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Rodney McKay was a brilliant man; some (including himself) would even say a genius. His prodigious mind zipped along at a pace few could hope to achieve sans an Ancient artifact-induced mental upgrade and an I.V. drip of straight caffeine. In fact, sometimes his brain so out-paced his verbal capacities, which were, likewise, prodigious, that his voice would grind to an abrupt halt. At those moments his brows would furrow, his shoulders hunch and his hands would begin to do a little fluttery dance around his head as if he were physically casting about for the words he needed.
This tended to happen more frequently when he was under periods of intense, panic-induced stress, rather than just his usual level of heightened anxiety. So it was only natural that away missions would trigger the verbal lapses with some regularity. McKay barely seemed aware of them until John Sheppard rather helpfully tried to suggest the word his teammate was fumbling for.
At first, he'd actually tried to be helpful, piping in with something that seemed likely given the general context of their circumstances. He'd tried "wave amplifier", "DNA re-sequencer", and "unknown anti-Wraith technology" at various times all in a sincere effort to jump-start McKay's latest diatribe. More often than not he was met with a, "What? No!" or occasionally, "I...do you...that doesn't even make sense!" But more often than not McKay simply glared silently for several seconds, rolled his eyes heavenward as if seeking pity from a higher power in which he adamantly did not believe, and stormed off in a huff.
It was the latter response that, as far as Sheppard was concerned, changed the rules of the game entirely.
After that point, Sheppard decided to turn the whole thing into an ongoing game of Mad Libs. His "helpful" suggestions became increasingly absurd. He figured that if he couldn't accurately predict whatever it was that McKay was trying to get across, at least he could amuse himself and the rest of his team. That it had the added benefit of often sending Rodney into a round of stammering hysterics was just the cherry on top.
When Ronon began to play as well it was all Teyla could do to keep the ever-agitated scientist from quitting the team. She would give the other two men a stern look and intone, "I do not think that is what Rodney is trying to say at all." That was generally a good indicator that they were reaching the McKay Red Zone and they should draw that particular day's festivities to a close.
Of course, any game required both rules and a scoring system and this one was no different. The first and most important rule was that the word or phrase had to be delivered with a completely straight face. The second was that you couldn't repeat a word you'd already used or one that your competitor had. Each suggestion had to be as unique as a snowflake.
After that, the rules became somewhat more esoteric and subject to change. Indeed often Ronon and Sheppard would meet just after a briefing to lay out which set would be in play on any given mission. Sometimes they left the field wide open, and other times they set strict parameters like, "only things that are blue" or "only people or things that have tried to kill Rodney".
Scoring, however, was simple; points were awarded for every interesting shade from red to purple his face became during any given round. Ten points went to the one who inspired the most insulting verbal abuse in return, and twenty to the man capable of either reducing McKay to complete incoherence or sending him off to the rear of the Puddle Jumper to pout.
***
“I do know what you speak of.” Teyla chose her words carefully, but if Rodney noticed her reticence, it didn’t register on his face. “Sometimes affection is expressed in unusual ways.”
Rodney blinked for several long seconds before he could find words. “Let me get this straight: you think John is pulling my pigtails?”
Rodney sounded offended at the suggestion, that much she could tell, but Teyla didn’t understand what the tails of swine had to do with some harmless teasing.
“I am not sure I understand you,” she admitted wearily and fought the urge to roll her eyes. Someday she would no longer have to utter this sentence. That day was nearer than it had been when she first met Rodney McKay, but it still felt a long way off.
“It means… cruelty as a means of flirting,” Rodney mumbled the words hurriedly and coughed to cover his blush.
“I believe Colonel Sheppard and Ronon intend neither cruelty nor flirtation.”
Rodney growled. The conversation was taking a turn for the worse, she just knew it. She also knew the best way to diffuse the ticking bomb of Rodney’s fragile ego was, surprisingly enough, with touch. For all the man’s lack of physical sagacity, a warm hard on the middle of his back, or a soft grip on his forearm had all the calming effect of a cup of fresh Athosian mint tea. This time she gripped his shoulder, firmly but gently, and turned him to face her.
“Rodney, they are like family to you, are they not?”
“No. I mean, yes.”
“And I would guess that at some point in your childhood, you teased your sister to the point of tears without meaning to.”
“Are you kidding? I did that last week, but that’s different.”
Teyla quirked an eyebrow and her lips slid into a half smile, but her voice remained sympathetic. “Different how?”
“I wasn’t trying to make my sister cry. But Sheppard and Ronon are clearly, clearly, trying to annoy me. They even seem to get some sort of sick, perverse, twisted joy out of it.”
Teyla released her grip on Rodney’s arm and turned to stare at the Atlantian wall behind him. Emotional conversations with the man were often like intricate mazes, and today she found herself at yet another dead end.
As she attempted to regroup her thoughts and find another tack, Ronon passed by in the hall with Lorne, bragging loudly.
“So then Sheppard suggested ‘Satedan Yak milk’ but that’s not technically red until you add in the berries which prevent it from being poisonous to humans. Since he was disqualified, I got the 20 points that day.”
Before Teyla could think of a new way to ease Rodney’s pain, he trotted off after Ronon and Lorne saying, “Wait, what? Satedan Yak milk… that was… this is some sort of game??? With scoring???"
Teyla sighed and headed for the training room. She knew of only one way to work off the frustration that any heartfelt talk with Rodney inevitably led to. Well, two ways, really, but none of the men of Atlantis were suitable for the second method, and the one woman who might be seemed disinterested in such an arrangement at this time.
***
Rodney slammed his lunch tray down with sufficient force to slosh the remains of his coffee in several different directions. It missed landing in Sheppard's lap by inches. With a quirked eyebrow he drawled, "Ok your grown up table privileges are hereby officially revoked."
McKay's bright blue eyes narrowed and his chin jutted out petulantly. "Oh, that's rich! You're actually claiming the maturity high ground here? Huh? You might want to rethink that seeing as I know all about your little game."
The triumphant expression on the astrophysicist’s face prompted Sheppard to turn his attention to Ronon. The warrior merely shrugged and muttered, "He had cookies."
"That is so weak."
"They're double chocolate chunk."
"Really?" Even Sheppard found it difficult to argue with Ronon's logic on that one. "So bribery, last resort of the desperate super genius, huh?"
"First resort, actually," McKay admitted with a nervous twitch of his shoulders. "Oh, c'mon it's not as if threats or physical intimidation were going to work."
"You got that right," Ronon agreed amiably while grabbing another French fry from his plate.
"And I long ago gave up on appeals to reason or fair play." Rodney folded his arms across his broad chest and glowered. "Wait a minute, why am I getting all defensive? You're the one who's been acting like the world's oldest grade schooler."
"Right, like you're the very epitome of maturity."
"You do realize that you've just eloquently proven my point with an argument that boils down to 'I know you are, but what am I?’, don't you?" Rodney planted both fists on the table and leaned over and glared at Sheppard in a manner known to have made fully grown biochemists lose all bladder control. "I don't like to think of myself as a petty, vindictive man..."
Ronon snickered, but otherwise refrained from comment.
"…But I am sorely tempted to take this straight to Colonel Carter. I think she'd be absolutely fascinated at how her senior staff members choose to treat their scientific liaisons during critical missions."
Sheppard slouched in his chair and used one of his own French fries to doodle lazy circles with his ketchup. "Tattletale."
Rodney straightened abruptly, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists. "I am not a...” He paused, then began again in a lower octave and volume, "I am not a tattletale! I'm a highly respected expert in my field, the leader of the scientific program on this city, and the man who, pretty much single-handedly I might add, keeps us all from sinking to the bottom of the ocean! And this is the treatment I get in return? It's stupid, it's infantile and it's stopping...now. If you need entertainment so badly go pull the wings off flies or kick Athosian puppies instead."
"Jeez, Rodney, way to blow something out of proportion." It was, John thought to himself, McKay's most over-utilized skill. Truth be told the man had missed his calling as an operatic diva.
"I'm not a joke and I won't be turned into one for your amusement, you got that? I deserve better...I demand better. I demand respect, a-and common courtesy, and...."
Sheppard could see the telltale signs of another verbal shortout; his mouth was working long before his brain even realized what was happening. "...A kiss?"
Rodney's eyes widened dangerously and his face took on that blank look it got whenever a dozen or so emotions were vying for simultaneous release. "You are...you...” With that, the scientist turned on his heel and stalked out of the mess hall without another word.
Sheppard just sat and watched him go with a puzzled look on his face. Where in the hell had that come from? Sure it had become second nature to just blurt out words but never those kinds of words. It was unsettling in itself, but beyond that he was pretty sure he'd just laid down the verbal equivalent of a final straw.
Ronon finally looked up from his own food and gazed at his friend with a single raised eyebrow. "That," he intoned somberly, "was weird."
"Tell me about it." John returned with a sigh.
***
Rodney had never understood playfulness. His only friend in kindergarten gave him a wet willy when they were taking a break from the monkey bars at recess and in retaliation, Rodney had bitten the boy's arm. They both went to the school nurse -- Lyle because he needed stitches and Rodney because he was certain he was having an allergic reaction to the blood he'd drawn.
As a result, he asked himself three times if his revenge on Ronon and Sheppard was appropriate. The entomology department wasn't likely to miss one small box of specimens from M3X-279, he told himself. And this wasn't the sort of thing that would end in stitches. Calamine lotion, perhaps, but not stitches.
Thus placated, he crept into Sheppard's quarters while he was off training with Ronon, placed half the contents of the box in the man's underwear drawer -- careful not to let any of the bugs come in contact with his skin -- and shut the drawer with an evil, lopsided grin.
"That'll teach you to end my.... Fill in my...."
Blanks, thought Rodney, with a sigh, and sentences. For a genius, sometimes he managed to sound like an idiot.
He was outside Ronon's quarters, trying to place the now empty specimen box into his jacket as inconspicuously as possible when Ronon shouldered past him with a grunted, "McKay." Rodney jumped, nearly sending the Plexiglas case tumbling to the floor.
"Hey! Ronon! What's up, big guy? Any new bruises?"
"Not on me," Ronon grinned and shut his door in Rodney's face.
Rodney adopted an air of smug confidence as he made his way back to the entomology department. He was home free.
