auntiemeesh (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
auntiemeesh) wrote2007-02-14 05:40 pm
auntiemeesh) wrote2007-02-14 05:40 pm
Entry tags:
SGA fic
So, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vagablonde informed me that when Valentine's Day and a snow day occur in conjunction, smoopy SGA fic must be written. Well, I'm not really good at smoop, and I'm pretty hit or miss with SGA fic in general, but I decided it sounded a lot more fun than studying, so viola, nearly 3000 words of SGA fic. I took my inspiration from the icon Vagablonde used in her comment to me. And I don't know how to link to a specific comment, so you'll just have to scroll down to see it.
Rating: I don't know, the f-bomb gets dropped a couple of times, there's some other bad language, so I guess somewhere between PG-13 and R, with a warning for egregiously bad dancing and a little bit of totally non-explicit slash, just at the end. Oh, yeah, and totally unbetaed, so any and all mistakes my own.
Disclaimer: I don't make any profit off this, I don't own these guys, etc.
Spoilers: none really. It's set in some sort of hypothetical future after Return pt 1 but doesn't spoil for the second half of the third season, so kinda AU, I suppose.
Summary: “We’ll talk about this more, later,” Sheppard promised with narrowed eyes as Elizabeth and Teyla walked into the conference room in quiet conversation. Possibly sensing that his life was on the line, McKay closed out the video clip as the rest of the command staff straggled in and the weekly staff meeting started.
Cultural Icons and Ancient Myths
“Oh my God!” McKay choked on laughter as he watched the video before him. “I didn’t know you were prone to epileptic fits, Sheppard.”
“What are you talking about?” Sheppard eyed the scientist suspiciously as he walked around the table to see what McKay was looking at. “Shit!” he exclaimed once the computer screen came into view, “where in the hell did you get that?”
That was a very short, no more than three seconds long, video clip of a much younger John Sheppard dancing, well, flailing really but he’d called it dancing at the time, at some sort of formal function.
“Jeannie sent it to me,” McKay replied smugly. “She didn’t tell me where she got it or why, but she did mention something about you showing her a certain video of me that she really wasn’t supposed to see.”
“What, the letter home that you made before the Wraith siege? She needed to see that.”
“No, Colonel, not the letter home. I honestly thought she’d seen that already and considering I sent it to her, I certainly didn’t have a problem with her seeing it, then. According to Jeannie, there was another little clip attached to that one, one that I knew nothing about, that may have had something to do with me and a training session with Teyla and her sticks. She seemed to think that turn about was fair play.”
“We’ll talk about this more, later,” Sheppard promised with narrowed eyes as Elizabeth and Teyla walked into the conference room in quiet conversation. Possibly sensing that his life was on the line, McKay closed out the video clip as the rest of the command staff straggled in and the weekly staff meeting started.
The meeting ran smoothly, as things were actually going surprisingly well at the moment, and they were nearly to the end of the allotted hour when Elizabeth cleared her throat. “One last item on the agenda,” she said with a smile that immediately caused Sheppard to stiffen in alarm. Elizabeth only smiled like that when she knew they were all going to hate what she had to say, but she was going to say it anyway because it was for all their best interests.
“Everything has finally calmed down, the city is running well, our Athosian allies have settled back into their homes,” this with a look to Teyla, who nodded back serenely. “I’ve decided it would be a good time to have a party. And according to the calendar, Valentine’s Day is coming up, on Earth. So I propose we have a Valentine’s Dance.”
“You have got to be kidding,” McKay choked, echoing the sentiment Sheppard was feeling. “That’s a terr…wait, that’s a fantastic idea.” His eyes lit up with an unholy glee. “Yes, that would do nicely. Radek,” he turned to the Czech sitting to his right, “I have some ideas to run past you. Meet me for lunch at 1300.” Shooting just the tiniest glance Sheppard’s way, he nodded to Elizabeth. “Yes, indeed. A very good idea, Elizabeth, very good.”
“Yes, um,” Elizabeth looked a little taken aback at Rodney’s wholehearted approval of her idea. “Thank you, Dr. McKay. John?” She looked to Sheppard.
