This is a work in progress. Comment, give me ideas and enjoy. I gotta cook dinner...
And thanks Jodie for the "title pic"
Fumbling for his keys, Daniel reached the door to the townhouse much later than he would have liked. Stupid Woolsey. Stupid idiot Woolsey and his stupid mandatory leave. It was poor decisions like that that had kept Adrienne out of his lab for the past three days, after all, she hadn’t gotten shot, it was that loudmouth Sgt. Mason and Adrienne had taken down the Lucian who had shot him, but regardless, as per new SGC rules, a week’s leave after an incident of violence. A week of her not in the lab. A week of her bored at home. And a week of Daniel being too tired to do anything other than sleep when he did make it back to their humble abode, which was making Adrienne as annoyed as he was for a wide variety of reasons.
The lights were off once he finally opened the door, Daniel glancing at his watch to check the time. 11:54 p.m., early for Adrienne, but she was probably just reading in bed hoping he would arrive before it was technically the next day. He counted his steps as he walked, carefully, one after the other, down the small hall and past the coat closet, opening the door and hanging his leather jacket on the hook inside. Closing the door gently, he continued past the opening to the kitchen and hung a left, down the hall to their bedroom and offices, seeing that he was correct, a small dim light peeking from underneath the bedroom door, an indication that she wasn’t quite asleep. Daniel smiled, happy to have chugged the coffee down before making the drive home, hoping he would be just awake enough to make it worth her while that she stayed awake. Racking his brain for something suave to say upon his arrival, Daniel carefully opened the door, stepping into their bedroom.
And fell flat on his face.
“What in the hell?!” he exclaimed, looking down at his ankles to see what could have possibly been in the way, what he could have possibly tripped on, at midnight, right in front of the bedroom door.
“Oops, my bad,” Adrienne apologized, weakly from the bed, closing the book and tossing it aside, crawling over on her knees to the edge.
Ignoring her momentarily, Daniel looked again to see it was an ottoman of sorts, round leather and carefully decorated with scenes of Egyptian life, Horus, Nefertiti, and a few symbols of overall growth and prosperity of the country. It was the ugliest thing he had ever seen.
“Ad, what is this?” he asked, looking back up at her, confused. It was too late for her madness.
“It’s a gift Indy,” she answered smiling. Daniel glanced back down at his legs, pulling them up until he was on his knees and turned his head to face her again.
“Why?” he continued, standing, still starting at the thing.
“Uh, because I love you,” she answered, sarcasm dripping from her voice. Ok, so apparently she didn’t think this was the ugliest thing in the world, and evidently was proud of this gift of affection, so he decided to take a different approach.
“Why is in the middle of the floor?” he inquired, kneeling to get a better look at it. Yep, that was Horus all right, all over the damn thing; at least it wasn’t someone who’d tortured him.
“Because I wanted to make sure you saw it,” she laughed, playing dumb, but he knew her better than that. Adrienne had probably measured his stride and placed the damn thing in the exact geometric position needed to ensure his toppling to the ground. True love right there, sending your significant other crashing to their literal doom. Taking the hassack, he remembered the proper term finally, hassack into his arms, Daniel lifted it up and walked it over to her side of the bed, setting it down carefully beside the dresser.
“Do you like it?” she continued, the expression on her face telling him that it was not a joke, that in some deep recesses of his girlfriend’s utterly tacky mind, at least when it came to decorating, she had thought this was a good idea and that he would actually “like” it. What does one say to that? No honey, it’s hideous? I love you too Ad, but can we return it to whichever circus you stole it from?
“Yeah, just, well, I saw it, now where is it going?” he asked, hoping that she didn’t catch his true feelings concerning this unique piece of furniture in his tone. Adrienne made a face, frowning at him, standing from the bed. Yeah, no, she caught the tone, time for recovery.
“I’ll put it in my office then Daniel,” she hissed, but he was unable to tell if she was angry or kidding. Damn complicated Adrienne. Let’s go with kidding, he thought, kidding with her is always a safe bet.
“No, Ad, I’m just messing with you. I love it, it’s just been really busy lately and Rodney was in one of his moods, you know how he gets,” Daniel started reaching out to pull her, and that hideous poof into his arms. Adrienne, however, pulled away.
“You’re a shitty liar Daniel Anthony, a shitty liar. I know you, but I can’t return it so I’ll just stow it away with my stuff. Besides, I don’t think your office could take another thing shoved in there, or it just might erupt,” she replied, cutting her eyes but smiling, pulling the hassack back to her chest and whisking it away to her office. Daniel sighed, hoping that she wasn’t angry, and walked over to the hamper, stripping down to his boxers and pulling back the covers to get into bed.