A few hours later, he'd completely forgotten the prank. He was tucking into his third helping of Beef Stroganoff, idly wondering if there was any chocolate pudding left, and staring at the nanite neutronium utilization coding on his laptop's monitor.
"Whatcha working on?" Sheppard asked good-naturedly. He took a seat across from McKay and dug into his chocolate pudding with gusto.
"Is that the last one?" Rodney asked, barely glancing up from his monitor.
"The last what?" Sheppard asked, flipping the spoon over and sticking it back in his mouth to extract every last drop of pudding from its surface with expert precision.
"The last...." Rodney gestured, and then realizing he was pausing long enough to indicate he couldn't think of the word, shouted, "PUDDING!" before Sheppard could offer some ridiculous suggestion.
"Easy there, Bucko.” The colonel glanced around the mess to see if anyone had noticed Rodney’s little outburst. “In fact, it is not. I can go get you... ow."
"You can go get me 'ow'?" Rodney asked.
"No, I mean... Ow. Ow as in... DAMMIT! That, that really... hurts!" Sheppard was standing now and sort of slapping at his crotch. But he appeared to be trying to do it in such a way that didn't immediately suggest that he was slapping at his crotch.
And then he fell over, grunting in pain, and sweating.
Ronon approached with a tray piled high with Ballkan meat cakes and extra bowls of barbeque sauce. "What's his problem?" he said, pointing his chin at his leader, writhing on the floor.
"Oh, good, Ronon. You're feeling okay?" McKay asked in a high, pleading voice.
"Would you two... girls," Sheppard gasped, "stop chatting… and help get me to the... infirmary?" He grunted and then began to keen quietly.
"Oh god," McKay groaned, "I knew it."
He and Ronon helped John to his feet and began to ease him down the hall toward Keller's office.
"Ronon, is there any chance you aren't wearing underwear today?" McKay squeaked.
"Yeah. And there's an even better chance I'm going to kill you if you ever ask me about my undergarments again."
***
Sam Carter glanced up as Teyla entered her office. The other woman appeared a bit apprehensive, clearly not altogether certain why she'd been summoned. Sam felt a twinge of regret that she'd not had the time to actually get to know the Athosian in the past few weeks since her posting to Atlantis. In a way, Teyla reminded her a little of Daniel, calm, thoughtful, and diplomatic to a fault. Though she couldn't quite imagine Teyla lecturing her on 2,000-year-old fertility cults with the same enthusiasm as her former colleague. "Hi Teyla, thank you for coming. I'd, um, well I'd like to get your take on something."
"My 'take'?"
Sam smiled and decided that Teyla had a little in common with Teal'c as well. "I mean your feedback. It's about team dynamics." The darker-skinned woman's eyebrows rose sharply. "Your team's dynamics to be precise. When I first arrived here I would've said you were all very cohesive, working together as smoothly as...well, SG-1 used to when I was a member."
"We have learned to appreciate one another’s abilities and accommodate for those things which each of us lack, is this what you mean?"
"Yes, that's definitely what I used to see, and frankly nobody was more surprised than me to note Rodney fitting in so well."
Teyla seemed genuinely torn between commiserating and defending the scientist. Finally, she settled on an enigmatic smile. "Dr. McKay has proven his worth repeatedly over my time on Atlantis. He is really not so very difficult to understand if one makes an effort to do so. However, he can sometimes be quite... trying."
Carter covered a grin by glancing down at her datapad quickly. "The thing is, during mission de-briefs these days I'm sensing a lot of tension between Rodney and John."
"Ah," that one sound told Sam just about everything she needed to know. Teyla must have recognized as much, her placid facade shifted just enough to allow Carter to see that the woman had been well aware of the problem and uncertain how to address it.
"There's also the incident with a certain species of stinging insects which somehow found their way from the entomology department and into Colonel Sheppard's underwear drawer."
Teyla suddenly seemed to find her lap absolutely fascinating.
"Let me be clear about this, Teyla, I've worked on a mostly male team since I joined the SGC. I know what me-, no, what boys can be like after extended periods in close proximity and high stress. I have no problem with low-level pranks and jokes so long as they don't interfere with the mission or start to dissolve unit cohesion." Sam paused and wondered exactly when she'd turned into General Hammond rather than her own mother. "But I'm beginning to think something else is going on right now and I want to know if I should be concerned."
"I think.... May, may I be quite frank with you?" At Sam's enthusiastic nod, Teyla continued, "I think that it began as simple teasing which both Ronon and John engage in with me periodically. I do not find it troubling; indeed it seems to be an indication of their friendship towards me. I think I would only be concerned if they ceased to tease me. But I am not Rodney, and sometimes they push him too far because it amuses them to do so and because they honestly do not see how much it hurts him." She paused then shrugged gently. "I do my best to keep them in line, but..."
"But you can only do so much, and you never signed up as team mom. Believe me, I understand all too well."
"Perhaps if I were to speak to John and Rodney separately...and then we were to be assigned a simple mission, something that would take only a few hours and would give us all time to become...cohesive again..." Teyla spread her hands letting Sam fill in the rest for herself.
"A milk run, huh? That's actually not a bad idea. But the last I heard Sheppard and McKay weren't even speaking to each other."
The Athosian smiled in a manner that might have been mistaken for sweet unless one looked at her eyes. "I believe I can handle them."
"I'm sure you can, Teyla. All right, I'll see what I can come up with in the meantime. And, Teyla, thanks for discussing this with me. I know I'm still something of a newbie here and I appreciate your trust and your honesty."
"You have shown yourself to be quite deserving of both, Colonel." Teyla stood in one graceful motion and added, "Now I believe the phrase is, 'wish me luck'."
"Good luck," Sam returned with a smile.
***
M5E-379 had started out promisingly enough. The team walked through the gate to Rodney's sarcastic chirp, "Oh look, Canada again. Yay."
"Hey," Sheppard returned, gazing carefully around the open space near the gate and then turning his attention to the forest of evergreens before them, "at least you never have to worry about getting homesick."
"I left the Great White North for a reason, you know. Once, just once it would be nice to see something a little...different. Would it be too much to ask that one Stargate drop us off in the middle of a beautiful, high-tech, completely pollen and bug-free city?"
The banter seemed a little off, but it was so close to the normal give-and-take between the two that everyone pretended nothing was wrong.
"Why not ask for it to be entirely inhabited by buxom Amazons with a geek fetish while you're at it?" That earned a thoughtful look from McKay and rolled eyes from Teyla. Ronon, on the other hand, just grinned wolfishly. "So you wanna tell us which direction we're heading in?"
"What? Oh, right," McKay pulled out his scanner and tapped it before groaning, "you'll never guess." He pointed with obvious dismay at the forest. "I'm probably going to end up covered in this miserable planet's version of poison ivy. Or bitten by giant, bloodthirsty insects..."
"Or both," Ronon added helpfully.
"Oh thank you so much. You're a constant source of comfort to me, have I mentioned that lately? By the way, lots of life signs ahead of us and not all of them are humanoid." He glanced up at Sheppard and muttered, "Some of them are very...large."
"Probably this world's equivalent of cows, McKay. Trust me, it'll be fine. Just a nice leisurely walk in the woods."
Ronon and Rodney made such similarly disbelieving snorts that they exchanged a startled look. Then the scientist clutched his scanner like a shield and his eyes darted from one team member to the other. "You're all clear on the fact that if I get eaten the progress of scientific advancement in the Pegasus Galaxy is going to come to a screeching halt, right? And I'd just like to re-affirm that the idea of a posthumous Nobel holds about zero interest for me. Right. Ok. I'll just um..." He moved into the center of the group and consulted his scanner once more. "It's that way." His hand waved in the general direction of the trees in front of them.
Sheppard, cradling his P90 in an effort to appear completely casual and unconcerned, took the lead. He seemed to be gazing around at the scenery as if the team were doing nothing more dangerous than taking a pleasant nature hike back on Earth. In reality his eyes were busily scanning the surroundings for any hint of danger, and the grip on his gun kept his hands from straying down to scratch his crotch. Not exactly the sort of thing destined to make a good impression on the natives.
Ronon and Teyla flanked McKay who'd begun a litany of complaints as soon as they'd walked under the tree cover. "I honestly don't know what Sam was thinking sending us out on such a pointless waste of time. If there was anything of value in that temple the last team would've found it and it's not like we need to worry about trading partners any more so why are we even here?"
"Perhaps there is some hidden value to the planet that the survey team did not discover?"
Rodney threw his arms wide as if addressing the entire planet as a whole, "Sure, maybe if we suddenly decide to build an 18th century style Navy we'd find the lumber very valuable. This is the sort of thing that Bellings and his little soft sciences anthropology posse just eat right up with a spoon; they should be here, not me. I could be in my lab right now coming up with the next brilliant defense against the Replicators but instead I'm dodging pinecones. If ever I needed definitive proof that a loving deity doesn't exist, this is it."
"I like the fresh air," Ronon said, picking up a pine needle and chewing it thoughtfully.
"You would, and what the hell are you doing? You don't know where that needle's been or what's stepped on it. It could be carrying any number of unknown, potentially life-threatening...."
"Rodney," Sheppard cut in, turning to face the flushed scientist, "enough."
McKay's mouth pressed into a firm, unhappy line. "Fine. Fine, see if I care if the big lug ends up hospitalized. I can't promise to refrain from saying ‘I told you so’ when I come to visit, though."
"Fair enough," Ronon agreed with a lazy grin.
"I believe we are not far from the village," Teyla added with a slightly strained smile of her own.
"Well then," Sheppard said, taking the lead once more, "let's go see what the wheel of fortune has in store for us this time around."
***
Three hours, a short but pleasant lunch, and several delightful conversations later; Sheppard noticed Rodney stalking out of the wood and thatch "temple" with an expression of bored disdain on his features. A bored Rodney was a sulky Rodney, and John was incredibly grateful they'd been able to take the Stargate. A long ride home in a jumper with McKay in a snit just didn't bear thinking about.
"Total bust, these people are stupid as sticks and twice as dull."
"Rodney!"