It was a terrible idea, Sheppard hated dance parties for a whole host of reasons. But she’d already made up her mind and there was no point in letting his distaste show. Leaning just a little further back in his chair, he smiled lazily. “I’m sure the marines will appreciate the R&R,” he drawled. And they would, probably right up until a drunken brawl landed them all in the brig.
“Carson?” Elizabeth turned to her head of medicine next.
Carson beamed at her. “Aye, Elizabeth, I think it’s a grand idea. A party will do everyone good.”
“Good. I’ll look forward to it, then. The party will be one week from today. I’ll send an email out later today, asking you to help out with a few things. I’ll also make a general announcement. Now, if there’s nothing else, I think we all have things to do.” When no one immediately jumped up with anything to add, she stood, signaling the end of the meeting.
The next week passed quickly and Sheppard was kept busy enough that he didn’t have time to track McKay down and destroy every byte of information that might have anything to do with that cursed video clip. He had to rearrange off-world missions so that all the marines were home for the party, arrange for security, and just in case he wasn’t already contemplating a long walk off a short pier, Elizabeth had ‘volunteered’ him for the decorating committee.
“Christ, it’s like high school Prom all over again,” he moaned two days before the party, while eating lunch with his team. “Crepe paper and bunting everywhere. It’s a frickin’ nightmare. In pink.”
“I thought Cadman wanted to go with a non-traditional theme,” McKay said around a mouthful of banana pudding, “something to do with the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, possibly.”
“Elizabeth overruled her. Apparently she’s going through some sort of weird girl-thing and the only thing that will ease her soul is red hearts, pink cupids, and bunting. Lots and lots of bunting.”
Hm, that was interesting, Sheppard thought. Just for a second, when he’d mentioned pink cupids, McKay had turned a little pink himself. He was distracted from that chain of thought by the evil expression on Teyla’s face.
“’Some sort of weird girl-thing?’” she asked acidly. “Please, John, explain this ‘girl-thing’ to me.”
“Crap, gotta run,” Sheppard replied, looking at his watch ostentatiously. “Lorne was supposed to lead a training exercise on the mainland but he fell down the stairs this morning – and I’m convinced he did it just to get out of dancing at the party, selfish bastard – so I’m stuck with it. We won’t be getting back until late tomorrow night or early the following morning so I’ll miss team night.”
“What a shame,” Teyla replied evenly.
Ronon, who’d been too busy eating to join the conversation, grinned toothily at Teyla’s comment. “Mind if I come along?” he asked Sheppard. “I’ve been feeling a little cooped up, with all this peace and quiet we’ve been having.”
“The more the merrier,” Sheppard replied, getting to his feet. “Pack up your gear and meet us in the jumper bay in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, well, take good care of yourself,” McKay muttered. “We wouldn’t want you to get lost out there or anything and then have to miss out on the party.”
Damn, McKay was up to something but there was no time to deal with it now. Contenting himself with a glare, he strode out of the room, forcing his thoughts to turn in the direction of marine training exercises.
Two days later, he returned to Atlantis exhausted, filthy and in dire need of food that hadn’t been cooked by marines minutes after being killed by those same marines. He had a whole new appreciation for the wonders the kitchen staff were able to accomplish with not-rabbit and the handful of indigenous plants that the biology department had deemed safe for human consumption.
Unfortunately, his embryonic plans for a shower, snack and nap, not necessarily in that order, died aborning.
“Colonel Sheppard,” Lt. Cadman called as he staggered out the back of the jumper, “the decorating committee is meeting in the mess in fifteen minutes. We have a lot to do if we’re going to get everything pulled together by 1900.”
Sheppard just stood for a moment, censoring all the things that first popped into his mind as being far too unprofessional. “Thank you, Lt.,” he finally managed, manfully holding back a despondent sigh. “There are a few things I have to do first, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Laura opened her mouth, paused and nodded before taking her leave. Making a beeline for his quarters, Sheppard dropped his pack to the floor and stretched out face down on his bed. It had been a very long forty-eight hours. Somehow, he’d forgotten it was late spring in the area Lorne had picked for this particular exercise, and late spring meant rain. Lots and lots of rain, which meant lots and lots of mud. Of course, that had been part of the purpose of the exercise, functioning in less than ideal conditions. Less than ideal. He snorted in amusement as he pictured the tent Sgt. Lyndon had pitched sliding down a disintegrating embankment and quickly disappearing in the swift-flowing waters of the flooded stream below. What the man had been thinking, setting up that close to the edge, Sheppard had no idea, and it could have been bad if the bank had crumbled later, when Lyndon’s team was in the tent, sleeping. As it was, they’d lost the tent and all the equipment inside, which they could ill-afford to lose even with the Daedalus making supply runs. It had served as a potent example for the others, however, and he doubted anyone else would be making such a stupid mistake anytime soon.
