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Jan. 26th, 2008 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyThese're the McShep of the ficlets that I wrote in my prompt post. ;)
For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lavvyan: John, Rodney and a bear in a cave.
"Alright," Rodney grouses, letting out a pained huff as Madison bounces back onto the bed and him in equal measure. His back is knotting up painfully as he leans against the wall, he's far too warm all along one side where her weight rests back against him again, and he's certain he's getting paper cuts all over one hand. "One more story and then -?"
"Go to sleep and stop bugging you," Madison repeats faithfully, settling more comfortably into the curve of his arm.
"You're a better learner than your mother ever was," he tells her, flipping the book open with one hand. "Though god forbid the English major should have an effect on your academic aptitudes."
Madison's small hand slaps the book impatiently, her other hand entirely failing to disguise a yawn.
"Yes, yes," he sighs and begins to read, taking care to remark that the fact that it took two people to write this book really says a lot about the state of the world today.
"We're going on a bear hunt. We're going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We're not scared." His voice, admittedly, is a little more 'criticising the minions' than 'bedtime story', but Madison seems to find it amusing, if anything.
"Would you be scared?" Her voice is thick with sleep and he hasn't the heart to take her to task over the lisp he's sure she only adopts to be cute.
"Why on earth would I be scared? Look," he taps the page, "they have a stick. Because when you're hunting a vicious creature that can eat you, obviously the solution is to take a pointy stick and make a poem about it."
"You don't think Teyla could take a bear?"
Rodney almost knocks himself out on the wall when he lifts his head abruptly, startled. John's leaning (naturally) against the frame of Madison's door, hazel eyes difficult to read in the low light from the bedside lamp. His smile, though, is one of the less complicated ones, and Rodney takes a second to let his lips curl up to echo it before he looks back down at the book.
"I think Teyla," he says, carefully turning the page, "would be far too sensible to go after one. You'd have to rely on Ronon's firepower."
"And your legendary genius?"
There's a tiny protesting noise from Madison as his chest shakes with a suppressed snort of laughter under her head.
"You're impugning my sensibility, now? I'd be way too scared to go after a bear. You're with me on this, right, lady?"
His niece shakes her head, blonde hairs pulling out of her plaits and sticking to his shirt.
"Uncle John," she tells him matter-of-factly, rubbing at her eye, "says you're the bravest."
He lifts his head again, mouth hanging open a little. This time, John's smile is just about as difficult to read as his eyes, but Rodney thinks maybe he knows him well enough that he doesn't need the cues.
"Well Uncle John," he says, "isn't particularly known for his commitment to the truth."
"Uncle John resents that remark."
A slow drawl from the doorway, the kind that always makes Rodney's face heat up.
"Then I guess you'll just have to take me to task about it later."
"Count on it." John pushes himself off the doorway and walks across the hall to the guest bedroom, and Rodney doesn't give a damn whether Jeannie notices that tonight the couch won't have been slept on.
He goes back to reading with a smile on his face.
Forflyakate: John and Rodney bickering over... a crossword. Or a Suddoku puzzle. Or something.
"You do it in pen just to annoy me, don't you?"
John lifted one eyebrow.
"Yes, Rodney. My mission in life is to annoy you." He drew an unnecessarily slow 8 into one of the boxes. "Of course, now I've told you that I'm going to have to kill you..."
"You do that and I'll make a will leaving my sudoku book to Zelenka."
"Posthumously? 'cos I'm pretty sure I can outrun you."
"And already you've degenerated into threats of physical violence." Rodney took a seat opposite John, grabbing a pen from one of his plethora of pockets and drawing an upside down 7 in one of the empty boxes.
"Do that again and it'll be more than threats." John's boot nudged his foot meaningfully under the table, and Rodney snorted.
"You can't threaten effectively when you're in math nerd mode, Sheppard. Not even when you're a math nerd with a gun."
"Which is why I let you do the talking."
"Like you could stop me."
John snorted, and Rodney scowled. It faded a bit, though, when John's foot nudged his under the table again.
"'s why we make a good team." He smirked, scribbling out Rodney's lopsided 7 and drawing a 5 in its place. "Except at sudoku."
Forsealgair: McKay discovers that Teyla's stick-weapons originate in technology & badgers everyone to find that tech.
John's fighting Ronon more these days, because exercise or not, Keller's insisted that Teyla should hold off on the sparring. This doesn't stop her from circling the two of them as they fight, doesn't stop her wielding her stick with deadly accuracy.
"Ow dammit!" John crashes to his knees on the gym floor, backside stinging. "Teyla, what the hell?"