"What?" The scientist gave Sheppard a careless shrug. "Holding a conversation with one of them is about as intellectually stimulating as trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Ooh, Jell-o, I'm starving. Do you suppose they'll have the blue kind? All they had was yellow yesterday and as I've said many times yellow is the color of the Devil."
John rolled his eyes and sighed, "So we're done here?"
"I certainly am and, again, hungry so let's get back to the gate."
Sheppard barely bit back a groan; bored, sulky, and hungry, the perfect McKay trifecta. It was going to be a long walk back.
“Where are Ronon and Teyla?”
John smiled and settled the sunglasses that had been perched on his head back over his eyes. “Last I saw ‘em Teyla was chatting up the head man. She thinks we might actually be able to score some Chika beans in exchange for a few doses of penicillin and some basic medical supplies.”
“And this is a good thing because…?”
“No idea, but Teyla seemed happy about it.”
“Well, I guess if Teyla’s happy…” Rodney had managed to put the oddest mix of sarcasm and sincerity into that simple statement causing John to raise a puzzled eyebrow. Just when he thought he’d read the entire Rodney McKay user’s manual the guy would do or say something that had him reaching for the latest edition.
“I think Ronon’s off playing cowboy,” John blurted out, feeling like he should finish his answer.
“They actually have cows here?” There’s an obvious undertone of ‘steak, steak, steak!’ in Rodney’s voice.
“Um, kinda’. They’re actually sort of like hairy brontosauruses…brontosauri…whatever. They’re called Helle-something or other, but I thought I’d just go with ‘Banthas’.”
“Yes,” Rodney sneered, shoving his scanner into a vest pocket, “you would.”
An uncomfortable silence descended between them, punctuated only by the sounds of the village and the braying of Sheppard’s Banthas. John shuffled and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. Things had gone surprisingly weird with a suddenness that made him a little sad.
“Shouldn’t we, ah…” Rodney began tentatively.
“Head back, yeah.” The sharp, angry glance he received made Sheppard tense. “Sorry, habit.” With a sigh, he tapped his earpiece and muttered, “Ronon, we’re heading back to the gate.”
“Busy now,” Dex growled in return.
John straightened abruptly. “Good busy or bad busy?”
At first, all he got in response was a muffled grunt, then finally Ronon replied, “Good. Real good.”
“O-kay.” John was trying desperately to parse that response in a way that didn’t lead his brain down a decidedly disturbing path. “Um, see you at the gate then.” He spared a quick glance at Rodney, who was beginning to pace in a small, tight circle. Not good, not good at all. Tapping his radio again, John muttered, “Teyla, we’re really ready to head back now.”
“I will be with you shortly.”
The tone was just a little off. It was a bit too light and breezy, neither quality he’d come to expect from her. The gravity of her voice and bearing was sometimes the only thing that could keep him grounded. And he’d begun to wonder if maybe there was something more to this world than they thought. Something capable of the sort of weird mind-fuckery he’d once thought restricted to the realm of science fiction…or SG-1 field reports.
“Perhaps we should simply meet at the gate?” She sounded a lot more normal in that query, back to being the bedrock of pragmatism he’d come to rely on.
So why did he have the weirdest feeling that she was stalling?
“Sure, sure we’ll, ah, meet you there then.” Something was totally going on, and if it involved some kind of spores, or god forbid, bugs he was going to indulge in the mother of all hissy fits. A true grand mal freak-out that would put Rodney’s typical hysterics to shame. It was only fair; he’d earned it.
“What the hell?” McKay grumbled, throwing his arms wide. “Is it just me or is this turning into a bad Star Trek episode?”
“It’s not just you. I’m hoping it’s one of the funny episodes, personally.”
“And what are the chances of that? I’ll tell you, not very good. You know what? Screw this, whatever weirdness is going on here really doesn’t interest me. What does interest me is a hot meal, followed by a hot shower, and then maybe, just maybe, accomplishing something meaningful with what remains of today.” He began stomping off into the woods, pausing just long enough to throw over his shoulder, “Well, are you coming or not?”
Sheppard felt his shoulders droop, he’d been hoping for a little insulation between himself and the increasingly annoyed scientist. Just the two of them alone seemed like a disaster waiting to happen, one of those messy disasters that would inevitably lead to somebody like Dr. Parrish ending up on his team in the not too distant future. John really, really didn’t want a botanist on his team. He’d never hear the end of it from Lorne.
"Well," Rodney sighed as they tromped through the undergrowth together, "this is awkward."
John really hadn't wanted to be the one to say it; fortunately, that was rarely a problem around McKay. "At least the mission's gone ok." He let the final "so far" hang silently in the air between them.
"And what mission was that, exactly? The walk from the gate through the woods mission? The stand around scanning an empty temple mission? Or perhaps the all-important negotiating for beans mission? I...there just are no words to describe how frustrating these pointless milk ru-...Wait a minute. That's what this is, isn't it? Sam and Teyla probably cooked it up in lieu of a team drumming circle or something."
He was right, of course, and Sheppard mentally kicked himself for not seeing it sooner. "Could've been worse, I guess."
"Oh really, how?"
"They could've locked us in a conference room and made us talk about our feelings for a couple of hours."
"You mean they could've tried to do that, but Sam knows full well it'd take me roughly five minutes to break out. I'd be on the lam long before she even got the internal sensors back online. She's brilliant, don't get me wrong, but I wrote most of those systems and she's still nosing her way through four years worth of my particular brand of genius." McKay halted abruptly and folded his arms over his chest. "She's so getting a piece of my mind for this whole fiasco when we get back! And with just the right application of guilt and apoplexy, I may just get that Aeron chair I requisitioned ten months ago."
"I guess the old McKay charm kinda’ failed you on that one, huh?"
"Please, I leave charm to overly coiffed flyboys with suicidal streaks." He gave Sheppard a significant look before continuing, "The blunt force of my intellect has served me perfectly well over the years. And where that's failed yelling and whining generally succeed."
Sheppard couldn't really argue with that, he'd seen McKay browbeat entire military branches into doing his evil bidding through that disturbingly effective combination. Rodney was as understated as a tactical nuke, and as far as he was concerned a little collateral damage to those who stood between him and one of his desires was par for the course. It was just eggs and omelets to his mind, and god help you if you ended up in the former part of that equation.
With that thought, John realized he was getting hungry too and dug out a Powerbar.
"So what are you going to ask for?"
Sheppard blinked and asked, "Huh?"
"When we get back," Rodney had slipped effortlessly into the 'god why are you so dumb?' tone. "It's the perfect opportunity to hit Sam up for anything you and your grunts have been pining for from the back of the latest edition of Guns and Ammo. I'm sure there's some sexy little RPG you've had your eyes on for a while now."
"Actually I was kind of hoping to get my hands on a few more Zats. They're nice and compact, but they pack a helluva’ punch. I'm wondering how effective they'd be on a Wraith."
"Hmm..." The scientist raised a finger to his lips, lost in thought. "You know I've been thinking we should run some more standardized tests on our weapons' effectiveness on the Wraith rather than just shooting at them whenever they pop up and hoping like hell they die or at least fall over for a while. I could go through Carson's notes on Michael's physiology, maybe create a few simulations running through all the known parameters for drones and queens. We start inputting all the standard issue weapons then I could cross-reference with the databases at Area 51 for the more exotic stuff. God I'm going to need to pull Miko off a couple of projects but she's not working on anything vital at the moment. And by 'vital' I mean short-term survival-wise, of course. Because there's not a single project my team's working on that isn't vital in the long-term. But when it comes to priorities, the most effective method of killing Wraith before they can kill us is pretty near the top of the list. Right after not blowing ourselves up or sinking the city to the bottom of the ocean."
When McKay paused for breath John just grinned at him until the scientist barked, "What?"
"Nothing."
"No, seriously, what?"
"I was just thinking with your lung capacity you must be a helluva swimmer."
"You know I'm really beginning to think that decades of overexposure to high-cost hair products has had a detrimental effect on your higher cognitive functions. It's almost tragic, really, but on the plus side, in your line of work, it'll hardly even be noticeable. I'd recommend cutting back on the gel a little, it might slow the degeneration incrementally."
"I'll keep that in mind," John returned, still grinning in a decidedly goofy manner. McKay was awfully cute when he was jealous of... His brain paused, rewound that particular thought and ran it again. McKay was awfully cute... Ok that was unexpected. He had no idea when the words 'McKay' and 'cute' became related in his mind. Unless he'd meant it sarcastically, in which case it was totally fine and normal and nothing at all to be worried about.
Unfortunately, his momentary panic had made him lose complete track of the conversation, and sadly Rodney had managed to pick up on that fact. "...because my god it's not like I ever have anything important to say. You're probably dreaming about the last alien princess who waved her heaving bosoms at you. Or golf which is, I'd like to point out, slightly less of an actual sport than, say, ice dancing. And are you even listening to a word I say?"
Sheppard squinted back, then drawled, "Is that a trick question?"
"That's just...you are...I can't believe I..." Rodney'd begun pacing and wrung his hands together as if squeezing the life out of an invisible fairy, slowly. "You know what? I don't need this. I actually have real contributions I could be making. Important scientific contributions! I have papers to write and simulations to run and, and scientists to...to..."
"Spank?" No one could've been more shocked by what had come out of Sheppard's mouth than he was. Maybe it was the hair gel, after all, seeping into his skull and melting his brain. It was the only viable explanation for why he'd said that...and why he'd even briefly thought McKay was cute.
Rodney had turned a fascinating shade of vermillion, his eyes so wide they almost seemed to be popping out of his head like an old Warner Brothers cartoon character. He shook one finger dangerously close to John's nose for several seconds before making an inarticulate, choking squeak, turned on his heel, and stalked off into the woods.
"Rodney, wait I…. Come on, Rodney it was an accident. Maybe the natives slipped me something in my lunch. Would you just please slow down?"
From somewhere ahead in the dense growth he thought he heard another squeak, though this one was much less 'aneurism-inducing rage' and a little closer to 'losing all bladder control terror'. When Sheppard caught up to him it became immediately apparent why, somehow the man had managed to walk directly into one of the furry brontosaurus creatures.
"So on a scale from one to oh my god, just how screwed am I right now?" McKay's voice did that little throaty warble that always made Sheppard feel the insane need to wrap the scientist in a nice warm blanket and hand him a teddy bear.
