Penguins
So, my friend edictofnantes has a psycho family. She also has a curious predilection for penguins in fanfic that borders on being a very disturbing fetish indeed. Such is her penguin love that she once spent days in a futile search for a Sheppard/McKay fic with constantly broken links, because it featured penguins. Normally I tease her about her obsession, pointing out that seeking penguin porn so relentlessly could probably qualify as a type of paraphilia. She will then insist that it is the penguin, not the porn, that she craves. But I know better. And yet, because her family has driven her so insane, I wrote her a Sheppard/McKay fic featuring penguins.
I only wish I were kidding.
Title: Goddamn Voyeuristic Penguins
Author: Bee
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Rating: PG. Maybe PG-13, if you're really uptight about some things.
Summary: Sheppard and McKay find a penguin, and name it after a famous figure in the Scientific Revolution. The penguin bears witness to all sorts of intriguing earthling behavior.
Warnings: Mild crack!fic. Boy-snogging. A little bit of Weir-unfriendliness.
Some people are not very good at handling the truth. Their ability to plunge headlong into denial is remarkable. Their ability to surround themselves with other people who lie to them so as to perpetuate illusions rather than face the truth is even more remarkable.
I did not think, looking at them, that the aliens inhabiting the home of the Alterans would be able to accept that I was smarter than they were. So, I stayed curled into a small ball of fluffy feathers and squawked cutely.
The one with a very large black creature on its head quirked a smile. The unpleasant-looking one scowled.
“It looks like a penguin,” said the smiling man. The beast on his head gently twirled its short black tentacles as the man turned to look at the scowling one. “Right?”
“It looks like uselessness personified. I’m sure you don’t mind meandering about the arctic reaches of the planet, cuddling with purposeless wads of feathered nothingness, but might I remind you that I am professional with actual, important things to do?”
The man’s smile wavered a bit. The loathsome creature on his head sneered furrily. “You know, the reason you’re here is to get away from that work. Zelenka can handle it. Just enjoy the world outside Atlantis.”
“Oh, yes,” the unpleasant-looking man said, hopping from foot to foot, arms wrapped around himself. “The world outside Atlantis. The could, dismal, pygmy-penguin-infested world outside Atlantis. Delightful. But I suppose this beats spending time with the Athosians.”
I watched with interest as they bickered, swaddled as I was in the tall one’s arms. I tried to make conversation with the foul beast perched atop my transport’s head, but it was clearly mute. Though when my transport-Sheppard, his name was, according to the other man-inclined his head to make very patronizing cooing noises at me, the creature slithered around a little bit, and I could almost touch it with my small wing. Were I older, with better limbs, I could have, but I am very young for my species and not well-grown.
“McKay,” said Sheppard, “do you want to go ice fishing?”
“Do you want me to punch you in the face?” The disagreeable wretch-McKay, he was-only appeared to become more irritated as time went on. I took umbrage. My icy world was a wonderland. When I was back with the rest of my kind, I would have to relate to them the disservice the McKay-being did our home.
Sheppard looked amused rather than annoyed at the threat to his physical well-being. He apparently did not consider McKay to be much of a threat. “I’d like to see you try.”
Interesting, I thought. They communicate in much the same manner that the younglings communicate with each other.
Could it be that we had stumbled upon a race of strange-looking giant children, from whom we had nothing to fear? My superiors would be much-pleased with that news.
“Can we go now?” said McKay petulantly. “We’ve been out all day in that puddlejumper and as much as you enjoy it…”
Sheppard waved his hand dismissively. “Fine. Killjoy. But we keep Feathers here.”
Excellent! This was going better than anticipated. My higher-ups had prepared me for the possibility of smuggling myself aboard that transport vessel McKay referred to as a “puddlejumper.” I was pleased that I would not actually have to do so.
“Funny,” said McKay. “I thought Elizabeth said you were no longer allowed to keep pets after you murdered that little fuzzball you brought back from PX-1599.”
“Pi crawled into the ventilation duct and starved trying to find a way out. That was not my fault.”
“You weren’t watching it,” insisted McKay.
“Besides,” said Sheppard, continuing on as though McKay had not spoken, “Feathers is really for you.”
