Interface, by kageygirl, for the ESP challenge
vs. the "extrasensory perception" version...
Title: Interface
Author: kageygirl
Rating: PG
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Summary: Nonverbal communication.
Many thanks to mmmchelle for beta work.
Interface
If anyone asked him, and he was feeling particularly honest, John would probably admit that he'd had to have Beckett explain the whole ATA gene expression thing to him more than once.
Well, he'd admit that if anyone other than Rodney asked, anyway. He'd make Rodney work a little harder to get a straight answer, just because.
The first time around, he'd been a little overwhelmed by the whole "aliens are real, they built Atlantis, flew away with it to another galaxy, and we're gonna go find it" deal. John hadn't quite processed the technical explanation of why he was able to make things like the control chair light up like a Christmas tree.
Which had made the science teams light up, too, as a neat little bonus, so even though he hadn't understood it right away, he didn't think it could be a bad thing.
But something they hadn't figured out back on Earth, because they'd never had a ton of power and because the really cool toys had gone to Pegasus with the city, was that some of the more sophisticated equipment--particularly the systems that accepted mental input--didn't just react to the presence of the ATA protein.
Some things, like the Puddle Jumpers, appeared to adapt to specific users. When he had a choice, John preferred to take Jumper One out, because it seemed to respond to him just a little more quickly and cleanly than the others did, because it just seemed to have a better sense of what he wanted the more time he spent at the controls. Sometimes, it felt less like mind-reading and more like intuition, instinct, like the Jumper knew what he wanted before John did.
He'd thought about mentioning that idea to Rodney, but he guessed that Rodney might think he was a little nuts. More than he already did, anyway. Rodney often seemed a little uncomfortable about trusting intuition. Besides, John only got to thinking about it when he was taking a solo flight, or when--
He gasped as Rodney bit his shoulder, and blinked up at Rodney, getting an arch look in return. "Am I boring you?"
"No," he panted, as Rodney ran his hands up John's thighs and over his abdomen, making John roll his hips into the motion. John shook his head. "Not bored--really, really not bored."
"Good. Let's keep it that way, shall we?" Rodney smiled with that look in his eye, the one that always seemed to end with John shaking and breathless and covered in sweat, and scraped his teeth along John's neck, as if he knew exactly how to drive John crazy as fast as possible.
Maybe he did, John thought. Because Rodney clearly understood more about intuition than he let on--maybe even more than he realized.
John grinned as he dragged Rodney up for a kiss. He rolled them both over to return the favor, to show Rodney what he'd intuited with his hands and his mouth and his body.
As for the adaptive Jumper interface, John decided that he wasn't going to say anything.
He really wanted to watch Rodney find out about that for himself.
Title: Interface
Author: kageygirl
Rating: PG
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Summary: Nonverbal communication.
Many thanks to mmmchelle for beta work.
Interface
If anyone asked him, and he was feeling particularly honest, John would probably admit that he'd had to have Beckett explain the whole ATA gene expression thing to him more than once.
Well, he'd admit that if anyone other than Rodney asked, anyway. He'd make Rodney work a little harder to get a straight answer, just because.
The first time around, he'd been a little overwhelmed by the whole "aliens are real, they built Atlantis, flew away with it to another galaxy, and we're gonna go find it" deal. John hadn't quite processed the technical explanation of why he was able to make things like the control chair light up like a Christmas tree.
Which had made the science teams light up, too, as a neat little bonus, so even though he hadn't understood it right away, he didn't think it could be a bad thing.
But something they hadn't figured out back on Earth, because they'd never had a ton of power and because the really cool toys had gone to Pegasus with the city, was that some of the more sophisticated equipment--particularly the systems that accepted mental input--didn't just react to the presence of the ATA protein.
Some things, like the Puddle Jumpers, appeared to adapt to specific users. When he had a choice, John preferred to take Jumper One out, because it seemed to respond to him just a little more quickly and cleanly than the others did, because it just seemed to have a better sense of what he wanted the more time he spent at the controls. Sometimes, it felt less like mind-reading and more like intuition, instinct, like the Jumper knew what he wanted before John did.
He'd thought about mentioning that idea to Rodney, but he guessed that Rodney might think he was a little nuts. More than he already did, anyway. Rodney often seemed a little uncomfortable about trusting intuition. Besides, John only got to thinking about it when he was taking a solo flight, or when--
He gasped as Rodney bit his shoulder, and blinked up at Rodney, getting an arch look in return. "Am I boring you?"
"No," he panted, as Rodney ran his hands up John's thighs and over his abdomen, making John roll his hips into the motion. John shook his head. "Not bored--really, really not bored."
"Good. Let's keep it that way, shall we?" Rodney smiled with that look in his eye, the one that always seemed to end with John shaking and breathless and covered in sweat, and scraped his teeth along John's neck, as if he knew exactly how to drive John crazy as fast as possible.
Maybe he did, John thought. Because Rodney clearly understood more about intuition than he let on--maybe even more than he realized.
John grinned as he dragged Rodney up for a kiss. He rolled them both over to return the favor, to show Rodney what he'd intuited with his hands and his mouth and his body.
As for the adaptive Jumper interface, John decided that he wasn't going to say anything.
He really wanted to watch Rodney find out about that for himself.