To Say Nothing of the Parrot, by Hth (This is not happening! challenge)
Title: To Say Nothing of the Parrot
Author: Hth
Pairing: Ronon/Rodney, not explicit
Summary: Arrrr! and also, Augghhh!
Author’s Notes: This may be the first flashfic I’ve ever written for sga_flashfic -- or, well, it's close. Alpha Centauri-related, but in no way plot-advancing. I’m pretty sure I stole the idea that Radek draws cartoons from Julad.
To Say Nothing of the Parrot
by Hth
The scientists who work in Atlantis are very much of one mind about Rodney McKay: they admire him, and they are frustrated by him, and they feel fortunate to work with him, and they like him, although they cannot quite verbalize why that is. They don’t have to verbalize it, really: among themselves, it goes without saying. That’s the way they all like it, including Rodney.
Radek perhaps admires him less than some; he is an engineer, not a theoretician, and he is not astounded by Rodney’s ability to batter at a problem until it gives way. This is what Radek has been doing all his life. Rodney is better at it than most - better than Radek, although Radek thinks the gap between their skills is not so great as some people would have it - but he is no magician. He is an engineer of ideas, and Radek understands perfectly well how he thinks, even if he can't match Rodney's pace.
If he admires Rodney less than some, he thinks he may well like Rodney more than most, too.
That is to say, Radek means no disrespect at all when he says that he does not understand Rodney McKay’s love life. People may well like Rodney - Radek does, himself. People may even like him extremely well, and Radek is no expert on such things, but he finds it reasonably comprehensible that people may find Rodney attractive. This is all well and good.
He has been watching, somewhere between bemused and dumfounded, as Rodney swings back and forth like a compass needle on a planet with no magnetic north between the favorite son of Atlantis and a man even Radek, who has never considered himself anything other than heterosexual in his life, would probably go down on, if invited. Neither of them ever seems to tire of waiting to regain his favor. Both of them are endlessly loyal, endlessly gravitating as near to Rodney as he will allow.
Radek does not understand how the man does it.
Lately it’s been Ronon in close orbit. He comes to the labs more or less nightly, pacing restlessly, pretending to look interested by the equations and the lightbulb jokes jotted on the whiteboards, waiting for the moment when Rodney can hand him an excuse to demand Rodney’s presence elsewhere. He never touches anything he shouldn’t, but Radek is still haunted by the feeling that he will, and that it will break. He is just so large, and some of this equipment is literally or practically irreplaceable.
He nods at Radek when he comes in, but never says anything except to Rodney.
Until the day that Radek wakes himself up in the morning (two days before the Daedalus’s ETA, and the coffee’s been gone for three already) by drawing a the head of a little pirate - moustache and hoop earring, eyepatch and bandana - and beneath it the words THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES. It is pointless, but it cheers him up. The pirate comes out well, he thinks: very piratical.
Ronon notices it right away. “This is cool,” he rumbles.
His tone is as flat as ever, but Radek chooses to assume he means it sincerely. “Thank you,” he says. “Only a hobby.”
Ronon sits on the edge of the desk beside Radek’s, and it takes Radek an entire two seconds to realize he is initiating a conversation. This is...puzzling. He pulls a tin of Altoids out of his coat pocket and flips it open, offering it toward Radek, and Radek takes two, still a little afraid Ronon intends to snap the lid shut on his fingers. Ronon shakes a small handful into his own palm and downs them all at once. Radek supposes curiously strong does not frighten Ronon. He smiles, which is faintly terrifying. “I like Earth pirates,” he says.
“What do you know about Earth pirates?” Radek asks. This is a man who still doesn’t quite seem to understand what flags are for; pirates seem like a niche interest within the larger field of Earth culture.
He shrugs and admits, “Not a lot, but I think I’ve got the basics down. Big ships, ruthless killers, canons. Rum, sodomy, and the lash.”
Radek chokes brutally on his tasteless, generic powdered cocoa.
“I mean, in a way I get it, and in a way I don’t,” Ronon continues almost airily. “Rodney doesn’t even drink rum, and I don’t think he cares anything about the lashes, except mainly for atmosphere, which makes it all just a lot of trouble to go to just to get sod- “
“I am not hearing this!” Radek says, very very loudly. Shouts, truthfully. “We are not having this conversation!”
It’s a shout, really, so it’s impossible to believe Ronon doesn’t hear him, but he seems unaffected by it. “It does explain a lot about this whole military thing, though. I mean, I never would have figured Rodney for the type, but he did spend all those years working for the Air Force, so there must be something about it he liked.”
He shouldn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know.
Ronon watches him patiently.
He does not want to know. He wants to be able to look his supervisor in the eye again, sometime within this lifetime.
Oh, God. “I don’t see the connection. Pirates aren’t a military, you know.”
“No, but the other part,” Ronon says, as though it should be obvious. “The heroic British naval captain who loses his ship and gets taken captive by the- “
“Kde domov muj,” Radek begins to sing, desperately. “Kde domov muj? Voda huci po lucinach- “
“I think if he had a ship, he’d probably surrender it right away and then blow it up later,” Ronon says thoughtfully. “He’s a lot sneakier than heroic naval captains are in the movies, but whatever. It’s his fantasy, and you know Rodney.”
“No,” Radek says. “No, not nearly this well, as a matter of fact, and I’m sure that’s the way he likes it.” That’s the way everyone likes it. When Radek said that he liked Rodney better than most people, this is not what he meant. Not at all.
Just then, Rodney wanders into the office, apparently trying to read from two datapads simultaneously. “Oh, thank God you’re here,” Radek says.
