapped several times and shouted, "Go, go now!" ignoring the explosion of foul language as his hockey team hit the ice, swearing and shoving each other.

"Maybe that'll get some of their energy out," the coach muttered to himself, his voice somewhere between amusement, irritation, and tired patience.

"I'd have made it thirty," John commented, coming up to the row of seats behind him.

The coach turned around, elbows on the boards, unwisely turning his back on his boys. "Was that you out on the ice earlier?"

"Sorry if I made you wait," John said, smiling and not particularly apologetic.

The coach's eyebrows raised. "Pretty impressive. Figure skating seems to be turning into an actual sport."

"It's been an Olympic event longer than hockey," John said with just a little edge, bracing himself. He was too used to this argument. He'd had it with his dad and his brother every Christmas and Thanksgiving. Especially Thanksgiving when the Lion's game was on.

"No, no, it's a compliment." He made a brushing gesture and nodded to John. "The athleticism's improved. How many revolutions was that last one? It went too fast, I didn't catch it."

John beamed at him and looked smug. "That was a quad and, no, no one ever does. Except the judges, I hope."

The coach smiled and shook his head in amazement. Then held out his hand. "Stephen Caldwell. I'm the coach of the Cardinals here. We're having a winning season though you can't tell today." He thumbed towards his team.

"John Sheppard." John shook his hand. "You know, the jumps are only part of it," he explained. "Artistic merit counts for half the points. Without that you're pretty well screwed."

"Yeah, well, the Olympics aren't a dance competition," the coach snorted, giving John a cynical half smile.

John frowned at him and said with a growl, "No offense, but the style makes the difference between a skater who's just pretty good and one who's great."

"If you say so," Caldwell said, a world of doubt in his tone. "You're decent on the ice. If you ever want to try hockey, you know, a real sport...." He smiled to take the sting out, but John could tell he meant it, too.

John threw his head back and laughed.


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Comments

[feanna.livejournal.com]

Oh John! Now you have to talk about artistic merit! (after just about bursting to go JUMP). It's nice to see him coming around though. I just hope he means it too. (And even though the doctor (Carson!) cleared him for a little jumping, what will Rodney say when he finds out?)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Wellll... he did hire Rodney to teach him this "art" stuff. The fact that he sucks at it (and knows this) is just, well, he doesn't want to lose sight of what got him this far.

Plus, being backed into a corner makes John contrary.

Icarus

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

Caldwell gets a smack upside the head with his own hockey stick. Idiot. :/

Angie

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, he was kind of kidding about convincing Sheppard to try hockey. Even if he was serious about it being the only real sport. ;)

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

The smack was for the attitude, not the poach, which I knew wouldn't work. :P

It's just the idea that anything with artistic merit can't possibly be "hard." Did you ever read Dave Berry's column about synchronized swimming? He and a few other media types had been ragging on synchronized swimming during the Olympics (Atlanta I think, but I wouldn't swear to it) and one of the swimming teams was pissed enough to issue a challenge to all the asshole sports media people to come and try it. Dave went, along with another media guy he knew, and they were given an opportunity to try some of the skills and maneuvers. It wasn't pretty. :P Although the swimmers seemed to be having fun. :D

Same here, though -- so many people sneer at figure skating and think it's somehow easy just because it's artistic. Even other skaters sometimes. The husband and I used to watch the synchronized skating team competitions, back when they actually made it to TV, and the teams are mostly based at colleges. Some of the girls were talking about how hard it is to be taken seriously as athletes when you're a skater, unless you play hockey. My sympathies were fully with them until the girl speaking said, "But now they finally get that we're not just figure skaters, we're real athletes!" and the others with her all nodded. [blinkblink] Umm, right. Bitch. :/

Anyway, Caldwell gets another smack just on GPs. ;D

Angie

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Man, I'm not getting my comments again... glad I checked back.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. John hears this crap all the time, too, in addition to cracks about it being a "gay" sport for a guy.

Plus his frustration with women skating stars getting all the coverage. They'll show every warm-up for the women skaters on ESPN, while the men's skating will be short changed. They'll only show every other competitor during the World's and Nationals when they rebroadcast for example. There was one occasion that John went to the Nationals, did well, but his performance was one of the ones skipped. A little disappointing for the folks back home.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Yay, Caldwell! Yay, artistic merit! Yay, Cardinals! (I went a baseball game tonight, I'm high on sports love.)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ha! Yeah, I thought saying the Blue Jays would be a little off for a Toronto hockey team.

Hey, when are you heading out of town to Kazakhstan?

[mad_maudlin]

August 19th. Way too soon, isn't it?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's very soon. I don't think I'll be able to finish Out Of Bounds by then, but I'll make my best shot.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Aw, that's sweet of you. Don't put yourself out on my account, though--this is a fic where the journey is almost better than the destination. :-)

[perfica.livejournal.com]

Rodney's rubbing off on John.

::snicker::

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

IF ONLY!!!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Soon, soon, I promise soon. :D

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

He has to get through sometime, even if it only shows up in arguments with critics. ;)

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

HEE!

