Fic - SGA - Ghostwriter [Sweet Charity]
Title: Ghostwriter
Rating: PG-13, I guess?
Spoilers: Haha, none. AU, baby!
Characters/Ships: McKay/Sheppard.
Recipient/Prompt: For Sweet Charity, bitter_crimson requested: "Rodney/John AU. Rodney buys a new house and finds out it's haunted. John, obviously, is the ghost (kinda like Casper!). At first Rodney's freaked out but then they become friends and THEN, of course, Rodney falls for John. Only John's still a ghost." Posted with permission.
Summary: Exactly what the prompt says. :-D
When John began haunting his dreams, Rodney knew he had a problem.
Hadn't they agreed that all hauntings should be confined to daylight hours? Well, okay, evenings had become acceptable, too, and even he could use the occasional break in the post-midnight working hours.
But there was no excuse for John interrupting the sacred space of sleep.
Especially not dressed like that.
And especially - especially - not the kind of haunting where John clearly had no idea such a thing had ever happened the next day, when Rodney interrogated his transparent companion over breakfast.
This was so not part of the plan.
*
Rodney lived his life in the theme of death but was proudly unaffected by the whole thing, at least psychologically. His parents were gone before he could know them, and the grandmother who raised him with a distant and arthritic hand had never taken much interest in his pursuits. "Should've been a girl," he'd often caught her muttering as they passed in the hall of her condominium. When she finally released her iron grip on the living world, Rodney had been grateful - not for her passing, since he hadn't seen her since college graduation, but for the sizeable amount of money left to him, her only living kin. It gave him the chance to quit the shadow of IT drudgery and fulfill his dreams at last.
All Rodney had ever wanted to do was write. Or play piano. Or maybe build rockets. But he'd turned out to be all skill and no sentiment on the second, and all interest but no discipline on the third, so with writing as his only remaining life-long dream, he bought, after surprisingly easy negotiations, a stately old lighthouse on the northwest coast and moved in with a cat and a computer.
He'd not unpacked one box before meeting the house's existing occupant.
"Hey, welcome to the neighborhood!"
Rodney whipped around. "Excuse me, that was a locked door, or do you hippies have no sense of - I can see right through you."
The lanky spirit shrugged. "I've got no secrets to hide." When Rodney didn't answer, he continued. "I'm John. Sheppard, but who needs a census, right?" He waited, and raised his eyebrows. "And your name is?"
"Dah...dah...you..."
"We covered me. I think I have a right to know who you are, seeing as you're moving in with me."
Rodney sputtered. "I'm moving in with you?! Did you miss the part where I handed a very large check over to a very nervous woman, and - what am I saying, I don't have to argue with a figment of my imagination."
"I find that a bit offensive."
"Oh, do you? Well, my apologies, whatever you called yourself, but you? Don't exist. You are merely the product of a creative mind that has been shackled for too long and is now just starting to express itself."
John rolled his eyes. "Right. Figures. How long do you think the creative mind will take to settle down?"
"I don't know, a day or so. I can feel the juices beginning to flow now." Rodney rubbed his hands together in eager anticipation of the prose that was soon to flow forth.
"Got it. I'll check back then." And he disappeared.
*
The problem with ghosts was that they were very hard to avoid. John had an uncanny knack for materializing in whatever room Rodney currently occupied. "Ectoplasmic affinity," he'd called it, or something like that. Unfortunately, Rodney had no idea how to turn off these mystical magnetic powers, and he couldn't ask John, because then he'd want to know why, and then he'd make that little pouty face that Rodney just couldn't deal with right now, he just couldn't.
"Can't you just, oh, haunt the beach or something?"
"Too bright out. Why are you trying to get rid of me?"
"I'm not - "
"Are too."
"Oh, very mature."
*
Rodney had spent years imagining his first day as a professional writer. He would wake up at leisure, enjoy coffee and a donut on the porch, and then settle down in front of a humming computer and let the creativity flow.
"So, whatcha writing?"
Rodney jumped up. "Jesus Christ!"
John settled cross-legged on the desk. "Do I make the 'not him' joke, or has that lost its charm?"
Rodney pointed an accusing finger. "I told you you didn't exist!"
"Yeah, well, surprise. Are you going to answer my question?"
"What question?" Rodney asked, sinking back into his chair.
"What you were writing. Course, I'd appreciate a name, too, if you get the chance."
"Rodney McKay. Uh, that's my name. And I'm writing a novel."
"Ooo, I like novels. What's it about?"
Rodney shook his head slowly. "This is absurd. I'm cracking up. The old woman is taking me down with her."
John cocked his head to the side. "You're a weird guy, you know that?"
"It's been mentioned," he said faintly. "I don't think you'd say that if you were a product of my own mind. And if you're not a figment, then you're..." John waved an arm through Rodney's computer screen, "...you're actually what you look like you are."
