Relaxed and Not At All Crazy by Liondragon [this is not happening]
Title: Relaxed and Not At All Crazy
Author: Liondragon
Challenge: This is Not Happening
Word Count: 3440
Summary: They made aliens do it?
Warnings: R for language (no bleeping!) The Hair, clowns, nudity, and underwear. If you're very triggery for non-con, there's a trace of it here. CROSSOVER from crack, see below.
Spoilers: Slight spoilers for the end of season 2 (and its DVD cover); tofutti rice dreamsicle if you know the crossover fandom!
Note: Please do not archive or list implied pairings. However, open to remixes! Here in flashfic for the duration of the challenge, then everywhere else afterwards. I confess that half the enjoyment of this fic will come from knowing the crossover episode in question. Also, I am going to hell.
Not my character, universe does not belong to me.
Unauthorized duplication and distribution prohibited.
Relaxed and Not At All Crazy
by Liondragon
Sheppard was trying to concentrate on flying the Orion while three team members who wouldn't put out stood on his command chair -- the one he was still parked in! -- and fixed those circuits that always shorted while the shields were up. He tried very hard not to look up.
Then something bulbous and white and creepy tapped on the forward viewscreen. From the outside.
"Colonel Sheppard, are you aware of how fast you are driving?"
Hermiod was really naked today.
* * *
"McKay?"
"Yes?"
"I know how crazy this is going to sound, but your clothes are on..." John Sheppard paused. "Inside-out and backwards."
Rodney McKay looked down at his BDUs. Sure enough, there were no food stains or oil spots visible. "Oh, oh, that's very funny, taking out your bitterness on a missed opportunity for an 'alien experience' complete with weird flashy lights so you can reverse the orientation of my underwear!"
Dr. Rodney McKay was on an open channel to Atlantis. Colonel John Sheppard decided to try some reverse psychology. "Are you crazy? Why would I get into your pants?" He ignored a choked laugh -- Beckett most likely. Then: "Wait a minute! You didn't notice your own tighty whities are on ass-backwards? You can navigate puddlejumpers by the orientation of your underwear! Who are you really, and what did you do to Rodney?"
Rodney was moving his mouth, but no sound was coming out.
"Colonel," said Elizabeth. It was her bemused but stern voice.
"And of course I know they're tighty whities! I'm his partner!"
Elizabeth paused, cool and professional as ever. "It's a fair question, Rodney. What happened to your clothes?"
Rodney threw up his hands. "How the hell should I know!"
* * *
They didn't make a form for this. Major Lorne rubbed his aching eyes. Some desk-monkey in the SGC would be staring at this and thinking, 'words, mere words, they can't hurt me.'
Lorne glanced at the stack of paperwork that he had to do (again!) because his CO was once more incapacitated. He picked up his pen and decided to go for blunt force trauma.
It was a simple sequence of events. The flagship team had spent an evening off-world, cavorting with the locals. Shortly thereafter, a dart crashed in the vicinity. The team had 'gated back and taken the Orion to rendezvous with the Daedalus.
Except the locals insisted that Sheppard had crashed the dart himself. While flying it.
And someone, probably McKay, had erased the last day's recordings of stargate activations.
There was also the fact that Ronon had cold-cocked Lorne to gain control of the Daedalus.
None of the team remembered any of this, of course. What was more, their chronos were set back seven-and-a-quarter hours, and McKay said he had been sexually assaulted by aliens that weren't in the database.
Lorne had had dates like that. Right down to the part where he'd woken in the infirmary without any underwear.
* * *
Dr. Carson Beckett was quite thorough in his examination. Mostly because Rodney was being strangely quiescent. He even ignored Sheppard tackling Zelenka and confiscating his cellphone, which doubled as a video camera and a photography studio.
Carson frowned. There was no physical evidence of anything. An Asgard probably wouldn't be able to tell if Rodney was a coffee drinker. "Are you having trouble sleeping? Are you experiencing muscle pains? Vision problems? Nosebleeds? When you look at the event horizon, do you think you're looking at something else?"
"Always, always, when I look at you, mornings, lemonade."
"What do y'remember, Rodney?"
"Your vast collection of anal probes. What do you think I remember!" He glared at Sheppard, that dirty underwear-switcher. He pointed an accusing, electrode-tangled finger at the Colonel. "You! I remember you're the reason I can't sleep!"
Sheppard looked affronted. You could tell it by the hair. "I did everything I could!"
"Stop stalking me," said Rodney.
"Maybe you should be hypnotized," said Carson.
"You should start running, Carson, because the circus pulled out of town and you'll miss all the other costumed freaks!"
Sheppard, heretofore non-nonplussed, collapsed into a fetal ball and started rocking. "Volkswagens... so many Volkswagens full of... oh no, no no no, convertibles..."
Elizabeth, as though summoned by Shep-dar, appeared. She took one look, patted his head and said, "What the fuck is going on here!"