"Um..." John's hazel eyes tore themselves away from the petrified man to gaze far up into the treetops.
"Oh god, oh god I'm a dead man, aren't I? And I'm going to die hungry in the woods...on a milk run...for beans!"
"I think it would be really good if you stayed calm and possibly quiet." John began to angle his body and brought his firearm to bear on the creature.
"Yeah," Rodney moaned, "'cause that's really likely to happen."
"Just this once," Sheppard gritted in return, racking his brain for every bit of information he should've been paying attention to about the Banthas when the nice natives fed him lunch, "make an effort."
"What do you..." McKay began again in a much softer voice, "What do you think I'm doing? This is as calm and quiet as I get when I've inadvertently walked into a giant cow monster. And I presume that's what I'm leaning against, right? A cow monster. A nice, big, dumb, gentle cow monster."
"Well that's definitely a Bantha but even big, dumb, gentle monsters can hurt you so let's just take things nice and slow, ok? Why don't you take a little step closer to me?"
"Um, are you sure that's a good idea?"
"It's that or stand under the cow monster all day, your call."
"I just," Rodney paused and then took the smallest step possible towards Sheppard. When nothing immediately fatal happened he continued, "I just wanted to be sure *you* were sure. About the walking I mean. Because right now I'd be all in favor of running, personally."
"And you may just get your chance. Thing is we don't want to spook it."
"Oh by all means let's not scare the giant monster. Have you even been around livestock before? Or are you basing this on all the westerns you saw as a kid?"
Sheppard watched the other man take two more small, careful steps. "Actually my family owned horses, been around them most of my life. So yes, I know a little bit about large, easily spooked animals."
"Really? Horses? Like on a ranch?"
"Not exactly." John grimaced, wondering idly if Canadians were generally convinced that all Americans lived on ranches.
"Elaborate please." McKay's eyes were boring into his own. "Seriously, one it's keeping me calm, and two you never talk about your family and there might be one or two inter-departmental bets riding on the outcome of this conversation."
"Fine, just... just keep walking slowly, ok?" After a quick, nervous nod, John sighed and said, "My family owned a bunch of estates and on two of them we had pastures big enough to keep a few pleasure horses."
"Estates? You grew up on estates? Should I be referring to you as 'your lordship'?"
"Only if you want me to punch you in the face."
"Right. Ok. That's... hmm, well I'll admit there were one or two bets that you were an international playboy as well as an intergalactic one. Guess they're taking the pot. Fair enough. I should've stuck with my original Bruce Wayne theory; I think that would've been close enough to count. Your parents weren't murdered in a tragic manner just after you saw the movie Top Gun by any chance, were they?"
"No Rodney, and I'd like to point out that this is a great example of why I don't talk about my past a lot."
"I thought you were just going for an air of mystery to sort of round out your cooler-than-thou persona," McKay returned testily. "And you do realize if we survive this I'm totally off the team, right?"
"Can we maybe discuss this somewhere far away from the cow monster?"
The other man's chin jumped up, and from its relative angle, Sheppard could tell that Rodney was about to dig his heels in about this. "There's nothing to discuss. This isn't working and as I've said there are far more productive ways I could be spending my time. I'll get you someone better suited to the 'team dynamic'. Maybe Parrish. I know how much you've wanted a botanist of your very own."
John groaned aloud, Rodney could be such a vindictive bastard sometimes. Before he could respond with a rather viciously worded recommendation that he assign Katie Brown instead, both men heard a weird rumbling roar heading in their direction from the village. Unfortunately, the Bantha heard it too and reacted with completely predictable alarm. John immediately realized the futility of even attempting to take the thing down with a P90, and made a grab for Rodney's arm. He caught it, but not before the furry behemoth lurched into motion and clipped the scientist hard enough to send him flying. Sheppard held on, getting dragged several feet, but managing to keep the other man from impacting with a tree. Or, at least, a big tree.
He bit his lip and stared down at the moaning scientist just as Ronon jogged up to the pair holding what looked like a giant horn. The Satedan grinned proudly and proclaimed, "Did you hear that? I summoned the herd!"
"Oh we heard it all right," Sheppard muttered and briefly considered smacking the taller man on the back of the head. Between the dreads, the concealed weaponry there, and the very real possibility of getting hit in return, hard, he thought better of it.
"Did you break McKay?" Ronon looked annoyingly disappointed in him.
***
He'd stayed towards the back of the gaggle rushing a groaning and red-faced Rodney down to the infirmary. As they passed her, Carter had given him that look when they moved out of the gate room. The look that said, 'You know this sort of thing never happened when Jack was in charge of SG-1.' He knew it was a complete and utter fabrication, he'd read the mission reports after all. Still, it unsettled him.
He tagged along the entire way, certain that if he could just explain…. Well, ok maybe explanations would have to wait until after an apology. Yeah, that seemed like a winning formula.
When he tried to follow them inside the infirmary Ronon merely turned around, effectively blocking the doorway. John raised an eyebrow. Ronon raised one right back, then folded his massive arms over his equally impressive chest.
"C'mon, move."
"Nope."
John hadn't felt so close to stamping his foot in years. "But I'm team leader!" He was immediately ashamed at just how much he currently sounded like his least favorite ex-girlfriend.
"Sorry."
Sheppard could hear the increasingly high-pitched yelps from inside and his whole body shook with the need to know, to see, to do something about McKay's distress. Even if he, totally inadvertently, had caused it. "Do I need to make it an order?"
"You could do that," Ronon agreed almost amiably, "but he's the guy who controls the hot water in my room."
"Yeah well I'm the guy who watches your back and... and occasionally hits you with sticks."
"Very occasionally." The big warrior grinned and actually reached out to scruff his commanding officer's hair.
"Hey!" John ducked and fussed with his slightly tousled locks.
"Just go tell Colonel Carter what happened and I'll make sure McKay's all right."
"But..."
"Go."
Sheppard sighed, knowing full well that even if he made it past the Satedan he'd still have to face Teyla's cool, maternal disdain. She'd all but growled, "Can I not leave you two alone for ten minutes?" while helping the shaken scientist to his feet back on the planet. The relatively short walk back to the gate had passed in near silence, with Rodney's occasional moans and Teyla's soothing words the only interruption. She hadn't even let John begin to explain that this entire fiasco was so totally not his fault.
And Rodney wouldn't even look at him.
He'd expected a thorough cursing out, to have his entire lineage compared to the most mentally defective beasts McKay's fertile imagination could come up with. He'd expected to be told in no uncertain terms just where he could go, what he could pick up when he got there, and which orifice to ram it up, right down to the angle and force requirements necessary. Hell, he'd been looking forward to it. Instead, he'd gotten the silent treatment.
The weird thing was that for the first year he knew McKay he’d actually found himself occasionally fantasizing about pissing the man off sufficiently to shut down the perpetual motion machine that was his mouth. But somewhere along the way he’d grown used to the constant chatter, and he was just beginning to understand that there was more to it. He’d begun to depend on it.
If McKay was talking then he was ok, maybe not exactly happy, but ok. And by some weird extension if McKay was ok, then so was he, and so was the universe in general. He wasn’t quite sure how it worked exactly; he just knew that the silence was starting to get to him in a profound way.
It didn’t get any better when Carter just sighed and shook her head over his hastily delivered debrief. When he admitted that McKay probably would demand to be removed from the team after the whole fiasco she just gave him a tight smile and offered, “Perhaps you could look at this as a sort of reprieve?”
John sank further into his chair and wondered just how everything had gone so quickly and completely to hell.
When Sam finally waved him away he wandered back down to the infirmary for the promised update from Ronon. The Satedan was as good as his word and rumbled a mildly amused, “He’s fine. Just a strain. Doc already let him go.”
Sheppard nodded gratefully. “I really screwed up today.”
“Yeah,” Ronon returned mildly. “So you wanna’ go try to hit me with some sticks?”
“Oh yeah.”
***
Two hours later Sheppard had a plan; perhaps not a brilliant one, but workable. He made his way to Rodney’s lab before he could chicken out. Just outside he paused when he heard Rodney muttering to someone.
“I’m reasonably sure that new Russian engineer is engaged in the most elaborate form of suicide imaginable. Trouble is she seems to want to take all of us with her.”
“Suicide?” Zelenka’s voice was heavy with disbelief.
“I can’t come up with a better explanation for the plans she’s come up with for the new power coupling on the back up generators. Anyway aren’t all Russians melancholy like twenty-four/seven?”
“Ukrainian.”
“What?”
“Ukrainian, not Russian.”
“Same thing.”
“No,” Radek replied in growing annoyance, “it is not.”
“Did somebody forget to tell me it was ‘Slavic Solidarity’ week or something?” There was a slight pause before McKay continued testily, “Fine, fine, Ukrainian. So they aren’t known for being particularly melancholy then?”
“Not generally, though after three months working for you…”
“Oh ha, and again, ha. So what are Ukrainians known for then?”
“Easter eggs as I recall.”
“Really? Huh. That’s um…well, pretty lame. If I came from a country best known for its Easter eggs I can promise you the thought of suicide would sound more than a little appealing.”
“Ah, yes, is so much better to come from country best known for maple syrup.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Is true. Now why do you think our Ukrainian engineer is wishing to end her life?”
“Well look at this.” John heard the scraping of one of the stools and soft footsteps. “I think she really wanted to be a dentist but the Island of Misfit Toys required engineers, so...”
“As usual I have no idea what you are…. Oh,” Radek’s voice stumbled to a startled halt. “I see, yes well on plus side it would appear that the resulting explosion should only kill nearest dozen or so, not the entire science team.”
“Ah yes, well it’s nice to know that even this cloud of stupid has its silver lining. I swear to God, Radek, the SGC is doing this on purpose. We’ve become some sort of fucked up social Darwinism experiment. I look at the work that half of them turn in and suddenly I’m turning into Wolfgang Pauli.”
There was a slight pause, then a soft chuckle. “’It’s not even wrong.’ Yes.”
“Exactly. I’d ask them what the hell they were thinking but I’m not convinced they can string together the puffy clouds that pass for rational thought drifting aimlessly in the vacant skies of their heads. And these are the best and brightest that Earth has to offer? Seriously? No, I’m just not buying it.”
