FIC: Jelly Side Up (SGA) Sheppard/McKay (R)
This story was inspired by a vacation I took with chicklet_girl, hwmitzy, musesfool, and seperis in the summer of 2005, where we spent some time mocking Magic Cock stories ("It slices, it dices, it heals emotional wounds in one swift thrust!"). I thought it would be fun to write my own version of a Magic Cock, and, well. Blame them, not me.
Title: Jelly Side Up
Summary: What had Sheppard been doing?
Author: Devil Doll
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Rating: R
Spoilers: None.
Website: Fan Fiction I Wrote Yay!
Podfic: Jelly Side Up [Podfic] by
kisahawklin
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and its characters do not belong to me.
Notes: Yes, this is the story formerly known as the "the John's Big Dick fic." Thanks to hwmitzy and musesfool for the beta duties.
Words: ~4,800
Originally Completed: September, 2005
Finally Posted: April 4, 2007
Jelly Side Up
Rodney: “Size doesn’t matter.”
John: “That’s a myth.”
--From "Hide and Seek"
If anyone had asked him about it, Rodney would have said he had absolutely no reason to suspect that Colonel Sheppard was hung like a draft horse.
But as he stood in the doorway of Sheppard’s quarters, there was no doubt in his mind that it was absolutely true, and there was the hard evidence to prove it. And that pun was completely intended.
He knew he really should turn around and leave, because Sheppard obviously hadn’t been expecting company, and he obviously hadn’t yet realized Rodney was standing there, and it was probably best to keep it that way. The obnoxiously loud music blaring from Sheppard's computer was a blessing, because so far it appeared to have completely masked Rodney's presence in his room. He would just turn around and go, and leave Sheppard to finish...whatever the hell it was he was doing. It was none of Rodney's business.
But...wow. Sheppard looked really, really good. Unbelievably good.
The late afternoon light fell on the bed--fell on Sheppard’s naked skin--and made everything glowy and golden and soft-core pornish, and Sheppard was basking in it without a stitch of clothing on. Lounging on his back, arms behind his head, chin on his chest, just…staring. Staring at his erection with that smirky little half-smile on his face, like maybe it had just said something amusing.
It was hard and it was big and he was just looking at it. Not moving, not even blinking, frozen like a still life in some bizarre x-rated painting: Contemplation of Erection at Sunset.
Rodney backed out as quietly as he could, but he never managed to stop looking, and as the door slid shut inches from his nose, he could see Sheppard still on the bed, still gazing. He turned and careened back toward his own quarters, in awe of just how generously endowed Sheppard was.
As he turned a corner, he brushed past a group of marines headed the other way. "See a ghost, Dr. McKay?" one of them called after him, laughing.
"More like a monster," Rodney muttered, and kept going.
It was inevitable that the more you wanted to forget something, the more you thought about it, and when Rodney thought about that afternoon---which he did, oh, about six or seven hundred times a day--he remembered it so clearly it was like looking at a picture. He’d always considered his incredibly reliable memory a blessing, but that was before he’d seen Sheppard naked and aroused and…
Naked and aroused and what? What the hell had he been doing?
In his more delusional moments, Rodney could make himself believe that was the real reason he couldn’t stop thinking about Sheppard and his huge johnson: he couldn’t figure out what Sheppard had been doing.
If you walked in on a guy jerking off, it was pretty obvious what was going on. If you walked in on a guy gazing fondly at his genitals, well, who knew what the hell that meant.
And also, it was totally, absolutely not his fault he’d seen what he’d seen, so there was no reason to feel guilty about it. Re-running it on constant replay in his brain, well, yes, that was a little guilt-making. But still! Not his fault!
All he had wanted to do was ask Sheppard a question, though he’d never been able to recall what that question was in all the time since, and it was Sheppard’s fault for playing his music so loud that he hadn’t heard Rodney knock. And it was Atlantis’s fault for opening the door for him when he’d raised his hand to knock a second time, because he most definitely hadn’t tried to open it. Goddamn Ancients and their constantly malfunctioning technology.
The sensor was probably broken, which was no big deal, because that was something Rodney could fix in about ninety seconds flat. A job not even worth gloating over.
Of course, it was clear Sheppard had a lot more to gloat over than Rodney did, and that was the other thing. Sheppard was probably insufferably proud of his enormous penis, and figured since it was big he really didn’t need to know how to do anything with it. He was probably terrible at oral, too. Awful in bed entirely. The kind of guy who laid back and expected you to do all the work and be grateful for the chance to have at him. Rodney just knew it.
