Untitled, yaoi PG right now
Saturday, January 19th, 2008 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsaikoThis is only three pages, but seriously, I should not have as much fun as I am writing it. I guess 4+ years doing geology is good for something. Like setting up porn.
I think I totally turned one of my old characters gay. Or maybe bi. I can totally, totally see him being bi. I can't wait till I actually introduce him now.
Shaw hated field work.
Especially at times like these, where he was precariously perched on the edge of a small ledge a good three feet above the ground and trying desperately to figure out how to whack off a piece of rock without knocking himself off said ledge. It wasn't like the fall would kill him. A whole three feet? Oh know, he might twist his ankle. The problem was more that it was such a pain to get back onto the ledge once he'd fallen off. Shaw already had enough scrapes, scratches and bruises. He didn't need any more.
The sun was beating down on his, causing sweat to run uncomfortably down his back. It made his shirt stick to his skin. Shaw hated that, just like he hated being dirty. Field work was all about the dirt. He loved the solar showers he took every time he got back to camp, but hated knowing that he'd just have to go out the next day and get dirty again.
If Shaw hadn't already known that a nice, air-conditioned lab bench was for him he certainly did now. Why couldn't rocks be delivered? Why did he have to go get them himself?
Sigh. It was a shame that there was stuff you just couldn't learn about geology in a lab. So out into the hot, gritty, insect-filled world he went.
Just above his head, a small piece of rock jutted out. That was the piece Shaw really wanted. Instead, he settled for banging on the deposit at about waist height. If he tried for the piece he really wanted, he'd probably just knock it off onto his head.
Whang. Whang.Hitting something with a rock hammer always had a very distinct, metallic sound to it. Small chips of weathered rock flew off in all directions.
Really, he should get his goggles out. What if one of those chips hit him in the eye? Or worse, cut the artery along his neck? He could bleed to death and die before anyone found him. It had happened to one guy out in the field. Shaw had heard stories.
Instead, he slitted his eyes and kept going. Whang. Whang.
Something large and buzzing whizzed by his ear and Shaw took a moment from beating with his rock hammer to swat at it. He didn't actually want to hit whatever it was. In the four weeks Shaw had spent on this planet he hadn't encountered anything too dangerous, but that didn't mean it didn't exist. Just that it hadn't found him yet.
Whang.
He paused again, this time to wipe sweat off his forehead with the bandana he kept in his pocket for just this case. Either this rock was being incredibly stubborn or he really was as weak as people accused him of being. Shaw made a face. Gah. He needed to work out more.
Whang. Crack.
"Yes!" Shaw hissed. Finally. He went from banging on the rock with all his strength, to gently tapping it. The rock broke unexpectedly. Shaw dropped his rock hammer, lunged for the piece that had fallen, and almost toppled off of the ledge. Both rock hammer and rock fell to the ground. He managed not to follow.
Wonderful. The rock had fallen onto a colony of ants, stirring the small green insects up. Well, no. Not ants. Shaw rolled his eyes as he mentally heard Rosa accuse him of being too "terra-centric." Creatures on Horus IV had different names and he should make an effort to learn them instead of continuing to compare them to unrelated Earth species.
Then again, this was from the girl (really Shaw refused to call her a woman) who had complained about him using the term "thrust fault." Thrust was to "masculinistic" a word and she would prefer that he used the phrase low-angle reverse fault to describe such a structure.
Never mind that "thrust" was exactly what Rosa did with her cleavage every time Shaw so much as glanced in her direction. He wasn't interested. In girls in general, but in her in particular.
Sometimes it sucked being gay.
With a sigh, Shaw knelt and examined the place where the rock had broken off. The edges of the rock were ashy gray stained with rust. That was from weathering. The freshly broken surface, however, was a dark brown-black. Basalt. Shaw fumbled with his goggles, pushing a button that automatically zoomed in on the rock. There were small flecks of white embedded in it. The white had to be plagioclase feldspar.
Shaw grinned and hit a button on the side of goggles. "Site 73, coordinates already taken, third formation from the bottom. Acquired sample. Dark, relatively fine grained basalt with plagioclase in it. Heavily weathered. Basalt layer is approximately seven feet thick. Layer beneath it is a pebble studded sand stone, possible part of the same braided stream complex seen in Site 68. Suspect an unconformity."
Thank goodness for voice recorders. Shaw didn't even want to think about having to take field notes by hand or trying to read them later. All he had to do now was bag the piece he'd broken off, label it, take another GPS reading to verify the first, make it on his topographic map, and then head farther up the canyon. With any luck, he'd be able to get a sample from the formation above the basalt. Maybe he should go ahead and sketch a stratagraphic column using the electronic pad...