McKay sputtered indignantly. “I have neither the time nor desire for a pet!”
“You do now.”
“No, I most certainly do not.”
Sheppard’s expression changed. From insouciant to something rather sweet and cajoling, at least as far as I was able to understand. My study into the physical manifestation of human emotions was so far incomplete. It produced a rather interesting effect on the McKay-being, though it was not very pronounced. He still looked off-putting.
“It stays in the lab or something.”
“No, it stays in your room.”
“Fine, but it gets a cage!”
“No, it wanders free!”
“Fine, but I’m not naming it Feathers!”
And that seemed to be the end of it. And I was quite happy that McKay had managed to win at least one battle; I was not keen on being called Feathers. It was cutesy and demeaning to someone of my intense intellectual capability. I wondered, again, if the large beings would be frightened to find that I understood every word of what they were saying, and could communicate effectively and intelligently if I so chose.
Sheppard leaned down and said in a cute, coddling tone of voice: “Are you ready to go back to Atlantis, Feathers? Are you ready?”
For a moment I merely stared distrustfully at the being on his head, which was perilously close to me. I held no warm feelings for something so unsociable. Then, I chirped adorably at Sheppard, wagging my little wings.
Sheppard beamed. “It will make the perfect pet.” He turned to McKay. “Okay, we should probably get back to the puddlejumper before everyone starts to worry.”
“They don’t worry,” said McKay sourly. “Every time we leave they pray that we die.”
“No,” corrected Sheppard cheerfully. “They pray that you die. I happen to be very well-liked.”
“By the braindead.”
__
Atlantis was every bit the marvel it was when the Alterans inhabited it, a grand testimony to the cerebral superiority of a very talented race. It was very galling to our people to know that creatures of such mental capabilities, the creatures that had created us, were wiped out by something biological. It seemed perverse and unfair, and I could only hope that the beings who now ran the city had even an iota of the brainpower the Alterans possessed.
No sooner had we left the docking bay than we were greeted by the most improbably thin wretch I had ever laid eyes upon. The beings now in Atlantis seemed very similar, physically, to the Alterans, but none of them had been so very…bony. The expression on her face was something I could not yet convey with a simple, handy term. It was somewhere being smug superiority and fake camaraderie.
“Nice to see you back, boys.” Her eyes fell on me. “I see you brought back a friend?”
“It’s Rodney’s new pet,” said Sheppard. “His name is Feathers.”
“His name,” said McKay sharply, “is Kepler. The first theoretical astrophysicist and key figure in the Scientific Revolution.”
Oddly, the more McKay spoke, the more I actually began to like him. His arrogance and apparent genius reminded me very much of the Alterans, even though they had come far before my time. Some kind of link between the old inhabitants of Atlantis and the new was comforting.
The bony woman approached me, her pinched features twisting into something that was, I suppose, supposed to be kind and assuring. I did not trust her any more than I trusted the twisted beast that hibernated upon Sheppard’s head.
“Aren’t you adorable?”
Aren’t you way to close to my face?
She brushed her finger along the underside of my chin. I quickly inclined my head and bit it.
She shrieked slightly and jumped back.
Sheppard laughed.
“I guess Kepler”-he threw a significant glance at McKay-“doesn’t take kindly to a lot of touching. Sorry, Dr. Weir.” He turned back to McKay. “Here, he’s your pet. Here on out, you handle him.”
McKay accepted me from Sheppard with the tiniest of grimaces, and held me at arm’s length. “If you defecate on my carpet, you will very shortly find yourself sharing the same fate as Pi. Only your demise will be very intentional.”
The bony woman gaped in horror. Sheppard’s lips curled into a smile.
___
McKay’s bed was unmade but comfortable. I waddled around until I had the sheets curled around me like a protective shell, and was delighted to note that this displeased him immensely. He was pacing around the room, muttering something about how couldn’t believe Sheppard’s gall and then something about this ill-fated creature known as Pi.
“I’m going to the lab now,” McKay told me, looking as cross as ever. “I can only imagine what Zelenka has managed to ruin while I’ve been gone. See that little box over there?” He pointed a cardboard contraption filled with what appeared to be sand. “That is where you do your business. I’ll bring you back some fish when I come back.”
