Fic: Five People Who Don't Tease Rodney about Citrus
Title: Five People Who Don't Tease Rodney about Citrus
Author: Cypher
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Main Character(s): Rodney McKay, Lorne, Radek, Carter, Jeannie, Ronon
Warnings: Spoilers up to McKay and Mrs. Miller
Rating: PG13
Summary: Exactly what the title implies. Five Things fic.
Author's Notes: Don't know where this one came from, only that it came to me just before I fell asleep. Unbetaed, so all mistakes are my own. Enjoy!
Five People Who Don’t Tease Rodney about Citrus
Lorne
When Lorne was thirteen, his mom threw him a huge party because it was the first time his dad wasn’t home to celebrate with them. He had a ton of friends over and a huge stack of presents and the backyard was almost literally a zoo with the number of animals rented. What Lorne remembers most, though, is the double-layer heavily-frosted chocolate fudge cake. His mom cut him the largest slice he had ever seen, and the first bite was the most sugary, most heavenly thing he’d ever tasted.
He also remembers dropping his fork a moment later and clawing at his throat, screaming and screaming and not even hearing his own voice because his windpipe had swollen shut and his mom had barely gotten him to the hospital in time to save his life. Later, he found out his mom had actually had a trail of three police cars following her because of her speed and recklessness in driving, and that image was the only thing that cheered him up after hearing he could never eat chocolate again.
His allergy to cocoa made his teenage years hell; and he thought he’d been doing pretty well. He was popular and went out for sports and had many friends. Now he couldn’t even touch a candy bar without breaking out in hives. He always brought flowers to the girls when he went on dates, but that never seemed to make up for him dodging their doorstep kisses because they’d eaten chocolate for dessert. It made him a bit of a pariah among the opposite sex, and even among his peers.
Then, a month after he’d turned eighteen, he picked up the wrong coffee cup at Starbucks in a strange college town and downed half the beverage before he realized he was tasting hot chocolate, not a hot latte. He immediately threw the cup aside and dived for the nearest payphone--he hadn’t carried an epipen with him since sophomore year because he never forgot--and was halfway to dialing 911 before he realized he felt…fine. Really fine. There wasn’t even a hint of swelling.
The doctors said he’d grown out of his allergy, that sometimes they surfaced and receded while bodies underwent changes. It wasn’t uncommon for people to be allergic to something as a child, or a teenager, and to be not allergic to them as adults. It wasn’t a very satisfying answer, but it meant he’d have less trouble getting into the Air Force now, so he was happy.
Even so, chocolate of any form hasn’t been his favorite food, and he rarely consumes it because he remembers, even after all this time and in another galaxy, the feeling of breathlessness; of being helpless and realizing you’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it all because you ate something. So after the first time the cook prepares lemon chicken for the Atlantis crew, Lorne makes the chef scrub the pans twice: first normally, and then with a tooth brush.
McKay is an annoying son of a bitch, but he’s saved Atlantis more times than Lorne can count, and there’s plenty in Pegasus trying to kill them that McKay shouldn’t have to worry about foodstuffs in the kitchen being one of them.
Radek
When they first arrived, there was no one who wished for lemons or limes or oranges more than Radek Zelenka--except maybe Kavanagh, but he didn’t deserve the honor of killing such an arrogant and abrasive man as Rodney McKay. In the early nights of their time at Atlantis, Radek had dreams of tossing an orange at McKay during on of his berating sessions, or during a huge argument, or when he was intimidating half the staff for no reason.
They were good dreams, they kept him warm and made him smile.
Until he realized just how good McKay was, and how much he risked just by going through the Stargate, how much work he really did to save the city. With him gone, the idiots--as McKay put it--ran amok and after the first two weeks Radek realized why McKay was so abusive. It wasn’t just because he was arrogant, it was because he saw the utter stupidity and idiocy in his fellow scientists and was terrified they’d ruin Atlantis--things Radek now saw as well.
So now his dreams are not of throwing fruits, but of yelling at the scientists as well, reminding them of how delicate they had to be with the equipment and--every now and then--he gets to sleep with a smile on his lips because he dreams of shooting Kavanagh for being an asshole.
Once contact is re-established and citrus is brought in, Radek doesn’t even think of indulging in the old fantasies, not even after Duranda. It’s tempting, because what Rodney said had hurt him, not to mention nearly cost Atlantis two very important people. He sees the hurt in Rodney’s eyes, though, and the failure in his slumped postured; and Radek knows Rodney doesn’t need mocking, or hurtful practical jokes.