“You know,” Radek countered, clearly interested by something, “this may not be workable solution but it is intriguing.”
“If by intriguing you mean ‘likely to cause pain, dismemberment, and death’, then sure I’ll grant you that.”
“No, I mean, you see the flow modulation here…”
“No, no…wait, yeah, yeah, yeah I see where you’re going with this. We take Dr. Ylenko’s obvious cry for help…”
“…but do not use two crystal configuration…”
“…we use three, and we re-wire this bit…”
“…yes, yes, exactly!”
There was a long pause where Sheppard was absolutely certain the two scientists were simply standing and beaming at one another, reveling in their shared brilliance. It was a pattern Sheppard had to admit he never got tired of. The two of them just seemed to complement each other so perfectly, their minds in nearly complete harmony with one another. Words almost seemed superfluous between them most of the time. John found himself feeling the strangest spark of jealousy at the thought.
And suddenly he got it. Suddenly everything fell into place with a frightening thud. He actually leaned against the wall, profoundly startled. Rodney was used to talking to people who could fill in his blanks, who knew where his brilliant mind was headed just a few seconds after he did. And John had originally tried to keep up, but when he couldn’t he’d gone all passive-aggressive and turned the whole thing into a game at Rodney’s expense. A stupid, juvenile game, and for that he was going to lose one of the best teammates he’d ever had.
“Radek,” McKay’s voice was surprisingly soft and John had to lean closer to the door to even make it out, “do you…do you respect me? I mean, if not as the greatest scientist it’s ever been your incredible good fortune to work for, then at least as, well, as a person?”
“Rodney, are you sure you did not injure your head as well as your shoulder today?” There was a long, drawn-out pause. “Oh very well, of course, I respect you, even though you are frequently the most maddening individual I have ever met. Why else would I be spending the best years of my life as a slave to your overblown ego? It is not for my health, I assure you.”
“Good. I mean, I’m glad. Well, not about the overblown ego part, but…you know, the rest. And, um, yeah.”
“You know I do not think the Colonel meant any harm.” Radek’s voice was surprisingly kind, though there was just the slightest undertone of amusement. “Though it would probably be best to ask him yourself as he is standing just outside of lab.”
Sheppard blushed and ducked his head, Ronon would’ve laughed himself sick if he’d been standing there. Being caught by oblivious, near-sighted Dr. Zelenka was a bit of a blow to the ego. But then he told himself he hadn’t really been trying all that hard to be stealthy. With a weary sigh he slouched into the lab and managed a feeble smile. “Hey.”
Radek returned the expression a bit ruefully and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. Both their eyes slid over to Rodney who snapped his own mouth closed abruptly. McKay had slipped his right arm out of his sling and was using it to type furiously on his keyboard, doing his best to ignore any other presence in the lab.
“Uh, Rodney,” John began.
“Radek, be so kind as to tell the Colonel that his genetic services aren’t currently required, so he can just….” Rodney made a little shooing gesture then went quickly back to typing.
Zelenka paused, lifted his glasses and wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then, with a complete lack of expression, he met Sheppard’s eyes and repeated McKay’s words to the letter. Or, at least John assumed he’d done so…only he did it in Czech.
His superior slapped his hand down on the workbench and exploded, “Why did you…? That was utterly pointless, I mean it’s not like he couldn’t just hear….”
“Ah, yes, so you still understand basic concepts of acoustics. Very good.” Zelenka stood abruptly and closed his laptop with a definitive click. “You have spoken, he has heard and understood you, and now I am going to bed.” With that he turned on his heel and stalked out muttering under his breath.
“Hey! I do happen to know the word for ‘children’ in your crazy moon language!”
Radek popped his head back into the lab long enough to mutter, “Good! Will save me the trouble of translating for you!”
“Right, just for that you’re on Ylenko babysitting duty for a week.”
“No I am not, because you need me to fix holes he,” Radek paused to point accusingly at Sheppard, “put in his Puddle Jumper two weeks ago.”
“I said I was sorry,” John whined.
“Sorry does not fix ship, I do! But first I sleep and you two resolve this…this nonsense between yourselves.”
“You’re getting awfully uppity in your old age, Zelenka, but you’re still my minion and I can make your life a living hell if I choose to.”
“I am thinking you are four years too late for that,” the other man huffed in return and stomped off in earnest.
“Bastard’s too damn competent and the hell of it is he knows it.”
John gave Rodney a sidelong glance and asked, “So, um, we’re talking again?”
“I don’t seem to have much of a choice do I?” The physicist ran a hand over his eyes wearily and adjusted his injured arm back into the sling. “What do you want, Colonel? Keller’s painkillers are starting to wear off and I’d really like to go to bed before I fall over.”
“Oh,” Sheppard lifted the laptop he’d been carrying and laid it on the workbench, “I can’t seem to connect to the intranet.”
“Two PhD’s, a fast track to at least a half a dozen Nobel prizes, and here I am the most highly paid sys admin in the Pegasus Galaxy. Wouldn’t mom and dad be proud.” McKay gestured abruptly with his left hand, muttering, “Gimme.”
John slid it over a little reluctantly and settled onto Zelenka’s abandoned seat. Two sharp blue eyes landed on him immediately. “Don’t get comfortable, this won’t take long.”
“Ok.” He hadn’t really expected a warm welcome, and he knew Rodney would see through his pathetic bit of sabotage in pretty short order so he’d have to talk fast. The problem was he still didn’t have a clue what he was going to say. What could he say really? He’d screwed up…inadvertently, of course, but that wasn’t the point. “Uh, Rodney….”
The scientist held up a single finger and muttered an annoyed, “Busy.”
“Look, I’m sorry, ok? I didn’t mean….”
“Like hell.” The words were clipped and every bit as prickly as expected. “Like hell you didn’t. Now just shut up and let me do my job.”
“I’m serious, Rodney, it was just…I just blurted it out. I didn’t think about it and I sure as hell didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Fine, you didn’t do it on purpose, I get that. This whole stupid…game wasn’t intentionally created to hurt me. Got that too. The thing is,” Rodney paused and met John’s eyes steadily, “it didn’t even occur to you that it might, did it? You just didn’t care enough not to hurt me. But you know what? I’ve been dealing with this kind of juvenile shit since high school so it’s not like this is all new and different. I just thought…I just hoped…Fuck!” He slammed his hand down on the workbench, then used it to knead his forehead. “Look, if I just had to deal with this in the lab that’d be fine, I don’t need my minions to respect me, so long as they quake in terror of my righteous wrath. But in the field…”
“Okay,” John said quietly, “I get it. And I’m sorry you think I don’t respect you. I do, but I’ll leave it for your brilliant mind to look at my actions -- the majority of my actions -- and work that out. For instance, you’re the first person I go to when I get an idea that might not be as hair-brained as, well, most of my ideas.”
“And that would be when, exactly?” Rodney smiled sardonically.
“Well, okay, like for instance…” John shuffled his feet a bit. He was always prepared to be laughed at when he proposed plans to McKay, but today his misgivings were a hard stone in the pit of his stomach. He took a deep breath and continued. “What if we could do to the Replicators what they’re doing to the Wraith?”
“Kill off their food supply? Sheppard they’re machines, they don’t….” McKay began to snap his fingers in quick succession. “Wait! Neutronium. If we could alter their fuel supply… maybe create a massive cation effect…. But, wait, how can we possibly do that without getting us all killed?”
“I don’t know,” John spread his fingers wide, “that’s why I bring all my ideas to you. Because I respect you enough to know that you’ll figure something out.”
“Yes, I do believe that’s called the ‘hard part’. You just come in here with some weird idea that popped into your head in the shower, lay it at my feet, and skip off to go hit Ronon with sticks.”
“I already did that. And how did you know I got the idea in the shower?”
Rodney shrugged. “It’s where I get all my best ideas.” Rodney tapped the radio on his ear. “Zelenka, wake up and get back here. I have an interesting idea I need to bounce off of you.” There was pleasure in his voice, and his chest puffed out with pride. All thought that this had been Sheppard’s idea had clearly been extracted from his thoughts with surgical precision.
“Zelenka?” Rodney paused and tilted his head like a confused Labrador.
“Maybe there’s some sort of problem with his radio,” John suggested helpfully.
“Yes, thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Obvious,” Rodney said with long-suffering impatience. John noted, however, that he’d used his proper rank and smiled. “Now go get Zelenka for me, I need to see if we can figure out a way to create neutronium ions from a safe distance.”
“Does that mean we’re okay?”
“You’re wasting time!” McKay answered in a singsong voice.
John stood his ground.
“Yes, yes, fine, you respect me. You’re just an incredibly insensitive oaf. Now GO!”
John smiled sincerely, turned on his heels, and headed for the Puddle Jumper bay. The first part of his plan had gone better than expected.
***
John had observed that Rodney’s interaction with Ancient tech followed its own fascinating pattern, not unlike the five stages of grieving. Watching the man in one of the new labs they’d recently declared “safe enough” to work in, Sheppard couldn’t quite contain the smile that was quirking the edges of his lips. Rodney was bent over a console deep in stage one, denial, the sling he was supposed to be wearing for his very injured right shoulder had been casually tossed into a corner of the room and forgotten.
“I’m…I’m missing something here. There’s gotta be a…where the…No, no, I know it’s here somewhere…”
Within seconds he’d moved on to stage two, anger. “You stupid piece of crap! Oh you may think you’re not going to open for me, but let me assure you that you are so very mistaken. I’m right and you’re wrong. Filled to the brim with wrong-ability, that’s what you are. You. Will. Open!”
When bullying and the furious application of a screwdriver had no discernible effect, the scientist slid effortlessly into stage three, bargaining. “C’mon, you know I only want what’s best for you so a little cooperation would really be appreciated right now. Could you just…please…”
Another ten minutes of fruitless pleading and fiddling didn’t seem to be doing much good so Rodney slumped to the floor burying his face in his hands. “Fine, just stay closed then, this is a total waste of time. I don’t know why I even bother. Even if I did find out what you’re for it’d probably be something stupid and useless at best or pointlessly dangerous if not deadly.”