"Glad to see you're coming around to the idea. It was getting kinda boring waiting for your creative juices to settle down."
"The process cannot be rushed!" Rodney snapped.
"Sheesh, all right."
"How did you..."
"Surfing accident. Just down the cliff there. My buddies and I were camped out in this lighthouse the night before, so I guess that's why my ghostly being ended up here again." He waved a vague hand around. "Explains how the place came so cheap, huh?"
"Explains the Bermuda shorts."
"Hey, these are cool!"
Rodney snorted. "Yeah, like twenty years ago."
*
Once he'd breached the airlock, Rob doffed his protective helmet and shook out his thick head of manly auburn hair. The alien was in here, somewhere, and as Galaxy Command's number one scientist and weapons expert, he was the only man who could track it down. He flipped open his triangulator and followed its indicated path through the dark corridors, which smelled strangely chemical. He reached a room, and in that room, was a figure that could only be his target.
"Freeze!" he shouted, having already pressed the small button that turned the triangulator into a laser pistol. "Turn around - nice and slow, buddy."
The translation implant rendered the alien's response as a deep-voiced, "Blast! You've caught me, O'Flynn!" As the alien turned at last and Rod finally got to lay his eyes upon his quarry, he saw that the alien was, in fact, remarkably like a human! It was tall, with a pointed face and dark hair that stuck up in all directions; if he didn't know better, he'd say it had been designed that way. The alien smirked -
"No, no, NO!" Rodney smashed his hands on the keyboard. The cat meowed and dashed out of the room.
"Ass-jih-klippera? That's not a word."
Rodney jumped at the voice over his shoulder and threw his arms over the screen. "Have I not told you to never read over my shoulder?"
John scrunched up his face. "I'm not sure how to answer that to say that you have."
"Then why, why, why - "
"Because you're still ignoring me!"
"I am trying to work, and you are dead to me and everyone else!"
John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. Look, Rodney, I think I know what's going on."
"Nothing is going on! Nothing with me, nothing with - you - and definitely nothing with my book, if this conversation continues."
"Hey, it's okay, really. You're in love with me. It's cool."
"What?!" Rodney shrieked. "How did - why would - what gave you - "
"A few things, but mostly because last week, you told me the alien was going to be an hourglass blonde who would fall madly in love with 'Rod O'Flynn.'"
There was that.
*
Two weeks after starting his new life and new occupation, and there was a lot more of the former than the latter. Rodney had resigned himself to the ghost's existence and continued presence - after all, he had been there first - and figured that if he'd been able to work on his own ideas while surrounded by other code monkeys, surely the company of one other...being...would be a non-issue.
Of course, it would have helped if he wasn't so darn distracting. John had a way of making him think he was being productive, when in reality, fewer words were coming from his fingers than from his mouth.
"So this novel. What kind is it?" he asked over after-dinner coffees. Rodney drank his; John just liked to be in its presence. The cat purred contentedly on Rodney's lap.
"Science fiction. Supernova: The Adventures of Commander Rod O'Flynn."
"Really? Huh."
"Yes, I wanted to be a scientist, as a kid, until stupid Joey Feldman beat me in the Grade 6 science fair. You'd think a model of a nuclear weapon would beat out yet another plant growth study," Rodney grumbled. He eyed John suspiciously. "Why, what did you expect it to be?"
"Horror. Or mystery, maybe."
"Never been a fan of those. Too boring after you figure out the ending. And the market's all cheap, pulpy crap, anyway. What would make you think that?"
John shrugged. "You know..." He waved a hand around in a vague circle. "The lighthouse. The lifestyle. Uh, me."
"You were not part of the bargain."
"Call me a signing bonus."
Rodney tried, but he couldn't help matching the ghost's smile.
*
After John's little declaration, Rodney had a hard time finding words with which to respond. Some writer he was. He stammered and blanched, and eventually, John sighed.
"I love you, too, you know."
"You love me?" Because repetition was as good as any child could do.
John quirked a smile. "Kinda have a thing for the creative types. I know you noticed me hanging around you a lot."
"Yes, because of the ectoplasmic affinity."
"No such thing. Made it up."
"Oh." Rodney was surprised to find that John had drifted, or he had walked, and he was staring at his pale face from very close by. Now inches apart, he looked surprisingly solid, which didn't make sense at all given how a (theoretically) dissociated mass should appear. "Um, well, I'm flattered."
He could almost feel a puff of air from John's soft laugh. "You're welcome."
"Er, not to break the moment, but what do we do now?"
John feigned shock. "Rodney McKay, asking someone else what to do? That's gotta be a first."
"I'm full of surprises."
"Well, in that case..." He leaned his head in and brought his lips up to Rodney's ear. "I look forward to discovering them."
Some time later, after Rodney had shared some surprising things and learned a few new ones, he found his words again. "You know that line was terrible, right?"
