The Devil You Don't by stop (Documentation Challenge)

[alie]

Title: The Devil You Don't
Author: stop
Rating: PG
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: Major spoilers for "Grace Under Pressure"
Length: circa 1800 words
Summary: Rodney is encouraged to share the reasoning behind his actions during and after the events of Grace Under Pressure during a routine mental status evaluation.
A/N: Well, here it is. My first fanfiction. I'm scared and excited and nervous and I hope I don't totally suck but am not holding my breath. This hasn't been beta'd, and I'm dying for feedback.





Click-click. The tape begins. A male voice, clearing his throat. "Carson Beckett, examining Dr Rodney McKay, chief scientist of the Atlantis expedition." His voice is softly accented, a Scottish brogue, and more than a little weary.

"Yes. Ahem. I would just like to register my protest, again, that this mental status exam is a waste of my extremely valuable time." The other voice is also male, very brisk, and his pronounciation almost clipped—a typical North American accent, possibly Canadian or maybe Midwestern United States.

"We're aware o' that, Rodney. Y'hit yer head pretty hard, though, and ya've made the same comment every time y'been here for one a these, So let's just get on wi'et." The voice with the Scottish accent—Dr. Beckett—sounds like he's repeated these words more than once, and behind his irritation there's a soft sound of a pen moving across paper. The scribbling continues after he's stopped speaking, and it's obvious Carson is filling out some sort of paperwork along with this taped interview.

"I could be saving the world, or at least figuring out why that room in Quadrant 3 absolutely refuses to let anyone who doesn't have the ancient gene in when it doesn't even seem to DO anything, or going back to PS2-2023 and hacking back into that ancient computer now that we finished ferrying the natives to the continent that didn't have the really annoying mosquisparrows, or whatever Teyla called them..." The soft chatter ran in the background until the other male cleared his throat.

"Name?"

A sigh, and practically audible teeth-clenching to force back the sarcasm. "Dr. Rodney McKay."

"Where are we, Rodney?"

"Atlantis, the Pegasus Galaxy. Specifically, the tiny desk that designates your office, Beckett. Oh, and by the way, thank you so much for doing me the courtesy of actually clearing off a chair. Last time I believe I had to stand up during this farce because you had papers everywhere."

"Yes, well, it was in the middle of the problem with the Iratus retrovirus, son. Now, I'm going to give you three objects. Try to remember them for later. Quarter, keys, pizza."

"Right. Because I can remember the proof for Fermat's Last Theorum, but not three random objects."

Ignoring that, moving on, Carson continues. "Rodney, who's the Prime Minister of Canada?"

"I refuse to acknowledge that question. La, la la, I can't hear you."

"Alright, Rodney." More scrabbling on paper.



"What are you writing down? You might as well just tell me, I can hack into the computer later and find out anyway."

"Y'know what I'm writing down, Rodney, it's the same thing I write down every time we do this and you answer like that, so let's continue."

"Hmph. Well. I can't acknowledge someone whose nickname is Mr. Dithers, for god's sake. He's always bowing to the damn Conservatives, too—"

"Count backwards from 100 as close to zero as you can go by sevens, please."

"93, 86, 79, 72, 65, 58, 51, 44, 37, 30, 23, 16, 9, 2." He rattles off the numbers quickly, and there's a soft sound of fingers tapping on the table. "There are 4 primes in that list, by the way."

"Thank you, Rodney."

"So I can go now?" The voice is suddenly eager, and Beckett hesitates a little before he replies.

"Not quite yet. Just a few more questions. Rodney, th' followin' questions don't have one correct answer, and yer mental process of arrivin' at whatever answer you chose is as important as what your eventual answer may be. So maybe try t' lead me thru it." A pause, and the sound of a swallow can be heard. A glass settles back on the desk. Carson continues. "Though the discoverers of Antartica were often close to starvation, they would never touch the meat of a polar bear even though they had the means to kill one. Why?"