It was not my mission to stay alone in a room, but to observe the life forms that now inhabited the Great City. So, I shrugged out of the sheets and toddled after him.
Looking annoyed, he said, “Stay. Stay here. Good penguin.”
I continued after him.
“Bad penguin!”
I attempted to appeal to his compassion-if, indeed, he had any-by letting out a small, pitiful squeak. He appeared unmoved by my endearing helplessness.
I tried to look adorably clumsy by taking a few steps and then deliberately tripping over my own feet.
For a moment, his face softened. Victory!
He walked over, bent down, and picked me up. He was not hard like Sheppard, but comfortably warm and squishy. “Maybe,” he said, “I can inflict you on one of the lowly lab techs…”
__
A small woman with black hair and slanted eyes took to me immediately, carting me around with her wherever she went and making baby-noises at me. I quickly learned that the “earthlings” were using the Alterans’ technology competently, if not to the full extent it could be harnessed. They had much to learn about the city in which they dwelt. I also learned that the scientists had a love-hate relationship with McKay that every moment threatened to morph into Stockholm syndrome. They alternated between saying “Yes, yes, McKay is right, let us do it this way, yes he is right” to muttering “That’s our Hitler” under their breath.
About three hours into the work, Sheppard appeared, leaning against the doorframe, watching with an amused grin as McKay shrieked at some hapless fool for some minor error.
I watched Sheppard with curiosity. There was an interesting manner in which he and McKay communicated. It might bear further investigation. I had only been on Atlantis for less than a day and I could already feel confident in pronouncing the earthlings as being mostly harmless to my superiors. Their understanding of the technology, while limited, was something that made them formidable to other races, but not to us. Who, after all, would waste their time trying to destroy “purposeless wads of feathered nothingness,” as McKay had so charming referred to us earlier? The Wraith did not feed on us. The earthlings in Atlantis thought little of us. There was no threat here.
There was little else to do, then, but provide myself with a decent distraction. And this was certain to be entertaining. The dark-haired earthling holding me, called Miko by the people around her, moved to another part of the room and I lost track of Sheppard. When I could finally look back, he was gone.
Blast.
So, I noted, was McKay. I squirmed in Miko’s arms, trying to get her to let go. Finally, with a slightly annoyed sigh, she set me down on the ground, and I waddled away out the door.
Then I spotted them. Standing oddly close to one another, talking softly. Curious, I waddled closer.
“…It’s not a date or anything. It’s Jell-O. On a balcony.”
“I have better things to do than eat that putrid abortion of a dessert…”
Their voices dropped low again, so that I could not hear.
Then: “Sheppard?”
“Yeah?”
McKay pointed at me. Sheppard raised an eyebrow.
“Hey there, Kepler. Would you like to have Jell-O with McKay and me?”
Seeing this for the intriguing opportunity it was, I squawked merrily and bounced from foot to foot, waving my wings. Sheppard found this hopelessly cute. McKay scowled.
Sheppard told McKay, cheerfully: “Tomorrow night at eight.”
“That sounds suspiciously date-like.”
“Only if I bring you flowers.”
Dubious, McKay said, “Are you going to bring me flowers?”
“Do you want me to bring you flowers?” His tone was light, teasing, but there was something else there that I couldn’t could understand. As though he were joking, but not, at the same time. Earthlings were so much stranger than the Alterans.
“I want to not go eat Jell-O on a balcony when I can use the time much more efficiently in the lab.”
Sheppard merely grinned. “Eight o’clock, McKay. Don’t be late.”
---
For someone who was only going to eat Jell-O on a balcony, and didn’t even want to go eat Jell-O on a balcony, McKay was spending a disproportionate amount of time muttering about what to do once on the balcony, and beforehand. He couldn’t even decide on what to wear. Eventually he just pulled on the military-issue trousers and a blue shirt. I took a moment to be thankful for the fact that I came from a race of beings that had no use for garments, and therefore wasted no time wondering which piece of dyed cloth to don.
“This is stupid,” he told me.
I squawked sympathetically, and slowly toddled toward him when he headed for the door, indicating my desire to go.
“This time,” he said, “you really do have to stay put. It was creepy to find you there just watching us talk.”
