Harlequin Atlantis (Harlequin Challenge)
Sep. 8th, 2005 08:31 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sga_flashficTitle: Harlequin Atlantis
Author: Pookaseraph
Rating: PG PG-13ish
Spoilers: Duet, Trinity
Pairing: McShep
Summary: Someone on Atlantis has been writing Harlequin novels.
Words: 4913
Notes: First post, first SG:A fic, not my first fic but close to it. Thanks to my sister for betaing. Inspired by Lenkti's 'Desire in the Desert' cover and astolat's comment there in. They can feel free to disown the resulting madness. Another note on episodes, Martin Gero mentioned Trinity coming before Condemned, I like this, I think it makes sense and I've run with it.
Rodney was trying particularly hard to ignore the congregation of female scientists on the other end of his lab. Very few things could get the Atlantis scientists in such an uproar, and Rodney’s first guess was an exciting break through with whatever technology they were researching. Unfortunately his second guess involved whatever weird new gossip Atlantis had managed to kick up, probably involving Atlantis’ latest addition, Ronon Dex.
One of the drawbacks to living in such an isolated community was that every new thing was a huge excitement. Rodney didn’t really enjoy huge excitement it usually involved life sucking aliens or feeling his heart drop into his stomach as Sheppard flew a nuke into the belly of a Wraith Hive ship.
So even though he did not particularly want to know whatever great new huge excitement had ripped through Atlantis, he still felt it was his duty to know.
He headed over to the collection of women and made the face that generally caused undergrads and Atlantis scientists alike to retreat and cower from the horror of Rodney McKay’s ire. Most of them ran off but one of the few who stayed eventually handed over what had caused the giggling.
A picture of Teyla and Ronon ‘stick fighting’ in front of a Mayan-looking temple was displayed on the data pad in front of him. Rodney figured that was strange enough, as no Atlantis teams had found anything like the temple. Below the picture the words Amazon Hearts was scrawled in an elaborate, ‘girly’ script.
Beneath that was a small printed message that said the novel Amazon Hearts could be purchased for one chocolate bar or three packets of coffee grounds deposited in the Ancient device in the lab nearest the living quarters. Rodney just shook his head and went back to work on some research on the latest Ancient technology pulled out of one corner of Atlantis or another.
A few hours later when he checked his email he found he had also received an advertisement for Amazon Hearts. Apparently even secure Pegasus Galaxy e-mail was not entirely immune to spam. Rodney did a few checks to determine where the email had originated but hunger quickly won out over curiosity and he decided to go to dinner question temporarily unanswered.
Rodney often thought that some of the new staff from aboard the Daedalus was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there were now a variety of people who cycled through bussing tables and emptying trashcans of discarded coffee ground containers and cooking food. On the other hand, the food was usually terrible in its attempts and creativity.
Rodney had plowed through about a quarter of his dinner when Teyla, Sheppard, and Ronon arrived with their own trays of food. Since coming to Atlantis, Ronon had taken to occasional following Teyla around when he was not in the gym.
“I hope that Doctor Beckett will not be necessary but if we find injured tomorrow we will not be able to take them to Atlantis for fear the Wraith will learn it was not destroyed,” Teyla seemed to be continuing a conversation about tomorrow’s mission.
“I’m just glad we can get some of the new recruits out without too much worry about Wraith attack. I’m sure Rodney’s ready to get back out into the field,” Sheppard started in on his dinner.
“Oh yes, at least this planet isn’t skin cancer waiting to happen,” Rodney snarked towards Sheppard.
“Colonel Sheppard, Doctor McKay, what is an ‘Amazon Princess’?” Rodney nearly choked and Sheppard had the decency to look slightly nervous.
“It’s a strong warrior female in charge of her people,” Sheppard offered his patented thousand watt smile that turned potential trading partners and alien priestesses alike into a puddle of goo. It had the same effect on snarky astrophysicists too, but Rodney rarely admitted that to himself so it hardly counted.
“And a ‘Rugged Barbarian’?” Teyla continued on. Rodney noticed that Ronon had temporarily stopped shoveling food into his mouth to half pay attention.
“That would be, ah … a Barbarian is someone who isn’t a part of your society really I suppose,” Sheppard didn’t offer up a smile and instead stuck a fork full of mashed ‘potatoes’ in his mouth. Probably in an attempt to not have to speak again any time soon.
“A Harlequin?” This time Teyla addressed her question towards Rodney, seeing Sheppard’s mouth was full. He silently cursed Sheppard for having dodged this bullet.
“It’s a type of Earth novel, it revolves around improbable romantic scenarios,” Rodney explained. “I’ve always preferred science fiction but coming to Atlantis has really made the whole genre entirely unappealing to me.”
“I understand that cultures often feel the need to tell stories that are not true but teach important lessons. What is the lesson of these Harlequins?” Sheppard had the decency to field that question.
“No real lesson, sometimes humans do a lot of things just for fun with no real purpose.”
“Like football?” Teyla asked with a bit of a smirk. Rodney laughed at the mock hurt expression that crossed Sheppard’s face.
“Exactly like football, Teyla,” Rodney answered before Sheppard had a chance to defend his true love from being called purposeless.
“But why myself and Ronon?”
“Probably because you’re both very pretty,” Rodney froze in horror. He usually prided himself on saying exactly what he meant but there were certain times when that was not the best idea.
“I’m going to the gym,” Ronon mumbled and left leaving a flick of dreadlocks and a nearly licked clean plate behind him.
After dinner Rodney decided that a copy of Amazon Hearts might be worth a chocolate bar although certainly not worth 3 cups of coffee he could keep for himself. When he got to the lab he felt a flash of irritation that someone had figured out how to use what was apparently an Ancient vending machine before him. At least they had come up with an interesting use for the gadget.
One chocolate bar poorer and in possession of a data disk Rodney headed back to his room pretending he didn’t feel silly giving up a chocolate bar for curiosity’s sake.
Harlequin novels inevitably brought Rodney back to grad school and Kristy Watson. Her idea of quality time had been leaning against him reading a romance novel while he took red ink to a variety of undergrad physics problem sets. Every few minutes she would interrupt to read him something particularly mushy or silly or occasionally something sort of hot and then make a comment about how silly or worthless the novels were but next month she would always spend her $20 or so to pick up another round of trash novels.
