(no subject)
Dear. God. In. Heaven!!!!!!
Yep, up 'til 4am. Doing what, you might ask?
Why . . . this.
When John awoke in the gilt-gray light of dawn, to the cries of seagulls and the rings of bicycle bells, he found himself tucked under a faded red sleeping bag, unzipped and spread over him like a blanket.
There were patches sewn on in random places: one was a stylized graphic of a grimacing skull, one a military insignia that John didn’t recognize, and one was a Canadian maple leaf. The others, he guessed, might have been names of bands that he had never heard on any of his favorite radio stations. In more than one place, worn silvery duct tape and sloppy stitches held the fabric together.
The ocean breeze was chilly, and John was glad for the protection as he yawned, sat up and began to work the cricks out of his neck.
“Well,” came a dry voice he was beginning to know well, “Sleeping Beauty awakens at last.”
John poked his head over the edge of the gondola and said sleepily, “Good morning to you, too.”
Rodney sniffed and glanced up briefly from whatever he was scribbling on a pad of paper that was balanced precariously on his knee. “It’s always good to know that people who are too stupid to come in from out of the cold have yet managed to survive the night.”
“Thanks, again, to *you*,” John responded, and tried out his most charming smile.
Rodney seemed unimpressed with the effort. “Mm, yes, of course. I’ll have that sleeping bag back now, please.”
Annoyed, John rested his folded arms on the top railing of the gondola and said as cheerfully as possible, “And I’ll have two eggs, over hard, a side of bacon, and hash browns, well done, please.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing Rodney blink twice in confusion. “*What*?”
John quickly rolled up the sleeping bag and climbed out of the Ferris wheel. “C’mon,” he offered, in the most persuasive voice he could manage. “Let’s get some breakfast. I’ll pay.”
Rodney bit his lip, even as his eyes lit, and promptly caved. “I never pass up a free meal.”
And that was how John found himself eating breakfast with Rodney McKay, learning about string theory, ice hockey, the sad state of the American political system, and just what it meant to be hypoglycemic.
John had never met anyone who was so animated in conversation. Rodney sketched equations on the paper placemats as he talked, stood to demonstrate the proper technique for a slapshot, waved his hands in the air with such enthusiasm that the waitresses were in a perpetual state of high alert, and simultaneously managed to put away enough food for at least three people.
Rodney was like a force of nature, and John was a little overwhelmed. Everyone else seemed to be, as well, because other diners in Uncle Lou’s Pancake House kept glancing at them . . . or maybe that was just because Rodney was so *loud*.
John tried to get him to quiet down a little by keeping his own voice low, but Rodney just kept yelling over the din of clattering dishes, Top 40 radio, and screaming children, “What? What? How am I supposed to hear you if you keep *whispering*?”
Abruptly, Rodney shoved the placemat across the table. “Come on, John, look at this. It’s so easy, my *cat* could understand it -- please tell me you’re not even more stupid than my cat, who has seizures because my sister Jeannie accidentally shot him in the head with a pellet gun five years ago, but anyway . . . tell me that you *get* this.”
John looked down helplessly at eleven by seventeen inches of demented scribbles, dotted with maple syrup and smears of ketchup, that suddenly, *amazingly*, resolved into a cohesive series of equations that made more sense than anything he’d ever seen in class.
He looked up, grinning. “I *do* get it. This is incredible!” He flipped over his own placemat, grabbed the pen from Rodney’s hand, and started writing. “And look -- you can expand this theorem from there, and that brings you to . . . .”
Rodney was bug-eyed with surprise. “How did you -- those are higher maths, you couldn’t possibly!”
John shrugged and put down the pen, a little of his glow fading. “It’s, like, nothing,” he said finally, smoothing his fingers over the neatly inked lines of his calculations. “Just, you know, fancy long division and stuff.”
The placemat was ripped from his hands and bright blue eyes were scanning the paper frantically. “No, no, this is - this is good, this is amazing, oh my God, what are you, some kind of idiot savant?”
“Hey!” John objected, feelingly.