I wondered what else they would be doing besides talking, that McKay found it creepy for me to watch? It made me all the more interested in going.
“Shit!” he said suddenly, looking down at his watch. “When did it get to be eight?”
I tried to chirp out some kind of reply, but McKay was already out the door, not bothering to close it in his wake. Excellent.
I waddled after him as fast as my tiny legs would allow, but he was far faster than I, and after a certain point I was left to guess the direction he went. Eventually, I made it to my destination, and thought that Sheppard could not have picked a better spot to consume Jell-O. The small terrace overlooked the endless ocean that surrounded Atlantis, the waves painted dark purple with some flashes of burnt orange by the swiftly dying light of day.
They were seated in uncomfortable-looking chairs, the small table between them holding two small glasses of Jell-O. The ravenous beast perched atop Sheppard’s head seemed to be momentarily tamed, its vicious tentacles bound by something that coated them and looked solid yet gel-like. McKay was clutching a bouquet of nice-looking flowers and looking flustered. He didn’t seem to know what to do with them, though he was looking over the edge of the railing like throwing them over into the ocean would be the easiest solution. Instead, he merely dropped the flowers into his lap when Sheppard passed him one of the Jell-O glasses.
“I hope you appreciate this,” Sheppard said. “I had to bribe a lot of people to get this Jell-O.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He picked at the Jell-O with a spoon, a grimace marring his features.
For a long while they said nothing, merely took small bites of Jell-O as if it were something actually worth savoring. Given McKay’s former comments, I found that hard to believe.
“Well,” said McKay, finally setting down his empty glass. “It’s been charming, I’m sure, but I really do have work to do, so…”
“Sit down, Rodney.” Seeing the other man’s expression go sour at the command, Sheppard hastily added “Please.”
“Why should I?”
“I brought you flowers. The least you can do is stay and talk for a while.”
McKay said, “Fine. Let’s discuss Kepler’s mystical theories related to planetary motion…In his cosmologic vision, it was not a coincidence that the number of perfect polyhedra was one less than the number of known planets.” I had the sneaking suspicion that McKay was trying to make himself sound as boring as possible. “Having embraced the Copernican system, he set out to prove that the distances from the planets to the sun were given by spheres inside perfect polyhedra, all of which were nested inside each other. Which we all now know of course is a completely idiot notion, but all that aside…The smallest orbit, that of Mercury, was the innermost sphere. He thereby identified the five Platonic solids with the five intervals between the six known planets-Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn-and the five classical elements…”
Sheppard was looking decidedly twitchy. Believing them too engrossed in each other to pay attention to me, I inched a little further forward, giving myself a better view. Sheppard was now learning forward, as though at any moment he could leap out of his chair.
“Of course, all of Kepler’s attempts to shape the universe under the banner of a mathematical God failed, and he eventually abandoned most of those crackpot theories…He did, however, manage to realize that planets moved in elliptical, rather than circular, orbits…”
Sheppard did indeed leap out of the chair, launching himself at McKay. He put too much force into the effort, for McKay was unable to support the sudden addition of weight and collapsed into his chair, which in turn was unable to support the sudden addition of Sheppard and McKay and tipped over, depositing them both on the ground. I heard a rather odd noise as McKay’s head collided with the hard floor of the balcony.
“Nyag!” McKay yelled-he sounded, for the first time since I had encountered him, completely unintelligible. “You know, it may not matter much that your brain gets bruised, because God knows you have no use for it, but I happen to need my mental faculties, so-”
Sheppard’s mouth abruptly silenced him. McKay quickly pulled away.
“What, so you give me some horrible Jell-O and some flowers and just expect me to put out? You’re going to have to do a lot better than-”
He didn’t get the chance to say more, as Sheppard’s lips were once again on his. This certainly was an odd display, one that carried on for a seemingly endless stretch of time, the squelchy sound of earthling mouths sliding against each other-and I was thankful, once again, for being of my kind, for our particular eating orifices would make such an act unpleasant. But I was interested in getting to see earthling mating rituals first-hand.
I’m going to get invited to all the best parties back home…
And then it stopped, McKay once again shoving Sheppard away.
“You know,” Sheppard said in a low voice, nearly a growl. “I’m starting to get really annoyed with you push-”
“Look,” said McKay.
