Fanfic100: If It Ain't Broke - Stackhouse/Markham

[rosiedoes]

Beta: shiny_starlight, with smartarse comments and squeeage from darkmoon711, gooner_diva, elethe & billietallent at intervals.
Rating: PG-13ish
Pairing: Stackhouse/Markham
Summary: Someone's pulling pigtails.
Spoilers: None in particular.
Warnings: Gratuitous hickotyping; never believe a word Markham says.

If you're curious about use of the word y'all, while I personally always believed it to be plural, in some areas (like Oklahoma) it would actually be singular, with alls y'all the plural variant. This site conveniently explains the colloquialism.


If It Ain't Broke...
Prompt: Children


"Well, dammit," Markham grumbled kicking at a large pebble as the gate ahead of them shut down. "Now we're stuck here!"

Stackhouse dropped his P90 on to the beach and sat down heavily on the slope, far from the tide-line, and commenced a slow clap at the profundity of the other marine's observation.

"Are we really gonna have to wait for McKay to come fix that DHD? Ain't that Doc Z'lenka a pal of yours – ain't he taught you anything?"

"Sure; he taught me how to say 'Shut your goddamn whining, Markham!' in Czech."

Markham stared at him; "Really?"

"No." Sometimes, he thought that Markham had to be kidding them. "You have enough trouble understanding fucking English, why would I learn it in Czech?"

Markham made a dejected noise and trudged over to sit a few feet away. "I just asked! I don't know why y'all has to be so mean to me, all the time."

"It keeps me amused," Adam declared, smirking. When Markham sighed and rested his face on his hand so it squashed his cheek and made him look like an over-sized five year old, he started to feel a little guilty. "Oh, c'mon, Markham - don't be a baby. We're going to have to spend at least a few hours right here however much sulking you do."

They hadn't got on from the moment they saw each other. Markham was 'one of those goddamn hicks who thinks just because they're related to most of their state they need to treat everyone like family'; and to Markham, Adam was 'one a them miserable town-folk who think life's there just to make things difficult for them'. It had been discovered early on that leaving them to their own devices invariably resulted in less a war of words than an all-out ambush under which Markham habitually floundered.

A little part of Adam told him that picking on the dumb guy was cheap of him – he wasn't usually this much of an asshole - but for some reason he just couldn't resist. Just seeing the round, hazel eyes widen two beats after the insult had been delivered made him grin on the inside for every eyeroll it produced on the outside.

Markham was a dork and most people loved him for it.

"Y'know that if y'all stopped wasting time pretending y'hate me, maybe you'd notice how much y'like me."

Adam laughed at the forlorn tone in his voice, "Sure, I would. Now, how about we play a game?"

"Like what?" Markham asked suspiciously.

"Like hide and go seek. You go hide, and maybe I'll come seek."

Resignedly, Markham got to his feet and brushed his BDUs down with his hands.

"You're actually going to hide?"

"Nope, I'm just plain going," he replied. "Radio me when they fix the DHD and we're ready to leave."

Adam stared after him for a few minutes, watching him hoist up his dignity and wander off towards the cliffs further down. The further he got, the more his shoulders sagged, and by the time he stopped and sat down on his own stretch of pebbles he was barely a centimetre-tall against the horizon.

Adam Stackhouse was stubborn at the best of times, but it took precisely twenty-six minutes and forty-seven seconds for him to admit he was bored. When the tiny figure at the other end of the beach climbed to his feet and began skimming stones across the gently lapping water, he resisted for a whole thirty seconds before giving in and making his way to the foot of the cliffs.

"If y'all came down here so y'could make me feel even smaller I'm going back to the Gate," Markham warned him, skipping a stone twelve hops and into a small wave.

"Actually, I was just bored."

Markham picked up a new stone and turned it over in his hands, squinting slightly in the late afternoon sun, "Are y'all saying my company's better'n no company?"

"I may be."

"And what if I said no company is better'n your company?"