"Increased brute strength is no excuse for ignoring form," she says with a hint of amusement, twirling the stick, and seriously, pregnancy's made her mean. "And you should always keep watch for unexpected opponents."
"And if I was on an alien planet surrounded by hostiles I would." He wipes his forehead on his sweatband, takes a second before pushing himself to his feet because last time he tried that with the stick to assist she'd hooked it out from beneath him and nearly broken his nose. "Somehow I got the idea we were friends here."
"And as your friend must I not do whatever is in my power to assist you in protecting yourself?"
"Yeah, yeah," he gripes, getting painfully to his feet, "you excuse it to yourself however you want."
He looks over at Ronon.
"I think she's just enjoying the chance to beat my ass."
Ronon, wise man that he is, just shrugs and holds his sticks ready to begin again. Before they can, though, Rodney rushes through the door, looking flushed and excited and panting lightly and seriously, is the universe trying to have him distracted enough to get his ass kicked? Again?
"Teyla!" Rodney swoops in and before she can protest, plucks the stick from her hand. "You don't mind, right?" Before she can get a response out, he's gone, footsteps fading away down the corridor.
John blinks, looks at Teyla's empty hands.
"I didn't know we were allowed to do that. Why didn't I know we were allowed to do that?"
"Pay too much attention to the rules," Ronon grunts, and sweeps John's feet out from under him.
Fortropes: Sheppard, McKay, Post-Quarantine - Let's get that beer.
"So," Sheppard asks, his gaze caught down around Rodney's hands, "beer?"
There's silence for a second, long enough for him to look up and catch just the contrails of hurt as it makes way for annoyance (wounded) on Rodney's face.
"Et tu, Sheppard?"
Even in amongst the confusion, there's the vague curiosity as to how long Rodney's been waiting to use that line. John frowns, props himself up against the wall, prepares to gauge level of upfuckery by how many words he gets out before he's cut off.
"Wha- "
"I expected it from - from Lorne, maybe, he's never liked me, or some of the so-called-scientists in botany, but - " Rodney pushes past him, walks towards Johnny Cash like he's spoiling for a fight, and John rolls his weight from shoulder to back, making like he's still casual, making like he's in control. Rodney turns to face him as the door hisses shut. "But I wasn't actually expecting it of course because I thought you were kidding when you said you couldn't keep a secret. Ha ha, very funny, joke's on me."
"Rodney - "
"No no no no no making like we're friends now, Colonel Betrayer."
(Off balance as he is, John can't help thinking that that would make kind of a cool supervillain name.)
"Seriously, McKay - " and he pushes off the wall and walks forward a little way, hands spread out at waist height, traditionally non-threatening - "you're gonna have to clue me in on what you're talking about, here."
"Like you don't know," Rodney sneers, but his face is wide open the same way it always is and John can see that he's hoping John doesn't.
He stops a little way off (and the little is little, just out of body heat range, because Rodney never seems to question it and he takes what he can get), shrugs and shakes his head a little.
"But how can you - even Ronon's offered his commiserations."
Fuck. Fuck. John lets out a breath that he hasn't even noticed he's been holding. (Hours, now.)
"She said no?"
Apparently Rodney takes the slight unsteadiness in his voice as some kind of sign of honesty, because he backs away and lets his weight drop untidily onto the bed, hands going up to run through already disordered hair.
"It was more a mutual decision that I wouldn't ask."
"Mutual."
(Relief sounds like a question, because Rodney answers.)
"Neither of us is ready. And she shouldn't have to put up with my - " a vaguely waved hand that his subconscious apparently takes for beckoning because he stumbles a couple of steps forward, squeezes Rodney's shoulder in place of ever being able to say all the words that've been balled up in his chest for longer than he cares to admit.
"I'm sorry," he says instead, like it's code.
"Only because drowning sorrows holds currency for more of your beer."
(But Rodney's always been good at code breaking, and he understands enough that he's smiling.)
Foraesc: John/Rodney, celebratory sex after Rodney crushes his professors during his doctoral exams
Rodney makes to shift his hands from their position against the wall, and John leans forward a little, lets his weight shift forward a little, close enough to speak directly into his ear.
"Don't."
A change of the tension in his jaw suggests Rodney's biting his lip and he nods jerkily, untidy blond hair brushing against John's ear.
(He doesn't usually go for blonds but something - bright blue eyes, impatiently snapped fingers at the bartender, flood of words that mixed humor and rudeness and self-congratulation and barely-heard awe - something made him go against type. Hell, maybe it was just the round of drinks bought for everyone in the dimly-lit bar. Right now, on leave, in this carefully defined time and space, John's easy.)