Hockey. (I incidentally think ice-hockey is v. cool, indeed, if a bit too brutal. Slim Sheppard would be rather bruised in no time.)

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Haha, no. not necessarily. He'd make an awesome forward, and many of them are pretty lightweight. Hockey's not all about the fights and the bruising though i'd be lying if i didn't say i enjoy them, and european/olympic style hockey would suit john particularly well - it's less physical and more finesse. Beautiful, beautiful game. Love it. I would kill to see someone write John as a hockey player.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Ah, you're a hockey player yourself? It's always seemed a sport fantastically combining skill, strength, and speed -- but I generally love winter sports best because they allow for the latter. & ;-)

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Ah no, I don't play lol, but it's my favorite sport.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see.

(Never been a fan of a sport I wasn't also active in, but I know this is the case with millions of people all over the world, so, GO YOU. *g*)

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I love sports but I have like, zero ability to play them, so I just watch and fangirl. ;)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, he has played it. Although I don't think trading slapshots with three or four friends really counts.

[coquettemoves.livejournal.com]

I am making the most desperate "gimme" hands, you have no idea. YAY, MORE, YAY! I love this fic to a ridiculous degree.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

There's more coming shortly. Lots of "important stuff" is coming up in the next week of John's life, so I've had to fight with it a bit.

[sparrowhawk17.livejournal.com]

Yay!!! I love this fic...I am always interested to see where you'll stick another SGA character, and they always are so in character and perfect for where they are in the fic. More, please?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I can so see Caldwell as a hockey coach.

[heliobacter.livejournal.com]

*clappy hands* Thank you so much for indulging my impatience. It was awfully courteous of you to even ask what we wanted.

Wonderful, as always! Looking forward to more, baby. Can't wait to see your piece for "Seven Walls," too. Just need to finish what is already there!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It's not quite moving at the speed I'd like, but at least it's moving.

[dossier.livejournal.com]

Ah, you tease us--with John defending the artistic merit! I think John's been on the circuit long enough to recognize this fact, he's probably been dinked hard on those scores for a while; Rodney's making sense and John's just too stubborn to admit it to *him*.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

he's probably been dinked hard on those scores for a while

You got it. And he did hire Rodney for this. He knows. But it's an uphill battle. There's a difference between wanting to get the scores up and the artistic points, and actually doing it. The doing is embarrassing and frustrating and....

[blue-underwing.livejournal.com]

Dang! This has been up over a week and I missed it! I'm really really liking this fic, and LOVE seeing John defend the artistic merit portion.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ah, you see, when I post little teenie bits like this I don't announce them on sga_noticeboard. It's too much of a tease. ;)

Oh yes. The artistic merit and increasing those marks is why John hired Rodney. That hasn't kept him from fighting Rodney every step of the way however. John's set in his ways and he had no idea that Rodney would require such radical changes to his training and routine.

(Also, one of the best ways to get John on board is to attack something. What can I say? He's a fighter.)

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I did just post a little bit from Rodney's skating childhood. I won't be linking that to the noticeboard either since it's out of order and also a small little tidbit.

Icarus

[das-kabinett.livejournal.com]

This was really fun -- I loooove ice hockey and know way more about it than I do figure skating. And I can totally attest to the prejudice against figure skaters in hockey circles.

In fact, my lil' bro plays loads of hockey and goes to a boarding school for it -- he always makes fun of the figure skaters there. They also have no male figure skaters, though they have female hockey. And beyond even macho-tough guy posturing, he says they screw up the ice.

But regardless, I love that John defends the art when put into a corner even though he makes noises about it to Rodney. United front!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

And I can totally attest to the prejudice against figure skaters in hockey circles.

In fact, my lil' bro plays loads of hockey and goes to a boarding school for it -- he always makes fun of the figure skaters there. They also have no male figure skaters, though they have female hockey. And beyond even macho-tough guy posturing, he says they screw up the ice.

Thank you, I've kept this in mind. This story really made an impression.

As for John, well, he doesn't know that he really understands the importance of artistry until he's backed into a corner. :)

More posted, by the way. I've written about 10,000 words of Out Of Bounds in the last week. *whew* and *yay*

Icarus

[lark-ascending.livejournal.com]

OK, I just went off and read the whole darn thing - I'm loving it! Best bit so far has to be that lovely scene with Rodney all tangled up in the phone cord, bitching at Zelenka :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ha. That's my favorite scene -- and it came completely out of the blue, wasn't in the outline or anything. I love Zelenka.

I'm pushing forward on this and making perfica work very hard to help out of the various corners I've painted myself into. There's about 10,000 more words written as of now.

Icarus

[lark-ascending.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I'll keep my eyes peeled for that :)

(I just started writing a Rodney/Zelenka fic myself... he really is too cute sometimes :) )

[gail19.livejournal.com]

I don't remember how I found this - I was just wandering around on google and then somehow I was here.

Wonderfully done - funny, sad, and oh so full of yearning. Reaching the end of the posted work was a bit painful.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Not to worry, I'm working on this story almost every day.