"I'd be surprised you strung a sentence together," Adam replied, automatically; and winced. "I need to shut up."

Markham smiled a little and skimmed the stone.

They didn't speak for a while; it was probably the longest period of time they'd ever been without sniping at each other. Markham skimmed his stones like a pro, Adam sat on the pebbles and watched silently. He tried to think of something to say, but everything that came into his head was stupid or cruel and the last thing that he wanted to appear in front of Markham of all people was stupid.

"How did you get so good at skimming in a land-locked state?" he asked, when the thought eventually occurred to him – and promptly wished he hadn't. The answer was obvious; but Markham didn't seem to notice.

"Oh, we had a lake not so far away," he shrugged, searching around for another stone. When he found one, he dusted it off with his fingers and held it out for Adam to take. "Y'wanna try?"

"Not really."

Markham tilted his head and gazed at him for a minute, then sat down on the stones beside him. "I'll bet y'all wish y'coulda been stuck with just about anyone but me..."

"Pretty much," Adam laughed, hoping the other marine would understand that he was teasing. Besides, it wasn't exactly untrue.

"What d'I ever do to piss you off so bad, Stacks?" Markham asked spinning the stone between his finger and thumb like a tiny wheel. "Y'all's acted like y'hate me since the moment y'laid eyes on me..."

"I don't hate you," Adam admitted, "It's just... you're like this scab I can't help picking, or something..."

"I'm a scab to you?"

"Okay, now you are just playing dumb!"

Markham's mouth quirked up a little at the corner, "Maybe just a lilbit..."

They smirked at each other and sat in silence for a few minutes.

"So just how much of your country boy thing is an act?" Adam asked, eventually, half convinced that Markham would just drop the accent and tell him he was really from Manhattan.

"None! I'm pure-blood hick, thank you. Born and raised."

The indignation in his voice made Adam smile. "Sorry."

"Good. I'll take that as an apology for all the times y'all called me Jim Bob."

"Knock yourself out..."

Markham grinned at him, "Y'all's hoping I'll take that literally."

"That's a big word, there, Sergeant."

"I'm working my way up to five whole of them syllable things..."

There was another lengthy silence, but it was growing less awkward. Adam was less inclined to fill it with some sort of insult or minor physical violence.

"Hey, Stacks, wanna play a game?" Markham asked suddenly.

"Will it get me killed or thrown out or the Marine Corps?"

"Is eye-spy illegal anywhere?"

"Oh. Well, no. Um.. I spy blah, blah, blah – beginning with 'S'."

"Sand?"

"Sand. That's your answer?"

Markham blinked and tried not to smile, "Sure, why not?"

"You know how to play this game, right?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay, so what are we sitting on?" Adam asked, with exaggerated patience.

"Well, stones, I guess. Pebbles."

"Right." He pointed out towards the lapping tide "And what's that?"

"That's the sea."

Adam pointed directly up; "That?"

"Sky?"

"Right. So we have 'stones', 'sea', 'sky', I'd say 'shingle' but you'd never get that one anyway – look out there! That's even some kind of seagull. But your answer was 'sand'. All those options and you chose sand."

Markham was clearly trying not to laugh by this point.

"Markham, where exactly can you see sand? It's a goddamn pebble beach!"

Beside him, Markham keeled over sideways in breathless laughter. "Y'all's so easy to get mad!"

"I hate you," Adam announced flatly. "I do actually hate you."

"No, y'don't," Markham replied, struggling to control his giggles. "If y'all hated me you'd quit pulling my pigtails like a second grader."

It took several moments for the implications of the comment to sink in, but once it had, Adam was indignant; "I do not."

"Well, y'all sure acts like it." Markham cleared his throat and sat up properly scuffling around for another skimming stone.

"You mean what I think you mean, right?"

Markham gave him one of his mildly amused side-long glances.

"I do not have a crush on you, Markham!"

Markham patted him sympathetically on the knee, "Y'all c'n call me Jamie."

