Atlantis fic
5 People Who Aren’t Rodney (But Could Have Been)
Rating: PG
Category: Crossover (with Traders, Cube, A Dog’s Breakfast and Boa Vs. Python), a little RPF
Spoilers: a small one for Kindred part 1
Words: 1,756
Summary: Before David Hewlett was Rodney McKay, he played many characters who weren’t.
Notes: Many thanks to kimberlyfdr for the beta.
1.
He’s pretty sure they hired him because he didn’t have anyone left. He knows enough to know when to leave well enough alone, but he’s not smart; he’s no Frank Lloyd Wright. He focuses on one part of the city at a time and as long as they don’t send him through the gate, he’s happy with his job. He doesn’t bother with friends, but the price he pays for solitude is really very small when he thinks about his whole life.
John Sheppard saves him once. He’s being throttled by some crazy psycho from some alien planet and Sheppard launches himself down the stairs to the gate like a fucking superhero and lands with a force that crushes the barbarian’s skull and sends him to the infirmary with a concussion.
When he’s back on his feet, a little wobbly but all brain cells in place, Sheppard stops by his quarters. He doesn’t come in, but he leans his shoulder against the door and flips a coin.
“Heads or tails?” he asks. Sitting at the desk across the room he feels the pull of the whole moronic world and everyone in it. His head hurts.
“Tails,” he says. He knows enough to play along. Sheppard shrugs and rolls the coin through his fingers.
“Word of advice,” he says, “Find something to care about or go back to Earth.” He steps back into the corridor without waiting for a reply and the door closes in front of him.
He’s waiting for his spot on the Deadalus when Lorne walks through the gate without Teyla. He wonders what Sheppard sees when he thinks about his whole life and how much it costs to abandon a baby to the Wraith. Too much to walk away, he’s sure.
They reject his request to remain in Atlantis and he boards the Deadalus within a week. He’s reassigned to a project waiting for him on Earth. He sits in a cubicle and on Thursdays he has a conference call with the guy who makes the doors and the woman in charge of the lights where they swap progress reports and speculate about who it is they’re working for. He never does figure that out and, after the door guy disappears, he doesn’t look too hard. The job pays well and it’s safe, as long as he keeps his eyes on what’s in front of him.
2.
When he returns home after four months (one month out, two months for them to realize he was dropped on his head, one month back) he’s greeted by his sister with a frying pan to the face.
“I’m sorry,” she says without sounding sorry at all, “How was I supposed to know that you weren’t some violent thief? It’s not like I expected you back after you disappear for four months without any sort of notice beyond a letter that arrived two weeks after you’d left. And really,” she adds, “Snailmail? Isn’t it time you joined the 21st century?”
He ignores that last bit because it reminds him unpleasantly of a city that can read his mind.
“What,” he says instead, “You don’t hear from me for a while so you move into my house?”
“Well, you weren’t using it,” she says. She cracks an egg rather forcefully into her cookie batter and yeah, he can see her point there. She stirs for a moment in silence, then, “So where were you?”
It doesn’t even occur to him that he signed a confidentiality agreement four months ago. He tells her how his brother-in-law’s show is practically truth and how he’s been living on a floating city that could fly, if only they had the power and, did he mention, he can control it with his mind. Then he tells her that they didn’t have any spiders, but they did have evil space vampires that suck your life out through their hands, which is almost the same thing. Also? He thinks he might be going back in a couple months, if they’ll let him. He slips that last part in quietly so she won’t notice in case he decides to stay instead.
At this point, she’s giving him the same glass-eyed look from when he was ten and explaining how the tinfoil kept his brain safe.
“Freak,” she says and turns back to her baking.
3.
When Sheppard tells him about the Wraith, he thanks him for the warning and sets about getting to know their new enemy. Sheppard can’t understand how he’s so calm about becoming a potential food source, but he figures some of his snakes wanted to eat him too and he’s never begrudged them natural instinct. He sees no reason to start now.
He spends most of his time with the Wraith Sheppard named Steve, mostly in silence. On the days when Steve can’t contain his hunger, he has fascinating conversations about starvation and revenge. More than once, Steve invites him inside the cell so they can talk properly. He refuses. He’s always been able to tell when a snake’s about to strike.