So when he comes in the lab one day to find an orange on McKay’s chair, he simply dumps it into the trashcan, sprays the chair clean, and intimidates the idiots that day. Rodney is focused on his shortcomings, and doesn’t need to face yet another one.
Carter
It was amusing to see McKay actually flinch when Cam pulled out the lemon. While Rodney had become better at interacting with people, Sam will always remember the first time they met. Everyone only has a few seconds to make a good first impression, and Rodney failed spectacularly on all counts. Calling her work into question, condemning her friend to death, hitting on her like crazy… So there’s always going to be a part of her that enjoys seeing him squirm, even if they are quasi-friends now.
Still, once McKay is gone, she grabs the lemon from Cam and throws it in the nearest incinerator. Cam looks puzzled, but shrugs it off, whistling as he goes. She knows he doesn’t get it, because Cam forced himself on SG1, brought them back together and fit in almost immediately. He wasn’t part of their team, but he understood their dynamic, so any jokes, any mock-threats were understood and accepted.
What Cam doesn’t get is that to McKay, the threat is real. Rodney doesn’t know him, doesn’t even really know them. He respects Sam, and he’s chums with Daniel, but he doesn’t know, doesn’t fully trust SG1. From Sheppard, it was different. They were on the same team, were friends. If Sheppard brandished a lemon, Rodney would probably unleash a string of scathing venomous remarks, but otherwise be unaffected by the threat because he’d know Sheppard would never actually hurt him.
She’s been tempted, once or twice, to drink some orange juice in front of Rodney, but she’d never actually bring herself to do it. It would be an insult, and not of the level they currently traded them. It was petty and mean and it would be like their first time meeting under the mountain, when he explained his allergy to her. To mock him of it now would show that she hadn’t grown to trust him, didn’t see him as an equal; rather, it’d be insinuating that he’s just another geek to be mocked.
Sam is more than willing to mock McKay and tell him exactly what he thinks about his ‘impossible’ exclamations, but she’d never threaten him; and she was going to explain that to Cam very carefully once the mission was over.
Jeannie
One of the nightmares that plagued Jeannie throughout her life was not that of monsters and demons, but of a memory. She was five, and following her brother around like a good little sister, learning and imitating and basically being a pest. She’d wanted some juice, and since neither mommy or daddy were around, she tugged on Mer’s shirt demanding it.
With a frustrated grunt he stomped to the fridge and rummaged around, scowling. “We don’t have any apple juice.”
“Juice!”
“All we have is--Christ, why the hell--mom, of course. She never remembers. One day she’ll come home and find me dead because she-”
“JUICE!”
“FINE!” Mer pulled out a juice box, one with a big yellow round thing that Jeannie knew was a lemon, and thrust it at her. “Here! Drink this and stay away!” Then he stomped off to pound keys on the piano.
It took a few minutes for her to get the straw out and put it in the box, and she pouted as she drank. It wasn’t fair, she was just thirsty and couldn’t reach the fridge shelves and Mer was so big and he didn’t have to be so mean about it. She should make him pay, and so she went to find Mer, pulled the straw out of her mouth and squeezed the box hard, getting him all wet.
He yelped and sputtered and Jeannie remembered laughing at his outrage. Except then she heard a crash and when she opened her eyes Mer was lying on the ground pale and trembling and reaching for the phone. “911,” he gasped, “911.”
Jeannie didn’t know 911, and she couldn’t reach the phone because it was mounted on the wall and Mer was making scary noises with his voice, and he was pale and shaky and Jeannie didn’t know what to do because mommy was at work and daddy was outside. So she reverted back to her three-year-old methods and started wailing. She didn’t know how long she was screeching and crying and trying to get someone’s attention before the front door burst open and Mrs. Stock from next door came in.
Daddy came in minutes later to find Mrs. Stock doing something to Mer’s chest and kissing him while listening to the phone. He took the phone from her and talked into it, and Jeannie quieted down and backed away, dropping the juice box and wanting to hide because it was her fault Mer had made those scary noises, her fault Mrs. Stock was screaming at daddy and daddy was screaming at the phone. When the loud horns sounded outside, she ran, ran through the house to find a hiding place and curled up into a little ball and sobbed.
Later she found herself being carried by Mrs. Stock, and Jeannie realized she must’ve fallen asleep. She didn’t recognize the big white building they were walking up to, but struggled because it frightened her and she knew they were taking her to a place to keep bad girls. Mer always told her she’d end up in a place like that if she didn’t behave. Mrs. Stock made soothing noises, and then they were inside and Jeannie stopped struggling because maybe, maybe she should be here. She hurt Mer, and she’d never wanted to hurt Mer. So she shut her eyes and buried her face against Mrs. Stock’s warm, strong neck.
