sga_flashfic | One Over the Eight, by kitsune

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Title: One Over the Eight
Author:

kitsune_tsuki
Pairings: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Spoilers: General through season two (SGA)
Summary: "It's time to get you drunk." Sam tells him, grinning at the look on his face at her announcement as she waggles her car keys at him. "Come on, I know this little place in town."
Notes: Crossover with SG-1

The first half of the week after the Daedalus' latest return from Pegasus Sam and McKay are locked in briefings and meetings regarding the science department and personnel evaluations. The second half has them discussing ways of integrating Ancient technology with Earth and other alien technology the SGC has amassed over the years.

They manage to work through the professional sniping and goading and general friendly antagonism that makes up the majority of their relationship by the end of the fourth day.

The fifth day they enter into the space where it's two people on a level playing field doing what they do best when Sam realizes McKay's looking tired. He looks the way she feels half the time, tired and worn and just barely managing to keep it all together, so she decides to do the right thing.

"It's time to get you drunk." Sam tells him, grinning at the look on his face at her announcement as she waggles her car keys at him. "Come on, I know this little place in town."

McKay stares at her, then gestures at the stack of reports and schematics and in general just way too much work for any two people to ever be able to get through with the short time left before the Daedalus ships out. Which of course, doesn't mean that they won't be able to do it. It just means that they'll have to buckle down and forego minor inconveniences normal human beings need to function such as sleep and food.

"It's called playing hooky, McKay." Sam says perfectly serious, handing him his coat. "It's an American tradition, although as you're Canadian, I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't heard of it before now."

He scowls, at her and grabs his coat. "Yes, yes. I am familiar with the concept, there are Americans on Atlantis after all." He shoots her an annoyed look as though he's placing the blame for that squarely on her shoulders.

She raises her eyebrows and waggles her keys again. "Then show some hustle, McKay."

McKay's strangely quiet on the ride into town, glancing at her when every so often and making abortive efforts at conversation and hand gestures. It's almost to the point where his twitchiness is about to set off her own nervous habits when she sees realizes exactly why he's so twitchy.

"Oh my god, no, McKay. This isn't a date, all right?" She says, flashing him a smile to take the sting out of her words. "It's just two colleagues taking a break from work."

"To get drunk?" McKay retorts, squinting at her as she pulls onto a side street. "That's usually how my dates end."

Sam looks at him, eyebrow raised, and his face goes bright red.

"For me. I mean." He blurts, hands waving. "Drowning my sorrows and all that after the abject humiliation of rejection." He says, eyes darting away from hers as he fidgets with his seatbelt.

Sam smiles and concentrates on finding a decent parking space.

Inside McKay looks around as though he expects something unpleasant and probably life-threatening to jump out from the shadows, which was really only part of the reason she dragged him out of the labs.

"You're looking a little tense there McKay," Sam says, intentionally throwing in a little mocking edge to her voice to help him back on stable ground as she leads them to a booth at the back. "The only thing you'll have to worry about in here is alcohol poisoning."

McKay scowls and runs a finger along the top of the table and holds it up to the light. "Yes, and I'm sure this little hole in the ground of yours has managed to measure up to the health codes and regulations of your glorious country?"

Sam winces when the smile on the waitress walking up them falters, eyes hardening as she looks at McKay.

"McKay?"

He looks up, blinking in surprise at the twin glares he's getting. "What?"

Sam rolls her eyes and orders them a couple of beers, smiling sweetly and hooking a thumb at McKay when he's busy muttering about possible pest infestations and informing the waitress that their drinks are on him, as well as a large tip. The waitress grins brightly and walks away whistling.

"So." Sam says, turning back to McKay. "You decided to stay."

"I'm sorry, what?" McKay asks, giving her a look that seems to imply he might possibly hold some tiny shred of respect for her on a professional level but still harbors doubt regarding her intelligence.

Sam tips her head to the side, studying him closely. "It can't have been just for the potential academic accolades you'd receive if the project's ever declassified, and it can't be due to a sudden love of death-defying situations, so it has to be something else."

"Are we talking about the bar? I mean, while I can see that some people would consider it to possess a sort of quaint rustic, and I do mean rustic, charm I don't see how it could - "

"McKay."

"What do you want to me to say?" McKay asks, throwing his hands up in frustration. '''Yes, I've suddenly and inexplicably developed a burning passion for putting my life at risk every moment of every day, and twice on Sundays.'? I'm sorry, I just don't get what the point of this conversation is."

Sam sighs and shakes her head. "McKay, I brought you here because you looked like you were about to crash and burn. And while we may not have always seen eye-to-eye on certain things, I do get where you're coming from."

She watches as McKay's face goes blank, eyes narrowing, something she was expecting. It's a tough thing being the one people depend on to pull them out of a life and death situation, and it takes a lot out of someone. It takes a more than that when they have to be the one time and time again, knowing that the chance of not being good enough, fast enough, smart enough is catching up with each rescue, each save.

McKay doesn't say anything, and Sam smiles because she can see the suspicion written all over his face, can practically hear what he's thinking, all the scenarios and plots whizzing through his mind at dizzying speeds.

The waitress brings their drinks and McKay stops scowling at her long enough to accept his, and goes right back to trying to figure out if Sam's trying to pick his brains for nefarious purposes.

"So why'd you decide to stay on with the expedition, McKay? You could have come back after the first year and still have had more than plenty of challenging work waiting for you."

"Yes, well. It wouldn't be the same, now would it?" McKay finally says, carefully not looking at her.

"How so?"

McKay rolls his eyes. "If I have to explain it to you then clearly you haven't been paying attention. I mean...we have life-sucking space vampires and life-sucking bugs among other things. Here...it's mostly parasitic aliens with god complexes and...even more aliens with god complexes. Boring and unimaginative."