"I would assume that if there were polar bears in Antartica, Maj--Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard would have mentioned it by now, since he's always regaling us with stupid stories about McMurdo. So there must have been no polar bears in Antartica for either Cook or Ross to kill, although Cook never really made it to the Antartic mainland. And, actually, I would suppose the Ancients 'discovered' Antartica first. Although not really being human, I assume they don't count."

"Rodney, how d'ya feel about Griffen, for lack a a better term, sacrificin' himself t'save yew?"

"Carson... uh... do we really have to get into this? I'm still... unset—upset that I couldn't save us both and..." McKay's voice trails off, and you can almost hear the shrug and the way his face would turn away from Beckett's and glance to the side, where his eyes can't be read, where his pain isn't visible, his confusion over the pilot's actions less readily apparent.

"It's alright. I just wanted t'make sure y'remembered, so I'm sorry, but I had t'bring it up. Alright, movin' on. Have y'had any hallucinations since ya claim t'have seen Colonel Carter yesterday?"

"No. And I knew she was a hallucination at the time. Surely that's got to count for something."

"Aye, it probably does. What are the words I gave you earlier?"

"Quarter, keys, pizza."



"Alright, Rodney. I think we're done here. Dr. Heightmeyer would like me ta remind you she's ta see you after she's finished documenting Colonel Sheppard and Zelenka's clean MSEs for the mission report. Should be shortly."

"Right."

And then there's a thump, perhaps a hand hitting the tape-recorder, but the tape's still running so Beckett hasn't turned it off quite yet. His hand must be covering the button so that Rodney doesn't realize it's still going—and it's strange for Beckett to do that, he's always hated deceiving a patient, but perhaps he thinks his next question may be clinically important. "So, Rodney. Not on th' record, or anythin', but why'd y'do it?"

Rodney doesn't ask what Carson's referring to. He knows. Of course he knows. He had been thinking quite clearly ever since he last saw Sam—no, the hallucination of Sam—wave goodbye. He watched the jumper and his unexpected company disappear into a blue so black it was like a bruise and he'd expected to feel something—terribly sad to let the image of her go, really regretful that she hadn't been more seductive. Something. After all, she'd been a lifeline for him as he'd been trapped in what probably wouldn't be a stretch to claim was one of his top ten nightmares. But somehow he was only grateful. Being seduced by his own subconscious would've just been weird, anyway. "He'd just saved my life, Carson."

"That's it?"

"Isn't Heightmeyer just going to ask me the same thing? And uh, how did you find out?"

"No, lad, she doesn't know aboat it. And besides, she's part'a the military. She'd wait for you to tell her. But y'haven't said a word though I think y'need to talk about it, and I don't think Colonel Sheppard would've told me anythin' about it either, but Zelenka thought maybeh yew'd cracked up, that maybeh y'believed y'were after Sam or somethin'."

"Ah. Right." A pause. Rodney sighed, and you could almost hear the shrug of his shoulders. "I saw Colonel Carter when I was down there, Carson, not J--the Lieutenant Colonel. And then when I saw him again, I realized the real reason why Sam had been there." Another pause, like McKay was waiting for the doctor to ask him something, and then he continued when no response was forthcoming.

"I mean, yes, she wasn't really there because I hit my head. But mentally, she was there because I needed you all to be looking for me, and so my brain conjured up Carter. Sam... was there because I knew she wasn't actually on the planet and therefore had nothing better to do. She was there because I needed a friend, and because I needed to be persuaded not to try something dangerous in hopes of rescuing myself. But I realized at the end that my subconscious really conjured her up to comfort me and distract me from the fact that I was going to die without ever performing the most important experiment of my life.

"So when he got there, I had to try it. Had to figure out if there was anything underneath the bravado and the repartee. That's all." Had to figure out if I was the princess or the pea in this rescue scenario, if he would've done it for anyone or if he was going all out to rescue me.

"That's all? Y'aren't going to try to blame it on hypoxia, or nitrogen narcosis?"