* * *
They hypnotized Teyla first.
"I am not sure that this accounts for my missing time."
Ronon caught Dr. Zelenka's eye. "She doesn't look very relaxed."
Beckett sighed. "Just tell me what you see, love?"
Teyla continued. "We are sitting in the conference room. Arguing. There is a Wraith Queen sitting with us, saying this blackmail is for the good of our planet."
Beckett frowned. "But that actually happened."
"Yes," said Teyla patiently, dreamily. "That is why it cannot account for the missing time."
Carson looked disappointed.
"Except for the part where Dr. McKay is naked on the conference table." Teyla had a smile like a thousand suns.
* * *
Ronon was slightly more helpful. "McKay was talking in my head. In everyone's head."
Zelenka did not look happy at the prospect of McKay possibly being a vector of infection. He was actually there to make sure no one was inappropriately groped while under hypnosis, but he might as well have something to report to Elizabeth so he could hear her say 'Fucking fuckity fuck!' It sounded very attractive on her.
"So Rodney was talking..."
"Non-stop. Why is he always the humiliated one. Why does he always have to be the hostage. Why does he always have to wash the sheets. Why can't he have cool hair like me." Ronon blinked. Beads of sweat dotted his brow.
"Yes, Ronon?"
"Then he stole," said Ronon with an effort, "he was stealing our blue jello cups." He looked at Beckett very seriously. "He's a dead man."
* * *
"I was just about to publish. Lots and lots and lots of Nobel Prizes. I could buy a power speedboat with it."
"Rodney, you can't drive a boat."
"I'll hire a nubile blond to pilot it! Anyway, I was in the labs, about to send the databurst that would make my career and ensure my future empire of coffee plantations, when Samantha Carter walks in. That was when I realized something was weird."
"Rodney..."
His lips quivered. "Because if she'd walked in, I would have immediately engaged her in an intellectual battle of wills and demonstrated that she was less likely to kick my ass than when last we met. Except I couldn't move! I was paralyzed! She was right there and, and no hands!"
"Focus, Rodney!"
"Then she told me that all my red-shift data was wrong, there was no high spectrum emission, and it was just a pulsar! A pulsar! When she was the one who wasted three months researching the cover-up of LGM-1! She had the nuts to tell me that every astrophysicist has misidentified a pulsar as an interstellar telephone network. That it has nothing to do with Sheppard's underwear or driving a puddlejumper naked. She called me sex-crazed." He waved his hands at Beckett. "Pulsars! It contradicts everything Lord Damorg told me."
Carson said faintly, "Lord Damorg?"
"Ruler of the lava men, you know, that guy. So I opened my mouth to tell Dr. Samantha Carter that she was wrong and I was right, when she grabbed my collar and shook me like a crazy person! Her blond must have seeped through her scalp. She told me -- me, Rodney McKay! -- that if I published any of my lies, I was a dead man."
* * *
"There might have been a Damorg on the stop-motion planet," said Sheppard softly. He was trying not to think of pies. There had been this horrible orangey pie. They'd smashed it in his face over and over again. "I didn't catch all their names."
"Planet Harryhausen?"
"Yeah, their sun is kind of blinky. It's like those rave things with the cold lights and the good drugs." Sheppard licked his lips. "It was so weird. I was wearing my dress uniform. Asking all these questions. Then someone said to sit in this chair. And relax." He giggled. "Flying through the air!"
"Aye, I bet you were."
"Then Rodney took off my underwear."
"Well," said Beckett. "I can't really ask anything else, now can I?"
"Naw, it's cool. I'm the only one in the team who wears any. So he couldn't really take it off anyone else, right?"
* * *
Zelenka found McKay's so-called articles. They were a detailed diagram of Ascended sex orgies.
"Holy fuck," said Elizabeth.
* * *
Dr. Kusanagi was very patient with them. "This is his statement, verbatim. 'I hate this place. I hate these people. I want to go somewhere where I don't have to worry about tenure. So I got Zelenka's cellphone and boarded the Daedalus. Then I caught Colonel Sheppard rooting through the crate of underwear. He screamed like a girl. There was something wrong with his hair. It was really spiky. A little too spiky. But I'm not answering any more questions, because Dr. Weir threatened to kill me.'"
"What the fuck do you make of this fucking shit?" said Elizabeth mildly.
"Aside from the fact that it's Dr. Kavanagh's usual day? Colonel Sheppard's hair needs to be investigated."
"Dr. Weir," said Dr. Beckett. "We should also consider the unmentionables."
"The bloody damned underwear. Fuck."
* * *
Atlantis went commando within the hour.
* * *
"Glad you could join us, Doctor," said Major Lorne.
Zelenka shrugged. "I am only trying to escape. Ronon threatens to kill me if I do not find blue jello."