“What?”
“Penguin.” McKay bolted straight up, completely pushing Sheppard off him. “Goddamn voyeuristic penguin!”
Sheppard finally spared me a glance, and then turned back to McKay. “Well then. I suggest we relocate to a more private place.”
END.
I only wish I were kidding.
Title: Goddamn Voyeuristic Penguins
Author: Bee
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Rating: PG. Maybe PG-13, if you're really uptight about some things.
Summary: Sheppard and McKay find a penguin, and name it after a famous figure in the Scientific Revolution. The penguin bears witness to all sorts of intriguing earthling behavior.
Warnings: Mild crack!fic. Boy-snogging. A little bit of Weir-unfriendliness.
Some people are not very good at handling the truth. Their ability to plunge headlong into denial is remarkable. Their ability to surround themselves with other people who lie to them so as to perpetuate illusions rather than face the truth is even more remarkable.
I did not think, looking at them, that the aliens inhabiting the home of the Alterans would be able to accept that I was smarter than they were. So, I stayed curled into a small ball of fluffy feathers and squawked cutely.
The one with a very large black creature on its head quirked a smile. The unpleasant-looking one scowled.
“It looks like a penguin,” said the smiling man. The beast on his head gently twirled its short black tentacles as the man turned to look at the scowling one. “Right?”
“It looks like uselessness personified. I’m sure you don’t mind meandering about the arctic reaches of the planet, cuddling with purposeless wads of feathered nothingness, but might I remind you that I am professional with actual, important things to do?”
The man’s smile wavered a bit. The loathsome creature on his head sneered furrily. “You know, the reason you’re here is to get away from that work. Zelenka can handle it. Just enjoy the world outside Atlantis.”
“Oh, yes,” the unpleasant-looking man said, hopping from foot to foot, arms wrapped around himself. “The world outside Atlantis. The could, dismal, pygmy-penguin-infested world outside Atlantis. Delightful. But I suppose this beats spending time with the Athosians.”
I watched with interest as they bickered, swaddled as I was in the tall one’s arms. I tried to make conversation with the foul beast perched atop my transport’s head, but it was clearly mute. Though when my transport-Sheppard, his name was, according to the other man-inclined his head to make very patronizing cooing noises at me, the creature slithered around a little bit, and I could almost touch it with my small wing. Were I older, with better limbs, I could have, but I am very young for my species and not well-grown.
“McKay,” said Sheppard, “do you want to go ice fishing?”
“Do you want me to punch you in the face?” The disagreeable wretch-McKay, he was-only appeared to become more irritated as time went on. I took umbrage. My icy world was a wonderland. When I was back with the rest of my kind, I would have to relate to them the disservice the McKay-being did our home.
Sheppard looked amused rather than annoyed at the threat to his physical well-being. He apparently did not consider McKay to be much of a threat. “I’d like to see you try.”
Interesting, I thought. They communicate in much the same manner that the younglings communicate with each other.
Could it be that we had stumbled upon a race of strange-looking giant children, from whom we had nothing to fear? My superiors would be much-pleased with that news.
“Can we go now?” said McKay petulantly. “We’ve been out all day in that puddlejumper and as much as you enjoy it…”
Sheppard waved his hand dismissively. “Fine. Killjoy. But we keep Feathers here.”
Excellent! This was going better than anticipated. My higher-ups had prepared me for the possibility of smuggling myself aboard that transport vessel McKay referred to as a “puddlejumper.” I was pleased that I would not actually have to do so.
“Funny,” said McKay. “I thought Elizabeth said you were no longer allowed to keep pets after you murdered that little fuzzball you brought back from PX-1599.”
“Pi crawled into the ventilation duct and starved trying to find a way out. That was not my fault.”
“You weren’t watching it,” insisted McKay.
“Besides,” said Sheppard, continuing on as though McKay had not spoken, “Feathers is really for you.”
McKay sputtered indignantly. “I have neither the time nor desire for a pet!”
“You do now.”
“No, I most certainly do not.”
Sheppard’s expression changed. From insouciant to something rather sweet and cajoling, at least as far as I was able to understand. My study into the physical manifestation of human emotions was so far incomplete. It produced a rather interesting effect on the McKay-being, though it was not very pronounced. He still looked off-putting.