And so, feeling just a little guilty for channeling an ex-girlfriend, Rodney wound up in his room loading up Amazon Hearts and tried not to remember the constant ‘Why aren’t you more romantic’ arguments and decided to remember that despite how dysfunctional that relationship was it had at least gotten him regular sex with a cute blonde who had at least a tiny understanding of the physics she took towards her engineering degree.
Rodney made a note that whoever had made the ‘e-book’ had a decent hand at graphic artistry. The cover was a nice blend of gym security footage and what was either excellent hand-drawn art of a photo he had not seen on the Atlantis network yet.
Rodney read the back cover quickly.
Teyla Emmagan was a beautiful Amazon Princess who had kept her people safe for years from the hostile tribes that surrounded the Athosian lands.
Ronon Dex was a rugged Barbarian from beyond the lands of Athos who did not know that defeating the Princess in battle would win her hand in marriage.
Now the two reluctant spouses must stop battling each other long enough to unite against the enemies of Athos. At first it seems it would be a fight to learn to live with each other, but as Ronon learns about Athos, and Teyla discovers more about her mysterious new husband it’s not so hard to live but it becomes a battle to love.
Rodney tried not to laugh because he knew he would wind up reading the book anyway. Especially since he had already given up a chocolate bar for the privilege.
With an early morning mission looming and a date with Katie Brown on the horizon he decided to call it a night and pretend he was going to get more than a few hours sleep and that he wasn’t the least bit disappointed that it was a red headed botanist that had been hounding him for a date and not a spiky-haired Air Force Colonel.
Of all the ways to spend the next few days, Rodney could not have even begun to suspect it would involve sharing his body with a woman and going on the most bizarre version of a double date the Pegasus Galaxy could cook up. Kissing with Carson had been the icing on the cake to that couple of days and he was pretty sure no one would let him live that one down any time soon.
While he was out of commission, Ronon had been added to the team and silently Rodney agreed that there was no one he’d like better around to watch his back. Thankfully Cadman had failed to comment if she noticed the occasional nervousness around Sheppard. Life has returned to an Atlantian version of status quo.
Teyla had started to teach Ronon how to read English so he could learn to use some of the technology around Atlantis. Apparently, no one told Teyla that the cafeteria should not be the place to teach Ronon those reading skills. When Ronon was not in the gym he sat reading various selections from Amazon Hearts out loud to Teyla. Most people agreed that listening to Ronon read a Harlequin romance novel was very high on their list of guilty pleasures.
Unfortunately for Rodney, the comparison to Kristy made the whole thing very unsettling for him. The weird image of Ronon sprawled against him while Rodney worked on some Ancient technology was just too strange for words.
The fallout from his failure with project Arturus had only just started when Rodney noticed that another novel had been published. From the moment they’d gotten to the planet Rodney had been far too concerned about the power source to worry about anything except the advances they were making in physics and the possibility of a Nobel Prize. His brain had taken a momentary detour when he realized Sheppard knew a lot more about electrical engineering than he’d originally given him credit for. However lusting after Sheppard would do absolutely nothing to fix the fact that he’d seriously messed up what friendship they had.
And so in between avoiding Radek, avoiding Elizabeth, avoiding any members of his science team and being avoided by Sheppard, Rodney had picked up and read both Amazon Hearts and Danny and the King. Neither did anything for his mood.
His week or so of anti-social behavior caused him to miss the reaction to a Harlequin novel starring Daniel Jackson and Jack O’Neill as attractive tutor and aloof but lonely king. Although Rodney imagined the ensuing lunch table conversation between Teyla, Ronon, and Sheppard had probably been quite amusing.
Daniel was too pretty for Rodney’s tastes, but he’d certainly grown to love his wide-eyed enthusiasm in the weeks they’d spent together in Antarctica. It was too bad O’Neill had pretty much pulled rank to keep him from coming with the expedition team to Atlantis, but Rodney figured that the fact that Jackson had stayed Earthside meant he was probably getting laid far more often than Rodney.
Rodney had a huge soft spot for General O’Neill. Certainly the uncanny resemblance to MacGyver was a huge point in his favor. Minus points were awarded for his horrible habit of playing dumb to avoid long conversations and technical details.
He ignored the voice in his head that reminded him that Sheppard was both smart and sexy and went back to his round of morose introspection.
By the time Rodney realized he was bisexual most psychological institutions had decided homosexuality wasn’t a mental disorder. But even at sixteen Rodney was smart enough to realize that his family probably wasn’t as understanding about such things as ‘most psychological institutions’. By the time Rodney realized he was in love with John Sheppard the Pentagon had already started ignoring the presence of homosexual officers as long as they saved the Earth on a semi-regular basis. But Rodney was far too old to believe wanting to fly could have gotten Sheppard into the Air Force before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He was a genius after all.
By the time Rodney realized his professional and personal problems were not going to be solved by moping around his room he had already wasted days to his own brooding angst. He headed to the lab to try to sort things out with Radek.
When Rodney came out of his self-imposed exile, he was surprised to learn that everyone had been a little solitary lately. Ronon had been working mostly with the Earth military men running drills on hand to hand. Teyla had head off for an extended stay on the mainland. Sheppard had actually apparently spent time on paper work.
Sheppard swung around the lab late in the day while Rodney was still trying to catch up with various projects that had been
abandoned while Cadman had been living in his head and he’d been avoiding Radek.
“Dinner, McKay?” Sheppard leaned against the doorway.
“Sure,” Rodney dropped what he was doing and tried not to be too upset that the Colonel had called him ‘McKay’. He’d gotten used to having Sheppard call him ‘Rodney’ even if he could never manage to work himself up to calling the Colonel ‘John’, not even in his head. Down that road lay madness.
Team dinner started up again soon after. Conversation with Sheppard was still a little strained but they seemed to get by. Elizabeth hadn’t officially planned another mission with ‘SGA-1’ yet but it seemed like the group was finally finding its feet again. Having two aliens on the team was proving exactly how different life in Pegasus was from life in Earth’s little corner of the Milky Way.
