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sga_flashficCharacters: John, Rodney, Ronon, Carson, Aiden (and a whole bunch more)
Genre: Gen, crack, AU, humor (a little serious in parts)
Wordcount: Much longer than I intended. Hence the two parts (sorry) that LJ has forced upon me!
Warnings: There's cover art and an additional image link you might want to click. Don't forget to move on to part two.
There's also another linked fic that I shall shortly post "Atlantis: Boy Band Extraordinaire"
A/N: Huge thanks to graceandfire and suicidallemoneater (the Grammar Queen) for their beta-ing, and for tryin to stomp out my British-isms.
Any quirky punctuation is my fault. I blame the idea on anyone who wrote a fic that might have inspired me. This was started months ago; the only reason I've finished it was because of this challenge.
The Boys From Atlantis
In the beginning, there was John. Contestant number 720 from the San Francisco auditions blew away the already jaded judges with his hot-as-hell looks (the ex-90's pop star on the panel had nearly fainted when he smiled at her) and his cooler-than-ice attitude. Dressed head to toe in the tightest of tight black, with his stylistically mussed hair (destined to launch its very own product line one day) he had them virtually salivating over him before he even opened his mouth to sing. When he did, even the scathing British judge (with a tongue as sharp as his bank account was full) had the decency to sit up, take notice and tell him, very seriously, that he was exactly what the competition was all about. Of course, there was the inevitable flip side of criticism for choosing a Johnny Cash song to sing, of all things, but the decision to put him into the next round had been unanimous and one of the fastest in the history of the show, in all its international syndications and variations.
The Internet discussion boards had been flooded with speculation about the charming yet mysterious boy-in-black. Even the rock-chicks, who had deigned to watch the program as some kind of self-inflicted punishment, admitted that they had liked what their heavily kohled eyes had seen. The teenyboppers led their own discussion about John, wondering whether his eyes were brown or green, and if his pointy ears meant that his father was an elf.
Ronon had been next. He also auditioned at the SF Cow Palace, having made the five-hour flight from Kona, Hawaii for the occasion. The third member of the panel (the brother of an international pop superstar who had himself once been part of the hottest group on the planet) nearly fell off his seat when Ronon walked into the room, the chins of all the judges tipping ever upwards until they could finally see his chiseled face. The Brit had been unimpressed by his singing, but Miss 90's jumped up, rounded the desk, and begged him to show her two of the moves in his self-choreographed accompanying dance. Of course, she also took the opportunity to take a closer look at his well-sculpted body (especially his ass as it flexed gracefully beneath chocolate brown leather pants) which had done Ronon's chances of going through no harm whatsoever. There was some debate before the Brit sighed and capitulated, commenting that they were putting together a pop group and that it would need strong dancers, even if Ronon's singing wasn't great. And if the camera missed the quick wink Miss 90's had given Ronon as he celebrated his place in the next round with unrestrained joy, then Ronon wasn't going to do the dirty and tell anyone.
A minor scuffle broke out on the discussion boards when the reggae brigade insisted that Ronon was one of them, posting many screen caps of his dreadlocks as evidence. Everyone else insisted that it was merely a Lenny Kravitz style thing and tried to bend the topic back to appreciating Ronon's moves, while the reggae brigade offered to knit him large floppy caps in various lurid shades of wool.
Carson went through in Denver. There had been some surprise expressed when he introduced himself in his beautiful Scottish burr, but as the rules merely stipulated that applicants be eligible to work in the US (as he had been for four years) they shrugged and let him continue. He sang well, and Miss 90's seemed ready to melt into her seat as he batted his eyelashes around his sparkly blue eyes, rolled his R's and looked cuter than a week-old kitten. It nearly came to blows when Superstar-Brother accused the Brit of unwarranted positive discrimination (although he used different words) when the other man staunchly supported Carson's audition. The Brit insisted that the nationality on the lad’s passport had nothing to do with his obvious talent (also using other words) and security was two insults away from intervening when Carson summoned all his courage, interrupted them and somehow managed to deferentially diffuse the situation. The beaming smile he aimed at the camera when informed that two votes meant he would be joining them in LA for round two could have powered the eastern seaboard for a week.
To the utter disgust of the teenage rock-chicks, the posting demographics on the discussion boards were skewed rather strongly toward housewives wanting to pinch Carson's cheeks, take him home and dote on him. The rock-chicks took action against the onslaught of warm fuzziness by filling their own posts with little puking emoticons. A bevy of hairdressers proclaimed him to be 'adorable' and 'a total sweetheart', veritably purring over his accent, and all heartily agreeing that the scary faux hawk had to go.