Lieutenant Cadman flipped her goggles up, then hastily put them back on. Everything was under a reddish light, like a photographer's darkroom. "They weren't kidding about Planet Blinky."
"Harryhausen," said Dr. Parrish.
"Get the fucking move on, people," said Dr. Weir.
They interviewed the natives. They confirmed that a Wraith dart had crashed recently, and a sketch artist showed them what looked like the remains of an Air Force dress uniform.
"Who is Lord Damorg?" Lorne asked. They didn't know. They did lead them to the same underground ruins that the flagship team had toured.
"Shit-damn fucking fuck," said Dr. Weir, reading the Ancient inscriptions. "It was fucking the whole time."
* * *
John had been confined to quarters. He managed to get Rodney confined with him. It was a small concession after Beckett's experiments had flattened his hair.
"So Ascended Ancients having mad orgies made the sun blink."
Rodney was pacing. "It's a miniature Dyson sphere, because a regular-sized one--"
"Is as big as a planet, yeah, I saw that episode."
"And these activities created excess energy, which in turn was siphoned off by some other interstellar civilization for their communications network."
John stretched out on the bed. "Then I blew up the dart..."
"Assuming it was you," said Rodney sourly, "and not some big-haired Air Force clone. That's all we need."
John grinned. "You have no idea what the Air Force gets into. Besides, if our sessions were right, you wiped your backside on the conference table."
Rodney glared. "That so did not happen! That was a figment of our imagination. Or whatever shared hallucination we're experiencing!"
"Diversion," said John suddenly. A beat and his body caught up with the rest of him and scrambled to sit up. "I crashed the dart as a diversion!"
"You remember?" said Rodney incredulously.
"No, I deduced it."
"Good for you, you're not just another brainy beauty. Diversion from whom? The Ancients? The pre-Bronze Age natives?"
John shrugged. "I dunno. The only thing that happened was the Daedalus showing up."
"But the stargate was functional--"
Someone rapped on the door. "Goddamnit John, open the goddamn door!"
The door swished open like it didn't want to be here, had plans in other rooms, bye now.
"What in ten shit-hells did you think you were fucking doing!" Elizabeth was actually mad. "We just fucking reviewed your damn hypnosis sessions."
Zelenka interrupted. "What we are meaning to say? You sat in the Chair."
"If you did anything to the damn city, you're a dead man!"
* * *
They made Sheppard wear a helmet. Beckett trailed after them looking like he was ready to hose them with hazmat foam. Zelenka excused himself because he thought he'd lost something.
"This is pointless," McKay groused as he examined the Chair. "I mean, who has mind-control technology, anyway? The assholes who, oh, wiped seven hours from my mind? That's the real culprit!"
"The Wraith?" suggested Teyla.
"See! Real culprits. There, look, the data doesn't lie."
"Oh, I don't know, Rodney," drawled Sheppard. "We don't actually know how neural networks create consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception. It could be lying."
"My ass is itching because of you," said McKay darkly. Ronon seconded this with a grunt. They got the hint, but whether or not the others deserved the truth was beside the point. "Oh, look, this is definitely my work. Yes, brilliant. It seems we used a puddlejumper operating on remote control to tip the dart over from a high altitude. You must have done a run, then programmed it into the jumper controls, like a macro. All we did was erase evidence of the macro. From anyone stupider than me, of course, which would be, ah, nobody."
"Why the fuck would anyone go through all that goddamn trouble?" said Elizabeth.
"How the hell should I know?" said John.
* * *
After dinner, Teyla and Ronon showed up at John's door. He wondered who they'd slammed against a wall to arrive without anyone tailing them.
"Oh, good, you are here," said Teyla to Rodney. "I wish to ask you about my hypnosis session."
Rodney sat on the chair, looking like Teyla was going to slam him into a wall. "You cannot interrogate me about that!"
From the bed, John murmured, "Are we asking about Rodney naked? Because I thought we weren't going there."
"What I am saying is," said Teyla mildly, "whether or not Dr. McKay was naked in my vision, he was awake and intent. He was looking upwards."
Ronon nodded. "That Asgard guy found us when we were messing with the overhead panel."
Rodney stood on the bed and immediately began pulling at the ceiling. After a moment, Teyla and Ronon joined in, stepping over John.
Not looking up. Not going to happen. Not happening. "My head hurts," announced John. "This shooting pain right here. It's saying I don't get what this has to do with underwear."
Ronon smirked down at him.
Then the radio buzzed with the breakthrough they'd been waiting for.
* * *
Parrish was on a roll, but was too nice to say so. "The genetic signature latches on to any fiber-producing plant, meaning most plants in any world visited by the Ancients. They're like spores, they survive processing, and since underwear is usually natural fibers... uh, in certain anatomical areas, skin-to-fiber activation--"
"Turns on the call-blocking function," said McKay. "Yes, yes, whatever, he's right."
"Good job!" Lorne slapped Parrish's back.