“Sheppard?” Rodney was pleased to see that, although Ronon still mumbled he at least didn’t mumble with food in his mouth much any more.
“Yeah?”
“O’Neill is your superior officer in your Air Force?” The Colonel nodded and Rodney silently cursed where this conversation had to be going. “But your military does not approve of –“ Ronon trailed off and looked at Teyla.
“Homosexual relations,” Teyla supplied.
“Correct?” Sheppard nodded again. “Writing about his homosexual relations would undermine his leadership. But your Marines would not explain,” Rodney had to admit that Ronon was a bit more intelligent that he’d originally given him credit for.
“I’m not supposed to tell you either, actually, Ronon,” The Colonel didn’t look the least bit apologetic.
“General O’Neill and Doctor Jackson are together,” Rodney provided. Ronon looked at Rodney with a bit of confusion across his face. “I can tell you because I’m not in the Air Force like the Colonel. The United States Air Force does allow homosexuals. The past few years, being in the Stargate program means that the normal Air Force rules don’t apply.”
“Because the Ancestral Ring is a secret to your people?”
“Yes, of course, that’s only the rules for Colonel Sheppard’s country. In Canada two men can get married or a gay man can serve in the military without any Stargates being involved,” Rodney leaned back and smirked.
“Let’s all eat maple syrup and watch hockey,” Sheppard groused into his food.
“No use getting snippy because your country has the moral low ground, Colonel,” Rodney grinned. Sheppard smirked too. Rodney didn’t realize how much he’d missed that comfortable arguing. He smiled as he continued into his dinner.
“Your military must be quite small, Sheppard” Ronon remarked a few minutes later.
“Huh?” The Colonel looked delightfully confused and Rodney found himself quite amused.
“By not allowing homosexuals,” Sheppard looked completely pole axed. Rodney snickered.
“Somehow we manage,” Sheppard finally choked out.
“But O’Neill is with Jackson, it’s allowed because of the Stargate. O’Neill was in the military before he went through the Ring. How could he be in your military in order to start going through the Ring?” Ronon looked even more confused.
“It’s just not simple,” Sheppard said finally. Ronon shook his head and Rodney was sure Ronon was even more convinced than before that Earthlings were entirely strange. A few minutes of silence eating passed while everyone searched for another topic of conversation.
“Harlequin novels are usually about a man and a woman anyway,” Sheppard finally added.
“Didn’t think you were one for knowing all about Harlequin novels, Colonel,” Rodney decided a little teasing was in order to break the ice.
“My mother loved them when I was growing up. New ones every month,” Sheppard took a swallow of water, “Elizabeth is probably going to leave us on standby for a little while longer, give Lorne and Stackhouse’s teams more of a workout,” and just as soon as the moment of reminiscing had started it was gone, Rodney missed it right away. Dinner ended and Rodney headed back to the labs to finish up with the Ancient doodad he had been working on earlier in the day.
Highland Rivalry ‘hit the shelves’ the next day. Beckett and Cadman starred as a Scottish Lord and a spunky peasant, Rodney found himself in a cameo role as dastardly rival lord.
A few days after that Rodney’s life finally seemed to have settled back to ‘pre-Arturus normal’. Sheppard actually started coming around to the labs again to harass Rodney and occasionally Radek. Radek had stopped being actively angry with Rodney for ignoring his advice. And Rodney finally managed to work up a good yell or two about the occasional lab blunder.
Rodney still wasn’t sure about being off-world again as a team, but things were looking up with their team scheduled to head out for a mission the day after tomorrow. Dinner had involved a more extensive explanation of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ for Ronon and Teyla, which had been a little uncomfortable, but Rodney felt he managed to pull out sarcasm and wit at appropriate intervals and considered the conversation a success. He went to bed feeling that things might only be slightly horrible for tomorrow’s mission.
The ‘advertisement’ for Desire in the Desert arrived only a few minutes before Rodney got to his lab the next morning. Curiosity made him open the mailing to see who the crazed Atlantis Harlequin writer had chosen to pair this time.
A shirtless Colonel Sheppard and himself done up in a strange desert get up that reminded him of Lawrence of Arabia graced the ‘cover page’.
“Desire in the Desert?” The question was out before Rodney realized that he really did not want the answer.
Rodney was on his way to a full-blown freak-out when he grabbed his personal laptop and managed a hasty retreat from the lab. He swung by the ‘book store’ on his way towards his room, and Harlequin CD in-hand, Rodney practically ran back to his room.
“I couldn’t be that obvious,” he mumbled to the empty room.
Rodney took a deep breath and prepared himself to meet his doom. He slid the CD in and the file opened after a few moments.
The same image from the lab earlier popped up first. He scrolled down to read the ‘back cover’.
‘When John Sheppard’s plane goes down in the middle of the Sahara he’s rescued by wandering nomads who take him to their leader, Rodney McKay … McKay is the child of Canadian missionaries who perished in the unforgiving sands of the desert … Seven days. Seven nights. Will it be enough time for McKay to convince Sheppard of his love?’ Rodney only skimmed over the back text as his eyes were immediately drawn to the image of Sheppard.
When the hell had Sheppard been scruffy and dressed like that anywhere near and Atlantis security camera and why hadn’t Rodney been there to lick him. Rodney tried not to lose any more IQ points then he’d already lost due to his brain leaking out of his ear.
Well obviously someone thought they were together or should be or who knows what. Rodney groaned and buried his head in his hands. Sheppard has just started talking to him like old times again, he didn’t want to think about how much this might set them back. Rodney knew from personal experience that most military men did not take too kindly to the implication that another man was hot for their ass.
McKay saw two viable options, go back to work and pretend it didn’t exist or at least know what he was going to be up against next time he had to look the Colonel in the face. Preparedness seemed like a better idea, and he could easily take another two or three hours before he got to the lab without anyone making too much of a comment. Hiding won out. Hiding and figuring out who the hell had written this so they could be found and shot.