Rating: PG-13, I guess?
Spoilers: Haha, none. AU, baby!
Characters/Ships: McKay/Sheppard.
Recipient/Prompt: For Sweet Charity, bitter_crimson requested: "Rodney/John AU. Rodney buys a new house and finds out it's haunted. John, obviously, is the ghost (kinda like Casper!). At first Rodney's freaked out but then they become friends and THEN, of course, Rodney falls for John. Only John's still a ghost." Posted with permission.
Summary: Exactly what the prompt says. :-D
When John began haunting his dreams, Rodney knew he had a problem.
Hadn't they agreed that all hauntings should be confined to daylight hours? Well, okay, evenings had become acceptable, too, and even he could use the occasional break in the post-midnight working hours.
But there was no excuse for John interrupting the sacred space of sleep.
Especially not dressed like that.
And especially - especially - not the kind of haunting where John clearly had no idea such a thing had ever happened the next day, when Rodney interrogated his transparent companion over breakfast.
This was so not part of the plan.
*
Rodney lived his life in the theme of death but was proudly unaffected by the whole thing, at least psychologically. His parents were gone before he could know them, and the grandmother who raised him with a distant and arthritic hand had never taken much interest in his pursuits. "Should've been a girl," he'd often caught her muttering as they passed in the hall of her condominium. When she finally released her iron grip on the living world, Rodney had been grateful - not for her passing, since he hadn't seen her since college graduation, but for the sizeable amount of money left to him, her only living kin. It gave him the chance to quit the shadow of IT drudgery and fulfill his dreams at last.
All Rodney had ever wanted to do was write. Or play piano. Or maybe build rockets. But he'd turned out to be all skill and no sentiment on the second, and all interest but no discipline on the third, so with writing as his only remaining life-long dream, he bought, after surprisingly easy negotiations, a stately old lighthouse on the northwest coast and moved in with a cat and a computer.
He'd not unpacked one box before meeting the house's existing occupant.
"Hey, welcome to the neighborhood!"
Rodney whipped around. "Excuse me, that was a locked door, or do you hippies have no sense of - I can see right through you."
The lanky spirit shrugged. "I've got no secrets to hide." When Rodney didn't answer, he continued. "I'm John. Sheppard, but who needs a census, right?" He waited, and raised his eyebrows. "And your name is?"
"Dah...dah...you..."
"We covered me. I think I have a right to know who you are, seeing as you're moving in with me."
Rodney sputtered. "I'm moving in with you?! Did you miss the part where I handed a very large check over to a very nervous woman, and - what am I saying, I don't have to argue with a figment of my imagination."
"I find that a bit offensive."
"Oh, do you? Well, my apologies, whatever you called yourself, but you? Don't exist. You are merely the product of a creative mind that has been shackled for too long and is now just starting to express itself."
John rolled his eyes. "Right. Figures. How long do you think the creative mind will take to settle down?"
"I don't know, a day or so. I can feel the juices beginning to flow now." Rodney rubbed his hands together in eager anticipation of the prose that was soon to flow forth.
"Got it. I'll check back then." And he disappeared.
*
The problem with ghosts was that they were very hard to avoid. John had an uncanny knack for materializing in whatever room Rodney currently occupied. "Ectoplasmic affinity," he'd called it, or something like that. Unfortunately, Rodney had no idea how to turn off these mystical magnetic powers, and he couldn't ask John, because then he'd want to know why, and then he'd make that little pouty face that Rodney just couldn't deal with right now, he just couldn't.
"Can't you just, oh, haunt the beach or something?"
"Too bright out. Why are you trying to get rid of me?"
"I'm not - "
"Are too."
"Oh, very mature."
*
Rodney had spent years imagining his first day as a professional writer. He would wake up at leisure, enjoy coffee and a donut on the porch, and then settle down in front of a humming computer and let the creativity flow.
"So, whatcha writing?"
Rodney jumped up. "Jesus Christ!"
John settled cross-legged on the desk. "Do I make the 'not him' joke, or has that lost its charm?"
Rodney pointed an accusing finger. "I told you you didn't exist!"
"Yeah, well, surprise. Are you going to answer my question?"
"What question?" Rodney asked, sinking back into his chair.
"What you were writing. Course, I'd appreciate a name, too, if you get the chance."
"Rodney McKay. Uh, that's my name. And I'm writing a novel."
"Ooo, I like novels. What's it about?"
Rodney shook his head slowly. "This is absurd. I'm cracking up. The old woman is taking me down with her."
John cocked his head to the side. "You're a weird guy, you know that?"
"It's been mentioned," he said faintly. "I don't think you'd say that if you were a product of my own mind. And if you're not a figment, then you're..." John waved an arm through Rodney's computer screen, "...you're actually what you look like you are."