Rodney darted him a look from under his lashes. “Oh, please,” he scoffed. “You’re *hiding* this, this mathematical ability that *has* to put you in at least the upper ten percent - quite possibly the top *one* percent - and you’re just *wasting* your talent drowning yourself here at the beach?”
“*Shore*,” John corrected automatically, a habit he’d picked up from the other guys in the last three years of hanging out with them. California had beaches . . . New Jersey had ‘the shore’.
“Whatever,” Rodney snapped, dismissing John’s comment with a wave of his hand. “God, you should be *doing* something with this ability! What is *wrong* with you?”
John grabbed for his placemat and missed. “What, like you are?” he demanded hotly. “You think you’re, like, *so* brilliant, and you’re just running a Ferris wheel and occasionally saving people?”
Rodney drew himself upright in his chair. “For your information, I *am* as brilliant as I think I am,” he bit out. “I’ve been in Mensa since I was nine, built an atomic bomb when I was twelve, and I’m spending this summer working because being a ride operator pays eight dollars an hour in a country where minimum wage is three dollars and thirty-five cents, and I plan to attend the physics camp at MIT for the last three weeks of the summer.”
John blinked. “You built an atomic bomb?”
“That *would* be what you focused on,” Rodney sighed, visibly deflating. “It was a non-functional model -- it wasn’t like I had access to plutonium or anything. Look, you know, breakfast was great and all, but I’ve got to go and take a nap before my shift starts.”
“It’s not even nine o’clock!” John protested as Rodney pushed back his chair.
“Yes, well, I work fourteen-hour days,” Rodney snapped. “And unlike *some* people, *I* didn’t get my beauty sleep.”
“Hey, I didn’t *ask* you to baby-sit,” John pointed out with more than a little annoyance. “I would have woken up eventually.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes, you would have . . . when the police were called to arrest you for trespassing,” he huffed. “Do you even have the *vaguest* idea how many people try to have sex in those rides? Security has to run the piers every twenty minutes.”
John grinned, distracted from his irritation. “Hey, that sounds like fun.”
“Hm. Yes, yes, it does,” Rodney agreed, and his eyes glazed slightly as he thought about it. “Oh. Wow.”
John shifted awkwardly in his hard wooden chair, thinking as well. “Not the getting arrested part, just the sex part,” he felt the need to point out.
Rodney chuckled wickedly. “I suppose it depends on what you’re into,” he observed. “I’m told that handcuffs can be a lot of fun.”
They met each other’s eyes, and both flushed. “I can’t believe I’m talking about this with you,” Rodney moaned, and dropped his head to the table with a clunk.
John shrugged and tried to find a less uncomfortable position for his sudden erection. “I’m seventeen,” he said. “Looking at *linoleum* makes me think about sex.”
Rodney nodded, without picking up his head, which looked very funny. “I know it’s just hormones and everything,” he said pitifully, voice a little muffled, “but I really can’t *wait* until I’m no longer at the mercy of, you know, my dick.”
“Me too,” John agreed fervently. “Jeez, let’s go back to talking about math or something, huh?”
“Sure,” Rodney muttered before he snapped upright, face bright with an idea. “Hey! I could give you the Mensa test! That way, I could prove whether you really *are* smart, or if this was just a fluke!”
John eyed the other boy dubiously. “You know, it really scares me, how excited you are at the prospect that I’m one step up from a trained monkey,” he said finally.
Rodney waved a dismissive hand. “Animals have, collectively, a much more well-developed sense of self-preservation than *you*,” he said breezily, and pushed his chair back, nearly tipping it to the floor in his enthusiasm. “Still, you might be trainable, and that gives me hope.”
John rose as well, grabbing the check and dropping it at the counter along with a ten-dollar bill as he trailed Rodney out the door, struggling to follow the mile-a-minute chatter and juggling a pack of gum and his Oakley Razorblade sunglasses.
He had the feeling that his summer was about to get a lot more interesting.
***********************
So? Whatcha thinking? Suggestions, corrections, and drastic violations of canon are all welcome.