Only a few pages in Rodney found his brain at a loss for who could have written the book. John was smart. Which was not surprising at all, that was one of many things that made Rodney entirely smitten with him. No that wasn’t the issue; the issue was that the writer thought he was smart too. Although Rodney occasionally gave him a hard time about being a math geek in private, John had never really mentioned to anyone that he was smart. He never played it dumb, he just didn’t advertise. Whoever wrote this knew the Colonel was smart and a pretty face.
A mention of his favorite food, roasted duck, not MREs as he was fond of advertising when people mumbled about the lack of variety on Atlantis, followed soon after. Rodney went back to look at the advertising email again and realized it had not been sent to all of Atlantis, as he’d originally feared this morning. It had been sent only to him.
Rodney was pretty damn sure there was one person on Atlantis who knew John Sheppard was a MENSA level genius, that Rodney loved roast duck more then life itself and would think that writing a series of Harlequin novels was the right way to win a boyfriend.
Rodney skimmed the rest of the novel quickly looking for confirmation of his findings. A mention of Rodney’s sister Jeannie was inconclusive at best. But then Rodney found exactly what he’d been looking for, towards the end of the book, nearly word for word. The night after the storm, Rodney’s arm finally bandaged properly by Beckett and the storm passed, on the upper west pier as Sheppard had sat down next to him and confessed to killing over sixty Genii. People who were out to kill him, but people nonetheless. Rodney had simply touched his shoulder, not saying anything, having no idea what to say, but somehow it had been enough for Sheppard. They had watched the sun go down and the cold creep up to the edge of Atlantis and had only gone inside hours later. Rodney McKay had fallen in lust with John Sheppard the day he’d sat down in the Ancient chair in Antarctica. He had fallen in love with him that night. Beautiful, vulnerable, and imperfect, John Sheppard.
Rodney knew he had to see Sheppard. He had to see John. He closed down his laptop and headed towards John’s quarters, hoping he would be there.
When Rodney finally made it to the front of Sheppard’s door and rang he was at a loss as to what he was going to say. When Sheppard answered the door, the first thing Rodney noticed was that the Colonel was barefoot and wearing that damn black t-shirt that made Rodney’s mouth water.
“You want to catch lunch?” Rodney decided it was close enough to noon to try that angle. Food was safe.
“Sure,” Sheppard smiled, grabbed some shoes, and flashed just enough ass in the process to convince Rodney that he’d read the situation correctly. They sat across from each other and
Rodney started out trying to talk about tomorrow’s mission. Rodney nearly kicked himself a minute later when he realized that he should be trying to talk about not-work-things.
“Did you get out surfing with all the downtime we’ve had lately?” Rodney finally managed. John just smiled and ran off on the wonders of surfing for a few minutes while Rodney just enjoyed watching him light up. Sheppard seemed to talk himself out of material after that and they enjoyed a few silent bites of food.
“Radek’s been teaching me a little about jumper mechanics lately. It makes you a better pilot,” Rodney felt immediately jealous of Radek for getting to spend time with the Colonel on such a geeky pursuit. A few seconds later, Rodney snapped out of it. John hadn’t been writing crappy romance novels to win over Radek.
“If that were actually the case, Radek and I would be the best pilots Atlantis has to offer,” Rodney finally managed to snark out. He tried not to wince, not exactly romantic here, McKay. Thankfully that seemed to be an acceptable answer and John just grinned widely.
“Maybe if you spent more time in the pilot’s seat you’d be better at it,” he offered.
“Maybe I should.”
“Definitely,” John smiled and Rodney melted a little on the inside. He was pretty sure that only sheer force of will was keeping him from drooling on the floor.
Sheppard offered to take Rodney out for more flying lessons, Rodney accepted. Rodney offered to teach Sheppard about some of the primary and secondary ship functions from an engineering standpoint, Sheppard accepted.
“It’s a date,” John smiled at him. Rodney spent a moment wishing he wasn’t an atheist so he had someone to thank, but the moment passed. No way he wasn’t going to get a sexy Air Force Colonel at this rate. Rodney just nodded and gave a half-crooked smile.
Lunch was over too soon and Rodney was faced with the unenviable necessity of heading to the lab to actually get some work done before the mission tomorrow. He and John dropped off their trays and exited the mess together walking in a direction that could take them either to the labs or to the living quarters.
“Want to have a game of chess?” John asked before Rodney actually had to make up his mind. “I know you mentioned you never get to play,” Rodney made the command decision that he was the boss and could take the day off if he wanted.
“Sure,” they continued to amble towards the living quarters and into John’s room. Rodney tried to relax as John pointed them towards a corner where an actual hand-made chessboard sat on the table. Rodney picked up one of the pieces and marveled at the detail.
“I asked Halling to make it,” Rodney just nodded, “It’s for you,” Rodney swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to figure out the right thing to say.
“I’d better start breaking it in then,” he said after what was probably too long a pause.
“Want something to drink? Beer, wine?” Rodney sat down on the black side of the chessboard.
“Uh, wine?” Rodney answered. John returned with a beer and a glass of wine sat across from Rodney and took the first move.
It only took a few moves for Rodney to determine that John was either horrible and chess or trying to lose or a little bit a both. A few moments later when John’s foot began to rub along Rodney’s calf he decided he didn’t care which.
John’s next move he moved one of his knights half way across the board. A move that would have put Rodney in check if not for the fact that knights didn’t move that way. Rodney decided not to complain and instead studied the board thoroughly and took the knight with his bishop.
John took a few moments to contemplate his next move. He decided to grab another piece for an illegal suicide run on the king. Rodney took John’s hand before he completed the move, moved to the other side of the table and dragged John into the best kiss he could muster on arguable short notice.
Compared to the rest of the kissing Rodney had in recent past this kiss blew them all away. Warm and harsh and exactly what Rodney had wanted.
John’s hand found Rodney’s ass and pulled him onto his lap. Rodney whimpered into John’s mouth as John began to run his hands down Rodney’s chest, roughly exploring.
“Son of Canadian Missionaries?” Rodney finally choked out when they broke their kiss to breathe.
“Are we going to discuss improbable character development or are you going to ask me how much chocolate and coffee I have tucked away?” John asked with a smirk.
“I think I love you,” Rodney sighed, pulling John in for another kiss.
“What a romantic,” John mumbled into Rodney’s mouth.