"No, Carson. Because you're my doctor, and because ... because... because... Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo." The words just seem to fit, and Rodney doesn't know if that's because he finally understands the proverb or if he thinks he's fallen into the best sort of sin and so the devil reference is appropriate.

"I don't speak Spanish, Rodney."

"Well, it's not really translatable. I guess you could say I did it because I realized something profound, not because I got a concussion." He mutters something under his breath that ends with what sounds something like "por supuesto hablo español, soy de los McKays de Barthelona." before the tape ends with a click.

---

From: cbeckett@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com
Message-ID: <51.3aae5323.2d5e6976@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:55:02 GMT
Subject: experiment
To: rmckay@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.553)

Rodney, you didn't tell me what happened afterwards, and Zelenka claims he knows nothing. And where are you? I thought I told you to stay in bed for the day. Teyla went to bring you some of that chocolate I promised, for medicinal purposes of course, and you were not in your quarters. Radek says you're not in the lab, and you're certainly not answering your intercom. I know I said bed-rest very firmly, so where ARE you?

If I don't have a response from you by tomorrow, I'm sending out search parties for fear of a hypoglycemic coma.


Message-ID: <1066.1909B223f@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:55:56 GMT
From: Genius <rmckay@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.02 (Windows/20050317)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: the one who laughs at my citrus allergy <cbeckett@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com>
Subject: bed

I HAVE been in bed all day. I'm even checking this from a lapto
hey stop THsr11! SND HEPCRSONA
KJadohkjlnm,
,.687gm'lk;,.


Message-ID: <40A07A9B.8050301@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:57:25 GMT
From: rather be flying <jsheppard@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.02 (Windows/20050317)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: nosy <cbeckett@atlantis.pegasusgalaxy.com>
Subject: (nothing)


let's just say the experiment was an unqualified success. i'll make sure r conforms exactly to your instructions, dr.

---

A few days later, Rodney pulled up a PDF from the Atlantis servers. The small notation in blue ink near the bottom made him laugh out loud, and sent science lab minions, hanging around for their share of reflected glory, scurrying away like cockroaches away from the flick of a switch. They weren't exactly sure what had happened to Dr. McKay on the ocean floor, but he seemed a lot less predictable now—if much, much happier.

If any of them had actually asked Rodney, he could've told them that it wasn't what had happened at the bottom that had made the difference.

Comments

feedback

[suzy_queue]

I liked it! The end was cute. :) One piece of advice I would offer is to avoid writing out accents - the words you choose (like "aye") should be enough to convey the accent and not distract the reader. There are a lot of apostrophes in Carson's dialogue, which takes time to mentally translate. *g* But I really enjoyed it and I like the mixing of dialogue and paperwork.

Re: feedback

[alie]

The accent I did mainly because I couldn't get Carson's voice in my head properly without it, but I can see how it might be distracting to the reader.

And thank you for your comment about the ending! The end was hard. Almost as hard as the title.

Re: feedback

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Actually, the accent didn't distract me at all. I sort of liked it :)

Very, very cute ending. And wonderful explantion for why it wasn't John there with him.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Really nicely done. Loved Rodney of the Barcelona McKays speaking in Spanish to Carson. And, of course, loved the "bed rest". :)

[alie]

I figured that in the rest of the world, it's more common to be bilingual or trilingual than monolingual--and that even if he didn't really speak Spanish, he had probably taken it or taught it to himself or something.

Plus the Barcelona McKays thing is sort of remembering Griffen.

The Rodney in the porn bit of this story that I didn't write is totally babbling in foreign tongues during sex, by the way.

[panisdead.livejournal.com]

Hee! Cute and funny, and I like the use of medical jargon in the MSE form--it's an interesting twist on a third-party POV.

Speaking of POV, I really like how, with only a very few wobbles, you kept the action offscreen, decipherable only from the sounds on the tape:

A sigh, and practically audible teeth-clenching to force back the sarcasm.

and such. That's a favorite technique of mine to read, and hard to pull off successfully.