Yep, up 'til 4am. Doing what, you might ask?
Why . . . this.
When John awoke in the gilt-gray light of dawn, to the cries of seagulls and the rings of bicycle bells, he found himself tucked under a faded red sleeping bag, unzipped and spread over him like a blanket.
There were patches sewn on in random places: one was a stylized graphic of a grimacing skull, one a military insignia that John didn’t recognize, and one was a Canadian maple leaf. The others, he guessed, might have been names of bands that he had never heard on any of his favorite radio stations. In more than one place, worn silvery duct tape and sloppy stitches held the fabric together.
The ocean breeze was chilly, and John was glad for the protection as he yawned, sat up and began to work the cricks out of his neck.
“Well,” came a dry voice he was beginning to know well, “Sleeping Beauty awakens at last.”
John poked his head over the edge of the gondola and said sleepily, “Good morning to you, too.”
Rodney sniffed and glanced up briefly from whatever he was scribbling on a pad of paper that was balanced precariously on his knee. “It’s always good to know that people who are too stupid to come in from out of the cold have yet managed to survive the night.”
“Thanks, again, to *you*,” John responded, and tried out his most charming smile.
Rodney seemed unimpressed with the effort. “Mm, yes, of course. I’ll have that sleeping bag back now, please.”
Annoyed, John rested his folded arms on the top railing of the gondola and said as cheerfully as possible, “And I’ll have two eggs, over hard, a side of bacon, and hash browns, well done, please.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing Rodney blink twice in confusion. “*What*?”
John quickly rolled up the sleeping bag and climbed out of the Ferris wheel. “C’mon,” he offered, in the most persuasive voice he could manage. “Let’s get some breakfast. I’ll pay.”
Rodney bit his lip, even as his eyes lit, and promptly caved. “I never pass up a free meal.”
And that was how John found himself eating breakfast with Rodney McKay, learning about string theory, ice hockey, the sad state of the American political system, and just what it meant to be hypoglycemic.
John had never met anyone who was so animated in conversation. Rodney sketched equations on the paper placemats as he talked, stood to demonstrate the proper technique for a slapshot, waved his hands in the air with such enthusiasm that the waitresses were in a perpetual state of high alert, and simultaneously managed to put away enough food for at least three people.
Rodney was like a force of nature, and John was a little overwhelmed. Everyone else seemed to be, as well, because other diners in Uncle Lou’s Pancake House kept glancing at them . . . or maybe that was just because Rodney was so *loud*.
John tried to get him to quiet down a little by keeping his own voice low, but Rodney just kept yelling over the din of clattering dishes, Top 40 radio, and screaming children, “What? What? How am I supposed to hear you if you keep *whispering*?”
Abruptly, Rodney shoved the placemat across the table. “Come on, John, look at this. It’s so easy, my *cat* could understand it -- please tell me you’re not even more stupid than my cat, who has seizures because my sister Jeannie accidentally shot him in the head with a pellet gun five years ago, but anyway . . . tell me that you *get* this.”
John looked down helplessly at eleven by seventeen inches of demented scribbles, dotted with maple syrup and smears of ketchup, that suddenly, *amazingly*, resolved into a cohesive series of equations that made more sense than anything he’d ever seen in class.
He looked up, grinning. “I *do* get it. This is incredible!” He flipped over his own placemat, grabbed the pen from Rodney’s hand, and started writing. “And look -- you can expand this theorem from there, and that brings you to . . . .”
Rodney was bug-eyed with surprise. “How did you -- those are higher maths, you couldn’t possibly!”
John shrugged and put down the pen, a little of his glow fading. “It’s, like, nothing,” he said finally, smoothing his fingers over the neatly inked lines of his calculations. “Just, you know, fancy long division and stuff.”
The placemat was ripped from his hands and bright blue eyes were scanning the paper frantically. “No, no, this is - this is good, this is amazing, oh my God, what are you, some kind of idiot savant?”
“Hey!” John objected, feelingly.