Feedback makes me happy
Author: Pookaseraph
Rating: PG PG-13ish
Spoilers: Duet, Trinity
Pairing: McShep
Summary: Someone on Atlantis has been writing Harlequin novels.
Words: 4913
Notes: First post, first SG:A fic, not my first fic but close to it. Thanks to my sister for betaing. Inspired by Lenkti's 'Desire in the Desert' cover and astolat's comment there in. They can feel free to disown the resulting madness. Another note on episodes, Martin Gero mentioned Trinity coming before Condemned, I like this, I think it makes sense and I've run with it.
Rodney was trying particularly hard to ignore the congregation of female scientists on the other end of his lab. Very few things could get the Atlantis scientists in such an uproar, and Rodney’s first guess was an exciting break through with whatever technology they were researching. Unfortunately his second guess involved whatever weird new gossip Atlantis had managed to kick up, probably involving Atlantis’ latest addition, Ronon Dex.
One of the drawbacks to living in such an isolated community was that every new thing was a huge excitement. Rodney didn’t really enjoy huge excitement it usually involved life sucking aliens or feeling his heart drop into his stomach as Sheppard flew a nuke into the belly of a Wraith Hive ship.
So even though he did not particularly want to know whatever great new huge excitement had ripped through Atlantis, he still felt it was his duty to know.
He headed over to the collection of women and made the face that generally caused undergrads and Atlantis scientists alike to retreat and cower from the horror of Rodney McKay’s ire. Most of them ran off but one of the few who stayed eventually handed over what had caused the giggling.
A picture of Teyla and Ronon ‘stick fighting’ in front of a Mayan-looking temple was displayed on the data pad in front of him. Rodney figured that was strange enough, as no Atlantis teams had found anything like the temple. Below the picture the words Amazon Hearts was scrawled in an elaborate, ‘girly’ script.
Beneath that was a small printed message that said the novel Amazon Hearts could be purchased for one chocolate bar or three packets of coffee grounds deposited in the Ancient device in the lab nearest the living quarters. Rodney just shook his head and went back to work on some research on the latest Ancient technology pulled out of one corner of Atlantis or another.
A few hours later when he checked his email he found he had also received an advertisement for Amazon Hearts. Apparently even secure Pegasus Galaxy e-mail was not entirely immune to spam. Rodney did a few checks to determine where the email had originated but hunger quickly won out over curiosity and he decided to go to dinner question temporarily unanswered.
Rodney often thought that some of the new staff from aboard the Daedalus was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there were now a variety of people who cycled through bussing tables and emptying trashcans of discarded coffee ground containers and cooking food. On the other hand, the food was usually terrible in its attempts and creativity.
Rodney had plowed through about a quarter of his dinner when Teyla, Sheppard, and Ronon arrived with their own trays of food. Since coming to Atlantis, Ronon had taken to occasional following Teyla around when he was not in the gym.
“I hope that Doctor Beckett will not be necessary but if we find injured tomorrow we will not be able to take them to Atlantis for fear the Wraith will learn it was not destroyed,” Teyla seemed to be continuing a conversation about tomorrow’s mission.
“I’m just glad we can get some of the new recruits out without too much worry about Wraith attack. I’m sure Rodney’s ready to get back out into the field,” Sheppard started in on his dinner.
“Oh yes, at least this planet isn’t skin cancer waiting to happen,” Rodney snarked towards Sheppard.
“Colonel Sheppard, Doctor McKay, what is an ‘Amazon Princess’?” Rodney nearly choked and Sheppard had the decency to look slightly nervous.
“It’s a strong warrior female in charge of her people,” Sheppard offered his patented thousand watt smile that turned potential trading partners and alien priestesses alike into a puddle of goo. It had the same effect on snarky astrophysicists too, but Rodney rarely admitted that to himself so it hardly counted.
“And a ‘Rugged Barbarian’?” Teyla continued on. Rodney noticed that Ronon had temporarily stopped shoveling food into his mouth to half pay attention.
“That would be, ah … a Barbarian is someone who isn’t a part of your society really I suppose,” Sheppard didn’t offer up a smile and instead stuck a fork full of mashed ‘potatoes’ in his mouth. Probably in an attempt to not have to speak again any time soon.
“A Harlequin?” This time Teyla addressed her question towards Rodney, seeing Sheppard’s mouth was full. He silently cursed Sheppard for having dodged this bullet.
“It’s a type of Earth novel, it revolves around improbable romantic scenarios,” Rodney explained. “I’ve always preferred science fiction but coming to Atlantis has really made the whole genre entirely unappealing to me.”
“I understand that cultures often feel the need to tell stories that are not true but teach important lessons. What is the lesson of these Harlequins?” Sheppard had the decency to field that question.
“No real lesson, sometimes humans do a lot of things just for fun with no real purpose.”
“Like football?” Teyla asked with a bit of a smirk. Rodney laughed at the mock hurt expression that crossed Sheppard’s face.
“Exactly like football, Teyla,” Rodney answered before Sheppard had a chance to defend his true love from being called purposeless.
“But why myself and Ronon?”
“Probably because you’re both very pretty,” Rodney froze in horror. He usually prided himself on saying exactly what he meant but there were certain times when that was not the best idea.
“I’m going to the gym,” Ronon mumbled and left leaving a flick of dreadlocks and a nearly licked clean plate behind him.
After dinner Rodney decided that a copy of Amazon Hearts might be worth a chocolate bar although certainly not worth 3 cups of coffee he could keep for himself. When he got to the lab he felt a flash of irritation that someone had figured out how to use what was apparently an Ancient vending machine before him. At least they had come up with an interesting use for the gadget.
One chocolate bar poorer and in possession of a data disk Rodney headed back to his room pretending he didn’t feel silly giving up a chocolate bar for curiosity’s sake.
Harlequin novels inevitably brought Rodney back to grad school and Kristy Watson. Her idea of quality time had been leaning against him reading a romance novel while he took red ink to a variety of undergrad physics problem sets. Every few minutes she would interrupt to read him something particularly mushy or silly or occasionally something sort of hot and then make a comment about how silly or worthless the novels were but next month she would always spend her $20 or so to pick up another round of trash novels.