And there was depression, right on schedule. Sheppard almost spoke up then, asking if he could help, but before he could Rodney’d forged ahead into acceptance and muttered, “Ok, ok, you win, if you want me to call your boyfriend to come do this I will. Are you happy now?” John’s eyebrows shot up at that, but he refrained from comment. Rodney tapped his radio and growled, “Colonel Sheppard?”
“Right here.”
McKay nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the other man’s voice directly behind him. “Why did you…? Wait, how long were you standing there?”
“Oh, hours.”
“You know that joke just keeps getting funnier. Um, why are you here?”
Sheppard smiled mildly and returned, “I didn’t see you at breakfast.”
Rodney paused and blinked at him for several long seconds as if he were expecting something further. When Sheppard just continued to smile and even bounced on his toes a bit, McKay shook his head and said, “I was right in the middle of something and…”
“Did you actually sleep last night?”
“Sleep? Um, yeah I think I got an hour or two in the lab. I’m assuming I did anyway, Zelenka and I were talking and then suddenly he was gone and the lights were out. Also, I think I drooled on my keyboard a little.” He paused to scrub a hand wearily over his eyes.
“I brought you a croissant.” John held out the pastry.
“Oh. Oh, that’s, uh…thanks.” He snatched it out of the Colonel’s hands and crammed a good half of it into his mouth. Between bites, he waved a free hand at the console and muttered, “Go molest that panel.”
Sheppard’s right eyebrow climbed his forehead, but he refrained from comment and simply walked over to lay hands on the panel. As expected it lit up like a Christmas tree and popped open with what could best be described as a happy little chirp that made the Colonel grin like an idiot. He turned back to Rodney to see the scientist turning an ugly shade of purple, the remains of the croissant fell to the floor forgotten.
Without missing a beat Rodney turned away, flung his screwdriver at the far wall, and shrieked, “You whore!”
“Hey!” John pouted, the Kirk cracks were bad enough, but this was definitely crossing a line.
“Not you,” he threw his arms wide and glared at the ceiling accusingly. “Her! This entire fucking city! I slave my life away trying to keep her running, me, not you, but does that influence the little trollop? Oh no, you just wave your genes at her and she’s flat on her back faster than you can say ‘Lieutenant Colonel’.”
“You know I’ve really always preferred to think of Atlantis as more of a friendly puppy, myself.”
“I can’t even begin to address how many kinds of messed up that is.”
John frowned and muttered, “Yeah ‘cause your Atlantis as loose woman metaphor is so much healthier.”
“God, why isn't the intense heat of my hatred melting you into a puddle of goo right now?” Rodney just stared at him with wide, bloodshot eyes. “Just forget that, forget that you’ve basically turned me into a cuckold, because, you know what? That’s not even what I’m really angry about.”
“It’s not?”
“No, no it’s not. First the Ancients roll bottoms-up for the Wraith without leaving so much as a single goddamn instruction manual for their endless supply of broken, moronic, or homicidal experiments. I mean seriously would it really have killed them to write up the Ancient equivalent of ’10,000 Year Old Space Tech for Dummies’? Ok, and the Wraith? Who ever heard of a hive species made up predominantly of males? Jesus, that doesn’t even make any fucking sense! And they dress in a manner not entirely dissimilar to me during a brief and embarrassing summer in the mid-80s. Let's just say I thought I was Robert Smith for about 8 weeks and leave it at that. So it occurs to me that we build these guys a kickass goth club and our worries are over. Oh, oh, and, the Replicators are all pissed off because mommy and daddy didn’t love them enough so they’re out to destroy all their stuff and us along with it. I mean we’re fighting the machine equivalent of your average disaffected teenager! Maybe we should just sign them all up for some intensive therapy. We might want to avoid the Freudians, though, I just don’t see how that could possibly end well.” Rodney finally wound down and simply stood flushed and panting for several moments.
“Uh, Rodney?” John tilted his head and eased toward the twitching scientist as if he were a high-power nuke primed to go off. “You ok there, buddy?”
McKay ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned, “I think…yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Got it all out of your system?”
“Probably. Unless my minions have started screwing around with what they think is the Ancient equivalent of a food processor only to discover it’s actually some sort of freakish genetic manipulation device. I might just work myself up to a good frothy rant when faced with the very real possibility of being turned into a sea slug.”
“Sea slug?”
“Why the hell not? It makes as much sense as any of the other experimental devices we’ve bumbled into.” Blinking, Rodney mumbled, “Wait, why are you here again?”
“Um, breakfast and molestation as I recall.”
McKay gazed down at the remains of the pastry sitting sad and abandoned on the floor of the lab. “Oh,” he moaned mournfully, “oh that’s just tragic.”
“On the plus side, the console’s open.”
“That’s…good?”
“This may sound crazy but somehow I just don’t think an hour or two of sleep is quite cutting it for you today, Rodney. Maybe you should sack out for a while?”
“But,” McKay gazed at the open console with bleary, worried eyes, “but I just got it open…”
“You mean I just got it open,” John returned, gently throwing an arm around his friend’s hunched shoulders and leading him towards the door. “And you know what, it’ll still be open a few hours from now when you’re actually awake enough to figure out what it does. And if it’s not still open you just give me a call and I’ll come take care of it for you.”
“You will? You promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Ok.” An exhausted Rodney was an astonishingly passive Rodney, and he allowed himself to be led just outside the door before he stiffened and pulled away from Sheppard. “Wait a second, I’ve just got to, um…” He stumbled back inside the lab and over to a small pile of equipment that included his second favorite laptop and his favorite tool roll. Digging through it all he plucked out a notebook and Sharpie and quickly scrawled a note. With a satisfied smirk, he perched the note on the open console. It simply read ‘Lab monkeys: touch anything in this room and I will end you. Sincerely, Dr. Rodney McKay.’
With a quick nod he returned to Sheppard’s side. The Colonel just smiled at him and asked, “You think that’ll work?”
"Oh it’ll work, because they're well aware that if they disobey me their lives will begin to make Dante's Inferno seem like a perfectly lovely way to spend an eternity by comparison. I think I've drilled it into their pointy little heads that this place isn't like the SGC or Area 51, rather more like the Acme Warehouse from the old Warner Brothers cartoons. It’s like survival of the fittest, thwarted by a few centuries of medical science, is trying to reassert itself on this city. Fortunately, most of my minions seem to have at least a vestigial survival instinct."
"Ok then, your minions have been duly warned and your work here is done. Time for a nap. And then I was thinking we could, you know, grab some dinner or..." he paused as if searching for just the right word, then blurted out, "something."
"Dinner?"
"Yeah, you know, last meal of the day, often shared with friends or family."
"So...dinner." Suddenly McKay's blue eyes widened alarmingly. "Wait...dinner...pigtails...Oh my god, you're asking me out aren't you?"
John's brain flat-out refused to parse that question for a good thirty seconds. This seemed, at least for McKay's purposes, to be the equivalent of an admission. His eyes widened even further and Sheppard noticed for the first time just how dilated they were. It was vaguely unnerving. "I should have...I mean the juvenile mind games...and the teasing...oh my god you've even checked out my ass, haven't you? You totally have! On PX5-937, you said you were looking for leeches, but you were totally checking me out!"
Sheppard opened his mouth, realized belatedly that he had absolutely no idea how to respond to any of it, and snapped it shut once more.
"This is, wow...I mean I'm really flattered, hell who wouldn't be? But, wait, that is what you meant, right? Because this would be oh my god so embarrassing if that’s not what you… Oh, Jesus! Of course, that's not what you meant...I'm, god I'm tired, I'm not even making sense. Look, just forget everything that came out of my mouth a minute ago. Chalk it up to extreme fatigue, or space dementia or, you know, whatever." As McKay's mania drained away he slumped again and waved a weary hand. "I'm just going to go and be unconscious for a while. Maybe I’ll get lucky and slip into a coma."
"So, um, dinner?"
Rodney's eyes narrowed a bit as if he were waiting for a punch line. Finally, he relaxed marginally and nodded in a stiff and jerky fashion. "Sure, yeah. Just...just dinner, yeah."
John smiled and said, "Ok then. But, uh, no comas... What do you say we have burgers in my quarters tonight and decide how best to approach Sam with your latest hair-brained scheme? 1900 hours work for you?"
Rodney flushed and fluttered his fingers about his head.
"I'll take that as a 'yes'."
***
John pulled two Athosian ales out of a bucket of ice. They had swing-top porcelain caps, a fact that John found rather charming. He broke the seal on one, levered open the top, and handed it over to Rodney.
“Thanks. It’s uh… kind of a weird top. On this.” He pointed needlessly to the cap now resting against the base of the beer’s neck.
“Like a Grolsch,” John said and took a long, satisfying swig of his own beer. “Aren’tcha going to taste it?”
“Um, sure,” Rodney said, but then set the beer down on the nearest flat surface – namely, John’s floor. “Burgers. Didn’t you say there would be burgers?”
Rodney seemed nervous.
“There will be, a little later. I thought we’d start with a couple of these and maybe, I don’t know, talk a bit.”
“Talk?” Rodney squeaked and reached for the beer.
“I have an idea.”
“Oh?” Rodney asked politely and took a small sip. He made a face and set the bottle back down quickly.
“Did you ever play Questions?”
“Questions?” Rodney repeated.
“Yeah, it’s a drinking game… like quarters.”
“Quarters?” Rodney repeated again.
“Oh boy. I take it you didn’t do much drinking in college.”
“Well, no, I was only 16 when I graduated with a double degree… and then I started on my double masters….”
“Okay, okay,” John tried to cut off Rodney before he recited his entire curriculum vitae, “I get the picture. So Questions goes a little something like this: Person A asks Person B a question – hence, the name – and Person B then has to immediately ask Person A a question in return. If Person B answers Person A’s question instead of asking another….”
McKay snapped his fingers “Yes, yes, yes. We played something similar at Area 51, only it involved naming a theorem instead of asking questions and if the second person couldn’t name another theorem in ten seconds….”
“They had to take a swig,” John ended McKay’s sentence for him and downed the rest of his first ale to illustrate.
“No, no,” Rodney said testily, “in our version, the winner got their pick from the loser’s Magic the Gathering deck.”
“Oh,” John replied disappointedly.
“It was a collectible card game. Very popular in 1995.”
