...of SHAME!

***

She's glaring at the side of his head. He can tell, even though he's not actually looking at her. It's something he has a lot of experience with, so he really doesn't need to turn his head and confirm it.

He decides to try to mitigate the damage with the puppy tone. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's worth it.

"To be fair, I really didn't have any idea that scratching my nose just then was a cultural taboo."

The quiet annoyance next to him ratchetts up a few levels. Okay, the puppy tone was a miscalculation.

"Really! I'm sorry!" Cautiously, he turns his head to glance at her, winces, and looks back out the front of the jumper. "I really am."

She doesn't say anything.

Okay, now he IS worried. Usually after the sincere apology she starts to yell. And then there's general crankiness, a few hours of frustration, and maybe a sharp word to not come near her for a day or so and that his report needs to be ON TIME and a few extra pages long.

Things are not going as expected, and this bodes very, very badly.

"Elizabeth?"

"Yes."

Oh, crap, she sounded pissed. Like, Rodney-blowing-up-the-solar-system-pissed. Which is really odd because the only thing that ended up damaged on this particular screw up was... well. What they were wearing.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"No."

Okay.

"That would be too easy for you."

Crap.

"I really didn't know!"

It had to be the paint bucket of shame. It couldn't be the water sprayer or something equally non-staining. All over the only uniform top she had left that didn't get destroyed in the previous week's laundry mess up. Paint. Green paint.

John sighed and glared out the window. He was so doomed.

-fin-

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