"All of Atlantis is damn, damn proud," said Dr. Weir, seconds before she dumped the blue goo on Colonel Sheppard's head.
* * *
John's first night back with his hair was interrupted by a tapping on his window.
Ronon was throwing pebbles from a lower balcony. "Sheppard. Southeast pier."
"It's a date," John said.
Teyla and Rodney were waiting for him. Between them was a huge bowl of yellow goo.
"Here's a little Jeopardy! trivia for you," he said. "John Sheppard's occupation. What is 'not Big Bird'?"
"If you're going to dismiss the possibility of alien life--"
"Of course I don't, they'd kill me." He grinned at Ronon and Teyla.
Rodney shoved a data tablet in his face. "Then you might want to look at this timetable, which clearly shows that some of our missing time was unaccounted for." Rodney crossed his arms. "As in, part of your team was missing..."
John winced. "All right, all right. Why are we doing this? Uh, again, I'm assuming?"
"Carson said it the mood shifts were just a side-effect," said Rodney. "This concoction interfaces with your gene, then opens the phone lines. Other people got the activated chemical on their skin, and it affected them."
"So it is a visualization aid. It activated when we touched it?" Teyla said.
Rodney snapped his fingers in the affirmative. "Yes, exactly. After a random sampling, I can safely say that every room the Ancients ever built has this long-distance transponder, one that doesn't seem to be intended for other Ancients. Except for some reason someone wanted to block our call."
"Yeah, and why shouldn't we let them?" John glowered.
"Crashed. A. Dart."
"Must be something big," said Ronon. "Something they don't want us to know."
John caved. They'd brought a chair and a pair of goggles for him. He tried not to flinch at the slap of three pairs of latex gloves. "Okay, fine. Who am I calling?"
Rodney shrugged. "Lord Damorg. He's the only name we have."
"You must be feeling sleepy, Colonel," said Teyla. "You are very relaxed."
* * *
"Son of a bitch!"
"Well it's not like we're trying to keep this quiet, or anything--"
John's eyes rolled back and when he opened them, there was a look there that said--
"It's a porn hotline! It's, it's intergalactic booty call!"
--he was never going to have sex again.
"Why would they..."
"How the hell should I know!"
Ronon shrugged. "At least we know why the call got blocked."
John moaned, while latex-covered hands hesitantly patted his shoulders. "They were unzipping their outer, ugh, outer skin thing, and there's nothing underneath except more clowns."
* * *
"But that doesn't explain the missing--"
* * *
At the office, Lorne was greeted by the sight of Sheppard's boots on the desk. The Colonel didn't look up from his book. "Are you saying the military-industrial-entertainment complex didn't know about a vast alien conspiracy to abduct our underwear? I mean, isn't that the SGC's job to know this stuff?"
"It could be worse, Sir. All they wanted to do was for us to leave them alone."
The transporter opened and seconds later Dr. Zelenka was at the door. "Colonel, you give back my cellphone, correct?"
"Yeah," said John slowly. "Why do you need a cellphone, anyway? Who're you gonna call?"
"I keep video in it. Smaller and lighter. But now I have lost it..."
Lorne sighed. "I'll help you find it, Doctor." Zelenka bobbed his head. Lorne went after him, then paused at the door. "Sir?"
"Yeah, Lorne?"
"There are two people who are taller than you on Atlantis. Specialist Dex is one of them. So how did--" he was staring at the hair.
"You say one more word, Major, and you're a dead man."
* * *
Rodney McKay found the cellphone. He didn't have much else to do in this cold, dank cell with all the unnecessary metal sculpture. At least he hoped they were unnecessary. Or at least that Sheppard would pick him up before any of it became necessary. It was rather drafty. Otherwise, he was feeling sort of relaxed. Sleepy.
He scrolled down the filenames. Then he stared. One file was in English. He almost opened it, watched it, let his curiosity get the better of him once more, but something in him recoiled and started to whimper.
He was finished purging it from the phone when he smelled smoke. Cigarette smoke.
The cell phone clattered to the floor. His mouth found the words to that whimper. "This is not happening." Mood shifts. "This is not happening." Not hallucinations. "It's not happening." Not missing time. "It's not happening." Because they did know who could do that. "This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening..."
"Dr. McKay," said Hermiod. The big black eyes blinked as he blew a smoke-ring. "Was it good for you too?"
* * *
Colonel Caldwell opened the door to the cargo bay.
And then he closed it.
"This is not happening," he said.
It wasn't. He'd checked the script.
He went to get some ice.
= = =
Sections of text are taken entirely from a television script written by Darin Morgan. Worship, not infringement, is implied.
[edit]: The crossover show's the second -- this VHS version is out there if you don't want to deal with the entire season. And I can't even say the fic will make more sense when you watch it, but your life will never be the same, really.