“It stays in the lab or something.”
“No, it stays in your room.”
“Fine, but it gets a cage!”
“No, it wanders free!”
“Fine, but I’m not naming it Feathers!”
And that seemed to be the end of it. And I was quite happy that McKay had managed to win at least one battle; I was not keen on being called Feathers. It was cutesy and demeaning to someone of my intense intellectual capability. I wondered, again, if the large beings would be frightened to find that I understood every word of what they were saying, and could communicate effectively and intelligently if I so chose.
Sheppard leaned down and said in a cute, coddling tone of voice: “Are you ready to go back to Atlantis, Feathers? Are you ready?”
For a moment I merely stared distrustfully at the being on his head, which was perilously close to me. I held no warm feelings for something so unsociable. Then, I chirped adorably at Sheppard, wagging my little wings.
Sheppard beamed. “It will make the perfect pet.” He turned to McKay. “Okay, we should probably get back to the puddlejumper before everyone starts to worry.”
“They don’t worry,” said McKay sourly. “Every time we leave they pray that we die.”
“No,” corrected Sheppard cheerfully. “They pray that you die. I happen to be very well-liked.”
“By the braindead.”
__
Atlantis was every bit the marvel it was when the Alterans inhabited it, a grand testimony to the cerebral superiority of a very talented race. It was very galling to our people to know that creatures of such mental capabilities, the creatures that had created us, were wiped out by something biological. It seemed perverse and unfair, and I could only hope that the beings who now ran the city had even an iota of the brainpower the Alterans possessed.
No sooner had we left the docking bay than we were greeted by the most improbably thin wretch I had ever laid eyes upon. The beings now in Atlantis seemed very similar, physically, to the Alterans, but none of them had been so very…bony. The expression on her face was something I could not yet convey with a simple, handy term. It was somewhere being smug superiority and fake camaraderie.
“Nice to see you back, boys.” Her eyes fell on me. “I see you brought back a friend?”
“It’s Rodney’s new pet,” said Sheppard. “His name is Feathers.”
“His name,” said McKay sharply, “is Kepler. The first theoretical astrophysicist and key figure in the Scientific Revolution.”
Oddly, the more McKay spoke, the more I actually began to like him. His arrogance and apparent genius reminded me very much of the Alterans, even though they had come far before my time. Some kind of link between the old inhabitants of Atlantis and the new was comforting.
The bony woman approached me, her pinched features twisting into something that was, I suppose, supposed to be kind and assuring. I did not trust her any more than I trusted the twisted beast that hibernated upon Sheppard’s head.
“Aren’t you adorable?”
Aren’t you way to close to my face?
She brushed her finger along the underside of my chin. I quickly inclined my head and bit it.
She shrieked slightly and jumped back.
Sheppard laughed.
“I guess Kepler”-he threw a significant glance at McKay-“doesn’t take kindly to a lot of touching. Sorry, Dr. Weir.” He turned back to McKay. “Here, he’s your pet. Here on out, you handle him.”
McKay accepted me from Sheppard with the tiniest of grimaces, and held me at arm’s length. “If you defecate on my carpet, you will very shortly find yourself sharing the same fate as Pi. Only your demise will be very intentional.”
The bony woman gaped in horror. Sheppard’s lips curled into a smile.
___
McKay’s bed was unmade but comfortable. I waddled around until I had the sheets curled around me like a protective shell, and was delighted to note that this displeased him immensely. He was pacing around the room, muttering something about how couldn’t believe Sheppard’s gall and then something about this ill-fated creature known as Pi.
“I’m going to the lab now,” McKay told me, looking as cross as ever. “I can only imagine what Zelenka has managed to ruin while I’ve been gone. See that little box over there?” He pointed a cardboard contraption filled with what appeared to be sand. “That is where you do your business. I’ll bring you back some fish when I come back.”
It was not my mission to stay alone in a room, but to observe the life forms that now inhabited the Great City. So, I shrugged out of the sheets and toddled after him.
Looking annoyed, he said, “Stay. Stay here. Good penguin.”
I continued after him.
“Bad penguin!”