“By then you must have been old enough to drink.” John hadn’t meant to whine, but he had a feeling his idea was going over like a lead balloon.
“Of course I was, I just didn’t….” McKay’s voice trailed off and he averted his eyes briefly. “So what was it you were saying about having an idea? Hmm?”
“Oh, right.” John gulped as the full power of McKay’s open blue eyes turned on him once again. “Well, we could play a drinking game, like Questions,” he lifted the lever on another swing-top bottle to punctuate this suggestion, “But instead of questions….”
“We use half-finished sentences!” Rodney ended John’s sentence correctly. His face lit up almost like it did when he discovered a new piece of Atlantean technology… and got it to work correctly. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Only, not quite. Maybe more like a kid on Easter morning.
“Exactly,” John agreed and gave an appreciative look to the pale amber liquid in his bottle. This stuff must be stronger than he’d thought. His brain was starting to ramble as much as Rodney’s mouth normally did. Rodney’s mouth. No, no, he shouldn’t think about that. Not right now. It’s so… pink. No, he definitely didn’t need to think about Rodney’s mouth.
John came back to the present and realized Rodney was whining something about leaving his deck back on Earth. Before John could correct him his face went momentarily blank like it did whenever he came to the sudden realization that he’d committed another social faux pas. It was sorta cute. Stop that! John thought. Maybe it was time to switch from the Athosian ale to a better-known quantity.
“Oh, of course. We’re not betting collectible cards, we’re going to drink this yummy ale,” Rodney said with a smirk.
“Well if Athosian ale isn’t to your taste….” Sheppard reached behind his Johnny Cash poster and pulled a full bottle of fine Russian vodka out from his favorite hiding spot. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done that in front of Rodney…. Oh well, he’d just have to get the man drunk enough that he’d forget. Or maybe forget where his quarters were. What the hell has gotten into me? John thought. But out loud he said,“What the hell do they put in this stuff?”
“Athosian ale? Well, hops, barley, some weird native herb they call Hraka. Or Harka. Something like that. I dunno, do you want me to ask Katie?”
“No!” John bellowed, louder than he’d intended.
“Okay, okay,” Rodney held up his hands defensively, but he smirked smugly.
“I happened to win this vodka from Zelenka in a game of Texas Hold ‘Em last week. How about we use this instead?”
Rodney swallowed nervously and nodded once in agreement.
“Well, okay then,” John grinned. He was happier about Rodney accepting the terms of the game than he could reason why.
“Who starts?” Rodney asked and broke the seal on the vodka with a grunt.
“I could start, but…” John drawled.
“Then we’d be here all night while you tried to come up with something witty to say?” Rodney suggested.
“Drink,” John pronounced and treated Rodney to his most devil-may-care grin.
“What? I didn’t even know we were starting!”
“That’s no excuse. Drink.”
Rodney tipped the bottle gently to his pale pink lips.
“That’s not a drink!” John complained.
“Oh, god, it burns,” Rodney said with tears in his eyes.
“Just the first couple of sips. Besides, you’re lucky this is the good stuff. The cheap stuff would… would….”
“Set my whole body on fire?”
“Drink,” John said with a laugh. “Oh, this is too easy.”
“I’ll tell you what else is too easy…” Rodney said, wiping the remnants of vodka from his lips.
“Katie?” John said. He knew he was going to have to drink, but somehow he’d begun to believe that the vodka might thin the Athosian ale in his system and help him think straight. Besides, there was never a bad time to belittle Rodney’s ex.
“Very funny. Drink.”
When John had finished taking a very large swig, he handed the bottle back to McKay.
“You know, at this rate, we’re both going to be extremely drunk before we have any dinner,” Rodney said.
“So?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying.” Rodney fluttered his hands dismissively.
“Has anyone ever told you, you have nice….” John trailed off.
“That is so unfair, you smug little….”
John grinned and bowed his head. “Now you’re getting it. All you have to do is….”
“I demand respect, and common courtesy, and...."
“A kiss.” John couldn’t believe he’d said it again.
“That’s what you said last time.” Rodney had an expression on his face like he was trying to solve a complex equation.
“I know,” John said, the annoyance creeping into his voice.
“Why?” Rodney asked plainly.
“I don’t know.” This came out almost like a growl.
“Do you think you want to?”
“Want to what?”
“Kiss me.”
“Hand that over,” Sheppard growled. He took the bottle of vodka from Rodney’s outstretched hand, unscrewed the lid, and gulped several ounces as if it were water.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Rodney pointed out as John was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I know that.”
“Okay, fine, I get it.” Rodney got unsteadily to his feet. Once up he swayed like a strand of kelp anchored to the ocean floor.
“Where are you going?” John asked.
“I’m leaving.”
“Why?” John blinked in confusion. Or maybe it was the lights. It was too damn bright in his quarters. He reached over and flicked off the bedside lamp.
“Because you keep growling, so obviously I’m irritating you, and despite the proof from recent events that you are quite the opposite, I, for one, do not enjoy pissing you off. I just… do it accidentally a whole bunch.”
“No you don’t,” John protested and reached for Rodney’s wrist. He missed and ended up grabbing his hand.
“Why did you turn out the light?” Rodney asked in an unnaturally quiet voice.
“Because. It was too bright. Now sit.” John tugged on Rodney’s hand, but it was unnecessary. As soon as he barked a physical command, Rodney always jumped to comply. He’d been trained to do so from countless field missions, no doubt, but John sometimes wondered if it wasn’t his preferred mode of being. While the man was undeniably a genius, he often seemed at a loss as to what to do with his own body. John thought his tendency to gesture wildly had something to do with that too, but he couldn’t put those two thoughts together in any coherent way at present.
“I was thinking…” they both started at once.
“You go ahead,” John said.
“No, that’s okay. You first.” Rodney’s voice was cracking the way it always did when he was nervous.
“I was just thinking, maybe it would be helpful if I just got this out of my system,” John confessed.
“I thought that was what we were doing. I thought that was what all this ‘fill in the blank’ nonsense….”
But John didn’t let him finish that sentence. He set the bottle on the nightstand, turned to Rodney, grabbed his face with both his hands, and kissed him for all he was worth.
***
Rodney McKay was a brilliant man; some (including himself) would even say a genius. His prodigious mind, as a result, zipped along at a pace few could hope to achieve as John kissed him. He thought of all the times the man had looked him up and down when he entered a room. He thought of the disconcerting way John had stared at his lips in the Mess Hall until Rodney was certain there was a dollop of whipped cream still clinging to his mouth from a recently finished dessert (or two). He thought of all of the times John had grabbed him, protectively, possessively, and forced him out of harm’s way. But most of all he thought: I’m drunk! He got me drunk! He’s trying to seduce me! And though Rodney McKay was nearly infallible when it came to applied theory, in this one instance, he was dead wrong.
John Sheppard was a brave man, a good leader, and loyal to a nearly suicidal fault. But he was not gay. This was the thought that kept repeating in his head, in a staccato: Not gay, not gay, so so so not gay! But try as he might, even this litany could not dismiss the fact that he was enjoying kissing Rodney McKay, enjoying feeling him squirm in his arms as though he wanted to pull away (but John was having none of that), enjoying hearing his little moans of defeat as Rodney eventually slacked and melted against him, enjoying the surprisingly soft pink lips and even, so help him, enjoying the rough stubble of his chin as it scraped against John’s own.
“Lay down,” John said throatily, finally releasing Rodney from his grip. Rodney didn’t hesitate, didn’t flinch, but quickly flopped down on John’s bed. Great, now what? John thought. The tiny little bed wasn’t going to accommodate them both very well. Not that John even had any idea of what he wanted to do with Rodney. He’d mostly just wanted to tell him what to do and watch him jump to comply. But with little room to do much else, John straddled Rodney’s chest, pinning his arms against his sides. Rodney looked slightly uncomfortable, but he was surprisingly quiet.
“What?” John growled, uncomfortable with the silence.
“Nothing,” Rodney said. He sounded… almost content.
“Good.” John stared down at Rodney. He knew he was supposed to do something, was supposed to have some plan in his head, some scenario to guide Rodney into, but his mind was completely blank.
“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” Rodney asked with a frown.
“Shut up, I do so!” John protested like a 12-year-old.
“Prove it,” Rodney said with his patented half-smile. John didn’t like that at all. It felt like Rodney was suddenly the one in control, even though John had him pinned to his bed but good.
“Okay,” John said, rising to the challenge, “take your shirt off.”
“Um.” Rodney raised his eyebrows and looked at John’s crotch meaningfully.
“What now?” John was reasonably certain his arousal wasn’t to the point of showing through his BDUs, so he had no idea what Rodney was looking at.
“I need control of my arms to take my t-shirt off.”
The word “control” caught John’s ear. He didn’t want to give McKay control of anything.
“No.”
“Okay, but kinda hard to take my shirt off when….”
“Be quiet. I don’t want you speaking unless I tell you to.”
Rodney shut his jaw so quickly his teeth clicked together.
“Now, I’m going to stand up, but you’re not going to move one muscle. Understand?”
Rodney nodded silently.
“Good.” John rose slowly, never taking his eyes off McKay. “Raise your arms above your head. “
Rodney did as he was told, his wrists limp and hands hanging together as if bound by a rope. John smiled, reached down, and tugged McKay’s shirt up exposing the bare white skin of his belly. There was a trail of surprisingly dark hair there that crept downward into his waistband, but John couldn’t look at it without musing that it was cute, so he averted his eyes.
“You could help me out a little here,” John growled as the shirt wouldn’t budge any further.
“You didn’t say to…” Rodney’s voice trailed off when he realized he was speaking out of turn.
“Oh, right. Raise up off the bed a bit, would ya?” John had to suppress a smirk. McKay was suddenly a stickler for following the rules. Not out in the field where it might actually save his life, oh no, but here where he could be a royal pain in the ass…
John finished peeling Rodney’s t-shirt off his torso and slowly trailed it up his arms before tossing it on the floor. It wasn’t so much that he was going for slow and sensuous, as he needed to buy himself a few seconds to think. Contemplating Rodney’s half-naked body and pleading pale blue eyes in the dim light, he reached for the open bottle of vodka and took a long swig. Setting the bottle back down with a decisive bang, he pulled his own shirt off in a practiced one-handed maneuver, tossed it in the corner, then laid himself out on top of Rodney, pulling his face up to catch his crooked lips with his own. Rodney’s legs moved apart, and John fell softly to the mattress in their gap. They gasped simultaneously as each became aware of the other’s cock through layers of rip-stop, and John began to grind into Rodney’s crotch.