Also, this story contains no persons played by Robert Patrick nor any Air Force officers named Jack, more's the pity.
Author: Liondragon
Challenge: This is Not Happening
Word Count: 3440
Summary: They made aliens do it?
Warnings: R for language (no bleeping!) The Hair, clowns, nudity, and underwear. If you're very triggery for non-con, there's a trace of it here. CROSSOVER from crack, see below.
Spoilers: Slight spoilers for the end of season 2 (and its DVD cover); tofutti rice dreamsicle if you know the crossover fandom!
Note: Please do not archive or list implied pairings. However, open to remixes! Here in flashfic for the duration of the challenge, then everywhere else afterwards. I confess that half the enjoyment of this fic will come from knowing the crossover episode in question. Also, I am going to hell.
Not my character, universe does not belong to me.
Unauthorized duplication and distribution prohibited.
Relaxed and Not At All Crazy
by Liondragon
Sheppard was trying to concentrate on flying the Orion while three team members who wouldn't put out stood on his command chair -- the one he was still parked in! -- and fixed those circuits that always shorted while the shields were up. He tried very hard not to look up.
Then something bulbous and white and creepy tapped on the forward viewscreen. From the outside.
"Colonel Sheppard, are you aware of how fast you are driving?"
Hermiod was really naked today.
* * *
"McKay?"
"Yes?"
"I know how crazy this is going to sound, but your clothes are on..." John Sheppard paused. "Inside-out and backwards."
Rodney McKay looked down at his BDUs. Sure enough, there were no food stains or oil spots visible. "Oh, oh, that's very funny, taking out your bitterness on a missed opportunity for an 'alien experience' complete with weird flashy lights so you can reverse the orientation of my underwear!"
Dr. Rodney McKay was on an open channel to Atlantis. Colonel John Sheppard decided to try some reverse psychology. "Are you crazy? Why would I get into your pants?" He ignored a choked laugh -- Beckett most likely. Then: "Wait a minute! You didn't notice your own tighty whities are on ass-backwards? You can navigate puddlejumpers by the orientation of your underwear! Who are you really, and what did you do to Rodney?"
Rodney was moving his mouth, but no sound was coming out.
"Colonel," said Elizabeth. It was her bemused but stern voice.
"And of course I know they're tighty whities! I'm his partner!"
Elizabeth paused, cool and professional as ever. "It's a fair question, Rodney. What happened to your clothes?"
Rodney threw up his hands. "How the hell should I know!"
* * *
They didn't make a form for this. Major Lorne rubbed his aching eyes. Some desk-monkey in the SGC would be staring at this and thinking, 'words, mere words, they can't hurt me.'
Lorne glanced at the stack of paperwork that he had to do (again!) because his CO was once more incapacitated. He picked up his pen and decided to go for blunt force trauma.
It was a simple sequence of events. The flagship team had spent an evening off-world, cavorting with the locals. Shortly thereafter, a dart crashed in the vicinity. The team had 'gated back and taken the Orion to rendezvous with the Daedalus.
Except the locals insisted that Sheppard had crashed the dart himself. While flying it.
And someone, probably McKay, had erased the last day's recordings of stargate activations.
There was also the fact that Ronon had cold-cocked Lorne to gain control of the Daedalus.
None of the team remembered any of this, of course. What was more, their chronos were set back seven-and-a-quarter hours, and McKay said he had been sexually assaulted by aliens that weren't in the database.
Lorne had had dates like that. Right down to the part where he'd woken in the infirmary without any underwear.
* * *
Dr. Carson Beckett was quite thorough in his examination. Mostly because Rodney was being strangely quiescent. He even ignored Sheppard tackling Zelenka and confiscating his cellphone, which doubled as a video camera and a photography studio.
Carson frowned. There was no physical evidence of anything. An Asgard probably wouldn't be able to tell if Rodney was a coffee drinker. "Are you having trouble sleeping? Are you experiencing muscle pains? Vision problems? Nosebleeds? When you look at the event horizon, do you think you're looking at something else?"
"Always, always, when I look at you, mornings, lemonade."
"What do y'remember, Rodney?"
"Your vast collection of anal probes. What do you think I remember!" He glared at Sheppard, that dirty underwear-switcher. He pointed an accusing, electrode-tangled finger at the Colonel. "You! I remember you're the reason I can't sleep!"
Sheppard looked affronted. You could tell it by the hair. "I did everything I could!"
"Stop stalking me," said Rodney.
"Maybe you should be hypnotized," said Carson.
"You should start running, Carson, because the circus pulled out of town and you'll miss all the other costumed freaks!"
Sheppard, heretofore non-nonplussed, collapsed into a fetal ball and started rocking. "Volkswagens... so many Volkswagens full of... oh no, no no no, convertibles..."
Elizabeth, as though summoned by Shep-dar, appeared. She took one look, patted his head and said, "What the fuck is going on here!"