And somehow, by the time Rodney was done contemplating all that, in his mind he and Sheppard had already hooked up, slept together several times, and broken up when Rodney indifferently decided the sex was terrible, and not worth the trouble of putting up with Sheppard’s revoltingly cheerful personality.
Well, it saved time at least.
Avoiding Sheppard-related thoughts would have been a lot easier for Rodney if Sheppard hadn't, right around that same exact time, suddenly developed an inexplicable and annoying interest in him.
He started sitting with him during meals, and infringing on Rodney's meatloaf time with a lot of discussion about things going on with the city, so Rodney started eating at random times, which only made Sheppard show up in Rodney's lab to talk to him. That was even worse, because then it was just the two of them, Sheppard perched on a stool, legs relaxed and open, Rodney desperately trying to look anywhere but at Sheppard’s groin.
Then Sheppard started nagging Rodney to work out with him, because he said it would make things easier for him offworld. Rodney tried to avoid it whenever possible, and was happy to let Sheppard think it was out of laziness, because if there was anything worse than being forced to exercise, it was spending forty-five excruciating minutes in the gym with a John Sheppard who was stripped down to an old, thin T-shirt and a clingy pair of workout pants.
And yes, Rodney did understand that it was necessary for the spotter to stand right over your head during the bench press, but that meant staring straight up at Sheppard's package while he was trying to lift heavy things, and that was just a bad combination all around.
But even when he "forgot" the workouts, their daily schedules kept throwing them together in meetings, on missions, during puddlejumper repairs. Everywhere he went, Sheppard was there, which he hadn't really noticed previously, but was certainly aware of now. It was one of those annoying givens in life, like how when you dropped your toast it always landed on the floor jelly side down. It seemed like he couldn't turn a corner anywhere in the city without running into Sheppard and his big swingin' dick.
And, okay, yes, Rodney was curious, and that was part of the reason Sheppard's presence had the power to distract him. There was no use denying it.
He’d never been with anyone who had a dick that big, and now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. What would it feel like in his hand? In his mouth? In his--
Oh, no way. No way.
He lived and breathed physics, for crying out loud, but he didn’t need any of his degrees to tell him that equation wouldn’t add up.
But what if it could?
And what had Sheppard been doing?
Rodney was staring at his computer screen, running through his twelfth daily replay of the The Penis Incident, as he thought of it, when Sheppard's voice was suddenly in his ear, and he knew it wasn't via the radio, because there was hot breath to go with it, sending a little zing right down Rodney's spine and making him jump: "Hey."
"Ah!" Rodney spun around on the stool, colliding with Sheppard in the process. Sheppard let out an "Oof!" and stumbled back, then righted himself and stood there rubbing his ribs, looking as startled as Rodney felt.
“Geez, McKay, what’s gotten into you?”
Rodney winced. Oh, nothing. Just your big, hard... He shook his head to clear his brain, which also doubled as a response to Sheppard’s question, so he went with it. “Nothing,” he said, amazed he didn't burst into hysterical laughter as Sheppard's hand drifted down over his stomach and brushed his belt buckle.
“You’re so jumpy lately--“
“What do you want?” he demanded, feeling a little better at how business-like he sounded. A return to normalcy at last. He reached for the last remaining cookie next to his coffee cup. He wasn't really hungry, but it gave him something else to focus on.
“You should see what we brought back from the mainland. Teyla has a bunch of vegetable things--they look like cucumbers, except they’re huge,” Sheppard said, holding his hands apart in front of him in example.
Later on, Rodney insisted the Heimlich maneuver had been a complete over-reaction on Sheppard's part, because it was only a coughing fit, for chrissake. It wasn’t like he’d actually been choking.
“Just the guy I was looking for,” Sheppard said, falling into step beside Rodney. “Quitting for the day?"
"Yes," Rodney said, pausing in front of the transporter.
“Cool. You wanna watch a movie?”
“A movie?" Crap. He'd already admitted he was done for the day, which meant he'd have to think up some other excuse to wiggle out of spending even more time with Long Schlong Silver. He wasn't sure his sanity--or his solar plexus--could take it.
“Yeah, a movie,” Sheppard said. “C’mon. A little relaxation is good for the brain.” He put his arm around Rodney, turning him and propelling him back down the hallway away from the transporter, taking him God knew where.
He didn’t even realize he was being steered toward Sheppard's quarters until the door slid open and there was that same yellow light and that same bed and oh hell, he was probably going to have a heart attack and die, twitching like a fish on the floor of Sheppard's room.