“So did you bring her to finish me off?”
“Meredith!”
It was Mer’s voice, and daddy’s voice, and Jeannie peeked out from where she was hiding her face to see her brother, pale and shaky but breathing and sitting up in bed. Daddy was sitting in a chair next to him, holding some sort of board. They didn’t look angry, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Fine, fine. Put her down.”
Mrs. Stock did just that, right on the edge of Mer’s bed. Jeannie knew she was trembling, and Mer’s face softened and he reached over and patted her head. “I’m okay. Really, see?” He held out his arm, showing some sort of clear tube going in. “It’s cool!”
Jeannie’s nightmares usually end with her throwing herself and Mer and hugging him like crazy. Sometimes, though, she woke up clutching Caleb because Mrs. Stock didn’t break down the door and daddy came too late and Mer wasn’t breathing at all and he was gone. The nightmares rarely happened now, but just in case Jeannie always took Madison in for allergy testing once a year.
She’d lived through the nightmare with Rodney, she wasn’t going to live through it with anyone else.
Ronon
Ronon had never heard terms like “anaphylactic shock” or “citrus” or “deadly allergy” before, because allergies didn’t exist on his world; at least, none that he’d ever heard about. He didn’t understand what the big deal was until no one detected the hint of citrus in a bowl of soup being served at a trade dinner and he saw McKay go down; gasping for air as Sheppard pulled out a needle and jammed it into McKay’s thigh.
After that, Ronon made sure to eat some of McKay’s food first off-world, seeking out the tangy flavoring that could kill his teammate. McKay made a lot of noise about it, but in the mess hall Ronon found extra rounds of dessert on his tray from McKay. He understood silent thanks, probably more than anyone else did on Atlantis.
So when he saw Sheppard give Mitchell that lemon and glance at Rodney, Ronon decided to remind Sheppard exactly who’d been keeping McKay safe from that very threat for over a year. He beat Sheppard into the ground four times before the message was received, and Ronon went off on a run while Sheppard licked his wounds and thought about his actions.
Later, as he was passing by the labs, he heard Sheppard awkwardly apologizing and McKay yelling half-heartedly. Nodding to himself, Ronon let them resolve the rest of their problems and sought out Lorne. He heard the man talking with a marine earlier about a ‘green lantern’ and a ‘bat man,’ and was curious as to what exactly they were.
Author: Cypher
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Main Character(s): Rodney McKay, Lorne, Radek, Carter, Jeannie, Ronon
Warnings: Spoilers up to McKay and Mrs. Miller
Rating: PG13
Summary: Exactly what the title implies. Five Things fic.
Author's Notes: Don't know where this one came from, only that it came to me just before I fell asleep. Unbetaed, so all mistakes are my own. Enjoy!
Five People Who Don’t Tease Rodney about Citrus
Lorne
When Lorne was thirteen, his mom threw him a huge party because it was the first time his dad wasn’t home to celebrate with them. He had a ton of friends over and a huge stack of presents and the backyard was almost literally a zoo with the number of animals rented. What Lorne remembers most, though, is the double-layer heavily-frosted chocolate fudge cake. His mom cut him the largest slice he had ever seen, and the first bite was the most sugary, most heavenly thing he’d ever tasted.
He also remembers dropping his fork a moment later and clawing at his throat, screaming and screaming and not even hearing his own voice because his windpipe had swollen shut and his mom had barely gotten him to the hospital in time to save his life. Later, he found out his mom had actually had a trail of three police cars following her because of her speed and recklessness in driving, and that image was the only thing that cheered him up after hearing he could never eat chocolate again.
His allergy to cocoa made his teenage years hell; and he thought he’d been doing pretty well. He was popular and went out for sports and had many friends. Now he couldn’t even touch a candy bar without breaking out in hives. He always brought flowers to the girls when he went on dates, but that never seemed to make up for him dodging their doorstep kisses because they’d eaten chocolate for dessert. It made him a bit of a pariah among the opposite sex, and even among his peers.
Then, a month after he’d turned eighteen, he picked up the wrong coffee cup at Starbucks in a strange college town and downed half the beverage before he realized he was tasting hot chocolate, not a hot latte. He immediately threw the cup aside and dived for the nearest payphone--he hadn’t carried an epipen with him since sophomore year because he never forgot--and was halfway to dialing 911 before he realized he felt…fine. Really fine. There wasn’t even a hint of swelling.
The doctors said he’d grown out of his allergy, that sometimes they surfaced and receded while bodies underwent changes. It wasn’t uncommon for people to be allergic to something as a child, or a teenager, and to be not allergic to them as adults. It wasn’t a very satisfying answer, but it meant he’d have less trouble getting into the Air Force now, so he was happy.