"Glad to see you're coming around to the idea. It was getting kinda boring waiting for your creative juices to settle down."
"The process cannot be rushed!" Rodney snapped.
"Sheesh, all right."
"How did you..."
"Surfing accident. Just down the cliff there. My buddies and I were camped out in this lighthouse the night before, so I guess that's why my ghostly being ended up here again." He waved a vague hand around. "Explains how the place came so cheap, huh?"
"Explains the Bermuda shorts."
"Hey, these are cool!"
Rodney snorted. "Yeah, like twenty years ago."
*
Once he'd breached the airlock, Rob doffed his protective helmet and shook out his thick head of manly auburn hair. The alien was in here, somewhere, and as Galaxy Command's number one scientist and weapons expert, he was the only man who could track it down. He flipped open his triangulator and followed its indicated path through the dark corridors, which smelled strangely chemical. He reached a room, and in that room, was a figure that could only be his target.
"Freeze!" he shouted, having already pressed the small button that turned the triangulator into a laser pistol. "Turn around - nice and slow, buddy."
The translation implant rendered the alien's response as a deep-voiced, "Blast! You've caught me, O'Flynn!" As the alien turned at last and Rod finally got to lay his eyes upon his quarry, he saw that the alien was, in fact, remarkably like a human! It was tall, with a pointed face and dark hair that stuck up in all directions; if he didn't know better, he'd say it had been designed that way. The alien smirked -
"No, no, NO!" Rodney smashed his hands on the keyboard. The cat meowed and dashed out of the room.
"Ass-jih-klippera? That's not a word."
Rodney jumped at the voice over his shoulder and threw his arms over the screen. "Have I not told you to never read over my shoulder?"
John scrunched up his face. "I'm not sure how to answer that to say that you have."
"Then why, why, why - "
"Because you're still ignoring me!"
"I am trying to work, and you are dead to me and everyone else!"
John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. Look, Rodney, I think I know what's going on."
"Nothing is going on! Nothing with me, nothing with - you - and definitely nothing with my book, if this conversation continues."
"Hey, it's okay, really. You're in love with me. It's cool."
"What?!" Rodney shrieked. "How did - why would - what gave you - "
"A few things, but mostly because last week, you told me the alien was going to be an hourglass blonde who would fall madly in love with 'Rod O'Flynn.'"
There was that.
*
Two weeks after starting his new life and new occupation, and there was a lot more of the former than the latter. Rodney had resigned himself to the ghost's existence and continued presence - after all, he had been there first - and figured that if he'd been able to work on his own ideas while surrounded by other code monkeys, surely the company of one other...being...would be a non-issue.
Of course, it would have helped if he wasn't so darn distracting. John had a way of making him think he was being productive, when in reality, fewer words were coming from his fingers than from his mouth.
"So this novel. What kind is it?" he asked over after-dinner coffees. Rodney drank his; John just liked to be in its presence. The cat purred contentedly on Rodney's lap.
"Science fiction. Supernova: The Adventures of Commander Rod O'Flynn."
"Really? Huh."
"Yes, I wanted to be a scientist, as a kid, until stupid Joey Feldman beat me in the Grade 6 science fair. You'd think a model of a nuclear weapon would beat out yet another plant growth study," Rodney grumbled. He eyed John suspiciously. "Why, what did you expect it to be?"
"Horror. Or mystery, maybe."
"Never been a fan of those. Too boring after you figure out the ending. And the market's all cheap, pulpy crap, anyway. What would make you think that?"
John shrugged. "You know..." He waved a hand around in a vague circle. "The lighthouse. The lifestyle. Uh, me."
"You were not part of the bargain."
"Call me a signing bonus."
Rodney tried, but he couldn't help matching the ghost's smile.
*
After John's little declaration, Rodney had a hard time finding words with which to respond. Some writer he was. He stammered and blanched, and eventually, John sighed.
"I love you, too, you know."
"You love me?" Because repetition was as good as any child could do.
John quirked a smile. "Kinda have a thing for the creative types. I know you noticed me hanging around you a lot."
"Yes, because of the ectoplasmic affinity."
"No such thing. Made it up."
"Oh." Rodney was surprised to find that John had drifted, or he had walked, and he was staring at his pale face from very close by. Now inches apart, he looked surprisingly solid, which didn't make sense at all given how a (theoretically) dissociated mass should appear. "Um, well, I'm flattered."
He could almost feel a puff of air from John's soft laugh. "You're welcome."
"Er, not to break the moment, but what do we do now?"
John feigned shock. "Rodney McKay, asking someone else what to do? That's gotta be a first."
"I'm full of surprises."
"Well, in that case..." He leaned his head in and brought his lips up to Rodney's ear. "I look forward to discovering them."
Some time later, after Rodney had shared some surprising things and learned a few new ones, he found his words again. "You know that line was terrible, right?"