Anger Mismanagement
by Suz suzvoy@tesco.net

Disclaimer - MGM/Gekko/Double Secret own them.

Okay, warning in advance. If you don't like cursing, don't read this. Right from the get go there's bad language, and for that reason I'm rating it NC-17 (hey, so I'm paranoid). Don't say I didn't warn you.

Future fic, no spoilers. Feedback would be loved. And yeah, right now, I *so* don't care that this would never happen ;)

For Sarah - who deserves it {g}.

*

She's fucking pissed off.

And the thing that adds that extra touch? The thing that elevates it from being very annoyed to fucking pissed off?

She doesn't even know *why* she is.

She just knows it's because of him.

She doesn't even know *what* he did.

She just knows it's his fault.

Which might explain why she's currently turned away from him, ignoring him completely. She didn't even greet him when he wandered into her lab, apparently bored, talking about some yawn-inducing thing Daniel had been inflicting him with.

She wishes he were still there. Then she wouldn't be pretending to work, scribbling heavily inside a folder that holds no paper (her pen's going to go through the card soon), her teeth grinding against each other and every

little

thing

he does

...irritates her.

She's not used to this. Irrational anger - at least on this scale - is completely new to her. Sure, she's been angry before when it wasn't really warranted (she's only human, after all), but the thoughts she's having now are a completely different type of inappropriate compared to her usual inappropriateness.

No, so much better to indulge emotion, but not *too* much. Don't keep it reigned it, but don't let it run free either (especially if, when running free, that particular emotion does something to him with the pen she's holding that results in a new orifice).

And though she's not looking at him (she isn't, she isn't peering out the corner of her eye, secretly tracking his every rage-inducing movement), she knows his hands are gesturing too much, that he's walking back and forth wearing a hole in her floor (her lab - her floor), that he just keeps *talking*.

And then he does it. He actually does it.

"Carter?"

"Sir!" She can't help it - she spins round, all but panting (what's *that* about?), the hand holding the pen thudding down on the table with such force that the pen cracks. She is *this* far from throwing him out of her lab.

And then he really does it.

"I love you."

The gerbil - the one inside the moving wheel powering her brain - drops dead.

Her lungs stop taking in oxygen.

She knows, as she stares at him (she's not really capable of doing anything else just then) that he's joking. She can see that he's grinning. That son of a bitch knew all along that she was in a bad mood - probably even knew that, somehow, he was responsible for it.

And he was...*playing* with her.

But even worse than that? On some level, he meant it. And he chose to say it, right now. At this particular moment.

There's only one possible response, though she has to wait until she starts breathing again before she can say it.

"You *bastard*!"

She stalks towards him, sidestepping the table, enjoying the way the colour drains from his face; how he suddenly backs up against one of her machines.

Good. *Good*.

There are only two courses of action the gerbil in her head thrusts to the front of her mind: she's either going to punch him, or kiss him.

And she really doesn't know. She doesn't know until she stops walking, until his (terrified) face is inches from hers, until he keeps frantically looking for the exit but is too scared to move...

That it's the latter.

~FINIS

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