we had a writers' strike of our own, I guess?
Obviously, between the flying city and switching planets and whatnot, they had all been having a pretty stressful time of it. But they were all worried about one huge, troubling problem--
"Have you noticed that this planet has an awful lot of...well, bugs?" Morin asked, his voice grave.
Watson nodded, his forehead creased with concern. "I have, Lieutenant. I certainly have."
"This is gonna be a problem," Morin muttered.
**
They all did what they could, obviously. A space cockroach in the mess resulted in twenty-three cries of "COLONEL SHEPPARD, COULD I TALK TO YOU FOR A MOMENT???" before he noticed the scurrying movement. When there was an infestation of space ants in one of the gyms, they kind of...set the whole room on fire. Space spiders crawling around in the armory resulted in Lorne's suggestion that Col. Sheppard might want to delegate some of his supervisory duties while he was so busy with working out command issues with Col. Carter. (All the space spiderwebs were cleaned out by the time Sheppard next poked his head in.)
The problem was-- they couldn't keep it up forever.
**
Of course, when it all went to hell, it happened as publicly as possible. Sheppard was leaning against one of the gateroom walls while Lorne and his team brought several crates of fresh vegetables through the gate, and he was laughing with McKay over some computer game when-- suddenly--
"FUCK FUCK FUCK OH MY FUCKING GOD GET IT OFF OF ME, FUCK FUCK FUCKITY--"
Lorne and Henderson both looked up in alarm as Sheppard twirled in a frantic circle, hands tearing at his collar. Flores had been standing guard, but he leapt into action, holding Sheppard still, grabbing at the--fuck-- space centipede wiggling around, feelers poking at Sheppard's neck.
"Oh god," Sheppard was panting, his eyes frantic. "Shit."
Flores squashed the thing under his boot, but Sheppard was still shaking, and suddenly the worst thing possible happened, something they had all been dreading--
"Sheppard, it's just a fucking bug. Get a grip," McKay scoffed.
Sheppard went white, and ran out of the room. McKay began to feel kind of uncomfortable, and wondered why every grunt in the room was glaring at him.
**
Whenever a new arrival to Atlantis questioned the NO BUGS, EVER portion of the unofficial Sheppard dossier, Lorne would grimly bring out a special PowerPoint presentation and herd the newbies into the conference room. The slideshow had close up pictures of the bug attached to Sheppard's neck, the bite mark after it had been removed. It had nightmarish images of the second bitemark, then Sheppard's body being slowly covered in chitin and oozing points. There was even (Lorne found this especially useful) Dr. Beckett's description of the changes that had occurred on Sheppard's more...delicate areas.
Nobody ever questioned Sheppard's right to one little phobia after seeing the presentation. Actually, most of their tac vests held small bottles of Raid.
**
Banks stumbled into the barracks lounge after a ten mile run, exhaustion seeping from every pore. "We gotta do something. He spent half the run talking about lesbian porn. Really. Loudly."
Henderson sighed. "Yeah. Yesterday he informed everyone in the mess that he loved violence and then ran out."
Banks took a long pull from his water bottle.
**
Howe bumped into Dr. McKay in the hallway, and the manila file folder in his hands just spilled all over the floor. "Gosh, sorry Doc! I'm just taking these entomology reports over to one of the labs as a favor to one of my buddies. I guess Colonel Sheppard had a really close call, huh?"
McKay frowned down at him. "Wait, what?"
"Yeah, that space centipede was full of poison? Or something? I mean, I don't know much about science, but anything that melts human blood cells while you die in agony is probably pretty nasty. Lucky thing Flores was there, huh?"
McKay froze. "Bugs? With poison? In the city?!"
Howe shrugged. "APPARENTLY!"
**
Flores and Banks were lingering over their coffee the next morning when McKay ran into the mess, dark shadows under his eyes and his hair in disarray. He collapsed into a chair across from Sheppard. "Okay, okay, look, it took fourteen hours, but I've finally programmed the sensors to start zapping all these bug colonies popping up all over the city. I know, I'm sorry, ecology and lifesystems blah blah blah, but we shouldn't all have to live in FEAR, right? No more centipedes. EVER."
Sheppard blinked. "You...you killed the bugs?"
Rodney shrugged. "I mean, the Wraith are kind of like giant bugs anyway-- I figure it's good practice."
Sheppard slowly started to grin.
**
Banks and Flores both burst into the barracks lounge together. "Hey guys-- McKay told Sheppard that he killed all the bugs, and Sheppard gave him his cake!"
Henderson grinned and jumped out of his chair, hands aloft. They all shared a tri-high-five. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!