Closing his eyes briefly, Sheppard began thinking out the report for this mission, which drifted into delicious thoughts of the revenge he would wreak on Lorne once his 2IC was back on his feet, which morphed into some rather surreal dreams about Atlantis sinking into a giant mud pit and the science team winching it back up with dental floss and an extremely convoluted pulley system. McKay and Zelenka were arguing about whether thread spools or yo-yos would work better when he was jerked awake by a pounding on his door.
“Mmphf,” he mumbled into his pillow. When that had no noticeable effect on the knocking, he lifted his head and blinked at his clock. When his eyes finally lined up and agreed to focus, he groaned. He’d slept a good three hours.
“Alright, ‘m up,” he rasped at the door, pulling himself to his feet with a grimace. The mud that had been covering his clothes was now covering his clothes and his bed. Delightful.
Running a hand over his face and trying to wake up, he stumbled over his pack, cursed and finally made it to the door, which swished open with a happy-sounding sigh.
“Did my door just sigh happily as it opened?” he asked, not in the least surprised to find that it was McKay disturbing his sleep.
It was McKay’s turn to pull a face. “Some smartass with too much time on his hands and an unhealthy appreciation for Douglas Adams thought it would be cute.”
Judging by the amount of venom dripping off the word cute, Sheppard suspected one of McKay’s minions was going to be pulling all the nastiest grunt work available for the next good while. Shaking his head, he dismissed the sighing door.
“What do you want, McKay?”
“I made the mistake of looking for a little mid-afternoon pick-me-up in the mess and Cadman cornered me. That woman is scary,” he added with a shudder. “She indicated that if I didn’t want to lose valuable parts of my anatomy I might want to make myself useful and, I quote, ‘find Colonel Slacker so he can come help us drape this fucking mess with this fucking pink bunting.’ Now, please tell me you have some food squirreled away in here. Radek’s appropriated the lab’s stash of powerbars and if I don’t get something to eat soon, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
Gesturing vaguely in the direction of his pack, where he thought there might be an MRE left, he abandoned McKay in favor of a quick shower and clean clothes. Ten minutes later, mostly clean (that mud was stubborn and he wasn’t willing to swear he’d got all of it) and entirely dressed, he exited the bathroom to an empty room strewn with the contents of his pack. Squaring his shoulders, he prepared to face his doom and headed for the mess.
Two hours later, the party was picking up speed and Sheppard was contemplating a strategic relocation. Music was playing and a strange mix of civilians and marines were dancing, but mostly people were hanging out at the buffet tables, munching on the finger foods and loading up on as much alcohol as they could before it all ran out. Sheppard was tempted that way himself, but he’d scheduled himself on duty later, when people were a little more likely to be out of control than they were now. So no booze for him. And no escape, either, apparently, as Teyla moved in on one side and Elizabeth approached on the other.
“John, the room looks amazing,” Elizabeth commented, looking around approvingly. Sheppard winced as he looked at the decorations. Cadman hadn’t liked the color scheme much more than he had, but she’d gritted her teeth and done a very thorough job of turning the mess hall into a Pepto-Bismol nightmare of bunting, cardboard cupids and hearts.
“What is the significance of the fat children with wings and bows?” Teyla asked, one eyebrow cocked questioningly.
Sheppard didn’t even try to answer that one, handing the question off to Elizabeth, who dashed off some glib answer about cultural icons and ancient mythology. Nodding to them both, he moved off, aiming himself in the general direction of the doors, but didn’t get very far.
“Hey, Sheppard,” Ronon rumbled, disentangling himself from the dance floor and a very flushed botanist. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Go ahead,” Sheppard answered, eyeing the door with longing.
