TEAM WORK: blind alley, "Not Without a Plan"

[fluffyllama]

Title: Not Without a Plan
Author: argosy
Team: Work
Prompt: blind alley
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Complete AU. John Sheppard, newly retired from the Air Force, is having difficulty finding his place in the world, until he begins an amazing project with Doctor Rodney McKay.
A/N: Thank you so much to busaikko and quasar273 for betas,

Comments

[incidental_fire]

Delightful story. I love the idea of Rodney as maze-builder, and Linus was a nice addition. I'd imagine that I'd be pretty angry too, with all of that. I loved the ending, so glad that we got to see the maze finished and all three of them together. :)

[argosy]

Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it. ROdney as maze-builder is an odd idea, but it fits, I think. :D

[mikes_grrl]

Really sweet story, with just a soft wash of backstory-angst that gave the characters some nice depth. I was skeptical about Rodney being a maze designer, but you totally sold it with his his enthusiasm and all the interesting maze!facts you dropped throughout the story. Linus was a great OC, and I'm not usually fond of kid!fic, but I liked that he wasn't adorably cute or anything, he was just a sad, angry kid having problems connecting with his father.

Thank you!

[argosy]

Thank you! I'm especially glad you liked Linus. Maze-designing would be a business where Rodney could take great pleasure in baffling those not as smart as him--seemed like a good fit to me! :D

[djaddict]

I really felt for John at the beginning, with him being so sad and hurting and lost and alone. Made my heart break.

Wanted to smack him for the whole "lying game" but really loved how you resolved it in a most unusual manner - without the whole betrayal/anger thing that is typical of that scenario.

Enjoyed Rodney's normal enthusiasm, ego and sheer brilliance.

Really great story! ♥

[argosy]

Thank you! I'm really glad you felt for John--even if you did want to smack him. (He might like that, you never know!)

[almostnever]

I was so charmed by this. John's point of view was very well done. Even though he was traumatized and angry and grieving, he still felt very much like himself, and I liked how his perspective lightened when he was around Rodney. Like this line: "John thought it would probably be better to give the monkeys a thousand pencils, unless you wanted monkey wars..." was so funny and felt so right for John.

It made sense to me that John behaved the way he did even though it was obviously the wrong thing to do. I liked that Rodney had him figured out from the start. :-) Linus is a good OC, not a cutesy wish-fulfillment kid; his loneliness and disconnection from Rodney made him more realized as a character. I liked how Ronon came into the story, and Teyla's role was cool too.

It was a pleasure to get lost in this story. :-)

[argosy]

Thank you! I admit, I like a traumatized John--but I have a hard time keeping it angsty when John's partnership with Rodney is front and center. I've run into that problem before. *shrugs* I guess that's just how I see them--nothing looks too bad as long as McKay and Sheppard are together! I'm glad you liked the story!

[rosiepaw]

Oh, finally! A fic with a decidedly unadorable kid in which John and Rodney are *not* mysteriously endowed with mad parenting skills! :-)

There were a couple of lines in particular that really had me laughing in this:

Do you know where the owner is? John - Miller? Or... Thatcher?"

"John Sheppard."

"Yes, well, I knew the name was some medieval job or another."

*Of course* Rodney's mind doesn't work the way anyone else's does. It jumps from "Sheppard" to "medieval job" so fast that "medieval job" is what gets stored in Rodney's memory.

The book Rodney had given him turned out to be filled with overhead views of the world's great mazes. In what seemed to John to be a touching show of modesty, only half of them had been designed by Rodney.

In fact is, it *is* probably Rodney's best attempt at being modest. And John gets that and, far from being put off by it, thinks it's kind of funny and charming. That's why John and Rodney work as a couple.

[argosy]

Heh, no Rodney doesn't have the best of parenting skills, but loving the kid and showing it is 90% of the battle, right? I hope?

Anyway, thank you so much, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it!