Another shift, just the barest movement, and John stills his fingers.
"Don't move, Rodney."
And the quiet, stubborn 'doctor' just proves he's still thinking too hard, so John curls his fingers a little and the low, hitching, helpless moan in response has him pressing a smirk against the curve of Rodney's neck.
(He'd slid into the seat opposite, raised his drink a little in a toast.
"You win the lottery or something?"
"I don't see the point," and he wasn't even being halfway subtle about eyeing John up, made things easier, "of things you don't earn. Of course, not everyone can be the incredible genius I am."
And John'd laughed a little - even though he could tell the guy was only halfway joking - just to see his smile in return.)
Rodney's arching back into it now, pushing onto John's fingers and it's too fucking hot to tell him to stop - that and he's not sure he can trust his voice any more.
"Ready?" he eventually forces out, and Rodney's nodding frantically, soft litany of 'please, please, god John please' falling apparently involuntarily from his lips.
John's pretty sure that right now, right at this moment, Rodney's not thinking about anything but him.
("John," he'd eventually offered, after they'd covered the usual small talk and a digression into the ranking order of Doctors.
"Oh, yes." The guy'd blinked at him. "Rodney. I - Dr Rodney McKay." And then he'd repeated it, softly, to himself, and the blinding lopsided smile that'd followed had pretty much been what had swung it, for John.)
*
When he leaves later, crumpled civilian clothes still feeling alien, like a disguise, John pauses just before he opens the door.
"Congratulations, doc," he says, and Rodney barely lifts his head from the pillow.
"What? I - oh, that." He lets his head fall back, waves a hand vaguely. "Yes yes. Thanks."
The smugness in his smile, he figures, is pretty well deserved.
For
lavvyan: John, Rodney and a bear in a cave."Alright," Rodney grouses, letting out a pained huff as Madison bounces back onto the bed and him in equal measure. His back is knotting up painfully as he leans against the wall, he's far too warm all along one side where her weight rests back against him again, and he's certain he's getting paper cuts all over one hand. "One more story and then -?"
"Go to sleep and stop bugging you," Madison repeats faithfully, settling more comfortably into the curve of his arm.
"You're a better learner than your mother ever was," he tells her, flipping the book open with one hand. "Though god forbid the English major should have an effect on your academic aptitudes."
Madison's small hand slaps the book impatiently, her other hand entirely failing to disguise a yawn.
"Yes, yes," he sighs and begins to read, taking care to remark that the fact that it took two people to write this book really says a lot about the state of the world today.
"We're going on a bear hunt. We're going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We're not scared." His voice, admittedly, is a little more 'criticising the minions' than 'bedtime story', but Madison seems to find it amusing, if anything.
"Would you be scared?" Her voice is thick with sleep and he hasn't the heart to take her to task over the lisp he's sure she only adopts to be cute.
"Why on earth would I be scared? Look," he taps the page, "they have a stick. Because when you're hunting a vicious creature that can eat you, obviously the solution is to take a pointy stick and make a poem about it."
"You don't think Teyla could take a bear?"
Rodney almost knocks himself out on the wall when he lifts his head abruptly, startled. John's leaning (naturally) against the frame of Madison's door, hazel eyes difficult to read in the low light from the bedside lamp. His smile, though, is one of the less complicated ones, and Rodney takes a second to let his lips curl up to echo it before he looks back down at the book.
"I think Teyla," he says, carefully turning the page, "would be far too sensible to go after one. You'd have to rely on Ronon's firepower."
"And your legendary genius?"
There's a tiny protesting noise from Madison as his chest shakes with a suppressed snort of laughter under her head.
"You're impugning my sensibility, now? I'd be way too scared to go after a bear. You're with me on this, right, lady?"
His niece shakes her head, blonde hairs pulling out of her plaits and sticking to his shirt.
"Uncle John," she tells him matter-of-factly, rubbing at her eye, "says you're the bravest."
He lifts his head again, mouth hanging open a little. This time, John's smile is just about as difficult to read as his eyes, but Rodney thinks maybe he knows him well enough that he doesn't need the cues.
"Well Uncle John," he says, "isn't particularly known for his commitment to the truth."
"Uncle John resents that remark."
A slow drawl from the doorway, the kind that always makes Rodney's face heat up.
"Then I guess you'll just have to take me to task about it later."
"Count on it." John pushes himself off the doorway and walks across the hall to the guest bedroom, and Rodney doesn't give a damn whether Jeannie notices that tonight the couch won't have been slept on.
He goes back to reading with a smile on his face.
For
flyakate: John and Rodney bickering over... a crossword. Or a Suddoku puzzle. Or something."You do it in pen just to annoy me, don't you?"