* * *
They hypnotized Teyla first.
"I am not sure that this accounts for my missing time."
Ronon caught Dr. Zelenka's eye. "She doesn't look very relaxed."
Beckett sighed. "Just tell me what you see, love?"
Teyla continued. "We are sitting in the conference room. Arguing. There is a Wraith Queen sitting with us, saying this blackmail is for the good of our planet."
Beckett frowned. "But that actually happened."
"Yes," said Teyla patiently, dreamily. "That is why it cannot account for the missing time."
Carson looked disappointed.
"Except for the part where Dr. McKay is naked on the conference table." Teyla had a smile like a thousand suns.
* * *
Ronon was slightly more helpful. "McKay was talking in my head. In everyone's head."
Zelenka did not look happy at the prospect of McKay possibly being a vector of infection. He was actually there to make sure no one was inappropriately groped while under hypnosis, but he might as well have something to report to Elizabeth so he could hear her say 'Fucking fuckity fuck!' It sounded very attractive on her.
"So Rodney was talking..."
"Non-stop. Why is he always the humiliated one. Why does he always have to be the hostage. Why does he always have to wash the sheets. Why can't he have cool hair like me." Ronon blinked. Beads of sweat dotted his brow.
"Yes, Ronon?"
"Then he stole," said Ronon with an effort, "he was stealing our blue jello cups." He looked at Beckett very seriously. "He's a dead man."
* * *
"I was just about to publish. Lots and lots and lots of Nobel Prizes. I could buy a power speedboat with it."
"Rodney, you can't drive a boat."
"I'll hire a nubile blond to pilot it! Anyway, I was in the labs, about to send the databurst that would make my career and ensure my future empire of coffee plantations, when Samantha Carter walks in. That was when I realized something was weird."
"Rodney..."
His lips quivered. "Because if she'd walked in, I would have immediately engaged her in an intellectual battle of wills and demonstrated that she was less likely to kick my ass than when last we met. Except I couldn't move! I was paralyzed! She was right there and, and no hands!"
"Focus, Rodney!"
"Then she told me that all my red-shift data was wrong, there was no high spectrum emission, and it was just a pulsar! A pulsar! When she was the one who wasted three months researching the cover-up of LGM-1! She had the nuts to tell me that every astrophysicist has misidentified a pulsar as an interstellar telephone network. That it has nothing to do with Sheppard's underwear or driving a puddlejumper naked. She called me sex-crazed." He waved his hands at Beckett. "Pulsars! It contradicts everything Lord Damorg told me."
Carson said faintly, "Lord Damorg?"
"Ruler of the lava men, you know, that guy. So I opened my mouth to tell Dr. Samantha Carter that she was wrong and I was right, when she grabbed my collar and shook me like a crazy person! Her blond must have seeped through her scalp. She told me -- me, Rodney McKay! -- that if I published any of my lies, I was a dead man."
* * *
"There might have been a Damorg on the stop-motion planet," said Sheppard softly. He was trying not to think of pies. There had been this horrible orangey pie. They'd smashed it in his face over and over again. "I didn't catch all their names."
"Planet Harryhausen?"
"Yeah, their sun is kind of blinky. It's like those rave things with the cold lights and the good drugs." Sheppard licked his lips. "It was so weird. I was wearing my dress uniform. Asking all these questions. Then someone said to sit in this chair. And relax." He giggled. "Flying through the air!"
"Aye, I bet you were."
"Then Rodney took off my underwear."
"Well," said Beckett. "I can't really ask anything else, now can I?"
"Naw, it's cool. I'm the only one in the team who wears any. So he couldn't really take it off anyone else, right?"
* * *
Zelenka found McKay's so-called articles. They were a detailed diagram of Ascended sex orgies.
"Holy fuck," said Elizabeth.
* * *
Dr. Kusanagi was very patient with them. "This is his statement, verbatim. 'I hate this place. I hate these people. I want to go somewhere where I don't have to worry about tenure. So I got Zelenka's cellphone and boarded the Daedalus. Then I caught Colonel Sheppard rooting through the crate of underwear. He screamed like a girl. There was something wrong with his hair. It was really spiky. A little too spiky. But I'm not answering any more questions, because Dr. Weir threatened to kill me.'"
"What the fuck do you make of this fucking shit?" said Elizabeth mildly.
"Aside from the fact that it's Dr. Kavanagh's usual day? Colonel Sheppard's hair needs to be investigated."
"Dr. Weir," said Dr. Beckett. "We should also consider the unmentionables."
"The bloody damned underwear. Fuck."
* * *
Atlantis went commando within the hour.
* * *
"Glad you could join us, Doctor," said Major Lorne.
Zelenka shrugged. "I am only trying to escape. Ronon threatens to kill me if I do not find blue jello."
Lieutenant Cadman flipped her goggles up, then hastily put them back on. Everything was under a reddish light, like a photographer's darkroom. "They weren't kidding about Planet Blinky."