Even so, chocolate of any form hasn’t been his favorite food, and he rarely consumes it because he remembers, even after all this time and in another galaxy, the feeling of breathlessness; of being helpless and realizing you’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it all because you ate something. So after the first time the cook prepares lemon chicken for the Atlantis crew, Lorne makes the chef scrub the pans twice: first normally, and then with a tooth brush.
McKay is an annoying son of a bitch, but he’s saved Atlantis more times than Lorne can count, and there’s plenty in Pegasus trying to kill them that McKay shouldn’t have to worry about foodstuffs in the kitchen being one of them.
Radek
When they first arrived, there was no one who wished for lemons or limes or oranges more than Radek Zelenka--except maybe Kavanagh, but he didn’t deserve the honor of killing such an arrogant and abrasive man as Rodney McKay. In the early nights of their time at Atlantis, Radek had dreams of tossing an orange at McKay during on of his berating sessions, or during a huge argument, or when he was intimidating half the staff for no reason.
They were good dreams, they kept him warm and made him smile.
Until he realized just how good McKay was, and how much he risked just by going through the Stargate, how much work he really did to save the city. With him gone, the idiots--as McKay put it--ran amok and after the first two weeks Radek realized why McKay was so abusive. It wasn’t just because he was arrogant, it was because he saw the utter stupidity and idiocy in his fellow scientists and was terrified they’d ruin Atlantis--things Radek now saw as well.
So now his dreams are not of throwing fruits, but of yelling at the scientists as well, reminding them of how delicate they had to be with the equipment and--every now and then--he gets to sleep with a smile on his lips because he dreams of shooting Kavanagh for being an asshole.
Once contact is re-established and citrus is brought in, Radek doesn’t even think of indulging in the old fantasies, not even after Duranda. It’s tempting, because what Rodney said had hurt him, not to mention nearly cost Atlantis two very important people. He sees the hurt in Rodney’s eyes, though, and the failure in his slumped postured; and Radek knows Rodney doesn’t need mocking, or hurtful practical jokes.
So when he comes in the lab one day to find an orange on McKay’s chair, he simply dumps it into the trashcan, sprays the chair clean, and intimidates the idiots that day. Rodney is focused on his shortcomings, and doesn’t need to face yet another one.
Carter
It was amusing to see McKay actually flinch when Cam pulled out the lemon. While Rodney had become better at interacting with people, Sam will always remember the first time they met. Everyone only has a few seconds to make a good first impression, and Rodney failed spectacularly on all counts. Calling her work into question, condemning her friend to death, hitting on her like crazy… So there’s always going to be a part of her that enjoys seeing him squirm, even if they are quasi-friends now.
Still, once McKay is gone, she grabs the lemon from Cam and throws it in the nearest incinerator. Cam looks puzzled, but shrugs it off, whistling as he goes. She knows he doesn’t get it, because Cam forced himself on SG1, brought them back together and fit in almost immediately. He wasn’t part of their team, but he understood their dynamic, so any jokes, any mock-threats were understood and accepted.
What Cam doesn’t get is that to McKay, the threat is real. Rodney doesn’t know him, doesn’t even really know them. He respects Sam, and he’s chums with Daniel, but he doesn’t know, doesn’t fully trust SG1. From Sheppard, it was different. They were on the same team, were friends. If Sheppard brandished a lemon, Rodney would probably unleash a string of scathing venomous remarks, but otherwise be unaffected by the threat because he’d know Sheppard would never actually hurt him.
She’s been tempted, once or twice, to drink some orange juice in front of Rodney, but she’d never actually bring herself to do it. It would be an insult, and not of the level they currently traded them. It was petty and mean and it would be like their first time meeting under the mountain, when he explained his allergy to her. To mock him of it now would show that she hadn’t grown to trust him, didn’t see him as an equal; rather, it’d be insinuating that he’s just another geek to be mocked.
Sam is more than willing to mock McKay and tell him exactly what he thinks about his ‘impossible’ exclamations, but she’d never threaten him; and she was going to explain that to Cam very carefully once the mission was over.
Jeannie
One of the nightmares that plagued Jeannie throughout her life was not that of monsters and demons, but of a memory. She was five, and following her brother around like a good little sister, learning and imitating and basically being a pest. She’d wanted some juice, and since neither mommy or daddy were around, she tugged on Mer’s shirt demanding it.
With a frustrated grunt he stomped to the fridge and rummaged around, scowling. “We don’t have any apple juice.”
“Juice!”