He earns the reputation among the Atlanteans as being the guy who thinks like a Wraith and it doesn’t make him many friends. It would be enough to earn him the first ride home, but Sheppard knows he can think on his feet and Elizabeth thinks understanding the Wraith is as important as destroying them.
When they kill Steve, he’s furious that it was done through false hope and trickery. Sheppard tells him to shut up about it; the Wraith are evil.
“No more evil than humans,” he says and becomes a vegetarian.
4.
When John asks him to come to Atlantis, he sets up the equations in his head and the answer comes out as 43 so he says yes because the last time the answer was 43 was 1996 and he was sitting on a park bench talking to the pigeons.
He doesn’t like Atlantis much. It sits in the back of his mind, like constant bright light, constant demand, and when he tells the computer find the closest Wraith ship and predict its movements for the next six months, it goes for his gut instead and brings up the life signs detector calibrated for the whereabouts of one John Sheppard. It’s cheating and he doesn’t like living in a city that cheats.
He’s willing to stay, though, because there’s a Jack here too, even if his name is John, and the equations still come out 43, even after he modifies them to include the Wraith and the spaceships and the Stargate, though on the days when John isn’t in the city it comes out as 43.002 which means he takes his computer and chocolate and sits on the floor under Chuck’s console because outside the edges of the city there’s an entire galaxy dying.
He’s pretty sure he’ll wake up soon to white walls and his doctor saying if you don’t take your medication I can’t let you leave. He’s been crazy before. He knows what it feels like.
After the Wraith invade the city, John tries to give him a gun, saying he needs to know how to use it for his own safety. His eyes and ears fill with static and it feels like his chest is being ripped open and don’t they know that guns kill people? John takes one involuntary half step backwards and then in a blink he has him on the floor, calling a medical emergency into the infirmary, and he still can’t stop because doesn’t John know that there was a Jack once who’s dead now because a gun killed him?
He wakes up fuzzy, thinking about the pigeons in the park and wondering who’s feeding them now. He expects an IV drip drip dripping into the back of his hand, but there’s just Elizabeth and Doctor Heightmeyer and John. Elizabeth says she wants him to see Heightmeyer every week and Heightmeyer says she doesn’t think medication is the answer. John doesn’t say anything, but he leans against the bed and squeezes his ankle through the blankets and lets him know that they’re all a little odd sometimes, but he’s not going anywhere.
He likes that.
5.
He knows the difference between fact and fiction; it’s the first thing his grade one teacher taught him after he told her he wanted to be a Timelord when he grew up. He sets his life up so he can spend it pretending instead and landing the role in Atlantis is one more chance at wish fulfillment. He figures acting is the closest anyone can come to the real thing.
It’s his second day on set when he realizes the truth. They’ve been filming the great departure in the SGC and he’s only now beginning to realize just how fast he’ll have to talk. The Atlantis set is half finished and full of sawdust, but he stops by on the way home to get used to the space, run his hands along the railings and generally stand around and gape.
He runs into the officer in dress blues in the control room. The woman doesn’t notice him come in; she’s focused on her computer and the props around her, making notes and comparing.
“Nothing that violates national security, I hope,” he says, “Though, this is the best cover story. Anyone with actual information has been watching too much TV.”
The officer looks up, wary. Her eyes flick from him to her computer and he gets the sudden feeling that she’s judging whether or not to include him in her notes. He catches a glimpse of her computer screen, registers schematics that are similar enough to be mistaken for the control room props. He looks at the closest console and it’s like the set designer took the schematics and only built the visible exterior. Something clicks over in his mind.
“Oh my god,” he says, “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Her eyes narrow and she stands to leave, tucking her computer under her arm.
“I haven’t said anything,” she says, “And I suggest you do the same.”
The next time he’s in the control room it isn’t quite the same. The consoles look slightly more like pianos than computers and everything has veered towards the stylized cartoon. Not enough to say there’s any real difference, just enough for anyone watching to disregard them as fake.