Ronon just shifted his weight slightly, not saying anything for a long moment.
“What is it, Ronon?” Sheppard asked, starting to get a bit worried.
“I’ve noticed a certain tendency, among your people, to dance in a…certain way. And I wanted to…” he trailed off, looking extremely uncomfortable. “We don’t dance that way on Sateda and I was wondering if you could – give me lessons.”
Holy shit! What exactly did Ronon want from him, here? “Um,” he delayed, trying not to panic. This was so not in the Team Leader Manual. “I don’t think…”
“But I’ve seen you do it,” Ronon powered on, turning an alarming shade of red.
“Okay, I don’t think you have,” Sheppard countered, wondering, not for the first time, what he’d done that night on MR5-331, when he’d had that reaction to the flowery drink and woken up with a raging headache and no memory of the last fifteen hours.
“Come on, Sheppard, no need to be modest,” Ronon argued, and was that a grin on his face? “McKay showed me. He said you were the reigning champion of the Chicken Dance.”
Ah, suddenly it was all coming clear. “Oh, he did, did he?” But before he could get any further, the music stopped and everyone turned in the direction of the small stage set up near the balcony.
Lorne, unable to dance with his bum ankle, had taken on the duty of MCing the party. He was standing on the stage now, looking at a small scrap of paper.
“We’ve got a request here, folks,” he said, voice amplified by the comm. system. “An anonymous someone would like to dedicate Bizarre Love Triangle, by New Order, to Colonel Sheppard. So, Colonel, this one’s for you.” With a nod to Zelenka, at the computer, the techno strains of New Order filled the hall.
McKay was dead. So dead there wouldn’t even be a body left to memorialize over. And then it would be Jeannie’s turn. What happened to McKay would look like a walk in the park compared to the torture he would inflict upon her. Shooting one glare at Ronon, who was now laughing full out, Sheppard stalked off.
He spent the rest of the evening smiling and laughing, staying far, far away from the dance floor, and explaining to anyone who asked that it was simply the latest in a long line of signs that McKay was slipping, sadly and inevitably, into dementia. He left the hall a good half hour before he was due to relieve Major Barnes.
“So, I guess there was a sound file attached to that video clip, then,” he whispered into McKay’s ear, gaining great satisfaction in the other man’s jump reflex.
“Give a man some warning, next time,” McKay shouted, clutching his chest. “My blood pressure is high enough as it is, without you helping it along. And of course there was a sound file.” He backhanded Sheppard’s arm. “How dumb do you think Jeannie is? The flailing is entertaining alone, I’ll give you that, but the true genius of your inability to dance can only be really appreciated in the context of the music.”
“Well, I did have something to give you later, but now maybe I’ll just enjoy it alone.” He shot his best ‘so there’ expression at McKay, who seemed supremely unbothered by it.
“Oh please,” the scientist exclaimed, “like you’d have nearly as much fun on your own. I sent you a file, by the way,” he continued. “I wouldn’t open it until you were off duty, if I were you.”
Hours later, with McKay snoring at his side, Sheppard slipped out of bed to turn on his laptop. McKay’s email simply said, “Now I know your dirty little secret, you might as well know mine.” Opening the attachment, he bit back the laugh, turning to look at McKay with a new appreciation. It took a brave man to share a photo like that. Closing the laptop, he settled back into bed, already planning the perfect opportunity to use the photo of a young Rodney McKay wearing nothing but a pair of wings and a quiver of arrows.
a/n: I couldn't find the picture that I really wanted of DH in "Where the Heart Is" but this one should give you some idea what I'm refering to, if you haven't already seen one of the many icons floating around.
vagablonde informed me that when Valentine's Day and a snow day occur in conjunction, smoopy SGA fic must be written. Well, I'm not really good at smoop, and I'm pretty hit or miss with SGA fic in general, but I decided it sounded a lot more fun than studying, so viola, nearly 3000 words of SGA fic. I took my inspiration from the icon Vagablonde used in her comment to me. And I don't know how to link to a specific comment, so you'll just have to scroll down to see it. Rating: I don't know, the f-bomb gets dropped a couple of times, there's some other bad language, so I guess somewhere between PG-13 and R, with a warning for egregiously bad dancing and a little bit of totally non-explicit slash, just at the end. Oh, yeah, and totally unbetaed, so any and all mistakes my own.