And so, feeling just a little guilty for channeling an ex-girlfriend, Rodney wound up in his room loading up Amazon Hearts and tried not to remember the constant ‘Why aren’t you more romantic’ arguments and decided to remember that despite how dysfunctional that relationship was it had at least gotten him regular sex with a cute blonde who had at least a tiny understanding of the physics she took towards her engineering degree.
Rodney made a note that whoever had made the ‘e-book’ had a decent hand at graphic artistry. The cover was a nice blend of gym security footage and what was either excellent hand-drawn art of a photo he had not seen on the Atlantis network yet.
Rodney read the back cover quickly.
Teyla Emmagan was a beautiful Amazon Princess who had kept her people safe for years from the hostile tribes that surrounded the Athosian lands.
Ronon Dex was a rugged Barbarian from beyond the lands of Athos who did not know that defeating the Princess in battle would win her hand in marriage.
Now the two reluctant spouses must stop battling each other long enough to unite against the enemies of Athos. At first it seems it would be a fight to learn to live with each other, but as Ronon learns about Athos, and Teyla discovers more about her mysterious new husband it’s not so hard to live but it becomes a battle to love.
Rodney tried not to laugh because he knew he would wind up reading the book anyway. Especially since he had already given up a chocolate bar for the privilege.
With an early morning mission looming and a date with Katie Brown on the horizon he decided to call it a night and pretend he was going to get more than a few hours sleep and that he wasn’t the least bit disappointed that it was a red headed botanist that had been hounding him for a date and not a spiky-haired Air Force Colonel.
Of all the ways to spend the next few days, Rodney could not have even begun to suspect it would involve sharing his body with a woman and going on the most bizarre version of a double date the Pegasus Galaxy could cook up. Kissing with Carson had been the icing on the cake to that couple of days and he was pretty sure no one would let him live that one down any time soon.
While he was out of commission, Ronon had been added to the team and silently Rodney agreed that there was no one he’d like better around to watch his back. Thankfully Cadman had failed to comment if she noticed the occasional nervousness around Sheppard. Life has returned to an Atlantian version of status quo.
Teyla had started to teach Ronon how to read English so he could learn to use some of the technology around Atlantis. Apparently, no one told Teyla that the cafeteria should not be the place to teach Ronon those reading skills. When Ronon was not in the gym he sat reading various selections from Amazon Hearts out loud to Teyla. Most people agreed that listening to Ronon read a Harlequin romance novel was very high on their list of guilty pleasures.
Unfortunately for Rodney, the comparison to Kristy made the whole thing very unsettling for him. The weird image of Ronon sprawled against him while Rodney worked on some Ancient technology was just too strange for words.
The fallout from his failure with project Arturus had only just started when Rodney noticed that another novel had been published. From the moment they’d gotten to the planet Rodney had been far too concerned about the power source to worry about anything except the advances they were making in physics and the possibility of a Nobel Prize. His brain had taken a momentary detour when he realized Sheppard knew a lot more about electrical engineering than he’d originally given him credit for. However lusting after Sheppard would do absolutely nothing to fix the fact that he’d seriously messed up what friendship they had.
And so in between avoiding Radek, avoiding Elizabeth, avoiding any members of his science team and being avoided by Sheppard, Rodney had picked up and read both Amazon Hearts and Danny and the King. Neither did anything for his mood.
His week or so of anti-social behavior caused him to miss the reaction to a Harlequin novel starring Daniel Jackson and Jack O’Neill as attractive tutor and aloof but lonely king. Although Rodney imagined the ensuing lunch table conversation between Teyla, Ronon, and Sheppard had probably been quite amusing.
Daniel was too pretty for Rodney’s tastes, but he’d certainly grown to love his wide-eyed enthusiasm in the weeks they’d spent together in Antarctica. It was too bad O’Neill had pretty much pulled rank to keep him from coming with the expedition team to Atlantis, but Rodney figured that the fact that Jackson had stayed Earthside meant he was probably getting laid far more often than Rodney.
Rodney had a huge soft spot for General O’Neill. Certainly the uncanny resemblance to MacGyver was a huge point in his favor. Minus points were awarded for his horrible habit of playing dumb to avoid long conversations and technical details.
He ignored the voice in his head that reminded him that Sheppard was both smart and sexy and went back to his round of morose introspection.
By the time Rodney realized he was bisexual most psychological institutions had decided homosexuality wasn’t a mental disorder. But even at sixteen Rodney was smart enough to realize that his family probably wasn’t as understanding about such things as ‘most psychological institutions’. By the time Rodney realized he was in love with John Sheppard the Pentagon had already started ignoring the presence of homosexual officers as long as they saved the Earth on a semi-regular basis. But Rodney was far too old to believe wanting to fly could have gotten Sheppard into the Air Force before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He was a genius after all.
By the time Rodney realized his professional and personal problems were not going to be solved by moping around his room he had already wasted days to his own brooding angst. He headed to the lab to try to sort things out with Radek.
When Rodney came out of his self-imposed exile, he was surprised to learn that everyone had been a little solitary lately. Ronon had been working mostly with the Earth military men running drills on hand to hand. Teyla had head off for an extended stay on the mainland. Sheppard had actually apparently spent time on paper work.
Sheppard swung around the lab late in the day while Rodney was still trying to catch up with various projects that had been
abandoned while Cadman had been living in his head and he’d been avoiding Radek.
“Dinner, McKay?” Sheppard leaned against the doorway.
“Sure,” Rodney dropped what he was doing and tried not to be too upset that the Colonel had called him ‘McKay’. He’d gotten used to having Sheppard call him ‘Rodney’ even if he could never manage to work himself up to calling the Colonel ‘John’, not even in his head. Down that road lay madness.
Team dinner started up again soon after. Conversation with Sheppard was still a little strained but they seemed to get by. Elizabeth hadn’t officially planned another mission with ‘SGA-1’ yet but it seemed like the group was finally finding its feet again. Having two aliens on the team was proving exactly how different life in Pegasus was from life in Earth’s little corner of the Milky Way.
“Sheppard?” Rodney was pleased to see that, although Ronon still mumbled he at least didn’t mumble with food in his mouth much any more.