“You missed one,” he heard behind him and turned to see Adrienne at the doorway, ready, undressed and waiting. Forget the poof, he told himself, shucking his boxers to the floor as she hit the light switch.
The second time he fell was actually funny. Showered and running late, damn distracting Adrienne, Daniel was rushing to the kitchen to make coffee and cook breakfast since he knew if he didn’t Adrienne would try, again, to impose something healthy on him when he hit the floor right at the edge of the living room. She was laughing, standing in the entryway to the kitchen, a mug of coffee in one hand and a piece of toast in the other.
“I thought it matched the living room decor better,” she stated, choking back laughter and sipping her morning elixir. A quick glance of the living room couldn’t prove her statement any more incorrect, since being a common living area, it had been an area of compromise between the two of them. No more tacky greek vines, instead while it had a golden age of Greece quality about it that Adrienne had insisted upon, it was still tasteful and set up more like a museum than a cult house of Dionysus. But that was the key, all greek. Entirely greek, not one tiny stitch Egyptian, those items were quarantined, for lack of a better word, to Daniel’s office. Laying in the floor, his pride hurt much more than the rest of him, Daniel got up on his knees, his hands resting on the large leather monstrosity peeking up at her evil grin.
“Point for Adrienne,” he replied, standing and scooping the poof, yes, he was going to call it that now, THE poof, from the floor and walking it calmly to his office. When he returned, there was his plate waiting for him, coffee with skim milk and organic sugar, whole grain wheat toast spread ridiculously lightly with organic hand ground peanut butter and a slice of park skim mozzarella. Damn Adrienne food. Damn poof. He ate his breakfast and left for work, hoping that in day four of her boredom strike trapped at home, Adrienne would not conjure up another scheme.
The third time Daniel was starting to wonder if Adrienne really thought this was funny or was just trying to piss him off. He was home early, how he was not quite sure considering the tasks he had set before himself this week, but he was home and happily called her on his way to see if she wanted to go out. Delighted, Adrienne requested dancing, as usual, and, as usual, Daniel was unsuccessful in talking her out of it. However, she was not home when he arrived, claiming that she was running errands around the city and would be back no later than seven, so he took the opportunity to grab a hot shower and change, making himself look presentable for their evening. Even if he couldn’t dance without her very dominant lead on the floor, she did appreciate it when his skin was smooth and clean shaven and he smelled like her favorite cologne. He exited the shower, wrapping the towel around his waist, reaching for his lotion and cologne on the bathroom counter when he realized that his basket was empty, or at least partially. The aftershave lotion was there, but the cologne, that blasted Oscar de la Renta scent that drove her wild, was gone, leaving only a few things that she tolerated but didn't prefer. Of course not, he thought, want to have a romantic evening out and the aural pheromones are gone.
The bottle wasn’t on the dresser either, making him start to wonder if this was deliberate, that if today in her boredom Adrienne decided to move his things around just to annoy him when he suddenly remembered that she had taken the bottle into his office last week, when she....
Shaking his head to dispel the image, at least until later, Daniel hurried down the hall, holding his towel at his waist to retrieve the cologne. He turned the doorknob to his office, and there it was, in all of it’s blueish glass glory, sitting right on his desk beside his reading lamp. Relieved, Daniel took a step forward....
And fell to the floor.
“Fuck!” he screamed out loud, knowing by the feel of textile on his skin the offender. It was the poof. He crawled to his knees, the towel falling off of him and turned to see the gaudy leather disaster sitting right in the walkway of his office, deliberately separating him from his desk. Without a further word, swear or otherwise, Daniel stood, throwing the towel over his shoulder and returning to the bathroom.
She was going to get Brut tonight, and like it.
The fourth time, he was glad she wasn’t home, the swear words pouring out of his mouth were cruder than he would ever use in front of her or any other woman despite her own sailor like vocabulary. After a few creatively placed snipes over dinner last night and dancing, Adrienne vowed to move the hassock to someplace less intrusive in Daniel’s daily life.
Apparently, to Adrienne, less intrusive meant the walk-in closet. To be fair, this time he thought, unlike the previous three times, that she might have actually tried to put it out of the way since the only reason he went into the walk in was when he had to wear dress clothes, and honestly, without being in the lab all week, she had no way of knowing that he would be heading into a formal meeting today with some Senate Finance Committee members and he hadn’t had a chance to tell her since she had gotten up early to drive Teyla and Torrin to the airport this morning to catch a flight to San Francisco and the Atlantis base, which, like Woolsey’s leave rule, was stupid considering the Daedalus was just floating around in orbit with Asgard beaming technology, but he had just stopped questioning government logic.