Disclaimer: I don't make any profit off this, I don't own these guys, etc.
Spoilers: none really. It's set in some sort of hypothetical future after Return pt 1 but doesn't spoil for the second half of the third season, so kinda AU, I suppose.
Summary: “We’ll talk about this more, later,” Sheppard promised with narrowed eyes as Elizabeth and Teyla walked into the conference room in quiet conversation. Possibly sensing that his life was on the line, McKay closed out the video clip as the rest of the command staff straggled in and the weekly staff meeting started.
Cultural Icons and Ancient Myths
“Oh my God!” McKay choked on laughter as he watched the video before him. “I didn’t know you were prone to epileptic fits, Sheppard.”
“What are you talking about?” Sheppard eyed the scientist suspiciously as he walked around the table to see what McKay was looking at. “Shit!” he exclaimed once the computer screen came into view, “where in the hell did you get that?”
That was a very short, no more than three seconds long, video clip of a much younger John Sheppard dancing, well, flailing really but he’d called it dancing at the time, at some sort of formal function.
“Jeannie sent it to me,” McKay replied smugly. “She didn’t tell me where she got it or why, but she did mention something about you showing her a certain video of me that she really wasn’t supposed to see.”
“What, the letter home that you made before the Wraith siege? She needed to see that.”
“No, Colonel, not the letter home. I honestly thought she’d seen that already and considering I sent it to her, I certainly didn’t have a problem with her seeing it, then. According to Jeannie, there was another little clip attached to that one, one that I knew nothing about, that may have had something to do with me and a training session with Teyla and her sticks. She seemed to think that turn about was fair play.”
“We’ll talk about this more, later,” Sheppard promised with narrowed eyes as Elizabeth and Teyla walked into the conference room in quiet conversation. Possibly sensing that his life was on the line, McKay closed out the video clip as the rest of the command staff straggled in and the weekly staff meeting started.
The meeting ran smoothly, as things were actually going surprisingly well at the moment, and they were nearly to the end of the allotted hour when Elizabeth cleared her throat. “One last item on the agenda,” she said with a smile that immediately caused Sheppard to stiffen in alarm. Elizabeth only smiled like that when she knew they were all going to hate what she had to say, but she was going to say it anyway because it was for all their best interests.
“Everything has finally calmed down, the city is running well, our Athosian allies have settled back into their homes,” this with a look to Teyla, who nodded back serenely. “I’ve decided it would be a good time to have a party. And according to the calendar, Valentine’s Day is coming up, on Earth. So I propose we have a Valentine’s Dance.”
“You have got to be kidding,” McKay choked, echoing the sentiment Sheppard was feeling. “That’s a terr…wait, that’s a fantastic idea.” His eyes lit up with an unholy glee. “Yes, that would do nicely. Radek,” he turned to the Czech sitting to his right, “I have some ideas to run past you. Meet me for lunch at 1300.” Shooting just the tiniest glance Sheppard’s way, he nodded to Elizabeth. “Yes, indeed. A very good idea, Elizabeth, very good.”
“Yes, um,” Elizabeth looked a little taken aback at Rodney’s wholehearted approval of her idea. “Thank you, Dr. McKay. John?” She looked to Sheppard.
It was a terrible idea, Sheppard hated dance parties for a whole host of reasons. But she’d already made up her mind and there was no point in letting his distaste show. Leaning just a little further back in his chair, he smiled lazily. “I’m sure the marines will appreciate the R&R,” he drawled. And they would, probably right up until a drunken brawl landed them all in the brig.
“Carson?” Elizabeth turned to her head of medicine next.
Carson beamed at her. “Aye, Elizabeth, I think it’s a grand idea. A party will do everyone good.”
“Good. I’ll look forward to it, then. The party will be one week from today. I’ll send an email out later today, asking you to help out with a few things. I’ll also make a general announcement. Now, if there’s nothing else, I think we all have things to do.” When no one immediately jumped up with anything to add, she stood, signaling the end of the meeting.