“Yeah?”
“O’Neill is your superior officer in your Air Force?” The Colonel nodded and Rodney silently cursed where this conversation had to be going. “But your military does not approve of –“ Ronon trailed off and looked at Teyla.
“Homosexual relations,” Teyla supplied.
“Correct?” Sheppard nodded again. “Writing about his homosexual relations would undermine his leadership. But your Marines would not explain,” Rodney had to admit that Ronon was a bit more intelligent that he’d originally given him credit for.
“I’m not supposed to tell you either, actually, Ronon,” The Colonel didn’t look the least bit apologetic.
“General O’Neill and Doctor Jackson are together,” Rodney provided. Ronon looked at Rodney with a bit of confusion across his face. “I can tell you because I’m not in the Air Force like the Colonel. The United States Air Force does allow homosexuals. The past few years, being in the Stargate program means that the normal Air Force rules don’t apply.”
“Because the Ancestral Ring is a secret to your people?”
“Yes, of course, that’s only the rules for Colonel Sheppard’s country. In Canada two men can get married or a gay man can serve in the military without any Stargates being involved,” Rodney leaned back and smirked.
“Let’s all eat maple syrup and watch hockey,” Sheppard groused into his food.
“No use getting snippy because your country has the moral low ground, Colonel,” Rodney grinned. Sheppard smirked too. Rodney didn’t realize how much he’d missed that comfortable arguing. He smiled as he continued into his dinner.
“Your military must be quite small, Sheppard” Ronon remarked a few minutes later.
“Huh?” The Colonel looked delightfully confused and Rodney found himself quite amused.
“By not allowing homosexuals,” Sheppard looked completely pole axed. Rodney snickered.
“Somehow we manage,” Sheppard finally choked out.
“But O’Neill is with Jackson, it’s allowed because of the Stargate. O’Neill was in the military before he went through the Ring. How could he be in your military in order to start going through the Ring?” Ronon looked even more confused.
“It’s just not simple,” Sheppard said finally. Ronon shook his head and Rodney was sure Ronon was even more convinced than before that Earthlings were entirely strange. A few minutes of silence eating passed while everyone searched for another topic of conversation.
“Harlequin novels are usually about a man and a woman anyway,” Sheppard finally added.
“Didn’t think you were one for knowing all about Harlequin novels, Colonel,” Rodney decided a little teasing was in order to break the ice.
“My mother loved them when I was growing up. New ones every month,” Sheppard took a swallow of water, “Elizabeth is probably going to leave us on standby for a little while longer, give Lorne and Stackhouse’s teams more of a workout,” and just as soon as the moment of reminiscing had started it was gone, Rodney missed it right away. Dinner ended and Rodney headed back to the labs to finish up with the Ancient doodad he had been working on earlier in the day.
Highland Rivalry ‘hit the shelves’ the next day. Beckett and Cadman starred as a Scottish Lord and a spunky peasant, Rodney found himself in a cameo role as dastardly rival lord.
A few days after that Rodney’s life finally seemed to have settled back to ‘pre-Arturus normal’. Sheppard actually started coming around to the labs again to harass Rodney and occasionally Radek. Radek had stopped being actively angry with Rodney for ignoring his advice. And Rodney finally managed to work up a good yell or two about the occasional lab blunder.
Rodney still wasn’t sure about being off-world again as a team, but things were looking up with their team scheduled to head out for a mission the day after tomorrow. Dinner had involved a more extensive explanation of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ for Ronon and Teyla, which had been a little uncomfortable, but Rodney felt he managed to pull out sarcasm and wit at appropriate intervals and considered the conversation a success. He went to bed feeling that things might only be slightly horrible for tomorrow’s mission.
The ‘advertisement’ for Desire in the Desert arrived only a few minutes before Rodney got to his lab the next morning. Curiosity made him open the mailing to see who the crazed Atlantis Harlequin writer had chosen to pair this time.
A shirtless Colonel Sheppard and himself done up in a strange desert get up that reminded him of Lawrence of Arabia graced the ‘cover page’.
“Desire in the Desert?” The question was out before Rodney realized that he really did not want the answer.
Rodney was on his way to a full-blown freak-out when he grabbed his personal laptop and managed a hasty retreat from the lab. He swung by the ‘book store’ on his way towards his room, and Harlequin CD in-hand, Rodney practically ran back to his room.
“I couldn’t be that obvious,” he mumbled to the empty room.
Rodney took a deep breath and prepared himself to meet his doom. He slid the CD in and the file opened after a few moments.
The same image from the lab earlier popped up first. He scrolled down to read the ‘back cover’.
‘When John Sheppard’s plane goes down in the middle of the Sahara he’s rescued by wandering nomads who take him to their leader, Rodney McKay … McKay is the child of Canadian missionaries who perished in the unforgiving sands of the desert … Seven days. Seven nights. Will it be enough time for McKay to convince Sheppard of his love?’ Rodney only skimmed over the back text as his eyes were immediately drawn to the image of Sheppard.
When the hell had Sheppard been scruffy and dressed like that anywhere near and Atlantis security camera and why hadn’t Rodney been there to lick him. Rodney tried not to lose any more IQ points then he’d already lost due to his brain leaking out of his ear.
Well obviously someone thought they were together or should be or who knows what. Rodney groaned and buried his head in his hands. Sheppard has just started talking to him like old times again, he didn’t want to think about how much this might set them back. Rodney knew from personal experience that most military men did not take too kindly to the implication that another man was hot for their ass.
McKay saw two viable options, go back to work and pretend it didn’t exist or at least know what he was going to be up against next time he had to look the Colonel in the face. Preparedness seemed like a better idea, and he could easily take another two or three hours before he got to the lab without anyone making too much of a comment. Hiding won out. Hiding and figuring out who the hell had written this so they could be found and shot.
Only a few pages in Rodney found his brain at a loss for who could have written the book. John was smart. Which was not surprising at all, that was one of many things that made Rodney entirely smitten with him. No that wasn’t the issue; the issue was that the writer thought he was smart too. Although Rodney occasionally gave him a hard time about being a math geek in private, John had never really mentioned to anyone that he was smart. He never played it dumb, he just didn’t advertise. Whoever wrote this knew the Colonel was smart and a pretty face.