He keeps his mouth shut. He knows an order when he hears one.
Rating: PG
Category: Crossover (with Traders, Cube, A Dog’s Breakfast and Boa Vs. Python), a little RPF
Spoilers: a small one for Kindred part 1
Words: 1,756
Summary: Before David Hewlett was Rodney McKay, he played many characters who weren’t.
Notes: Many thanks to kimberlyfdr for the beta.
1.
He’s pretty sure they hired him because he didn’t have anyone left. He knows enough to know when to leave well enough alone, but he’s not smart; he’s no Frank Lloyd Wright. He focuses on one part of the city at a time and as long as they don’t send him through the gate, he’s happy with his job. He doesn’t bother with friends, but the price he pays for solitude is really very small when he thinks about his whole life.
John Sheppard saves him once. He’s being throttled by some crazy psycho from some alien planet and Sheppard launches himself down the stairs to the gate like a fucking superhero and lands with a force that crushes the barbarian’s skull and sends him to the infirmary with a concussion.
When he’s back on his feet, a little wobbly but all brain cells in place, Sheppard stops by his quarters. He doesn’t come in, but he leans his shoulder against the door and flips a coin.
“Heads or tails?” he asks. Sitting at the desk across the room he feels the pull of the whole moronic world and everyone in it. His head hurts.
“Tails,” he says. He knows enough to play along. Sheppard shrugs and rolls the coin through his fingers.
“Word of advice,” he says, “Find something to care about or go back to Earth.” He steps back into the corridor without waiting for a reply and the door closes in front of him.
He’s waiting for his spot on the Deadalus when Lorne walks through the gate without Teyla. He wonders what Sheppard sees when he thinks about his whole life and how much it costs to abandon a baby to the Wraith. Too much to walk away, he’s sure.
They reject his request to remain in Atlantis and he boards the Deadalus within a week. He’s reassigned to a project waiting for him on Earth. He sits in a cubicle and on Thursdays he has a conference call with the guy who makes the doors and the woman in charge of the lights where they swap progress reports and speculate about who it is they’re working for. He never does figure that out and, after the door guy disappears, he doesn’t look too hard. The job pays well and it’s safe, as long as he keeps his eyes on what’s in front of him.
2.
When he returns home after four months (one month out, two months for them to realize he was dropped on his head, one month back) he’s greeted by his sister with a frying pan to the face.
“I’m sorry,” she says without sounding sorry at all, “How was I supposed to know that you weren’t some violent thief? It’s not like I expected you back after you disappear for four months without any sort of notice beyond a letter that arrived two weeks after you’d left. And really,” she adds, “Snailmail? Isn’t it time you joined the 21st century?”
He ignores that last bit because it reminds him unpleasantly of a city that can read his mind.
“What,” he says instead, “You don’t hear from me for a while so you move into my house?”
“Well, you weren’t using it,” she says. She cracks an egg rather forcefully into her cookie batter and yeah, he can see her point there. She stirs for a moment in silence, then, “So where were you?”
It doesn’t even occur to him that he signed a confidentiality agreement four months ago. He tells her how his brother-in-law’s show is practically truth and how he’s been living on a floating city that could fly, if only they had the power and, did he mention, he can control it with his mind. Then he tells her that they didn’t have any spiders, but they did have evil space vampires that suck your life out through their hands, which is almost the same thing. Also? He thinks he might be going back in a couple months, if they’ll let him. He slips that last part in quietly so she won’t notice in case he decides to stay instead.
At this point, she’s giving him the same glass-eyed look from when he was ten and explaining how the tinfoil kept his brain safe.
“Freak,” she says and turns back to her baking.
3.
When Sheppard tells him about the Wraith, he thanks him for the warning and sets about getting to know their new enemy. Sheppard can’t understand how he’s so calm about becoming a potential food source, but he figures some of his snakes wanted to eat him too and he’s never begrudged them natural instinct. He sees no reason to start now.
He spends most of his time with the Wraith Sheppard named Steve, mostly in silence. On the days when Steve can’t contain his hunger, he has fascinating conversations about starvation and revenge. More than once, Steve invites him inside the cell so they can talk properly. He refuses. He’s always been able to tell when a snake’s about to strike.