Sheppard was blissfully unaware of Rodney's impending death. He was too busy proudly pointing out all the work he’d done in anticipation of the movie, moving his desk to the foot of the bed and rigging a little entertainment system with a widescreen monitor and some speakers.
It wasn’t until Sheppard plopped down on the bed that Rodney realized that was where they were supposed to sit.
“Have a seat, Rodney,” he said. Then he leaned back, crossed his ankles, and put his arms behind his head, completely unaware that Rodney had once seen him in that exact same pose, except. Well. Differently.
“Augh,” Rodney said.
“Sit down. You’ll miss the FBI warning, and that might be the best part.”
As Rodney eased himself down on the bed, painfully aware that his self-control was about to be put through the mother of all endurance tests, it occurred to him that he didn’t even know what movie he’d agreed to watch.
It was a comedy.
At least, Rodney thought it was a comedy, because Sheppard kept laughing at what was happening on the screen.
Rodney had a bowl in his lap, full of some kind of chip he suspected was made from Teyla’s giant phallic cucumber things (“They’re huge!” the Sheppard in Rodney’s memory banks kept saying over and over again on constant replay), and he wasn’t going to give it up. He needed it for camouflage.
The bed was narrow. Too narrow for two not-attracted-to-each-other guys to sit on while they watched a movie. There was constant body contact, and from where Rodney was sitting, bolt upright and sweating against the headboard, he had a perfect view of Sheppard’s deceptively normal-looking crotch area.
He stared at the display on the DVD player, watching the seconds tick slowly by in what had to be the longest movie Hollywood had ever produced. Sheppard turned on his side and propped his head up on one hand, eyes still glued to the screen, and Rodney didn’t even try to not stare at the pleasant curve of his ass, the muscles shifting under his jeans.
Then Sheppard reached over and dug around in the bowl, and Rodney gritted his teeth and thought about killing him for how long he took to choose a few chips, and how much he made the bowl wiggle in the process.
Something funny happened on the screen and Sheppard laughed and Rodney did, too, because he had to either laugh or moan, and at least he had an excuse for laughing.
Sheppard reached for more chips, and more chips, and ever more chips. Rodney clung to the bowl and thought this was the most bizarre handjob ever.
It went on like that for several weeks. Movies. Computer games. Long, sweaty, grunting workouts. If Sheppard was trying to purposely drive Rodney insane, he couldn't have formulated a more cunning and effective plan. There was nowhere Rodney could go to get away from Sheppard and his massive wang.
And it was all for nothing, which Rodney told himself over and over again, hoping it would somehow sink in and give him some peace. Sheppard liked women--Rodney had seen him pursue (and nail, he assumed) several different ones over the years. And it wasn’t like he was trying to send Rodney secret signals that he wanted to use his giant cock on him--he was just like that with everyone: goofy and friendly, and slightly flirtatious, if you chose to take it that way, but in reality just Sheppard. None of it meant what Rodney wanted it to mean, and that made it even worse.
It all came to a head--God, the English language was just full of dick puns, wasn't it?--at the end of a really crummy day. There had a been a massive data loss on one of the servers in the lab, someone had broken a piece of Ancient tech, their latest attempt at locating a ZPM had turned up zilch, and Rodney had a headache that would not go away, no matter how many painkillers he took.
He'd been relieved to see Sheppard wasn't in the mess when he stopped by to grab some dinner. The strain of once again acting like he didn't know what Sheppard was carrying around in his pants was the last thing he needed.
It seemed like maybe the day was turning around when he had a sudden flash of inspiration while eating his meatloaf, but, after hurrying back to his lab and putting it into practice, it turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea. He was sullenly typing up his notes on it, so he'd remember not to try that again, when Sheppard showed up, freshly showered and slouchy as ever, with a purple welt under his right eye.
"Hey," he said, leaning back against the table, hips tipped just so. They were always tipped just so.
Rodney struggled to look at his face instead. "Someone's been spending time with Teyla," he observed, telling himself that welts were not sexy at all.
Sheppard grinned and fingered the mark on his face. "Yeah. You eat yet?"
Rodney turned back to his computer and kept typing. "Yes."
"Oh. Movie later?"
"I don't know," Rodney sighed, backspacing over a typo in his notes. He could usually talk and type at the same time, when his head didn't feel like it was being crushed in a vice.
"What are you working on?" Sheppard asked, leaning over and trying to peek at the screen. His arm brushed Rodney's in a way that probably wasn't meant to be provocative, but made Rodney want to throw him down and screw him senseless all the same. And Sheppard didn't know or care, Rodney reminded himself bitterly.