John lifted one eyebrow.
"Yes, Rodney. My mission in life is to annoy you." He drew an unnecessarily slow 8 into one of the boxes. "Of course, now I've told you that I'm going to have to kill you..."
"You do that and I'll make a will leaving my sudoku book to Zelenka."
"Posthumously? 'cos I'm pretty sure I can outrun you."
"And already you've degenerated into threats of physical violence." Rodney took a seat opposite John, grabbing a pen from one of his plethora of pockets and drawing an upside down 7 in one of the empty boxes.
"Do that again and it'll be more than threats." John's boot nudged his foot meaningfully under the table, and Rodney snorted.
"You can't threaten effectively when you're in math nerd mode, Sheppard. Not even when you're a math nerd with a gun."
"Which is why I let you do the talking."
"Like you could stop me."
John snorted, and Rodney scowled. It faded a bit, though, when John's foot nudged his under the table again.
"'s why we make a good team." He smirked, scribbling out Rodney's lopsided 7 and drawing a 5 in its place. "Except at sudoku."
For
sealgair: McKay discovers that Teyla's stick-weapons originate in technology & badgers everyone to find that tech.John's fighting Ronon more these days, because exercise or not, Keller's insisted that Teyla should hold off on the sparring. This doesn't stop her from circling the two of them as they fight, doesn't stop her wielding her stick with deadly accuracy.
"Ow dammit!" John crashes to his knees on the gym floor, backside stinging. "Teyla, what the hell?"
"Increased brute strength is no excuse for ignoring form," she says with a hint of amusement, twirling the stick, and seriously, pregnancy's made her mean. "And you should always keep watch for unexpected opponents."
"And if I was on an alien planet surrounded by hostiles I would." He wipes his forehead on his sweatband, takes a second before pushing himself to his feet because last time he tried that with the stick to assist she'd hooked it out from beneath him and nearly broken his nose. "Somehow I got the idea we were friends here."
"And as your friend must I not do whatever is in my power to assist you in protecting yourself?"
"Yeah, yeah," he gripes, getting painfully to his feet, "you excuse it to yourself however you want."
He looks over at Ronon.
"I think she's just enjoying the chance to beat my ass."
Ronon, wise man that he is, just shrugs and holds his sticks ready to begin again. Before they can, though, Rodney rushes through the door, looking flushed and excited and panting lightly and seriously, is the universe trying to have him distracted enough to get his ass kicked? Again?
"Teyla!" Rodney swoops in and before she can protest, plucks the stick from her hand. "You don't mind, right?" Before she can get a response out, he's gone, footsteps fading away down the corridor.
John blinks, looks at Teyla's empty hands.
"I didn't know we were allowed to do that. Why didn't I know we were allowed to do that?"
"Pay too much attention to the rules," Ronon grunts, and sweeps John's feet out from under him.
For
tropes: Sheppard, McKay, Post-Quarantine - Let's get that beer."So," Sheppard asks, his gaze caught down around Rodney's hands, "beer?"
There's silence for a second, long enough for him to look up and catch just the contrails of hurt as it makes way for annoyance (wounded) on Rodney's face.
"Et tu, Sheppard?"
Even in amongst the confusion, there's the vague curiosity as to how long Rodney's been waiting to use that line. John frowns, props himself up against the wall, prepares to gauge level of upfuckery by how many words he gets out before he's cut off.
"Wha- "
"I expected it from - from Lorne, maybe, he's never liked me, or some of the so-called-scientists in botany, but - " Rodney pushes past him, walks towards Johnny Cash like he's spoiling for a fight, and John rolls his weight from shoulder to back, making like he's still casual, making like he's in control. Rodney turns to face him as the door hisses shut. "But I wasn't actually expecting it of course because I thought you were kidding when you said you couldn't keep a secret. Ha ha, very funny, joke's on me."
"Rodney - "
"No no no no no making like we're friends now, Colonel Betrayer."
(Off balance as he is, John can't help thinking that that would make kind of a cool supervillain name.)
"Seriously, McKay - " and he pushes off the wall and walks forward a little way, hands spread out at waist height, traditionally non-threatening - "you're gonna have to clue me in on what you're talking about, here."
"Like you don't know," Rodney sneers, but his face is wide open the same way it always is and John can see that he's hoping John doesn't.
He stops a little way off (and the little is little, just out of body heat range, because Rodney never seems to question it and he takes what he can get), shrugs and shakes his head a little.
"But how can you - even Ronon's offered his commiserations."
Fuck. Fuck. John lets out a breath that he hasn't even noticed he's been holding. (Hours, now.)