He earns the reputation among the Atlanteans as being the guy who thinks like a Wraith and it doesn’t make him many friends. It would be enough to earn him the first ride home, but Sheppard knows he can think on his feet and Elizabeth thinks understanding the Wraith is as important as destroying them.
When they kill Steve, he’s furious that it was done through false hope and trickery. Sheppard tells him to shut up about it; the Wraith are evil.
“No more evil than humans,” he says and becomes a vegetarian.
4.
When John asks him to come to Atlantis, he sets up the equations in his head and the answer comes out as 43 so he says yes because the last time the answer was 43 was 1996 and he was sitting on a park bench talking to the pigeons.
He doesn’t like Atlantis much. It sits in the back of his mind, like constant bright light, constant demand, and when he tells the computer find the closest Wraith ship and predict its movements for the next six months, it goes for his gut instead and brings up the life signs detector calibrated for the whereabouts of one John Sheppard. It’s cheating and he doesn’t like living in a city that cheats.
He’s willing to stay, though, because there’s a Jack here too, even if his name is John, and the equations still come out 43, even after he modifies them to include the Wraith and the spaceships and the Stargate, though on the days when John isn’t in the city it comes out as 43.002 which means he takes his computer and chocolate and sits on the floor under Chuck’s console because outside the edges of the city there’s an entire galaxy dying.
He’s pretty sure he’ll wake up soon to white walls and his doctor saying if you don’t take your medication I can’t let you leave. He’s been crazy before. He knows what it feels like.
After the Wraith invade the city, John tries to give him a gun, saying he needs to know how to use it for his own safety. His eyes and ears fill with static and it feels like his chest is being ripped open and don’t they know that guns kill people? John takes one involuntary half step backwards and then in a blink he has him on the floor, calling a medical emergency into the infirmary, and he still can’t stop because doesn’t John know that there was a Jack once who’s dead now because a gun killed him?
He wakes up fuzzy, thinking about the pigeons in the park and wondering who’s feeding them now. He expects an IV drip drip dripping into the back of his hand, but there’s just Elizabeth and Doctor Heightmeyer and John. Elizabeth says she wants him to see Heightmeyer every week and Heightmeyer says she doesn’t think medication is the answer. John doesn’t say anything, but he leans against the bed and squeezes his ankle through the blankets and lets him know that they’re all a little odd sometimes, but he’s not going anywhere.
He likes that.
5.
He knows the difference between fact and fiction; it’s the first thing his grade one teacher taught him after he told her he wanted to be a Timelord when he grew up. He sets his life up so he can spend it pretending instead and landing the role in Atlantis is one more chance at wish fulfillment. He figures acting is the closest anyone can come to the real thing.
It’s his second day on set when he realizes the truth. They’ve been filming the great departure in the SGC and he’s only now beginning to realize just how fast he’ll have to talk. The Atlantis set is half finished and full of sawdust, but he stops by on the way home to get used to the space, run his hands along the railings and generally stand around and gape.
He runs into the officer in dress blues in the control room. The woman doesn’t notice him come in; she’s focused on her computer and the props around her, making notes and comparing.
“Nothing that violates national security, I hope,” he says, “Though, this is the best cover story. Anyone with actual information has been watching too much TV.”
The officer looks up, wary. Her eyes flick from him to her computer and he gets the sudden feeling that she’s judging whether or not to include him in her notes. He catches a glimpse of her computer screen, registers schematics that are similar enough to be mistaken for the control room props. He looks at the closest console and it’s like the set designer took the schematics and only built the visible exterior. Something clicks over in his mind.
“Oh my god,” he says, “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Her eyes narrow and she stands to leave, tucking her computer under her arm.
“I haven’t said anything,” she says, “And I suggest you do the same.”
The next time he’s in the control room it isn’t quite the same. The consoles look slightly more like pianos than computers and everything has veered towards the stylized cartoon. Not enough to say there’s any real difference, just enough for anyone watching to disregard them as fake.
He keeps his mouth shut. He knows an order when he hears one.