Their lips parted and Rodney began a high, happy litany of, “Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes,” until he opened his eyes, caught John’s stern stare and said “okay, shutting up now.”
“Yes, you are,” John pronounced and pushed himself up off the man by placing his full weight on McKay’s biceps. While this provided less skin-on-skin contact, it also meant that John gained some leverage and could twist and push his cock more insistently against Rodney’s own.
Rodney gasped, “Please” so quietly John wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly.
“What was that?”
“Please. That was ‘please.’ Oh by heaven’s mercy, please…don’t stop.”
“Okay, that’s enough talking.” John really wasn’t in the mood to think about heaven, merciful or otherwise at the moment. He was, however, trying desperately to weigh the events of the evening in his well-worn mental scale of gay versus not gay. And it looked like things had slid pretty irretrievably into the gay column tonight. But maybe if they just kept their pants on, it wouldn’t really count by the bleak light of dawn.
Aww, fuck it. If he’d done Tamara Winthrop in the back of her daddy’s ancient Buick Roadmaster and forgiven himself, surely he could forgive a trespass of Meredith Rodney McKay’s full lips.
He stopped grinding and abruptly stood up.
“But…,” was McKay’s one-word protest before he snapped his mouth closed once again. For a man who seemed to desperately want to be told what to do, he was truly dreadful at following directions.
Then John unzipped his pants in that same, one-handed, practiced motion he’d used on his own shirt and Rodney’s eyes went wide. “Really?” he asked in disbelief.
“Suck it,” John commanded and Rodney was up out of his bed and down on his knees before him faster than he’d ever seen him move, even when he was being chased by one of Michael’s pseudo-Aliens.
John smiled. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine anyone was sucking his cock. And then that wasn’t really gay, was it? Except, for some reason, he kept opening his eyes and watching Rodney administer sweet, almost ticklish, flickering licks along his shaft. John shut his eyes. Brenda… Rosenbaum? Was that her name? He couldn’t recall. College was a long time ago.
He smiled at the blissed-out look on Rodney’s face as he took half his length into his mouth in one go.
“That’s it,” John cooed, and caressed McKay’s temple, running his fingers into his thinning hair. He sensed more than saw motion below him and peered to the side of Rodney’s bobbing head to watch as the man stroked his own cock with the same rhythm. “Yeah, that’s good. You like this, don’t you?”
“Ermm hmm,” Rodney mumbled past his mouthful of dick.
McKay wasn’t the only one getting into it, and abruptly John groaned, “Hang on, gotta’…”
Rodney leaned back, a shiny string of drool on his lips and a frown marring his forehead. “Huh?”
John collapsed in a boneless heap on the bed, and then gave the scientist a lazy wave that eloquently said, ‘You may continue now.’ When his twitching cock wasn’t immediately enveloped in the other man’s hot, wet mouth, Sheppard lifted his head and one eyebrow. “What’s the hold-up, Rodney? C’mon, get to.”
“’Get to’? Jesus, how romantic.” Rodney’s swollen lips had taken on that unhappy crooked cant again. “Wait a minute, what the hell is happening here, Colonel?”
“’Colonel’? Rodney, you can’t get all formal with me after you’ve had my dick in your mouth. There are rules about this sort of thing.”
“Oh forgive me, John,” McKay managed to make his first name sound even more formal than his title. “I mean it’s not like this entire evening hasn’t turned into a really weird after-school special about the evils of alcohol. I’m not even sure what the hell I’m doing here. Ok, maybe it might have something to do with the promise of burgers. Burgers, which I might add, I still haven’t received.”
Sheppard couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “Rodney, are you seriously going to pass up sex because I didn’t cough up a few faux hamburgers? I promise you’ll get your damn burgers, but first could you, you know, finish what you started here, huh?” Ok, that might have come out a tad whinier than he’d intended, but given the circumstances, John cut himself some slack.
“No, I’m just…I’m just saying that we’re drunk and I’m…god right now I don’t even like you. And yeah, ok, I’m a huge, flaming slut, which I totally cop to I might add; but even I have standards. Also, I’m reasonably sure that you were closing your eyes while I was blowing you and picturing some hot buxom alien babe so you could avoid the whole homosexual freak-out thing.” Rodney’s chin jutted out stubbornly and he crossed his arms over his pale chest. “But you know what happens tomorrow? We both wake up with hangovers, I go back to being pissed at you about your stupid mind games and you never speak to me again because you got drunk and inadvertently went gay for me.”
John leaned back on his bed, stared at the smooth gray ceiling, and ran through some of the toughest equations he could remember battling in grad school. With a long, slow breath he said, “Rodney, I swear to god if you don’t get over here right now a hangover is going to be the least of your problems tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah,” Rodney muttered, “that’s hot. Listen, it’s not that I’m not physically attracted to you. I mean, Jesus, parts of me are applauding even as we speak. The thing is this…” He gestured vaguely between the two of them. “It’s not going to fix anything between us, in fact, it’s going to make things a whole lot worse. And the thing is I hate breaking stuff, it’s against my personal code, if you will.”
“God, do you have to overthink everything?”
“Hello, genius here. Yes, in a word, I do have to overthink everything. It’s what I do, it’s who I am.” Rodney’s expression was an almost endearing combination of abject misery and profound determination.
“C’mon, Rod-ney,” John sing-songed, pouting in what he could only hope was a sexy and irresistible manner. “I’m hot.”
“I never argued that point.”
“And naked.”
“Couldn’t really miss that.”
“Smart too.”
“Yeah well, I’m smarter.” John could tell Rodney was weakening when he actually leaned into his leg.
“’Course you are. Oh, did I mention I’m also rich?”
Rodney rubbed his head against John’s thigh, and Sheppard moaned low and deep. “Pfft, my bank account, like my I.Q., is at least double yours. And I have no interest in playing Julia Roberts to your Richard Gere in some fucked up Pegasus Galaxy version of Pretty Woman. But, um,” Rodney nibbled the inside of John’s knee, then continued, “just out of curiosity, how rich?”
“Estates, Rodney, estates. I could easily keep you in the style to which you’ve become accustomed.”
“Hmm, all the MRE’s and chocolate chip Power Bars I can eat, huh? Well, when you put it that way…”
John leaned back with a rather goofy smile on his face as Rodney licked and kissed his lower abdomen. God the things he could do with that mouth. Sheppard made a silent mental vow to never again daydream about gagging the man, it would, he determined, be a crime against humanity. “Knew you’d see it my way in the end.” He let his hands slide down to roam over Rodney’s short-cropped hair and broad shoulders as the other man turned his enthusiastic attention back to John’s dick. So much for the whole not gay thing. John promised himself he’d have a good long freak-out about it first thing in the morning. Yeah, that sounded like a plan.
Rodney, meanwhile, was busy demonstrating his usual workmanlike proficiency, even humming happily to himself as he went down on John. It took Sheppard a few seconds to place the tune, but when he did he couldn’t help giggling, “’You Sexy Thing’? I wouldn’t have figured you for a Hot Chocolate fan.”
Shrugging, McKay plunged down, nearly swallowing John whole. Sheppard groaned, “Jesus god I’m not going to…” A little twist of Rodney’s tongue on his cock head was all it took to finish him off, and he came with a sharp, almost pained gasp. “Jesus,” he panted, splayed on the bed loose-limbed, “Jesus.”
“Nope, just Rodney McKay, super genius,” the other man grumbled, reaching down to work on his own straining erection.
John glanced down at him through half-lidded eyes. “C’mere.”
“Just a…”
“No, c’mere.”
With a put-upon sigh, Rodney shoved himself onto the bed. “What? What! I need to…”
John swatted his hand away and took the other man’s cock firmly in his own. “Oh,” Rodney sighed, flopping down on his side next to him. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” John smirked and took up an even rhythm that had Rodney all but purring. He leaned in for a kiss that started out sloppy and desperate with teeth clicking and tongues battling for dominance. After a few seconds, Rodney began to relax and let the other man take the lead, which was just the way John liked it.
It was over altogether too quickly, as Rodney came with a generous spurt all over John’s stomach. He groaned and sagged into the mattress. “Sorry. S’been a while. And, well, booze…”
“Nah, it was good. It was real good.” It was also, John decided, real gay and he was going to have to give that some serious thought. Tomorrow, definitely tomorrow.
“Should I…I mean, do I need to…?” Rodney gestured vaguely towards the door.
“You can stay.”
“But…”
“Stay.”
“Ok.” A slow, almost shy smile spread across Rodney’s face.
“So I guess breakfast is on me.”
Rodney did a quick double-take. “Ooh, literally? Because that would be kind of kinky. I mean good kinky, of course, I’m not sure there could be a bad kinky where you’re involved. Well, ok maybe I can because my imagination scares even me sometimes, but…”
“Rodney.” John reached out and laid a hand on McKay’s mouth, running a calloused thumb over his lips.
Taking a deep breath, Rodney began again, “I was serious about what I said before. Not that this wasn’t fun because it really, really was, but what happens now? I mean do we pretend this never happened once we sober up?”
“Well, here’s what I’m thinking. First, we get a good night’s sleep. Then a shower…”
“And more sex?”
“And more sex,” John agreed amiably. “After that, I’m thinking breakfast during which I and Ronon will apologize publicly and you’ll agree to return to the team.”
“I will?”
“Yes, yes you will.”
“Hmm.” Rodney appeared to consider the proposition for several seconds before saying, “Throw in a blow job and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Don’t push your luck. After breakfast, I’m going to go out to the east pier for an hour or so to, um…”
“Have your big gay freak-out?” McKay chirped helpfully.
“I was going to say ‘reflect on the events of the past few days’, but yeah, it’s mostly to have my big gay freak-out.”
“And, uh, after that?”
“I dunno’, lunch maybe.”
Rodney smacked him on the shoulder. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“There are some blanks not even I can fill in, Rodney. Why don’t we just wait and see?”