"She said no?"
Apparently Rodney takes the slight unsteadiness in his voice as some kind of sign of honesty, because he backs away and lets his weight drop untidily onto the bed, hands going up to run through already disordered hair.
"It was more a mutual decision that I wouldn't ask."
"Mutual."
(Relief sounds like a question, because Rodney answers.)
"Neither of us is ready. And she shouldn't have to put up with my - " a vaguely waved hand that his subconscious apparently takes for beckoning because he stumbles a couple of steps forward, squeezes Rodney's shoulder in place of ever being able to say all the words that've been balled up in his chest for longer than he cares to admit.
"I'm sorry," he says instead, like it's code.
"Only because drowning sorrows holds currency for more of your beer."
(But Rodney's always been good at code breaking, and he understands enough that he's smiling.)
For
aesc: John/Rodney, celebratory sex after Rodney crushes his professors during his doctoral examsRodney makes to shift his hands from their position against the wall, and John leans forward a little, lets his weight shift forward a little, close enough to speak directly into his ear.
"Don't."
A change of the tension in his jaw suggests Rodney's biting his lip and he nods jerkily, untidy blond hair brushing against John's ear.
(He doesn't usually go for blonds but something - bright blue eyes, impatiently snapped fingers at the bartender, flood of words that mixed humor and rudeness and self-congratulation and barely-heard awe - something made him go against type. Hell, maybe it was just the round of drinks bought for everyone in the dimly-lit bar. Right now, on leave, in this carefully defined time and space, John's easy.)
Another shift, just the barest movement, and John stills his fingers.
"Don't move, Rodney."
And the quiet, stubborn 'doctor' just proves he's still thinking too hard, so John curls his fingers a little and the low, hitching, helpless moan in response has him pressing a smirk against the curve of Rodney's neck.
(He'd slid into the seat opposite, raised his drink a little in a toast.
"You win the lottery or something?"
"I don't see the point," and he wasn't even being halfway subtle about eyeing John up, made things easier, "of things you don't earn. Of course, not everyone can be the incredible genius I am."
And John'd laughed a little - even though he could tell the guy was only halfway joking - just to see his smile in return.)
Rodney's arching back into it now, pushing onto John's fingers and it's too fucking hot to tell him to stop - that and he's not sure he can trust his voice any more.
"Ready?" he eventually forces out, and Rodney's nodding frantically, soft litany of 'please, please, god John please' falling apparently involuntarily from his lips.
John's pretty sure that right now, right at this moment, Rodney's not thinking about anything but him.
("John," he'd eventually offered, after they'd covered the usual small talk and a digression into the ranking order of Doctors.
"Oh, yes." The guy'd blinked at him. "Rodney. I - Dr Rodney McKay." And then he'd repeated it, softly, to himself, and the blinding lopsided smile that'd followed had pretty much been what had swung it, for John.)
*
When he leaves later, crumpled civilian clothes still feeling alien, like a disguise, John pauses just before he opens the door.
"Congratulations, doc," he says, and Rodney barely lifts his head from the pillow.
"What? I - oh, that." He lets his head fall back, waves a hand vaguely. "Yes yes. Thanks."
The smugness in his smile, he figures, is pretty well deserved.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-26 06:21 pm (UTC)I have to keep re-reading, to try to figure out which is my favorite:
a) cuteschmoop!
b) bickering!
c) Teylasticks!wheee!
d) hopefulangst!
e) hotsex!
It's a struggle, I tell ya.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 01:55 am (UTC)1)"Uncle John," she tells him matter-of-factly, rubbing at her eye, "says you're the bravest." ... because I can just see Rodney's reaction.
2) John snorted, and Rodney scowled. It faded a bit, though, when John's foot nudged his under the table again. ... because I like to imagine what he is nudging ::giggle::
3) "I didn't know we were allowed to do that. Why didn't I know we were allowed to do that?" ... becuase the petulant child in Sheppard is so cute.
4) He stops a little way off (and the little is little, just out of body heat range, because Rodney never seems to question it and he takes what he can get) ... I just want him to take that next step.
5) "Don't."
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 06:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 09:52 am (UTC)Thanks, dear.
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Date: 2008-01-27 09:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 09:54 am (UTC)Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-28 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-28 09:55 am (UTC)(2) Sheppard and Rodney bond moment! How cute.
(3) That Rodney so casually plucks the stick from Teyla breaks me.
(3) There are so many things not needed to be said. How sweet.
(4) Hot and humourous.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-28 10:10 am (UTC)(And the hot!sex-wow. Very very hot)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-30 06:47 pm (UTC)just so you know.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 03:54 pm (UTC)