"I don't want to call you 'Jamie'! You're Markham, for God's sake! You're Markham and I do not – not – have a crush on you."

"You don't not?"

"Shut up." Adam climbed to his feet and turned to storm off back to where they had started, nursing his pride.

"Y'all can go wherever y'want, but it don't matter if y'all's way down there or right here," Markham called in an infuriatingly sing-song tone, "Y'all still has a crush on me."

Adam stopped in his tracks and folded his arms, trying to think of a dignified rejoinder.

"All the slapping me around's just an excuse to touch me a lilbit," Markham informed him matter-of-factly. "And the mean things y'all says it just so y'all gets my attention."

"Oh, yeah right!"

"S'true, Stacks. The things y'learn in grade school'll keep y'in good stead 'til the day y'all meets your maker. My Grandma said so."

He could just picture the smirk on Markham's face. The fact irritated him even further.

"Y'know what Markham," he began, turning back to face him and trying his hardest not to appear flustered, "maybe this is just wishful thinking."

"Don't think so," Markham shrugged back. "I mean, y'all's not so bad but if I had a choice..." he trailed off, pulling a decidedly unimpressed face.

Adam wondered if he had a right to be offended at that; "Is that so?"

"Yep. I mean, don't get me wrong – y'all's... kinda cute. In y'own way... But... I can do better."

"You think so, do you?"

Markham gave the impression of contemplating this for a moment before simply saying, "Yes."

Rolling his eyes, Adam set back off down the beach.

"I'll bet y'all's not even a very good kisser."

He couldn't ignore it. He really couldn't. After weeks of being the one handing out the insults, he just couldn't walk away while Jamie was on top. So to speak. He turned back and almost jumped out of his skin when he found they were practically nose-to-nose. Markham had a certain propensity for creeping up on him.

It took Adam a second to realise that Markham's gaze was fixed on his mouth, but he promptly clapped his hand over it when he did, nervous as to what the other marine was contemplating doing to it.

Impatiently, Markham sighed and peeled his hand away, "Why're y'all so scared? There's no-one to see!"

"There's nothing for them to see!"

"Well, there ain't gonna be, neither, if y'keep covering your face like that..."

"And what if I don't want there to be?" Adam asked, frustrated but increasingly defeated by unshakeable belief on Markham's part. He otherwise tried to ignore any thoughts of parts of Markham.

"If y'all didn't I'd have a bust lip or something, by now."

"It could be arranged," he offered somewhat feebly, quite sure that there was some sort of proverb about warm hands and tried not to notice that however much he twisted his own, Markham kept hold.

"Y'all likes me too much for that," Markham informed him, grinning.

"I'm liking you less every second that passes..."

"Then I guess if I'm gonna find out how bad y'are, I should get in while I can."

He was too stunned to react when Markham's free hand closed around the strap of his vest and yanked him nearer; and his mouth, of course, dropped open purely in shock. None of it had anything to do with gayness or crushes or playground pigtail pulling. And when he came to his senses enough to actually kiss Markham back, it was merely a case of proving his point. Of course. It had nothing to do with the way he could feel his face burning or the way Markham's obnoxiously long eyelashes tickled his cheek and it definitely had nothing to do with the fact that it Markham let go of him at any point soon he would end up in an unbecoming heap on the ground.

And if Markham needed a little longer to decide, then fine. He'd take one for the team.

At the far end of the beach, Zelenka squinted through his spectacles at the peculiar shape on the horizon.

"Is them?" he asked, as Bates peered around the edge of the Gate.

"You want to give me the coffee now, or later?" Bates replied smugly, by way of acknowledgement.

"Later, later," Radek told him, impatiently glancing at his watch. "It is amazing – the Sergeant, he works fast."

"Are you kidding?" Bates snorted. "They've been working on each other for months!"

Zelenka smirked at him, "Well – is done. What do you think? An hour, two...?"

Bates shook his head and sighed, "Just put the crystal back – leave them to work it out when they put each other down."