"Nothing," he said, wishing Sheppard would just go away. He was already annoyed enough.
"Nothing, huh?" Sheppard bumped Rodney with his elbow, purposely this time. "But you're too busy to stop?" He had that impish look on his face--he knew Rodney was aggravated and he was trying to coax him out of it, and for some reason that made Rodney furious.
"Yes," he snapped, and it felt good to have something to be angry about besides his own frustrated longing and the day's many failures. "Yes, I am too busy to stop. Don't you have anything better to do than bother me?"
It was a mistake. A huge, huge mistake, and Rodney knew it just from the way Sheppard's smile froze for a second before it got even bigger. He shrugged and straightened up, not nearly as slouchy now as he'd been on his way in. "I sure do. See ya later."
Thus began a crappy, annoying week in which Sheppard left him alone. It sucked so bad, and Rodney hated it, and almost apologized on three separate occasions, but each time reminded himself that getting some distance was a good thing. It was far less frustrating, and he didn't have to lift those stupid weights anymore.
And then they went on a mission to a planet where the indigenous people must have killed all their ugly babies at birth, because everyone was gorgeous, and they wore revealing clothes and were very touchy-feely, and one of the beautiful men took an immediate shine to Sheppard. Sitting too close, refilling his cup too often, practically hand feeding him, laughing at seemingly every single word he said.
And while Rodney was trying not to stare, and thinking, "Good luck with that, mister," Sheppard, who was lounging in a chair in a half-hidden corner and didn't realize he was being watched, leaned a little closer to his admirer, who whispered something in his ear. Sheppard laughed, too quietly for Rodney to actually hear, and then the man's mouth grazed his ear, and Sheppard shifted.
Rodney knew that shift. It was the shift you did when your dick started getting hard and you couldn't help it, your hips just moved, and your legs dropped open a little to make room, and then, because he was thinking about Sheppard doing it, Rodney shifted, too.
Rodney thought about all those times they'd been on Sheppard's bed, right next to each other, arms and legs bumping, when he could have done that. He could have leaned over and kissed Sheppard's ear and made him move his hips, and God, Rodney wanted to kill himself because he was so dumb and Sheppard was mad at him and they didn't hang out anymore, and all those opportunities were lost.
There was obviously only one thing to do: create another one.
Because Rodney wasn't one to waste time once he'd decided to do something, it wasn't long before he put his plan into action. As soon as he had an evening free and a reasonable surety that neither of them would be needed for anything until morning (yes, he was being optimistic), he headed for Sheppard's room to put the moves on him.
He took three turns past Sheppard's door, muttering to himself, wiping his suddenly sweaty hands on his pants and trying to decide if this was the stupidest thing he'd ever done. Finally, he knocked on the door before he could change his mind, then instantly changed his mind. Before he could flee, he heard Sheppard say, "Come in."
Rodney squared his shoulders and palmed the sensor.
The door didn't open.
"Oh, for fuck's sake." He touched it again, then again, and still nothing. Unfuckingbelievable. The damn thing had gotten him into this mess in the first place by opening when he didn't want it to, and now that he was finally going to do something about it, it wouldn't let him in at all.
He slapped it with his hand, then pounded on it, and finally the door slid slowly, grudgingly, open, and the urge to flee came back, full-force. This wasn't how he'd wanted to start off, aggravated and probably red-faced.
Sheppard, seemingly unaware of all the commotion, was sitting on his bed reading a book, Rodney noted happily, feeling like half his work was already done for him. He gave his damp palms one last swipe and made himself go in.
"Um, hi."
"Hi." Sheppard didn't look up from his book.
"Are you busy?"
Sheppard held the book up and tilted it back and forth, then went back to reading.
Rodney wasn't going to let the fact that Sheppard was being an obnoxious ass derail his plan, so he ignored it and plowed ahead. “Right. Well. I thought you might want to watch a movie.”
That got his attention. He gave Rodney a skeptical look. "You want to watch a movie," he said flatly. Not quite the enthused reaction Rodney had hoped for.
"Yes. Your choice. We could watch--" he took a breath and reminded himself he wanted to get laid, dammit," --that alien movie with the wrestler--"
"It's called They Live."
"Right. They Live. Or, or one of the Plant of the Apes movies."
Now Sheppard looked really suspicious. “You hate those movies.”
Rodney opened his mouth to deny it--getting laid--and then realized… “If you thought that, why did you make me watch them?” For weeks. Nearly every night for weeks.