It was only natural that Rodney was involved front and center in the Chicago controversy. There was a Steinway in the hall where the nervous contestants were waiting, and with a glare at the nineteen-year-old waitress from Kalamazoo who was stabbing at it with one finger while practicing her scales, he appropriated the instrument and proceeded to fill the hall with beautiful echoing melodies. It was sheer coincidence that the judges had paused for a bathroom break and could clearly hear him from the corridor outside the audition room. Rodney wasn’t to know that the judges had peeked through the little round portholes in the doors that led to the auditionees’ waiting hall to satiate their curiosity as to who the talent was. When Rodney finally appeared before them, they all praised his amazing piano playing, his fantastic singing voice, and his inspirational song-writing skills as he sang his own song, although the Brit was not so complimentary about Rodney’s look. Rodney, of course, gave as good as he got, denigrating the Brit’s own appearance, and possibly insulting five generations of his family (although the editors couldn’t tell for sure because he did it in French, and in what was apparently Russian). 13.25 minutes, another song (his own again), and four hissy fits (from various people) later, Rodney was through, with the proviso that he would learn to style his hair, wear pants that fit, stop cursing in foreign languages and burn the ‘Not only am I perfect, I’m also Canadian’ t-shirt, as soon as was humanly possible. He also left with the new name of ‘Roddie’. In his after audition interview he managed an unconvincing smile before complaining that he should be auditioning for Carnegie Hall, because he was an incomparable genius. The editors cut the rest of his two-hour monologue.
War broke out on the discussion boards and the moderators were unable to enforce a detente until it got so ugly that the network honchos made the call to shut the boards down. Some fans yelled (in full caps) ‘NOT FAIR HE GOT THRU COZ OF PLAYING PIANO - WHO ELSE HAD THE CHANCE?’ while others argued that his obvious singing and song-writing genius was more than enough to get him through. The teenyboppers complained that he looked like he was sucking on a lemon, not knowing it could have killed him if he did. Music teachers from Aurora to Zuni City were effusive in their praise, before sinking into various levels of depression concerning the comparative lack of talent in their own music students. Various people, who got their mental image of Canadians from watching Due South, rapidly revised their stereotype about Canadians being polite, although many still wondered where he’d left his wolf.
Aiden had virtually bounced through the doors of the Gillette Stadium audition room in Boston, wearing an orange shirt and a smile brighter than Elvis’ Las Vegas jumpsuits. The Brit groaned and reached for his sunglasses, but had removed them again by the time Aiden finished the verse and chorus of one of Superstar-Brother’s band’s greatest hits, accurately copying the choreography from a routine that had originally been performed nearly two decades before Aiden had been born. Showing equal flair for singing and dancing, a restless but attractive energy, and All-American clean-cut looks, it was a foregone conclusion that the seventeen-year-old New Yorker would also be going to LA. The celebration scenes outside the audition rooms featuring Aiden, his cousin, and about a dozen friends who had all made the trek to support him was one of the loudest and longest ever aired on a talent show. Then Aiden trumped all the other contestants’ emotional moments with a moving cell-phone call to his grandmother in Georgia that had all the female viewers (and some of the men) wiping their eyes.
The discussion boards were inundated with teenybopper posts proclaiming that ‘adin is liek teh orsum best!!!!!! i luv him sooo much!!!!! he has 2 win OMG!!!!! ajhaksjdh!!!! hes so cute dont u think!!!!!’ with various degrees of accuracy in typing, spelling and grammar. The rock-chicks gave up after two minutes of squee bombardment, and left to find a chat room where they could ramble on depressingly about Nirvana. Elderly grandmothers all over the US would have been on the discussion boards expressing their deep affection for lovable teenagers who were devoted to their grandmothers; only most didn’t have computers, and even if they did, wouldn’t have known a discussion board from a cheese board.
~ o 0 () 0 o ~
In LA the hundreds of contestants were swiftly whittled down to fifty, and the show took off in earnest. The contestants sang, danced, wrote, and played, the country voted, and gradually fifty became twenty - half guys, half girls. They moved into two huge apartments and with America watching, that’s when the fun really began.
The girls’ apartment was scene to much bitchiness and cat fighting.
The boys’ apartment was much, much worse, thanks to the presence of one R. McKay. It soon became apparent that the ten boys were naturally polarized into two bands of five, not because of the preset lines of what TPTB wanted in a boy band, (the sexy one, the songwriter, the cute one, the dancer, the young one) although strangely they conformed to those too. Instead, they split down the lines of who could handle Rodney and who couldn’t. John simply snarked back and threatened him with homemade lemonade. Carson rolled his eyes and adopted a sighing ‘Yes Rodney’ as a new catchphrase (the guys didn’t dare call him ‘Roddie’). Ronon crossed his arms over his chest and glared at him until Rodney backed down and went to hide behind John. Aiden just laughed at him.