I attempted to appeal to his compassion-if, indeed, he had any-by letting out a small, pitiful squeak. He appeared unmoved by my endearing helplessness.
I tried to look adorably clumsy by taking a few steps and then deliberately tripping over my own feet.
For a moment, his face softened. Victory!
He walked over, bent down, and picked me up. He was not hard like Sheppard, but comfortably warm and squishy. “Maybe,” he said, “I can inflict you on one of the lowly lab techs…”
__
A small woman with black hair and slanted eyes took to me immediately, carting me around with her wherever she went and making baby-noises at me. I quickly learned that the “earthlings” were using the Alterans’ technology competently, if not to the full extent it could be harnessed. They had much to learn about the city in which they dwelt. I also learned that the scientists had a love-hate relationship with McKay that every moment threatened to morph into Stockholm syndrome. They alternated between saying “Yes, yes, McKay is right, let us do it this way, yes he is right” to muttering “That’s our Hitler” under their breath.
About three hours into the work, Sheppard appeared, leaning against the doorframe, watching with an amused grin as McKay shrieked at some hapless fool for some minor error.
I watched Sheppard with curiosity. There was an interesting manner in which he and McKay communicated. It might bear further investigation. I had only been on Atlantis for less than a day and I could already feel confident in pronouncing the earthlings as being mostly harmless to my superiors. Their understanding of the technology, while limited, was something that made them formidable to other races, but not to us. Who, after all, would waste their time trying to destroy “purposeless wads of feathered nothingness,” as McKay had so charming referred to us earlier? The Wraith did not feed on us. The earthlings in Atlantis thought little of us. There was no threat here.
There was little else to do, then, but provide myself with a decent distraction. And this was certain to be entertaining. The dark-haired earthling holding me, called Miko by the people around her, moved to another part of the room and I lost track of Sheppard. When I could finally look back, he was gone.
Blast.
So, I noted, was McKay. I squirmed in Miko’s arms, trying to get her to let go. Finally, with a slightly annoyed sigh, she set me down on the ground, and I waddled away out the door.
Then I spotted them. Standing oddly close to one another, talking softly. Curious, I waddled closer.
“…It’s not a date or anything. It’s Jell-O. On a balcony.”
“I have better things to do than eat that putrid abortion of a dessert…”
Their voices dropped low again, so that I could not hear.
Then: “Sheppard?”
“Yeah?”
McKay pointed at me. Sheppard raised an eyebrow.
“Hey there, Kepler. Would you like to have Jell-O with McKay and me?”
Seeing this for the intriguing opportunity it was, I squawked merrily and bounced from foot to foot, waving my wings. Sheppard found this hopelessly cute. McKay scowled.
Sheppard told McKay, cheerfully: “Tomorrow night at eight.”
“That sounds suspiciously date-like.”
“Only if I bring you flowers.”
Dubious, McKay said, “Are you going to bring me flowers?”
“Do you want me to bring you flowers?” His tone was light, teasing, but there was something else there that I couldn’t could understand. As though he were joking, but not, at the same time. Earthlings were so much stranger than the Alterans.
“I want to not go eat Jell-O on a balcony when I can use the time much more efficiently in the lab.”
Sheppard merely grinned. “Eight o’clock, McKay. Don’t be late.”
---
For someone who was only going to eat Jell-O on a balcony, and didn’t even want to go eat Jell-O on a balcony, McKay was spending a disproportionate amount of time muttering about what to do once on the balcony, and beforehand. He couldn’t even decide on what to wear. Eventually he just pulled on the military-issue trousers and a blue shirt. I took a moment to be thankful for the fact that I came from a race of beings that had no use for garments, and therefore wasted no time wondering which piece of dyed cloth to don.
“This is stupid,” he told me.
I squawked sympathetically, and slowly toddled toward him when he headed for the door, indicating my desire to go.
“This time,” he said, “you really do have to stay put. It was creepy to find you there just watching us talk.”
I wondered what else they would be doing besides talking, that McKay found it creepy for me to watch? It made me all the more interested in going.
“Shit!” he said suddenly, looking down at his watch. “When did it get to be eight?”
I tried to chirp out some kind of reply, but McKay was already out the door, not bothering to close it in his wake. Excellent.