A feeling of being watched made Shaw freeze. He turned his head sharply, completely forgetting that his goggles were still on 10x magnification. The world went by in a blur of color. Shaw fumbled to get the goggles off, feeling vaguely nauseated.
One of these days he would actually remember to remove his goggles before he looked around.
Movement caught his eye. High up on the ridge at the top of the canyon stood one of the natives of Horus IV. Shaw couldn't tell much about him at this distance. He was wearing neutral color clothing: browns and duns, with a belt in brilliant red and blue. His hair was dark, long enough to go past his shoulders. The only thing he seemed to be doing was watching Shaw.
Shaw sucked in a breath. They were allowed to be here - Dr. Cyrus had all the permits from the Eastern Government – but that didn't mean that the Western Government recognized them. Suddenly ditching Rosa this morning seemed like a really bad idea. He was alone. Anything could happen.
There was a snort and the man on the ridge looked behind him. Shaw sucked in a breath. He'd heard about the trakin that lived wild in the untamed West, but he'd never seen one. This one was ghostly white, though where the sun hit its scales they flared gold. One eye was covered with a scar and the other watched him with yellow intensity.
It was easy to see why people sometimes compared them to the dragons of Terran myth.
He shifted nervously under its gaze. Of course, he'd completely forgotten that he was standing on a narrow ledge. His foot slipped off and plunged into empty air. Shaw pinwheeled his arms desperately, but it was no use. Down he went.
Loose rock and sand didn't do much to cushion his fall. Shaw slid a few inches before friction caused him to stop. Ow.
It was at that moment that he remembered the nest of green insects he'd disturbed before. They were all over him. Shaw jumped to his feet and began to flail trying to get all the non-ants off of him before they bit or stung or did whatever it was non-ants did in revenge. Even after they were all off of him, he swore he could feel them crawling on his skin.
Laugher rang down the canyon and Shaw looked up to see that the man on the ledge doubled over. Wonderful. Maybe he'd be so amused by Shaw's patheticness that he wouldn't attack. That would be nice.
His goggles weren't in his hand. Shaw looked frantically around before spotting them near his rock hammer. Thank goodness. Those things were expensive and as a graduate student, Shaw didn't have the money replace them. He picked both of them up. When he looked back up the canyon, both trakin and man were gone.
Despite this, Shaw couldn't help the feeling that this would only lead to trouble.
Also, I got a package from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
skylark97! Hot cocoa is for the win, especially on a day like this. I have decided that Sasami is the world's most patient cat. If I tried to dress up one of my two, they'd poo all over me in retaliation.
I think I totally turned one of my old characters gay. Or maybe bi. I can totally, totally see him being bi. I can't wait till I actually introduce him now.
Shaw hated field work.
Especially at times like these, where he was precariously perched on the edge of a small ledge a good three feet above the ground and trying desperately to figure out how to whack off a piece of rock without knocking himself off said ledge. It wasn't like the fall would kill him. A whole three feet? Oh know, he might twist his ankle. The problem was more that it was such a pain to get back onto the ledge once he'd fallen off. Shaw already had enough scrapes, scratches and bruises. He didn't need any more.
The sun was beating down on his, causing sweat to run uncomfortably down his back. It made his shirt stick to his skin. Shaw hated that, just like he hated being dirty. Field work was all about the dirt. He loved the solar showers he took every time he got back to camp, but hated knowing that he'd just have to go out the next day and get dirty again.
If Shaw hadn't already known that a nice, air-conditioned lab bench was for him he certainly did now. Why couldn't rocks be delivered? Why did he have to go get them himself?
Sigh. It was a shame that there was stuff you just couldn't learn about geology in a lab. So out into the hot, gritty, insect-filled world he went.
Just above his head, a small piece of rock jutted out. That was the piece Shaw really wanted. Instead, he settled for banging on the deposit at about waist height. If he tried for the piece he really wanted, he'd probably just knock it off onto his head.
Whang. Whang.Hitting something with a rock hammer always had a very distinct, metallic sound to it. Small chips of weathered rock flew off in all directions.
Really, he should get his goggles out. What if one of those chips hit him in the eye? Or worse, cut the artery along his neck? He could bleed to death and die before anyone found him. It had happened to one guy out in the field. Shaw had heard stories.
Instead, he slitted his eyes and kept going. Whang. Whang.
Something large and buzzing whizzed by his ear and Shaw took a moment from beating with his rock hammer to swat at it. He didn't actually want to hit whatever it was. In the four weeks Shaw had spent on this planet he hadn't encountered anything too dangerous, but that didn't mean it didn't exist. Just that it hadn't found him yet.
Whang.
He paused again, this time to wipe sweat off his forehead with the bandana he kept in his pocket for just this case. Either this rock was being incredibly stubborn or he really was as weak as people accused him of being. Shaw made a face. Gah. He needed to work out more.