Jack, Daniel, Teal’c, and Cameron were suitably relieved that they wouldn’t be spending time with Rodney outside the apartment. Eventually even Jonas (who had a kind of grudging respect for him) ended up thanking his lucky stars for the distance after an ugly incident involving allegations of notebook theft.
Ten weeks, 9 syndications in other countries, 2 million blog entries, an uncountable number of water cooler conversations, and tens of millions of votes later, America and the world had two new pop bands - one boy-band, one girl-band, who would go head-to-head for the number one spot in the charts.
Despite the rumors, the boys had some input into their band name. Pegasus Records gave them the choice between SG-1 (which apparently meant ‘Special Guys - 1’) and Atlantis. After John and Carson stopped rolling on the floor laughing at the first suggestion, and Rodney stopped tearing a strip off Elizabeth (the record exec) for proposing such a ludicrous name, they agreed that the second suggestion was a great name for a band. Rodney had visions of them rising from the waves of obscurity to reach the pinnacle of civilization; Carson was reminded of that Greek book that his mother had read to him. John and Ronon thought it was cool, and Aiden nearly burst with excitement before John pointed out that it was Atlantis, not Atlanta, and therefore had nothing to do with where his grandmother lived.
For the next two days they were holed up with Elizabeth and the record label before they were unleashed on the public. There was a full day of what to say (paying special attention to Ronon) and what not to say in interviews (paying special attention to Rodney). They barely had enough time to breathe as they were caught up in a schedule of six radio spots and four TV appearances per day. America couldn’t get enough of the gorgeous and talented five-some.
Atlantis’ first single shot instantly to number one on pre-sales alone, with the girls (Sam, Laura, Katie, Chaya and Teer) limping in behind at number three. When they were told, it took a full ten minutes for Aiden to stop bouncing on the furniture, half-an-hour before a repairman came to fix the hole Ronon had accidentally punched in the ceiling, and approximately thirty-eight minutes for John and Carson to get rip-roaringly drunk and start singing bawdy songs (to which Carson knew all the lyrics, and John pretended he did). Rodney smiled and slapped everyone on the back but disappeared after six minutes, which was not coincidentally a full thirty seconds after the cameras had left. If anyone noticed Elizabeth giving him surreptitious pokes between the shoulder blades at quarter-minute intervals, nobody commented.
Three weeks later their first album was released, featuring two cover versions, five original R. McKay songs (he had worked by night to get them recorded on time, and bullied by day to get them on the album) and five (out of an original ten) songs that had been written especially for the contest winners. The record shot to number one, and this time Rodney let his hair down and celebrated in style: two bottles of Sleeman’s, a large bag of Cheetos, a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate (the real British stuff) and an extra-large travel mug of Tim Hortons coffee (double double of course) that he had been saving for such an occasion. He also gob smacked the others when an hour and a half into the impromptu party he whirled Teyla (their new image consultant) into his arms and kissed her to within a breath of her life. Rather than slapping him resoundingly on the cheek, she instead slumped down onto the sofa with a dazed but happy expression on her face, and refused to her dying day to answer any questions about the incident. Rodney commented that he had been very very happy when Teyla had encouraged him to wear his preferred sloganed t-shirts (and proceeded to add ‘Sarcasm is just one of the services I offer’, ‘I don’t look busy because I did everything right the first time’ and ‘Everyone is entitled to MY opinion’ to his collection) and that he had kissed her after consuming the beers and before drinking the coffee. The others assumed that there was nothing going on between them as McKay was about as discreet as a double-decker bus with squeaky brakes, and all else he would say was “now that’s what a real kiss is all about.”
Their first tour was scheduled a few brief weeks after the release of the album. This time was spent in a kind of frenzy of interviews, TV appearances, and rehearsals. The song rehearsals went well, even if Rodney was never really satisfied with the end result, insulted each of his fellow band members to the point of them storming out at least once and was frequently heard to be decrying the need to do so many cover songs, when he had plenty of original material for them to use.
The dance rehearsals didn’t go nearly as well.
When Ronon had been informed during the course of the series that a professional choreographer was to be brought in to coach the four groups he had felt resentful. He had been dancing since the age of three and had been a professional backup dancer for two years, with four commissions as a choreographer for both stage productions and pop videos. He also taught under-privileged kids in his spare time and was already a street celebrity in the small town of Sateda. However, after two minutes of their first rehearsal he was leaning against the wall and grinning at Grodin in a feral manner as he attempted to whip the other guys into shape, as both the auditions and subsequent rounds had focused mainly on singing rather than dancing ability. A whole room full of raw kids was preferable to that.
Aiden was excellent, although he had the tendency to expend all his energy at the beginning of the rehearsal and get over-tired toward the end. It wasn’t uncommon to go back to him after Grodin had taken some of the others aside for extra coaching and find him curled up fast asleep in a corner of the dance studio.