The next week passed quickly and Sheppard was kept busy enough that he didn’t have time to track McKay down and destroy every byte of information that might have anything to do with that cursed video clip. He had to rearrange off-world missions so that all the marines were home for the party, arrange for security, and just in case he wasn’t already contemplating a long walk off a short pier, Elizabeth had ‘volunteered’ him for the decorating committee.
“Christ, it’s like high school Prom all over again,” he moaned two days before the party, while eating lunch with his team. “Crepe paper and bunting everywhere. It’s a frickin’ nightmare. In pink.”
“I thought Cadman wanted to go with a non-traditional theme,” McKay said around a mouthful of banana pudding, “something to do with the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, possibly.”
“Elizabeth overruled her. Apparently she’s going through some sort of weird girl-thing and the only thing that will ease her soul is red hearts, pink cupids, and bunting. Lots and lots of bunting.”
Hm, that was interesting, Sheppard thought. Just for a second, when he’d mentioned pink cupids, McKay had turned a little pink himself. He was distracted from that chain of thought by the evil expression on Teyla’s face.
“’Some sort of weird girl-thing?’” she asked acidly. “Please, John, explain this ‘girl-thing’ to me.”
“Crap, gotta run,” Sheppard replied, looking at his watch ostentatiously. “Lorne was supposed to lead a training exercise on the mainland but he fell down the stairs this morning – and I’m convinced he did it just to get out of dancing at the party, selfish bastard – so I’m stuck with it. We won’t be getting back until late tomorrow night or early the following morning so I’ll miss team night.”
“What a shame,” Teyla replied evenly.
Ronon, who’d been too busy eating to join the conversation, grinned toothily at Teyla’s comment. “Mind if I come along?” he asked Sheppard. “I’ve been feeling a little cooped up, with all this peace and quiet we’ve been having.”
“The more the merrier,” Sheppard replied, getting to his feet. “Pack up your gear and meet us in the jumper bay in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, well, take good care of yourself,” McKay muttered. “We wouldn’t want you to get lost out there or anything and then have to miss out on the party.”
Damn, McKay was up to something but there was no time to deal with it now. Contenting himself with a glare, he strode out of the room, forcing his thoughts to turn in the direction of marine training exercises.
Two days later, he returned to Atlantis exhausted, filthy and in dire need of food that hadn’t been cooked by marines minutes after being killed by those same marines. He had a whole new appreciation for the wonders the kitchen staff were able to accomplish with not-rabbit and the handful of indigenous plants that the biology department had deemed safe for human consumption.
Unfortunately, his embryonic plans for a shower, snack and nap, not necessarily in that order, died aborning.
“Colonel Sheppard,” Lt. Cadman called as he staggered out the back of the jumper, “the decorating committee is meeting in the mess in fifteen minutes. We have a lot to do if we’re going to get everything pulled together by 1900.”
Sheppard just stood for a moment, censoring all the things that first popped into his mind as being far too unprofessional. “Thank you, Lt.,” he finally managed, manfully holding back a despondent sigh. “There are a few things I have to do first, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Laura opened her mouth, paused and nodded before taking her leave. Making a beeline for his quarters, Sheppard dropped his pack to the floor and stretched out face down on his bed. It had been a very long forty-eight hours. Somehow, he’d forgotten it was late spring in the area Lorne had picked for this particular exercise, and late spring meant rain. Lots and lots of rain, which meant lots and lots of mud. Of course, that had been part of the purpose of the exercise, functioning in less than ideal conditions. Less than ideal. He snorted in amusement as he pictured the tent Sgt. Lyndon had pitched sliding down a disintegrating embankment and quickly disappearing in the swift-flowing waters of the flooded stream below. What the man had been thinking, setting up that close to the edge, Sheppard had no idea, and it could have been bad if the bank had crumbled later, when Lyndon’s team was in the tent, sleeping. As it was, they’d lost the tent and all the equipment inside, which they could ill-afford to lose even with the Daedalus making supply runs. It had served as a potent example for the others, however, and he doubted anyone else would be making such a stupid mistake anytime soon.