Nice work!

[alie]

I think I stole your icon text for his shirt, though. I was trying to remember whose icon it was!

Thank you much for your comments. I'm really proud that I managed to write something that someone whose writing I like, likes. If that sentence even parses.

[panisdead.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, I've seen variations of the shirt text floating around; it's all good.

That's a fabulous story critique you've got down there in the comments. I am super envious. :)

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

Very nice! I liked the interspersing of Beckett's notations with the tape recorded interview, but I liked the emails more, especially the nicknames they use.

I agree with [Unknown site tag] about the accent, it tends to pull me out of the story a bit, but you did a good job of capturing both men's voices. :)

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

Super fic!

I loved: "Rodney, who's the Prime Minister of Canada?" "I refuse to acknowledge that question. La, la la, I can't hear you." ::smirk::

very nice use of documents (of various kinds!) too.

wags, springwoof

[alie]

The worst part about the PM of Canada thing is that I originally wanted it to be the guy they just elected (the conservative) but then, about five minutes before posting, realized it wouldn't work with the time-frame. Whoops. So found a few quick reasons for Rodney to hate the former PM, and all good.

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

Great. Beautiful. Thanks.

[alie]

Awesome. Thank you.

[alie]

I have to admit that I only got the idea for it in my head this morning, so I was writing (and graphicizing) pretty much straight for five hours. I got all obsessive, and then became sure I wasn't going to make the deadline, so pretty much now I'm just quivering in this pool of relief.

[miso-no-tsuki.livejournal.com]

Very nice and very original use of printed/taped dialogue. Loved the detail on the emails. hee hee! And this is your first fic? Oh my...*gives up and goes home*

[alie]

Definitely not the first thing I've ever written, but the first thing I've written in a long time. Luckily I'm blessed with a good sense of grammar.

[paranoidangel]

I liked this - especially Rodney trying not to be sarcastic and the nicknames they'd used on the email. I really liked that you could tell exactly what was going on through the noises on the tape.

I found the accent was quite hard going to read too - if something's written well it should be possible to hear the voice of the speaker, along with the accent.

[alie]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate people picking up small details like the email. (And I think it's pretty conclusive that I'm never allowed to write accents again. I will mourn Beckett, who was oh so Scottish and really hot in my head—privately. Heh.)

[dr-dredd.livejournal.com]

Ha! The bit about refusing to answer the prime minister question was great. I was once doing one of these on a patient in late November, 2000. The question was: "Who is the president of the United States?"

Her answer: "I don't know."

RIGHT!

I probably also would have accepted the answer Gore, but technically that wouldn't have been correct. ;-)

[xanthe.livejournal.com]

Lovely - this was particularly good for a debut as well! I thought you'd captured the characters' voices excellently (although I do agree with the comment about Carson's accent but that's one of my own little issues). I loved the way you did the forms, the tape recording and the emails - very novel touches that worked really well. And it was a great response to Grace Under Pressure and made perfect sense of that episode while still bringing on the John and ROdney loveliness *g*.

Thanks so much for sharing - this was really excellent!

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the wonderful world of fanfic! We don't bite. Much.

I liked the format, and really loved that the love story between John and Rodney is shown only by a garbled email.

I have a few comments, which hopefully fall into the category of concrit, some of which have been touched on by others.

-Carson's accent doesn't have to be written out. If you have a hard time hearing it when you write, you can try changing the vocabulary rather than the spelling (nothing says Scottish like "lad")

-The POV was a good choice, but you don't stay true to it. You need to be careful - if you're using an external third person POV (of someone listening to the tape) you need to resist the urge to write out Rodney's thoughts. I wasn't clear on who actually was listening to the tape, which made it confusing. Since this observer is presumably not privy to the emails at the second half, that means the POV jumps from an unknown third party, to Carson, to Rodney a bit haphazardly. I think the story would work a lot better if you wrote it from Carson's POV as he's conducting the routine examination and filling out the paperwork. The tape is a good conceit, but it doesn't work if you're trying to get at the emotions playing out in the seen through actions and facial expressions. Having the listener posit Rodney's actions from the sounds on the tape only works if we know who the listener is. If it was John listening, for example, he'd probably have a fairly good idea about Rodney's body language. Since we don't know who it is, though, it comes across as you trying to cheat the limitations of your own construction.

