TREASURE
Oh man, you guys, I just found the most AMAZING thing in my google drive: an old abandoned Stargate: Atlantis fic.
I know, you're just as delighted as I am! Don't worry, I will absolutely share it with you. Past me, I love you.
The google docs date stamp on this is 4/10/08.
The first thing Rodney does in his shitty Earth apartment is open his laptops on every available surface and start each one on a different task: security updates, torrenting huge hunks of expensive software, pirating music and movies and seasons of television, catching up on his podcast and journal subscriptions.
The second thing he does is take a dump without closing the bathroom door. Atlantis never lets him leave the door open.
The luxuries of his 900 square feet of standard issue temporary housing exhausted, Rodney heads out the door. In Atlantis you can at least call it "roaming the halls" and be assumed to be working on a problem or in search of someone or something, but here there's no disguising he's just going for a walk. There's not much in his immediate vicinity, but a few blocks over he finds a street with promising-looking storefronts: coffee, books, clothes, restaurants. He'll probably be sick of it all before it's time to go back to Atlantis but right now it's kind of exciting. He gets a large, decadent coffee drink and pages through the papers and magazines in the coffee shop. A bunch of starlets showed the camera their cooches; America hates terrorism; terrorists hate America's freedom; some movies came out. Rodney feels caught up now.
He's back on Earth for 10 days for some administrative bullshit he totally could have done from Atlantis, but the IOC wanted him in person. Something about the databurst versus realtime and the importance of maintaining face to face relations and being an emissary. Elizabeth Wier, you are gone but not forgotten. So here's Rodney McKay on Earth: more badass than the last time you saw him, more unable to tell you about his badassery due to its spectacularly classified status, an unwilling emissary from the Pegasus Galaxy. But hey, he can get a latte with extra whipped cream any time he wants here.
By day three the novelty's worn off. Rodney's back to a large house coffee and he's remembering why he left this planet in the first place. In the grocery store while he waits to buy his organic free range cage free eggs and chicken and poison free vegetables and chocolate mousse sold by weight, he scowls at the magazines. Some girl who looks 18 and dresses like a whore has been betrayed by some other of her friends. Jennifer Aniston has a new boyfriend! Oprah has all the answers to women's problems. Rodney considers buying a copy of O just to keep a bitchy tally of the times the word "fulfilled" appears, but then it's time to pay for the chicken that didn't suffer before it was killed and he's back in his stupid apartment watching Ghost Hunters on cable because he wants to save the good stuff for when he gets back home.
After putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and eating half the mousse, Rodney checks his email. Sandwiched in with the boring, soul-wrenching bureaucracy is a (no subject) from Sheppard. He opens it and stares at its single line, Carter sends her love, for five whole minutes. Rodney hits 'reply' and his fingers rest on the keyboard. Finally he opens a new tab and does a google image search. He sends Sheppard a picture of a sloth crawling on the jungle floor, no text. In the morning when he checks before leaving for his day full of stupid meetings there's a reply from Sheppard: Right back at you, buddy.
By day five he's not even leaving the apartment anymore. He's telecommuting, making sure to step out of webcam frame to bash his head on the wall at the stupidity of making him come back to Earth for this. A kid brings him Chinese food. SciFi runs a Ninja Warrior marathon.
By the end of day six he's in Jeannie's guest room, sorting out the power strip and all of his cables.
Rodney sends John a (no subject) of his own. Heard anything from your boyfriend Todd?
Nine hours later there's a reply, with an attachment. Um. MY boyfriend?
Rodney opens the attachment. It's a slideshow of security feed stills of himself and Todd, in animated discussion, leaning over laptops, writing on whiteboards, in Rodney's lab, set to The Pixies' "Here comes your man."
YOU'RE WELCOME.
I know, you're just as delighted as I am! Don't worry, I will absolutely share it with you. Past me, I love you.
The google docs date stamp on this is 4/10/08.
The first thing Rodney does in his shitty Earth apartment is open his laptops on every available surface and start each one on a different task: security updates, torrenting huge hunks of expensive software, pirating music and movies and seasons of television, catching up on his podcast and journal subscriptions.
The second thing he does is take a dump without closing the bathroom door. Atlantis never lets him leave the door open.
The luxuries of his 900 square feet of standard issue temporary housing exhausted, Rodney heads out the door. In Atlantis you can at least call it "roaming the halls" and be assumed to be working on a problem or in search of someone or something, but here there's no disguising he's just going for a walk. There's not much in his immediate vicinity, but a few blocks over he finds a street with promising-looking storefronts: coffee, books, clothes, restaurants. He'll probably be sick of it all before it's time to go back to Atlantis but right now it's kind of exciting. He gets a large, decadent coffee drink and pages through the papers and magazines in the coffee shop. A bunch of starlets showed the camera their cooches; America hates terrorism; terrorists hate America's freedom; some movies came out. Rodney feels caught up now.
He's back on Earth for 10 days for some administrative bullshit he totally could have done from Atlantis, but the IOC wanted him in person. Something about the databurst versus realtime and the importance of maintaining face to face relations and being an emissary. Elizabeth Wier, you are gone but not forgotten. So here's Rodney McKay on Earth: more badass than the last time you saw him, more unable to tell you about his badassery due to its spectacularly classified status, an unwilling emissary from the Pegasus Galaxy. But hey, he can get a latte with extra whipped cream any time he wants here.
By day three the novelty's worn off. Rodney's back to a large house coffee and he's remembering why he left this planet in the first place. In the grocery store while he waits to buy his organic free range cage free eggs and chicken and poison free vegetables and chocolate mousse sold by weight, he scowls at the magazines. Some girl who looks 18 and dresses like a whore has been betrayed by some other of her friends. Jennifer Aniston has a new boyfriend! Oprah has all the answers to women's problems. Rodney considers buying a copy of O just to keep a bitchy tally of the times the word "fulfilled" appears, but then it's time to pay for the chicken that didn't suffer before it was killed and he's back in his stupid apartment watching Ghost Hunters on cable because he wants to save the good stuff for when he gets back home.
After putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and eating half the mousse, Rodney checks his email. Sandwiched in with the boring, soul-wrenching bureaucracy is a (no subject) from Sheppard. He opens it and stares at its single line, Carter sends her love, for five whole minutes. Rodney hits 'reply' and his fingers rest on the keyboard. Finally he opens a new tab and does a google image search. He sends Sheppard a picture of a sloth crawling on the jungle floor, no text. In the morning when he checks before leaving for his day full of stupid meetings there's a reply from Sheppard: Right back at you, buddy.
By day five he's not even leaving the apartment anymore. He's telecommuting, making sure to step out of webcam frame to bash his head on the wall at the stupidity of making him come back to Earth for this. A kid brings him Chinese food. SciFi runs a Ninja Warrior marathon.
By the end of day six he's in Jeannie's guest room, sorting out the power strip and all of his cables.
Rodney sends John a (no subject) of his own. Heard anything from your boyfriend Todd?
Nine hours later there's a reply, with an attachment. Um. MY boyfriend?
Rodney opens the attachment. It's a slideshow of security feed stills of himself and Todd, in animated discussion, leaning over laptops, writing on whiteboards, in Rodney's lab, set to The Pixies' "Here comes your man."
YOU'RE WELCOME.