Closing his eyes briefly, Sheppard began thinking out the report for this mission, which drifted into delicious thoughts of the revenge he would wreak on Lorne once his 2IC was back on his feet, which morphed into some rather surreal dreams about Atlantis sinking into a giant mud pit and the science team winching it back up with dental floss and an extremely convoluted pulley system. McKay and Zelenka were arguing about whether thread spools or yo-yos would work better when he was jerked awake by a pounding on his door.
“Mmphf,” he mumbled into his pillow. When that had no noticeable effect on the knocking, he lifted his head and blinked at his clock. When his eyes finally lined up and agreed to focus, he groaned. He’d slept a good three hours.
“Alright, ‘m up,” he rasped at the door, pulling himself to his feet with a grimace. The mud that had been covering his clothes was now covering his clothes and his bed. Delightful.
Running a hand over his face and trying to wake up, he stumbled over his pack, cursed and finally made it to the door, which swished open with a happy-sounding sigh.
“Did my door just sigh happily as it opened?” he asked, not in the least surprised to find that it was McKay disturbing his sleep.
It was McKay’s turn to pull a face. “Some smartass with too much time on his hands and an unhealthy appreciation for Douglas Adams thought it would be cute.”
Judging by the amount of venom dripping off the word cute, Sheppard suspected one of McKay’s minions was going to be pulling all the nastiest grunt work available for the next good while. Shaking his head, he dismissed the sighing door.
“What do you want, McKay?”
“I made the mistake of looking for a little mid-afternoon pick-me-up in the mess and Cadman cornered me. That woman is scary,” he added with a shudder. “She indicated that if I didn’t want to lose valuable parts of my anatomy I might want to make myself useful and, I quote, ‘find Colonel Slacker so he can come help us drape this fucking mess with this fucking pink bunting.’ Now, please tell me you have some food squirreled away in here. Radek’s appropriated the lab’s stash of powerbars and if I don’t get something to eat soon, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
Gesturing vaguely in the direction of his pack, where he thought there might be an MRE left, he abandoned McKay in favor of a quick shower and clean clothes. Ten minutes later, mostly clean (that mud was stubborn and he wasn’t willing to swear he’d got all of it) and entirely dressed, he exited the bathroom to an empty room strewn with the contents of his pack. Squaring his shoulders, he prepared to face his doom and headed for the mess.
Two hours later, the party was picking up speed and Sheppard was contemplating a strategic relocation. Music was playing and a strange mix of civilians and marines were dancing, but mostly people were hanging out at the buffet tables, munching on the finger foods and loading up on as much alcohol as they could before it all ran out. Sheppard was tempted that way himself, but he’d scheduled himself on duty later, when people were a little more likely to be out of control than they were now. So no booze for him. And no escape, either, apparently, as Teyla moved in on one side and Elizabeth approached on the other.
“John, the room looks amazing,” Elizabeth commented, looking around approvingly. Sheppard winced as he looked at the decorations. Cadman hadn’t liked the color scheme much more than he had, but she’d gritted her teeth and done a very thorough job of turning the mess hall into a Pepto-Bismol nightmare of bunting, cardboard cupids and hearts.
“What is the significance of the fat children with wings and bows?” Teyla asked, one eyebrow cocked questioningly.
Sheppard didn’t even try to answer that one, handing the question off to Elizabeth, who dashed off some glib answer about cultural icons and ancient mythology. Nodding to them both, he moved off, aiming himself in the general direction of the doors, but didn’t get very far.
“Hey, Sheppard,” Ronon rumbled, disentangling himself from the dance floor and a very flushed botanist. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Go ahead,” Sheppard answered, eyeing the door with longing.
Ronon just shifted his weight slightly, not saying anything for a long moment.
“What is it, Ronon?” Sheppard asked, starting to get a bit worried.
“I’ve noticed a certain tendency, among your people, to dance in a…certain way. And I wanted to…” he trailed off, looking extremely uncomfortable. “We don’t dance that way on Sateda and I was wondering if you could – give me lessons.”
Holy shit! What exactly did Ronon want from him, here? “Um,” he delayed, trying not to panic. This was so not in the Team Leader Manual. “I don’t think…”
“But I’ve seen you do it,” Ronon powered on, turning an alarming shade of red.