Whang. Crack.
"Yes!" Shaw hissed. Finally. He went from banging on the rock with all his strength, to gently tapping it. The rock broke unexpectedly. Shaw dropped his rock hammer, lunged for the piece that had fallen, and almost toppled off of the ledge. Both rock hammer and rock fell to the ground. He managed not to follow.
Wonderful. The rock had fallen onto a colony of ants, stirring the small green insects up. Well, no. Not ants. Shaw rolled his eyes as he mentally heard Rosa accuse him of being too "terra-centric." Creatures on Horus IV had different names and he should make an effort to learn them instead of continuing to compare them to unrelated Earth species.
Then again, this was from the girl (really Shaw refused to call her a woman) who had complained about him using the term "thrust fault." Thrust was to "masculinistic" a word and she would prefer that he used the phrase low-angle reverse fault to describe such a structure.
Never mind that "thrust" was exactly what Rosa did with her cleavage every time Shaw so much as glanced in her direction. He wasn't interested. In girls in general, but in her in particular.
Sometimes it sucked being gay.
With a sigh, Shaw knelt and examined the place where the rock had broken off. The edges of the rock were ashy gray stained with rust. That was from weathering. The freshly broken surface, however, was a dark brown-black. Basalt. Shaw fumbled with his goggles, pushing a button that automatically zoomed in on the rock. There were small flecks of white embedded in it. The white had to be plagioclase feldspar.
Shaw grinned and hit a button on the side of goggles. "Site 73, coordinates already taken, third formation from the bottom. Acquired sample. Dark, relatively fine grained basalt with plagioclase in it. Heavily weathered. Basalt layer is approximately seven feet thick. Layer beneath it is a pebble studded sand stone, possible part of the same braided stream complex seen in Site 68. Suspect an unconformity."
Thank goodness for voice recorders. Shaw didn't even want to think about having to take field notes by hand or trying to read them later. All he had to do now was bag the piece he'd broken off, label it, take another GPS reading to verify the first, make it on his topographic map, and then head farther up the canyon. With any luck, he'd be able to get a sample from the formation above the basalt. Maybe he should go ahead and sketch a stratagraphic column using the electronic pad...
A feeling of being watched made Shaw freeze. He turned his head sharply, completely forgetting that his goggles were still on 10x magnification. The world went by in a blur of color. Shaw fumbled to get the goggles off, feeling vaguely nauseated.
One of these days he would actually remember to remove his goggles before he looked around.
Movement caught his eye. High up on the ridge at the top of the canyon stood one of the natives of Horus IV. Shaw couldn't tell much about him at this distance. He was wearing neutral color clothing: browns and duns, with a belt in brilliant red and blue. His hair was dark, long enough to go past his shoulders. The only thing he seemed to be doing was watching Shaw.
Shaw sucked in a breath. They were allowed to be here - Dr. Cyrus had all the permits from the Eastern Government – but that didn't mean that the Western Government recognized them. Suddenly ditching Rosa this morning seemed like a really bad idea. He was alone. Anything could happen.
There was a snort and the man on the ridge looked behind him. Shaw sucked in a breath. He'd heard about the trakin that lived wild in the untamed West, but he'd never seen one. This one was ghostly white, though where the sun hit its scales they flared gold. One eye was covered with a scar and the other watched him with yellow intensity.
It was easy to see why people sometimes compared them to the dragons of Terran myth.
He shifted nervously under its gaze. Of course, he'd completely forgotten that he was standing on a narrow ledge. His foot slipped off and plunged into empty air. Shaw pinwheeled his arms desperately, but it was no use. Down he went.
Loose rock and sand didn't do much to cushion his fall. Shaw slid a few inches before friction caused him to stop. Ow.
It was at that moment that he remembered the nest of green insects he'd disturbed before. They were all over him. Shaw jumped to his feet and began to flail trying to get all the non-ants off of him before they bit or stung or did whatever it was non-ants did in revenge. Even after they were all off of him, he swore he could feel them crawling on his skin.
Laugher rang down the canyon and Shaw looked up to see that the man on the ledge doubled over. Wonderful. Maybe he'd be so amused by Shaw's patheticness that he wouldn't attack. That would be nice.
His goggles weren't in his hand. Shaw looked frantically around before spotting them near his rock hammer. Thank goodness. Those things were expensive and as a graduate student, Shaw didn't have the money replace them. He picked both of them up. When he looked back up the canyon, both trakin and man were gone.
Despite this, Shaw couldn't help the feeling that this would only lead to trouble.
Also, I got a package from
skylark97! Hot cocoa is for the win, especially on a day like this. I have decided that Sasami is the world's most patient cat. If I tried to dress up one of my two, they'd poo all over me in retaliation.