"Harryhausen," said Dr. Parrish.
"Get the fucking move on, people," said Dr. Weir.
They interviewed the natives. They confirmed that a Wraith dart had crashed recently, and a sketch artist showed them what looked like the remains of an Air Force dress uniform.
"Who is Lord Damorg?" Lorne asked. They didn't know. They did lead them to the same underground ruins that the flagship team had toured.
"Shit-damn fucking fuck," said Dr. Weir, reading the Ancient inscriptions. "It was fucking the whole time."
* * *
John had been confined to quarters. He managed to get Rodney confined with him. It was a small concession after Beckett's experiments had flattened his hair.
"So Ascended Ancients having mad orgies made the sun blink."
Rodney was pacing. "It's a miniature Dyson sphere, because a regular-sized one--"
"Is as big as a planet, yeah, I saw that episode."
"And these activities created excess energy, which in turn was siphoned off by some other interstellar civilization for their communications network."
John stretched out on the bed. "Then I blew up the dart..."
"Assuming it was you," said Rodney sourly, "and not some big-haired Air Force clone. That's all we need."
John grinned. "You have no idea what the Air Force gets into. Besides, if our sessions were right, you wiped your backside on the conference table."
Rodney glared. "That so did not happen! That was a figment of our imagination. Or whatever shared hallucination we're experiencing!"
"Diversion," said John suddenly. A beat and his body caught up with the rest of him and scrambled to sit up. "I crashed the dart as a diversion!"
"You remember?" said Rodney incredulously.
"No, I deduced it."
"Good for you, you're not just another brainy beauty. Diversion from whom? The Ancients? The pre-Bronze Age natives?"
John shrugged. "I dunno. The only thing that happened was the Daedalus showing up."
"But the stargate was functional--"
Someone rapped on the door. "Goddamnit John, open the goddamn door!"
The door swished open like it didn't want to be here, had plans in other rooms, bye now.
"What in ten shit-hells did you think you were fucking doing!" Elizabeth was actually mad. "We just fucking reviewed your damn hypnosis sessions."
Zelenka interrupted. "What we are meaning to say? You sat in the Chair."
"If you did anything to the damn city, you're a dead man!"
* * *
They made Sheppard wear a helmet. Beckett trailed after them looking like he was ready to hose them with hazmat foam. Zelenka excused himself because he thought he'd lost something.
"This is pointless," McKay groused as he examined the Chair. "I mean, who has mind-control technology, anyway? The assholes who, oh, wiped seven hours from my mind? That's the real culprit!"
"The Wraith?" suggested Teyla.
"See! Real culprits. There, look, the data doesn't lie."
"Oh, I don't know, Rodney," drawled Sheppard. "We don't actually know how neural networks create consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception. It could be lying."
"My ass is itching because of you," said McKay darkly. Ronon seconded this with a grunt. They got the hint, but whether or not the others deserved the truth was beside the point. "Oh, look, this is definitely my work. Yes, brilliant. It seems we used a puddlejumper operating on remote control to tip the dart over from a high altitude. You must have done a run, then programmed it into the jumper controls, like a macro. All we did was erase evidence of the macro. From anyone stupider than me, of course, which would be, ah, nobody."
"Why the fuck would anyone go through all that goddamn trouble?" said Elizabeth.
"How the hell should I know?" said John.
* * *
After dinner, Teyla and Ronon showed up at John's door. He wondered who they'd slammed against a wall to arrive without anyone tailing them.
"Oh, good, you are here," said Teyla to Rodney. "I wish to ask you about my hypnosis session."
Rodney sat on the chair, looking like Teyla was going to slam him into a wall. "You cannot interrogate me about that!"
From the bed, John murmured, "Are we asking about Rodney naked? Because I thought we weren't going there."
"What I am saying is," said Teyla mildly, "whether or not Dr. McKay was naked in my vision, he was awake and intent. He was looking upwards."
Ronon nodded. "That Asgard guy found us when we were messing with the overhead panel."
Rodney stood on the bed and immediately began pulling at the ceiling. After a moment, Teyla and Ronon joined in, stepping over John.
Not looking up. Not going to happen. Not happening. "My head hurts," announced John. "This shooting pain right here. It's saying I don't get what this has to do with underwear."
Ronon smirked down at him.
Then the radio buzzed with the breakthrough they'd been waiting for.
* * *
Parrish was on a roll, but was too nice to say so. "The genetic signature latches on to any fiber-producing plant, meaning most plants in any world visited by the Ancients. They're like spores, they survive processing, and since underwear is usually natural fibers... uh, in certain anatomical areas, skin-to-fiber activation--"
"Turns on the call-blocking function," said McKay. "Yes, yes, whatever, he's right."
"Good job!" Lorne slapped Parrish's back.