“Okay, I don’t think you have,” Sheppard countered, wondering, not for the first time, what he’d done that night on MR5-331, when he’d had that reaction to the flowery drink and woken up with a raging headache and no memory of the last fifteen hours.
“Come on, Sheppard, no need to be modest,” Ronon argued, and was that a grin on his face? “McKay showed me. He said you were the reigning champion of the Chicken Dance.”
Ah, suddenly it was all coming clear. “Oh, he did, did he?” But before he could get any further, the music stopped and everyone turned in the direction of the small stage set up near the balcony.
Lorne, unable to dance with his bum ankle, had taken on the duty of MCing the party. He was standing on the stage now, looking at a small scrap of paper.
“We’ve got a request here, folks,” he said, voice amplified by the comm. system. “An anonymous someone would like to dedicate Bizarre Love Triangle, by New Order, to Colonel Sheppard. So, Colonel, this one’s for you.” With a nod to Zelenka, at the computer, the techno strains of New Order filled the hall.
McKay was dead. So dead there wouldn’t even be a body left to memorialize over. And then it would be Jeannie’s turn. What happened to McKay would look like a walk in the park compared to the torture he would inflict upon her. Shooting one glare at Ronon, who was now laughing full out, Sheppard stalked off.
He spent the rest of the evening smiling and laughing, staying far, far away from the dance floor, and explaining to anyone who asked that it was simply the latest in a long line of signs that McKay was slipping, sadly and inevitably, into dementia. He left the hall a good half hour before he was due to relieve Major Barnes.
“So, I guess there was a sound file attached to that video clip, then,” he whispered into McKay’s ear, gaining great satisfaction in the other man’s jump reflex.
“Give a man some warning, next time,” McKay shouted, clutching his chest. “My blood pressure is high enough as it is, without you helping it along. And of course there was a sound file.” He backhanded Sheppard’s arm. “How dumb do you think Jeannie is? The flailing is entertaining alone, I’ll give you that, but the true genius of your inability to dance can only be really appreciated in the context of the music.”
“Well, I did have something to give you later, but now maybe I’ll just enjoy it alone.” He shot his best ‘so there’ expression at McKay, who seemed supremely unbothered by it.
“Oh please,” the scientist exclaimed, “like you’d have nearly as much fun on your own. I sent you a file, by the way,” he continued. “I wouldn’t open it until you were off duty, if I were you.”
Hours later, with McKay snoring at his side, Sheppard slipped out of bed to turn on his laptop. McKay’s email simply said, “Now I know your dirty little secret, you might as well know mine.” Opening the attachment, he bit back the laugh, turning to look at McKay with a new appreciation. It took a brave man to share a photo like that. Closing the laptop, he settled back into bed, already planning the perfect opportunity to use the photo of a young Rodney McKay wearing nothing but a pair of wings and a quiver of arrows.
a/n: I couldn't find the picture that I really wanted of DH in "Where the Heart Is" but this one should give you some idea what I'm refering to, if you haven't already seen one of the many icons floating around.
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“An anonymous someone would like to dedicate Bizarre Love Triangle, by New Order, to Colonel Sheppard. So, Colonel, this one’s for you.”
*cackles*
Rodney is great. I love this line:
“She indicated that if I didn’t want to lose valuable parts of my anatomy I might want to make myself useful and, I quote, ‘find Colonel Slacker so he can come help us drape this fucking mess with this fucking pink bunting.’ Now, please tell me you have some food squirreled away in here. Radek’s appropriated the lab’s stash of powerbars and if I don’t get something to eat soon, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
hee!
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Absolutely fabulous! And you totally get extra Cupid points for having Lorne emcee the dance! Obviously you have seen what a ham Kavan Smith is and know how to put that to good use!
And here's the icon again - just cuz I can!
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You and me both....
just let him slyly poke at everyone
::brain goes to delicious, porny place and stays there::
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That's a great picture, though not the one I had in mind. The one I was thinking of is a shot of him walking away from the camera, so you get to see his very nice butt.
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I think this is the screencap you were looking for:
^_~
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I couldn't find the picture that I really wanted of DH in "Where the Heart Is"
I know the pic in question. (See icon) I had an all new appreciation of DH when I say the caps of that movie. This fic is cute, and perfect crack for valentines.
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