Laying on the floor, his elbows rug burned from catching himself, he glanced up at his small section of closet, a three foot length of dress shirts and dress pants surrounded by a collection of clothing that should not be worn, including her ridiculous assortment of holed sweaters and stupid little neon colored tank tops. Not that she didn’t look attractive in them, she did, but there were times when they we out casually when he could not figure out whether he was dating Cyndi Lauper or Adrienne Rowan. The body art didn’t help with that either. Standing and kicking the damn thing, adding a stubbed toe to the list on injuries, he ripped a blue shirt and slacks from their hangers. He left a note on the fridge before he left.
Ad
Please dispose of the poof.
I think it is trying to kill me.
The fifth time, Daniel made a decision. It was either gonna be him or the poof. Arriving home at a normal time for once, Daniel was thrilled, not only because Adrienne would return to work the next morning but because he could have a normal meal and evening with his significant other, go to bed at a normal time and wake up tomorrow like normal people. He was so thrilled in fact, that once he got the door opened he practically jumped through the space, landing on something hard, round and finally smack dab on his face.
“Daniel!!” he heard her scream from the living room, peering through blurred vision, shit where were his glasses, to see her come racing towards him, falling to her knees.
“Are you alright shug?” she asked, grabbing in front of the poof for something, yep, there they were, bent and crooked. Watching her move her hands, he hoped she was adjusting them back to normal shape, he sat forward, slamming the hassock over into the wall.
“Why in the hell is that here!?!!” he demanded, harshly, too upset to control his words. Adrienne passed over his glasses quickly and he slipped them on without so much as a thanks, glaring at her through the lenses. She was not amused.
“You said to get rid of the damn thing, so I put it by the door as soon as I got home to take it to the bug and out of here. How was I supposed to know you were going to be home before Dracula had arisen??’ she spat, daring him to argue. He started to, he really started to, wanting to ask her why the damn thing could only be placed in the middle of walkways, but he took in a deep breath, restraining himself.
“Get rid of that cursed thing now,” he growled between his teeth and stood, opening the front door and pointing at her beetle. She cut her eyes, but didn’t counter, just scooped up the ottoman into her arms and waltzed out of the apartment.
He was in bed by the time she came home, and when she didn’t even kiss him goodnight, he played like he had slept through her entire arrival.
The next morning was normal, Adrienne didn’t seem to be angry with him in the least, and the poof was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she had done as he requested, though he wondered what exactly had come of the thing at seven o’clock in the evening, which had taken until midnight, but hoping to avoid a fight he didn’t ask, just kissed her good morning and ate her crazy healthy breakfast, deciding to sneak some waffles from the mess after his first meeting. They drove to work together, again as normal and Adrienne seemed happy to be back on the job, even it if was just database translation.
When Daniel returned to the lab shortly after lunch, his stomach reminding him loudly that he had missed the meal, Adrienne was gone, a note taped to his computer.
Hey. Starving. Need to run. Ya know how it goes.
Will be back after properly recharged.
Ad
He read the note again, code for “I am spending the afternoon with Cameron, try not to act like a jealous ass later.” He wouldn’t, but it did kind of bother him. Opting for a Powerbar and a Coke for lunch, Daniel decided to go be social himself and see if Teal’c could use any company, because after this week, Daniel could sure use some meditation.
Standing outside the door, Daniel knocked lightly, ripping away another chunk of the chocolate vitamin bar between his teeth.
“Who is there?” the voice on the other side asked, signaling that Teal’c was indeed in his quarters. Perfect, Daniel thought, swallowing before answering.
“It’s Daniel, can I come in?” he replied.
“Of course DanielJackson, my door is unlocked,” the Jaffa answered. Closing the cap back onto his Coke, Daniel turned the knob, opening the door and taking a step inside.
He saw it the instant before he fell, but it was too late, the Powerbar was flying, slow motion like zero G through the air and the Coke, thankfully sealed, floating right behind it. Landing on the poof, Daniel quickly put his hands behind his head, narrowly avoiding a close encounter of the soda bottle kind.
Teal’c was on his feet the instant Daniel began to topple.
“DanielJackson, are you uninjured? I apologize, I have not found a proper location in which to place this generous gift from AdrienneRowan. I hope that you are unharmed,” the Jaffa questioned, kneeling down in front of Daniel.
Without a word, Daniel stood, grabbed his dinner and left. Damn Adrienne. Damn poof. So, this was how she wanted to play? This means war.
FIN
Daniel really needs to watch where he's going! This is freakin' hilarious!
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