Rodney darted him a look from under his lashes. “Oh, please,” he scoffed. “You’re *hiding* this, this mathematical ability that *has* to put you in at least the upper ten percent - quite possibly the top *one* percent - and you’re just *wasting* your talent drowning yourself here at the beach?”
“*Shore*,” John corrected automatically, a habit he’d picked up from the other guys in the last three years of hanging out with them. California had beaches . . . New Jersey had ‘the shore’.
“Whatever,” Rodney snapped, dismissing John’s comment with a wave of his hand. “God, you should be *doing* something with this ability! What is *wrong* with you?”
John grabbed for his placemat and missed. “What, like you are?” he demanded hotly. “You think you’re, like, *so* brilliant, and you’re just running a Ferris wheel and occasionally saving people?”
Rodney drew himself upright in his chair. “For your information, I *am* as brilliant as I think I am,” he bit out. “I’ve been in Mensa since I was nine, built an atomic bomb when I was twelve, and I’m spending this summer working because being a ride operator pays eight dollars an hour in a country where minimum wage is three dollars and thirty-five cents, and I plan to attend the physics camp at MIT for the last three weeks of the summer.”
John blinked. “You built an atomic bomb?”
“That *would* be what you focused on,” Rodney sighed, visibly deflating. “It was a non-functional model -- it wasn’t like I had access to plutonium or anything. Look, you know, breakfast was great and all, but I’ve got to go and take a nap before my shift starts.”
“It’s not even nine o’clock!” John protested as Rodney pushed back his chair.
“Yes, well, I work fourteen-hour days,” Rodney snapped. “And unlike *some* people, *I* didn’t get my beauty sleep.”
“Hey, I didn’t *ask* you to baby-sit,” John pointed out with more than a little annoyance. “I would have woken up eventually.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes, you would have . . . when the police were called to arrest you for trespassing,” he huffed. “Do you even have the *vaguest* idea how many people try to have sex in those rides? Security has to run the piers every twenty minutes.”
John grinned, distracted from his irritation. “Hey, that sounds like fun.”
“Hm. Yes, yes, it does,” Rodney agreed, and his eyes glazed slightly as he thought about it. “Oh. Wow.”
John shifted awkwardly in his hard wooden chair, thinking as well. “Not the getting arrested part, just the sex part,” he felt the need to point out.
Rodney chuckled wickedly. “I suppose it depends on what you’re into,” he observed. “I’m told that handcuffs can be a lot of fun.”
They met each other’s eyes, and both flushed. “I can’t believe I’m talking about this with you,” Rodney moaned, and dropped his head to the table with a clunk.
John shrugged and tried to find a less uncomfortable position for his sudden erection. “I’m seventeen,” he said. “Looking at *linoleum* makes me think about sex.”
Rodney nodded, without picking up his head, which looked very funny. “I know it’s just hormones and everything,” he said pitifully, voice a little muffled, “but I really can’t *wait* until I’m no longer at the mercy of, you know, my dick.”
“Me too,” John agreed fervently. “Jeez, let’s go back to talking about math or something, huh?”
“Sure,” Rodney muttered before he snapped upright, face bright with an idea. “Hey! I could give you the Mensa test! That way, I could prove whether you really *are* smart, or if this was just a fluke!”
John eyed the other boy dubiously. “You know, it really scares me, how excited you are at the prospect that I’m one step up from a trained monkey,” he said finally.
Rodney waved a dismissive hand. “Animals have, collectively, a much more well-developed sense of self-preservation than *you*,” he said breezily, and pushed his chair back, nearly tipping it to the floor in his enthusiasm. “Still, you might be trainable, and that gives me hope.”
John rose as well, grabbing the check and dropping it at the counter along with a ten-dollar bill as he trailed Rodney out the door, struggling to follow the mile-a-minute chatter and juggling a pack of gum and his Oakley Razorblade sunglasses.
He had the feeling that his summer was about to get a lot more interesting.
***********************
So? Whatcha thinking? Suggestions, corrections, and drastic violations of canon are all welcome.