"Why do you want to watch one now?" Why had Rodney never noticed Sheppard's annoying habit of answering questions with questions?
"We don't have to," Rodney said, feeling himself losing ground by the mile. "We could do something else."
"Like what?"
God, he was so annoying. "Play gin rummy?"
"You suck at gin rummy."
"Yahtzee?"
Sheppard frowned. "Do we even have Yahtzee?"
Rodney finally lost his patience. “I don't know!" he said. "I just want to hang out and do anything. I don’t care! Let's just…” he waved his hands around, frustrated, "you know. Hang out. Together, in your room."
Sheppard tilted his head and peered at him. “McKay," he said slowly, "are you hitting on me?”
“Yes!” And God, what a relief to finally get it out.
“You’re terrible at it."
“I know!”
Sheppard stood up, tossing his book on the bed, and it suddenly dawned on Rodney that he looked, well, a little angry. He walked to the far side of the room, spun around, stalked back, and came to a stop a few feet away, hands on his hips.
"What the hell is this about?"
Hadn't they already covered that? "Uh..."
"A few weeks ago you start giving me looks all the time, like you're interested, but when I give you an opening, lots of openings, you don't take any of them. Then when I give up, all of a sudden you're interested again. So exactly what the hell is going on here, McKay?"
"I was interested. I just didn't know you were." Off Sheppard's disbelieving look, he added, "I didn't realize that making me watch bad movies was your idea of romantic seduction."
"And this is yours?"
“I was trying to be subtle. Yes, yes, laugh away. But how was I supposed to know?"
“You think I bring Ronon back to my room and cuddle with him on a weekly basis?”
"You better not!"
"I don't!"
Sheppard crossed his arms over his chest and glowered, but Rodney was tired of all this back and forth, so he gave up on being smooth and cut to the chase: "Look, do you want to have sex or not?"
"Christ, yes," Sheppard said, apparently going from angry to horny in a heartbeat, which was a quality Rodney had always appreciated in a partner. They met somewhere in the middle of the room, kissing and trying to stick their hands in each other's clothes.
Sheppard's mouth was hot, and he used a lot of tongue. Rodney tried to keep up, but Sheppard was everywhere, digging his fingers into Rodney's shoulders, sucking on his lower lip, tugging on his jacket, until Rodney managed to catch one of Sheppard's wrists and use it to hold him still.
Sheppard dropped his head to Rodney's shoulder. "Why are we stopping?" he panted, still trying to worm his thigh between Rodney's, clinging to his belt loops.
"We're not, we're not," Rodney said, and because he always liked to test a hypothesis, he cupped the back of Sheppard's head and nuzzled his ear. Sheppard went gratifyingly limp, moaning against Rodney's neck as his hips made little hitching thrusts.
Rodney hummed happily and went for another kiss as Sheppard ground against him, still trying to touch everywhere at once.
They eventually made it to the bed, lurching across the room like drunks, where they finally separated, breathing heavily as they went to work on their clothes. Sheppard started tugging at his own boot laces as Rodney struggled out of his jacket, but the curve of Sheppard's neck was too tempting, and Rodney had to touch, rubbing his thumb along the tendon, murmuring, "God, I've been dying to see you naked again, you have no idea..."
"I know, I know. Me, too," Sheppard said, but then his head came up and he frowned at Rodney, boot dangling from his hand. "Again?"
Rodney wanted to slap himself. Why couldn't he keep his mouth shut? And why couldn't they just get to the sex? He fidgeted, then realized the more he stalled, the longer he'd have to wait for an orgasm. “Okay, fine: I saw your huge penis and I couldn't stop thinking about it and...well. Here we are.”
"Jesus," Sheppard said. He dropped the boot. "When was this?"
“A few weeks ago. The sensor on your door must be broken. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."
Rodney was expecting more anger, but instead Sheppard brightened, snapping his fingers and pointing at Rodney. "That's why you were acting weird."
"Yes," Rodney admitted.
"I knew something was up," Sheppard said, and went to work on the other boot. Since he didn't seem put off, Rodney quickly shucked the rest of his clothes, eager to get started before he blurted out something else. Sheppard wasn't moving as quickly with the undressing, so he knelt on the bed and tried to hurry him along.
"So you’re only interested in me because of my penis size?" Sheppard asked, voice muffled by his T-shirt. When his head finally popped free, Rodney tossed the shirt on the floor. "What about my handsome face and my irresistible charm?”
