Steam
By Gumnut
23 Mar 2004

The steam wafted up his nostrils, lazily taunting his sinuses.

The warmth was wonderful. He lay back and let the warm water rise up his chest, a shallow incoming tide until it reached his chin and lapped at his throat. Aaaaaaaaah, a long drawn out sigh. The heat soaked into his muscles, kneading them, drawing the ache from his bones.

He was home and he had the night to himself.

Bubbles trembled as he breathed, the odd loose foam encircled snatch of air sent dancing the length of the tub to where his toes stuck out like pinnacle islands in a sea of white froth.

He wiggled them noting that the second toe on his right foot was still longer than the second toe on his left foot. An oddity peculiar to only himself. And a reminder of an event now long in the past.

He had many such reminders. His body was a scarred roadmap of his past. A glance in the mirror was enough to spark a thousand memories, most of them bad.

But that was life.

And a life that he had mostly chosen for himself.

Even though choice had been the first casualty on each of those landmark occasions.

But he did not want to ponder his misfortunes. He wanted to relax. Tomorrow was his birthday and one of his rare days off, and he intended to enjoy it all, starting from now.

The toes disappeared under the surface.

He lowered himself further into the water, revelling the feel as the heat climbed slowly over his chin, his mouth, his nose, his eyelids, to finally lap gently closed over his head, all connection with the outside world severed.

Quiet.

Warmth.

The sensation of floating, his body buoyant, supported by a liquid caressing his skin.

It was wonderful.

He could have lain there for hours.

If he didn’t need to breathe that is.

That and the fact the doorbell rang.

Damn.

No, he wasn’t going to answer it. He was going to stay right here. Here with the wonderfully warm water and the bubbles.

The bubbles.

Now all over his face.

Up his nose.

Hanging off his eyelashes.

And making the crackly sounds that only bubble bath foam can make when it’s stuffed in your ears.

Damn his reflexes.

And damn whoever rang the damn doorbell anyway.

It rang again.

Ignoring it.

Again.

More soap in the ears, perhaps that will help.

Again.

Damnit, go the hell away.

Silence.

Aaaah, he relaxed back in the tub again.

His cell phone rang.

The wonders of technology. A mobile phone that is currently in his uniform pocket two rooms and a hallway away.

He should answer it.

Steam continued to rise from the surface of the water.

It could be a call to save the world yet again.

It kept ringing.

Damnit!

Why was it always a bath versus the annihilation of Earth?

He sat up, and the phone stopped.

Groan.

Oh well, if it was Earth shattering they’d ring back.

His home phone rang.

Oh, for the love of God!

Water and bubble bath sloshed in the tub, splashing onto the cold tiled floor. His warm, wet feet met with that same cold tiled floor and his toes curled up in reaction. He stumbled onto the bath mat, nearly slipping and beheading himself on the medicine cabinet. Ow, damn! Stubbed toe on the vanity.

He paused briefly, considering the varieties of painful death he would inflict on the caller at the other end of the line.

He grabbed the door handle with a bubble-coated fist and tore out of the bathroom and down the hall to the living room. He grabbed the telephone receiver, almost ripping the unit off the wall.

“What?!”

There was no answer.

“Who the hell is this?!”

A giggle.

A giggle?

He didn’t have time for this. He slammed the phone down. This time it did fall off the wall. The sound of cracking plastic almost obscured the sound of a gentle knock.

He turned.

His front window, one large birthday cake, one astrophysicist, one archaeologist, one Jaffa warrior, three pairs of eyes and two raised eyebrows. The other four eyebrows were hidden somewhere in two hairlines.

Uh oh.

He suddenly became very conscious of the slow drip of suds and water down his back. Soapy dripped into his eyes, stinging them slightly and he blinked to clear them. It was suddenly very cold in here.

Carter, at least, had the consideration to look embarrassed, though her eyes were obviously having trouble, they had a tendency to wander a little, bouncing from him to the cake in her hands and back to him.

Daniel looked simply as if he would rather be anywhere but where he currently was.

Teal’c…..Teal’c was typical. His expression was harder to read but he could distinguish enough to recognise it as one of rather haughty bemusement. Damn Jaffa and their almighty infallibilities.

But it was Colonel Jack O’Neill’s reaction that topped the lot. The man appeared from one side of the window suddenly, phone still in hand, and pressed his face up to the glass, steaming up the cold surface with his breath. Somehow the smirk on his face lacked the respect the General felt he should engender from the man. He was after all their commanding officer.

Damnit all to hell. George Hammond grabbed a cushion and what was left of his dignity and strolled off as regally as possible in the direction of his bedroom. Hmm, KD? Guard duty? No, Latrines, definitely latrines.

**********
FIN.