-This may be procedural (a doctor I'm not) but I wasn't clear why Carson was doing the exam and not Heightmeyer. Some of the questions were clearly in Carson's purvue, some seemed more Heightmeyer's territory.

-The arc of the story isn't telegraphed very well at the beginning; I had no idea where you were going, so I didn't get a sense of dramatic tension. Perhaps if there are some hints at the beginning that Rodney acted very oddly during the rescue, then it's a surprise when we find out that "very oddly" was kissing Sheppard. Just a thought.

-I am not the keeper of the McKay characterization, but there were places that I felt didn't sound very Rodney. In spots he's brilliantly himself (especially the oft-mentioned Prime Minister snark, or when he completely dodges Beckett's query about Griffen (though I wasn't sure why he asked that - I don't buy that it was to check Rodney's memory)). At other places, he turns into a self-revalatory exposition dummy. I don't think Rodney would talk about his feelings in such depth so easily, especially to a friend. Self-aware he is not. I would posit that he'd try to hide the fact that he hallucinated entirely, and if pressed about the "Carter" remark would deny, deny, deny. Not to say he wouldn't ever confess his feelings, I just think you have to make Carson work more for it.

-Be careful you don't get too sappy at the end. Somehow I don't think McKay/Sheppard would ever be hugs and puppies. They snark because they care.

I hope this doesn't seem like too much criticism - I point these things out because I genuinely enjoyed the story. I think it just needs one solid rewrite to free the story from a few minor distractions.

As John Gardner wrote in The Art of Fiction, the writer's job is "never to allow or force the reader's mind to be distracted, even momentarily, from the fictional dream." All the little points about POV, setting and plot need to be straightened so they don't pull the reader out of the story.

Whew. That was longer than even I anticipated. Hopefully this will nudge you to write more...

[alie]

Wow. I wish I could go back in time and make you my beta, because I think having these comments would've made this story 1000x better.

I should definitely do a rewrite of this story. And no, that was totally concrit, I'm ecstatic you took the time to write it out.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I always worry when I type critiques, so thanks for taking it the right way. If you need a beta, you know where to find me. Though, as my friends will surely tell you, I'm not always the most punctual beta.

[bluebrocade.livejournal.com]

Hee! I like it. Especially John's email.

[nakedwesley.livejournal.com]

I like the interplay between Beckett and McKay. Carson always sounds so patient, while you know underneath he's longing to strangle Rodney. *g*

I really like Rodney's reasoning for why it was Sam that appeared to him. Of course, if it were someone from Atlantis, they wouldn't be available topside to attempt his rescue! Also, great shout out to Griffen and the Barcelonia McKays. Being Canadian, I'm sure Rodney speaks French, but it's entirely believable that he'd learned Spanish somewhere along the way as well. The better to insult your competition in as many languages as possible. Love the ending!!

Great use of documents! Very believable.

[fan-this.livejournal.com]

Love love love love love. And hugs to you.

[sandyurbahns.livejournal.com]

I loved it. I notice a prior comment ask you to refrain from using dialect. Please do use it. I enjoyed it extremely! The story itself is very cute. Love that the laptop message was interrupted by person or persons unknown, until the next message anyway :) Looking forward to reading more of your work.

[ryf.livejournal.com]

Very nice, but I have to say it was hard to read Carson's accent. English is not my native langauge and I am fluent in reading it, but reading and accents is very, very hard.

Other than that, I loved Rodney in this one.

[elderwitty]

I didn't mind the accent. Liked the POV and Carson's comments about Rodney's responses. My favorite part, however, was how Beckett's letter "A" looks like a star. Intentional?