“Yes, yes, I like all that, too,” Rodney said. “Take off your pants.”
After a bit of fumbling (Sheppard) and swearing (Rodney), they were mostly naked and completely horizontal. Sheppard was really into it, grabbing Rodney's ass and making these sounds in the back of his throat, and he smelled amazing. It was going even better than Rodney had ever imagined, until he grabbed Sheppard's underwear and gave them a yank and looked down and said...
"Huh."
Sheppard lifted his head, looking pissed. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I--" Rodney stared at Sheppard's erection, which was very attractive and reasonably big, but not, well. Massive. "It's just...smaller than I remembered."
"Small--what? Okay, you know what? Forget it." Sheppard started to struggle beneath him, jabbing Rodney with his knees and glaring at him as he tried to pull his underwear back up.
"It's probably just not all the way hard yet," Rodney said hastily, trying to hold Sheppard down. Sheppard started sputtering. "Or maybe I just built it up in my imagination," didn't help either, and Sheppard was still trying to wiggle away. Desperate, Rodney said, "My hands are big! It just looks smaller next to my hands!" God, he was totally blowing his big chance, and why would the puns not stop?
"I hate you so much," Sheppard bit out, and Rodney said, "Sorry, sorry," and slid down and opened his mouth, and a few seconds later Sheppard said, "I forgive you," in a strangled voice.
“I was sure you’d be terrible in bed,” Rodney said, an hour or so later.
Sheppard lifted his arm, which Rodney had been using as a pillow, and let Rodney's head thump down on the bed. “You were pretty good, but your post-coital sweet nothings need work," he said huffily.
“No, no, that was a compliment.” Rodney tugged the pillow over so he could get his head on it.
“I could tell,” Sheppard said, tugging the pillow back toward him.
“No, really. I thought that, because...you know...” He waved a hand vaguely over Sheppard’s crotch.
“I have no idea what the means, but thank you for submitting yourself to the chore anyway, McKay. I’m touched.”
“I didn’t say you are terrible. I said I thought you might be.”
Sheppard sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fingers.
"Actually, I've been wanting to ask," Rodney said. "What the hell were you doing when I walked in on you?”
Sheppard shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably just listening to music.”
“That’s how you listen to music?”
Sheppard didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. He just shrugged again and said, “Sometimes.”
"You're a complete weirdo."
“Don't knock it 'til you try it. You wanna watch They Live?” Sheppard asked, reaching to pull the blanket up over them both.
Rodney took advantage of the distraction to move the pillow back toward him. “God, no," he said. "I hate that movie."
The End
Notes
- This is actually the first Stargate Atlantis story I wrote. At the time, I had just gotten into the fandom, and read only a handful of stories. Between the first draft and the second, I did a lot more fic reading, and I realized that many of the things I'd put in this story--things I thought were (my own) great ideas, like Rodney loving pudding, and John bringing Rodney food in his lab--were already in *loads* of McShep stories. So much for my supposed originality. Seriously, I hit pretty much *every one* of the John/Rodney tropes. If there is another writer out there more plugged into the fannish hivemind, I have no idea who it could be.
Now, a year and a half later, here it is, many of the McShep cliches removed. A few things had to stay (the movie watching, for instance), because they were essential to the plot, but overall I cut about a thousand words. I love my fannish tropes as much as the next fangirl--I just didn't want to write a story that was nothing but.
- They Live is a really cheesy 1988 sci fi movie starring Rowdy Roddy Piper as a guy who finds a pair of sunglasses that enable him to see that many of the "people" around him are actually aliens. This movie is also the source of the oft-quoted line, "I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum."
- The big dick reference I liked, but cut: Rodney referring to Sheppard as "Sheppardicus Giganticus."
Deleted Scene:
They weren’t thirty seconds out of the jumper when Rodney saw the statue.
“Holy crap!” he blurted. Everyone turned, weapons ready, as Rodney looked around wildly. “And they’ve got children walking around here right in full view of that thing!”
The statue was anatomically correct, and the sculptor had been more than a little generous in the pelvic area. The figure stood proudly in front of their stargate, giving every visitor to this planet a very enthusiastic welcome.
“It’s most likely a fertility god,” Teyla said. She sounded as unruffled as ever, but even her eyes looked a little wide. Well, they’d almost have to be to take in the whole thing.
“That’s one lucky god,” Ronon said.
“Stop gawking and greet the natives,” Rodney snapped, anxious to be away from the statue.
As they turned away, Rodney wondered if he was the only one who noticed Sheppard had been completely unimpressed.