A mention of his favorite food, roasted duck, not MREs as he was fond of advertising when people mumbled about the lack of variety on Atlantis, followed soon after. Rodney went back to look at the advertising email again and realized it had not been sent to all of Atlantis, as he’d originally feared this morning. It had been sent only to him.
Rodney was pretty damn sure there was one person on Atlantis who knew John Sheppard was a MENSA level genius, that Rodney loved roast duck more then life itself and would think that writing a series of Harlequin novels was the right way to win a boyfriend.
Rodney skimmed the rest of the novel quickly looking for confirmation of his findings. A mention of Rodney’s sister Jeannie was inconclusive at best. But then Rodney found exactly what he’d been looking for, towards the end of the book, nearly word for word. The night after the storm, Rodney’s arm finally bandaged properly by Beckett and the storm passed, on the upper west pier as Sheppard had sat down next to him and confessed to killing over sixty Genii. People who were out to kill him, but people nonetheless. Rodney had simply touched his shoulder, not saying anything, having no idea what to say, but somehow it had been enough for Sheppard. They had watched the sun go down and the cold creep up to the edge of Atlantis and had only gone inside hours later. Rodney McKay had fallen in lust with John Sheppard the day he’d sat down in the Ancient chair in Antarctica. He had fallen in love with him that night. Beautiful, vulnerable, and imperfect, John Sheppard.
Rodney knew he had to see Sheppard. He had to see John. He closed down his laptop and headed towards John’s quarters, hoping he would be there.
When Rodney finally made it to the front of Sheppard’s door and rang he was at a loss as to what he was going to say. When Sheppard answered the door, the first thing Rodney noticed was that the Colonel was barefoot and wearing that damn black t-shirt that made Rodney’s mouth water.
“You want to catch lunch?” Rodney decided it was close enough to noon to try that angle. Food was safe.
“Sure,” Sheppard smiled, grabbed some shoes, and flashed just enough ass in the process to convince Rodney that he’d read the situation correctly. They sat across from each other and
Rodney started out trying to talk about tomorrow’s mission. Rodney nearly kicked himself a minute later when he realized that he should be trying to talk about not-work-things.
“Did you get out surfing with all the downtime we’ve had lately?” Rodney finally managed. John just smiled and ran off on the wonders of surfing for a few minutes while Rodney just enjoyed watching him light up. Sheppard seemed to talk himself out of material after that and they enjoyed a few silent bites of food.
“Radek’s been teaching me a little about jumper mechanics lately. It makes you a better pilot,” Rodney felt immediately jealous of Radek for getting to spend time with the Colonel on such a geeky pursuit. A few seconds later, Rodney snapped out of it. John hadn’t been writing crappy romance novels to win over Radek.
“If that were actually the case, Radek and I would be the best pilots Atlantis has to offer,” Rodney finally managed to snark out. He tried not to wince, not exactly romantic here, McKay. Thankfully that seemed to be an acceptable answer and John just grinned widely.
“Maybe if you spent more time in the pilot’s seat you’d be better at it,” he offered.
“Maybe I should.”
“Definitely,” John smiled and Rodney melted a little on the inside. He was pretty sure that only sheer force of will was keeping him from drooling on the floor.
Sheppard offered to take Rodney out for more flying lessons, Rodney accepted. Rodney offered to teach Sheppard about some of the primary and secondary ship functions from an engineering standpoint, Sheppard accepted.
“It’s a date,” John smiled at him. Rodney spent a moment wishing he wasn’t an atheist so he had someone to thank, but the moment passed. No way he wasn’t going to get a sexy Air Force Colonel at this rate. Rodney just nodded and gave a half-crooked smile.
Lunch was over too soon and Rodney was faced with the unenviable necessity of heading to the lab to actually get some work done before the mission tomorrow. He and John dropped off their trays and exited the mess together walking in a direction that could take them either to the labs or to the living quarters.
“Want to have a game of chess?” John asked before Rodney actually had to make up his mind. “I know you mentioned you never get to play,” Rodney made the command decision that he was the boss and could take the day off if he wanted.
“Sure,” they continued to amble towards the living quarters and into John’s room. Rodney tried to relax as John pointed them towards a corner where an actual hand-made chessboard sat on the table. Rodney picked up one of the pieces and marveled at the detail.
“I asked Halling to make it,” Rodney just nodded, “It’s for you,” Rodney swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to figure out the right thing to say.
“I’d better start breaking it in then,” he said after what was probably too long a pause.
“Want something to drink? Beer, wine?” Rodney sat down on the black side of the chessboard.
“Uh, wine?” Rodney answered. John returned with a beer and a glass of wine sat across from Rodney and took the first move.
It only took a few moves for Rodney to determine that John was either horrible and chess or trying to lose or a little bit a both. A few moments later when John’s foot began to rub along Rodney’s calf he decided he didn’t care which.
John’s next move he moved one of his knights half way across the board. A move that would have put Rodney in check if not for the fact that knights didn’t move that way. Rodney decided not to complain and instead studied the board thoroughly and took the knight with his bishop.
John took a few moments to contemplate his next move. He decided to grab another piece for an illegal suicide run on the king. Rodney took John’s hand before he completed the move, moved to the other side of the table and dragged John into the best kiss he could muster on arguable short notice.
Compared to the rest of the kissing Rodney had in recent past this kiss blew them all away. Warm and harsh and exactly what Rodney had wanted.
John’s hand found Rodney’s ass and pulled him onto his lap. Rodney whimpered into John’s mouth as John began to run his hands down Rodney’s chest, roughly exploring.
“Son of Canadian Missionaries?” Rodney finally choked out when they broke their kiss to breathe.
“Are we going to discuss improbable character development or are you going to ask me how much chocolate and coffee I have tucked away?” John asked with a smirk.
“I think I love you,” Rodney sighed, pulling John in for another kiss.
“What a romantic,” John mumbled into Rodney’s mouth.
Feedback makes me happy
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-09 02:18 pm (UTC)Smart of John, wooing using books and gathering further wooing tools as the price of the books.
lds