"All of Atlantis is damn, damn proud," said Dr. Weir, seconds before she dumped the blue goo on Colonel Sheppard's head.
* * *
John's first night back with his hair was interrupted by a tapping on his window.
Ronon was throwing pebbles from a lower balcony. "Sheppard. Southeast pier."
"It's a date," John said.
Teyla and Rodney were waiting for him. Between them was a huge bowl of yellow goo.
"Here's a little Jeopardy! trivia for you," he said. "John Sheppard's occupation. What is 'not Big Bird'?"
"If you're going to dismiss the possibility of alien life--"
"Of course I don't, they'd kill me." He grinned at Ronon and Teyla.
Rodney shoved a data tablet in his face. "Then you might want to look at this timetable, which clearly shows that some of our missing time was unaccounted for." Rodney crossed his arms. "As in, part of your team was missing..."
John winced. "All right, all right. Why are we doing this? Uh, again, I'm assuming?"
"Carson said it the mood shifts were just a side-effect," said Rodney. "This concoction interfaces with your gene, then opens the phone lines. Other people got the activated chemical on their skin, and it affected them."
"So it is a visualization aid. It activated when we touched it?" Teyla said.
Rodney snapped his fingers in the affirmative. "Yes, exactly. After a random sampling, I can safely say that every room the Ancients ever built has this long-distance transponder, one that doesn't seem to be intended for other Ancients. Except for some reason someone wanted to block our call."
"Yeah, and why shouldn't we let them?" John glowered.
"Crashed. A. Dart."
"Must be something big," said Ronon. "Something they don't want us to know."
John caved. They'd brought a chair and a pair of goggles for him. He tried not to flinch at the slap of three pairs of latex gloves. "Okay, fine. Who am I calling?"
Rodney shrugged. "Lord Damorg. He's the only name we have."
"You must be feeling sleepy, Colonel," said Teyla. "You are very relaxed."
* * *
"Son of a bitch!"
"Well it's not like we're trying to keep this quiet, or anything--"
John's eyes rolled back and when he opened them, there was a look there that said--
"It's a porn hotline! It's, it's intergalactic booty call!"
--he was never going to have sex again.
"Why would they..."
"How the hell should I know!"
Ronon shrugged. "At least we know why the call got blocked."
John moaned, while latex-covered hands hesitantly patted his shoulders. "They were unzipping their outer, ugh, outer skin thing, and there's nothing underneath except more clowns."
* * *
"But that doesn't explain the missing--"
* * *
At the office, Lorne was greeted by the sight of Sheppard's boots on the desk. The Colonel didn't look up from his book. "Are you saying the military-industrial-entertainment complex didn't know about a vast alien conspiracy to abduct our underwear? I mean, isn't that the SGC's job to know this stuff?"
"It could be worse, Sir. All they wanted to do was for us to leave them alone."
The transporter opened and seconds later Dr. Zelenka was at the door. "Colonel, you give back my cellphone, correct?"
"Yeah," said John slowly. "Why do you need a cellphone, anyway? Who're you gonna call?"
"I keep video in it. Smaller and lighter. But now I have lost it..."
Lorne sighed. "I'll help you find it, Doctor." Zelenka bobbed his head. Lorne went after him, then paused at the door. "Sir?"
"Yeah, Lorne?"
"There are two people who are taller than you on Atlantis. Specialist Dex is one of them. So how did--" he was staring at the hair.
"You say one more word, Major, and you're a dead man."
* * *
Rodney McKay found the cellphone. He didn't have much else to do in this cold, dank cell with all the unnecessary metal sculpture. At least he hoped they were unnecessary. Or at least that Sheppard would pick him up before any of it became necessary. It was rather drafty. Otherwise, he was feeling sort of relaxed. Sleepy.
He scrolled down the filenames. Then he stared. One file was in English. He almost opened it, watched it, let his curiosity get the better of him once more, but something in him recoiled and started to whimper.
He was finished purging it from the phone when he smelled smoke. Cigarette smoke.
The cell phone clattered to the floor. His mouth found the words to that whimper. "This is not happening." Mood shifts. "This is not happening." Not hallucinations. "It's not happening." Not missing time. "It's not happening." Because they did know who could do that. "This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening..."
"Dr. McKay," said Hermiod. The big black eyes blinked as he blew a smoke-ring. "Was it good for you too?"
* * *
Colonel Caldwell opened the door to the cargo bay.
And then he closed it.
"This is not happening," he said.
It wasn't. He'd checked the script.
He went to get some ice.
= = =
Sections of text are taken entirely from a television script written by Darin Morgan. Worship, not infringement, is implied.
[edit]: The crossover show's the second -- this VHS version is out there if you don't want to deal with the entire season. And I can't even say the fic will make more sense when you watch it, but your life will never be the same, really.
Also, this story contains no persons played by Robert Patrick nor any Air Force officers named Jack, more's the pity.