Sam nods, smiling despite herself. "It does get a little tedious after awhile, although every so often we do run into something different."

McKay just stares at her.

"What?"

"Please don't tell me you brought me here to...I don't know, discuss the woefully uninspired ways we might conceivably be killed." McKay sighs, slumping in his seat. "That's a little depressing at the moment. And disturbingly morbid."

"Actually no, you looked like you could use a drink." Sam says, gesturing at his beer. "And this place is as good as any."

McKay gives her a strangely unreadable look. "Right."

Sam doesn't say anything to that, just sips her beer and watches McKay from the corner of her eye. Contrary to whatever he might think, she isn't there to pick his brain or pull all the secrets of the Ancients he may have cracked in his time in Atlantis out of his head.

She's there because she knows there are some things you just can't talk about with your team, the people closest to you. Things that go a little too deep, that wound in the worst kind of ways, and trying to talk it out with people who are that close only makes it worse.

"Oh, wow." McKay says, face a little flushed as he looks up in sudden realization. "We're seriously our own version of a bad joke, aren't we."

Sam's eyebrows go up in surprise at that. "What?"

McKay snorts in annoyance and waves the hand not holding his beer between them. "Oh, come on, you don't see it? This is a classic setup for a painfully bad joke. God, I can hear Sheppard now with his horrendous sense of humor..." McKay looks up at her, deadly serious. "He can never know about this, do you understand? Never."

"Okay." Sam agrees, leaning away from McKay. "I'll be sure not to - "

"Oh, very funny. Humor the man with a sadly reduced alcohol tolerance." McKay complains, glaring at her. "I'm serious. If Sheppard ever catches wind of this we'll never hear the end of it."

"All right, McKay This can be our little secret."

Even though they signed out together and the gate guards saw them leave in her car, which means half the base will know all about it by the time they get back.

McKay scowls at her, muttering under his breath and casting wary looks her way as he drinks his beer.

Two beers in and Sam finds out that almost two years in Atlantis, minus the occasional obligatory ceremonial or celebratory drink, really has whittled McKay's alcohol tolerance down to almost nothing.

It also results in her being told 'in utmost confidence, I promise' about the more embarrassing details of the missions McKay's been involved in that never made it into the official reports. Sam knows better than to contemplate blackmail as she's been on more than one mission that ended in humiliation and threats of vengeance should the details ever be made public.

Three beers in and McKay lets it slip that Sheppard 'is strikingly pretty for a man, although I think it may have been the native equivalent of eyeliner and quite probably the traditional local dress for the ceremonial sacrifice'.

Sam...honestly has no idea what to do with that tidbit of information, so she files it away for safekeeping.

After the fourth beer McKay's smile fades completely when he tells her about all the ways their missions almost get one or all of them killed in horrible, horrible ways. He tells her all about the near misses and the not so near misses.

She hears more about McKay and blood and pain and all the fear he's experienced in Pegasus than she ever expected or wanted to know about, and the worst of it is she knows that what he's telling her is only the smallest part of it. She knows because she's been where he is, and she knows that you never really get it all out in the open, never really get to let go.

She doesn't say anything, just listens, because she knows she doesn't have the right, and McKay wouldn't thank her for trite words of comfort or platitudes anyway.

Sam pulls her phone out and dials a number she was told to call if McKay ever actually slowed down enough to be anywhere near sleep when he tells her he's 'going to take a little nap now, wake me if the world needs saving.'

Forty-five minutes later she looks up to see Sheppard standing next to their booth, smiling in fond exasperation at McKay who's slumped over the table and drooling a little.

He flashes her a charming smile and Sam tries not to imagine him with eyeliner and flowers woven in his hair as he slides into the booth next to McKay, nudging him in the side with his elbow, grinning at the irritated growl it earns him.

"Hey, McKay. Got a call you took Colonel Carter out on a date, so I thought I'd drop by and see how things were going."

Sam frowns at that, eyes narrowing when Sheppard shrugs apologetically and indicates it's all McKay's fault with a flick of his eyes.

McKay opens his eyes and glares at Sheppard, drawing himself up as much as possibly given his current inebriated state, so completely and utterly focused on Sheppard that she might as well not even be there.

"You." McKay says with all the dignity true drunkenness bestows. "Are an ass."

Sheppard's mouth twitches and he reaches out to steady McKay when he leans to far to one side. "Yeah, but at least I'm not drunk."

McKay snorts and sneaks a look over at her, which tells Sam that it's definitely way past time she left. Especially when Sheppard turns to look over at her in exactly the same way Schrödinger used to when faced with an uncertain variable.

"Make sure he gets back to Cheyenne by 0900, Colonel." She says, standing up to leave.

Sheppard smiles faintly and nods in acknowledgment of everything she doesn't say. "He'll be there bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

Sam rolls her eyes at that, grinning at the look McKay gives him. "At this point I think I'm willing to just settle for him being awake. Good night, McKay. Colonel."

They wave her off and she smiles when Sheppard shoves at McKay to keep him upright, moving just a little closer than necessary. Walking away, her smile widens when she hears Sheppard's voice behind her and finally understands why McKay was so adamant that Sheppard not know they were ever there.

"Hey, Rodney. Stop me if you've heard this one, okay? Two astrophysicists walk into a bar..."

Current Mood: embarrassed

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From:

mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com

Two astrophysicists walk into a bar...

*loves*

This was fun. I like how McKay unbends a bit around Sam, even if it does take booze to do it. Sam's point of view works really well here, especially the not knowing what to think at around beer three (plus the image of Sheppard in eyeliner is just delish.)

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