I waddled after him as fast as my tiny legs would allow, but he was far faster than I, and after a certain point I was left to guess the direction he went. Eventually, I made it to my destination, and thought that Sheppard could not have picked a better spot to consume Jell-O. The small terrace overlooked the endless ocean that surrounded Atlantis, the waves painted dark purple with some flashes of burnt orange by the swiftly dying light of day.
They were seated in uncomfortable-looking chairs, the small table between them holding two small glasses of Jell-O. The ravenous beast perched atop Sheppard’s head seemed to be momentarily tamed, its vicious tentacles bound by something that coated them and looked solid yet gel-like. McKay was clutching a bouquet of nice-looking flowers and looking flustered. He didn’t seem to know what to do with them, though he was looking over the edge of the railing like throwing them over into the ocean would be the easiest solution. Instead, he merely dropped the flowers into his lap when Sheppard passed him one of the Jell-O glasses.
“I hope you appreciate this,” Sheppard said. “I had to bribe a lot of people to get this Jell-O.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He picked at the Jell-O with a spoon, a grimace marring his features.
For a long while they said nothing, merely took small bites of Jell-O as if it were something actually worth savoring. Given McKay’s former comments, I found that hard to believe.
“Well,” said McKay, finally setting down his empty glass. “It’s been charming, I’m sure, but I really do have work to do, so…”
“Sit down, Rodney.” Seeing the other man’s expression go sour at the command, Sheppard hastily added “Please.”
“Why should I?”
“I brought you flowers. The least you can do is stay and talk for a while.”
McKay said, “Fine. Let’s discuss Kepler’s mystical theories related to planetary motion…In his cosmologic vision, it was not a coincidence that the number of perfect polyhedra was one less than the number of known planets.” I had the sneaking suspicion that McKay was trying to make himself sound as boring as possible. “Having embraced the Copernican system, he set out to prove that the distances from the planets to the sun were given by spheres inside perfect polyhedra, all of which were nested inside each other. Which we all now know of course is a completely idiot notion, but all that aside…The smallest orbit, that of Mercury, was the innermost sphere. He thereby identified the five Platonic solids with the five intervals between the six known planets-Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn-and the five classical elements…”
Sheppard was looking decidedly twitchy. Believing them too engrossed in each other to pay attention to me, I inched a little further forward, giving myself a better view. Sheppard was now learning forward, as though at any moment he could leap out of his chair.
“Of course, all of Kepler’s attempts to shape the universe under the banner of a mathematical God failed, and he eventually abandoned most of those crackpot theories…He did, however, manage to realize that planets moved in elliptical, rather than circular, orbits…”
Sheppard did indeed leap out of the chair, launching himself at McKay. He put too much force into the effort, for McKay was unable to support the sudden addition of weight and collapsed into his chair, which in turn was unable to support the sudden addition of Sheppard and McKay and tipped over, depositing them both on the ground. I heard a rather odd noise as McKay’s head collided with the hard floor of the balcony.
“Nyag!” McKay yelled-he sounded, for the first time since I had encountered him, completely unintelligible. “You know, it may not matter much that your brain gets bruised, because God knows you have no use for it, but I happen to need my mental faculties, so-”
Sheppard’s mouth abruptly silenced him. McKay quickly pulled away.
“What, so you give me some horrible Jell-O and some flowers and just expect me to put out? You’re going to have to do a lot better than-”
He didn’t get the chance to say more, as Sheppard’s lips were once again on his. This certainly was an odd display, one that carried on for a seemingly endless stretch of time, the squelchy sound of earthling mouths sliding against each other-and I was thankful, once again, for being of my kind, for our particular eating orifices would make such an act unpleasant. But I was interested in getting to see earthling mating rituals first-hand.
I’m going to get invited to all the best parties back home…
And then it stopped, McKay once again shoving Sheppard away.
“You know,” Sheppard said in a low voice, nearly a growl. “I’m starting to get really annoyed with you push-”
“Look,” said McKay.
“What?”
“Penguin.” McKay bolted straight up, completely pushing Sheppard off him. “Goddamn voyeuristic penguin!”
Sheppard finally spared me a glance, and then turned back to McKay. “Well then. I suggest we relocate to a more private place.”
END.