John had great potential, picking up the moves quickly and with his own unique style, but his natural laziness meant he had to be goaded into repeating things until they were perfect. It was soon discovered that bribing him with free tickets to fairs and amusement parks and reminding him that if he worked hard he could become rich and famous and afford his own Lamborghini (and possibly his own helicopter) one day made him apply himself to the matter at hand.
Carson was convinced he had two left feet despite an adequate performance in the dance round and sounded like a stuck record, repeating ‘I’m a singer not a ballet dancer’ with such frequency that Ronon eventually grabbed the gaffer tape that was used to mark their starting positions and stuck some over his mouth. This of course didn’t help much in the learning of the routines, but felt extremely satisfying - at least until the Scot burst into tears. That night, after the cameras had disappeared and most of a fifth of whiskey had been consumed, Ronon lured Carson into the garden and proceeded to show him that he could dance. While the alcohol didn’t help his coordination, it did wonders in breaking down his British reserve, which it seemed had been the only thing holding him back. He also proved that he could walk on his hands - a skill that Ronon promptly decided to make an integral part of at least one future dance routine.
Rodney was the worst battle of all. He thought dancing (as he thought of all forms of exercise except the very pleasurable horizontal type) was a pointless waste of perfectly good energy that could better be used to power the brain. He’d actually managed to get through the single required dance round by being violently sick, and not participating. The judges had given him that week’s ‘wild card’, which let people who had performed badly (or not at all) that week, but who had great potential in other areas through to the next round. Even when in the final twenty, Rodney refused to join in the group rehearsals (pointing out that most of the time he would be seated on a piano stool) until Ronon pinned him against the wall, and John threatened him with an open can of Sprite. Even so, he was never much good, and Ronon found himself thanking the stars above that the plan was to virtually chain him to the piano for most of their performances.
A few weeks after that they started out on their first tour, which was a joint affair with the winning girl band. The two rejected groups supported them. The rejected boys had decided that SG-1 was a cool name for their band, at least inasmuch as it was better than Farscape, the other option they’d been given. The boys from Atlantis tried not to snigger about it in their presence, but it was an almost impossible task, and if they failed from time to time, it was completely understandable.
Three months and 60 concerts later, the boys were understandably exhausted and took a month off to rest. Their second single (a McKay original released during the tour) having gone straight to number one, while the girls’ floundered at number six. However, there were connections between the boys and girls. Rumors abounded that John had conducted brief affairs with both Chaya and Teer. Rodney endlessly (and hopelessly) pursued Sam, but ended up in a drunken clinch with Katie one night. Carson began a rather more serious affair with Laura, and even when the tour ended, their relationship continued. It even survived the fall out of Atlantis’ third single topping the charts. The girls didn’t even reach the top ten and disbanded six months later.
A year after they’d gotten together, Atlantis went back into the studio to record their second album. Two tracks were covers, three were from outside writers, six were ‘R. McKay’ and to everyone’s surprise the remaining three were credited as ‘McKay/Sheppard’, with John’s name also appearing in the list of musicians under ‘acoustic/rhythm guitar’. Rodney offset his uncharacteristic sharing of glory (and royalties) by taunting John at every opportunity, claiming that he (Rodney) was Lennon to John’s McCartney, and stating that nobody thought ‘The Frog Song’ was a good career move. John spent way too much time wondering who would be Rodney’s Yoko Ono and which of the others would end up narrating an animated children’s show about steam engines.
The boys were continually overwhelmed by how famous they’d become. Their hotels were surrounded by screaming fans, their houses, and even their family’s houses were featured on celebrity location websites and frequently had people camped outside. Their minders (Bates, Stackhouse, Markham, Leonard and Boraso) were a permanent fixture when they were anywhere that might even remotely classed as public.
They gained themselves a tour manager - one Steven Caldwell - a genius live sound engineer - Radek Zelenka - and a tour bus driver called Lorne, who they bonded with so closely that they even dragged him on the stretches of their tour when they wouldn’t be driving. They also gained themselves a shadow, a TV camera that followed them wherever they went as they were under contract to have x number of hours of candid footage shot during their first two years as a band. Predictably, Rodney hated it, Aiden loved it and John was surprisingly camera shy, but they all learned to ignore it and forget it was even there. As a result, the TV studio execs had nightmares over the content that was captured annotating huge swathes of transcripts for what could and couldn’t be aired.
ON TO PART 2
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 03:13 pm (UTC)"after an ugly incident involving allegations of notebook theft."
OMFG, ILOVEYOU!!! *giggles madly*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 03:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-18 08:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-18 08:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-18 10:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-19 06:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 02:25 pm (UTC)This made me laugh out loud and got me some strange looks from co-workers. I vote for Carson narrating Thomas! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 03:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 04:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-08 09:23 pm (UTC)And I still can't stop laughing
Thank you