“All we have is--Christ, why the hell--mom, of course. She never remembers. One day she’ll come home and find me dead because she-”
“JUICE!”
“FINE!” Mer pulled out a juice box, one with a big yellow round thing that Jeannie knew was a lemon, and thrust it at her. “Here! Drink this and stay away!” Then he stomped off to pound keys on the piano.
It took a few minutes for her to get the straw out and put it in the box, and she pouted as she drank. It wasn’t fair, she was just thirsty and couldn’t reach the fridge shelves and Mer was so big and he didn’t have to be so mean about it. She should make him pay, and so she went to find Mer, pulled the straw out of her mouth and squeezed the box hard, getting him all wet.
He yelped and sputtered and Jeannie remembered laughing at his outrage. Except then she heard a crash and when she opened her eyes Mer was lying on the ground pale and trembling and reaching for the phone. “911,” he gasped, “911.”
Jeannie didn’t know 911, and she couldn’t reach the phone because it was mounted on the wall and Mer was making scary noises with his voice, and he was pale and shaky and Jeannie didn’t know what to do because mommy was at work and daddy was outside. So she reverted back to her three-year-old methods and started wailing. She didn’t know how long she was screeching and crying and trying to get someone’s attention before the front door burst open and Mrs. Stock from next door came in.
Daddy came in minutes later to find Mrs. Stock doing something to Mer’s chest and kissing him while listening to the phone. He took the phone from her and talked into it, and Jeannie quieted down and backed away, dropping the juice box and wanting to hide because it was her fault Mer had made those scary noises, her fault Mrs. Stock was screaming at daddy and daddy was screaming at the phone. When the loud horns sounded outside, she ran, ran through the house to find a hiding place and curled up into a little ball and sobbed.
Later she found herself being carried by Mrs. Stock, and Jeannie realized she must’ve fallen asleep. She didn’t recognize the big white building they were walking up to, but struggled because it frightened her and she knew they were taking her to a place to keep bad girls. Mer always told her she’d end up in a place like that if she didn’t behave. Mrs. Stock made soothing noises, and then they were inside and Jeannie stopped struggling because maybe, maybe she should be here. She hurt Mer, and she’d never wanted to hurt Mer. So she shut her eyes and buried her face against Mrs. Stock’s warm, strong neck.
“So did you bring her to finish me off?”
“Meredith!”
It was Mer’s voice, and daddy’s voice, and Jeannie peeked out from where she was hiding her face to see her brother, pale and shaky but breathing and sitting up in bed. Daddy was sitting in a chair next to him, holding some sort of board. They didn’t look angry, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Fine, fine. Put her down.”
Mrs. Stock did just that, right on the edge of Mer’s bed. Jeannie knew she was trembling, and Mer’s face softened and he reached over and patted her head. “I’m okay. Really, see?” He held out his arm, showing some sort of clear tube going in. “It’s cool!”
Jeannie’s nightmares usually end with her throwing herself and Mer and hugging him like crazy. Sometimes, though, she woke up clutching Caleb because Mrs. Stock didn’t break down the door and daddy came too late and Mer wasn’t breathing at all and he was gone. The nightmares rarely happened now, but just in case Jeannie always took Madison in for allergy testing once a year.
She’d lived through the nightmare with Rodney, she wasn’t going to live through it with anyone else.
Ronon
Ronon had never heard terms like “anaphylactic shock” or “citrus” or “deadly allergy” before, because allergies didn’t exist on his world; at least, none that he’d ever heard about. He didn’t understand what the big deal was until no one detected the hint of citrus in a bowl of soup being served at a trade dinner and he saw McKay go down; gasping for air as Sheppard pulled out a needle and jammed it into McKay’s thigh.
After that, Ronon made sure to eat some of McKay’s food first off-world, seeking out the tangy flavoring that could kill his teammate. McKay made a lot of noise about it, but in the mess hall Ronon found extra rounds of dessert on his tray from McKay. He understood silent thanks, probably more than anyone else did on Atlantis.
So when he saw Sheppard give Mitchell that lemon and glance at Rodney, Ronon decided to remind Sheppard exactly who’d been keeping McKay safe from that very threat for over a year. He beat Sheppard into the ground four times before the message was received, and Ronon went off on a run while Sheppard licked his wounds and thought about his actions.
Later, as he was passing by the labs, he heard Sheppard awkwardly apologizing and McKay yelling half-heartedly. Nodding to himself, Ronon let them resolve the rest of their problems and sought out Lorne. He heard the man talking with a marine earlier about a ‘green lantern’ and a ‘bat man,’ and was curious as to what exactly they were.