Rodney gives him a moderately worried look, as if Radek might be feverish and contagious. “Why, what’s gone wrong?”
The inside of my *brain,* Radek wants to say, but that would only mean that Rodney will find out why Radek can’t look him in the eye anymore, and if things can get worse, that’s how it will happen. “You have a visitor,” he says instead.
Rodney nods in Ronon’s general direction and says, “Hello. What time is it?”
“Late,” Ronon says. “Do you ever sleep, or what?”
“Of course I do. Otherwise I’d be cranky.”
“I just wanted to give your book back to you,” Ronon says, pulling a tattered paperback out of those bottomless coat pockets. Radek doesn’t look, he won’t look, he doesn’t want to know....
Hell. The cover says Devils of the Caribbee: A Thrilling Adventure of the West Indes. Radek notices this because he can’t not read something that’s being passed directly under his nose.
“Thanks,” Rodney says, still distracted, as though it doesn’t even matter to him that he’s been instrumental in destroying what little peace of mind Radek has won for himself, here in the Pegasus Galaxy. “What’d you think?”
“I liked it,” Ronon says, low and velvety, a tone that Radek has heard from him before and happily never associated with pornography, until now. “There’s some parts I’m not sure I understood though. You want to get a drink and explain them to me?”
“Mmmm,” Rodney says, entirely absorbed in his datapads. “If I.... Well, it is late. I suppose I have time. Why not? Actually, listen, let me meet you in about thirty minutes. Your place?”
It all seems so...normal, the kind of polite, tightly formal facade Rodney and his...gentlemen callers always put up. Radek always thought of it as a sign of Rodney’s essential decency and respect for the working environment, the actions of an eminently rational and cautious man.
It’s not possible that Rodney McKay has a - secret life - a side of him that - that - Good God. Even the more outre aspects of his social life.... Well, Radek had always felt certain that these things simply happened to Rodney, for whatever unfathomable reason. He doesn’t like the thought that there’s...something to Rodney, something in his brain that....
Strangely enough, it has never occurred to Radek that either of Rodney’s lovers understands how he thinks better than Radek does.
But then...but then.... Rodney is a terrible liar. Can he really be hiding something right now, right as Radek sits here watching him toss a pirate book backwards onto a pile of junk on the far side of his desk? Can he possibly be thinking about half the things Radek is now being forced to think about - rum, sodomy, and the lash, good God! - and still look so...so...like Rodney?
No. Rodney is a terrible liar. Ronon Dex, on the other hand.... Well, who knows how he thinks at all?
Radek finds a pretense to move near the door, so that Ronon has to pass him by as he exits. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” he murmurs. “You made up that story, whole cloth, just to frighten me.”
The doors open for him, but he doesn’t go through immediately, and they stay indecisively half-open as well, waiting. Ronon smiles, slow and confident and ruthless as Blackbeard himself, and says, “Okay. If you say so.”
Author: Hth
Pairing: Ronon/Rodney, not explicit
Summary: Arrrr! and also, Augghhh!
Author’s Notes: This may be the first flashfic I’ve ever written for sga_flashfic -- or, well, it's close. Alpha Centauri-related, but in no way plot-advancing. I’m pretty sure I stole the idea that Radek draws cartoons from Julad.
To Say Nothing of the Parrot
by Hth
The scientists who work in Atlantis are very much of one mind about Rodney McKay: they admire him, and they are frustrated by him, and they feel fortunate to work with him, and they like him, although they cannot quite verbalize why that is. They don’t have to verbalize it, really: among themselves, it goes without saying. That’s the way they all like it, including Rodney.
Radek perhaps admires him less than some; he is an engineer, not a theoretician, and he is not astounded by Rodney’s ability to batter at a problem until it gives way. This is what Radek has been doing all his life. Rodney is better at it than most - better than Radek, although Radek thinks the gap between their skills is not so great as some people would have it - but he is no magician. He is an engineer of ideas, and Radek understands perfectly well how he thinks, even if he can't match Rodney's pace.
If he admires Rodney less than some, he thinks he may well like Rodney more than most, too.
That is to say, Radek means no disrespect at all when he says that he does not understand Rodney McKay’s love life. People may well like Rodney - Radek does, himself. People may even like him extremely well, and Radek is no expert on such things, but he finds it reasonably comprehensible that people may find Rodney attractive. This is all well and good.
He has been watching, somewhere between bemused and dumfounded, as Rodney swings back and forth like a compass needle on a planet with no magnetic north between the favorite son of Atlantis and a man even Radek, who has never considered himself anything other than heterosexual in his life, would probably go down on, if invited. Neither of them ever seems to tire of waiting to regain his favor. Both of them are endlessly loyal, endlessly gravitating as near to Rodney as he will allow.
Radek does not understand how the man does it.
Lately it’s been Ronon in close orbit. He comes to the labs more or less nightly, pacing restlessly, pretending to look interested by the equations and the lightbulb jokes jotted on the whiteboards, waiting for the moment when Rodney can hand him an excuse to demand Rodney’s presence elsewhere. He never touches anything he shouldn’t, but Radek is still haunted by the feeling that he will, and that it will break. He is just so large, and some of this equipment is literally or practically irreplaceable.
He nods at Radek when he comes in, but never says anything except to Rodney.
Until the day that Radek wakes himself up in the morning (two days before the Daedalus’s ETA, and the coffee’s been gone for three already) by drawing a the head of a little pirate - moustache and hoop earring, eyepatch and bandana - and beneath it the words THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES. It is pointless, but it cheers him up. The pirate comes out well, he thinks: very piratical.
Ronon notices it right away. “This is cool,” he rumbles.
His tone is as flat as ever, but Radek chooses to assume he means it sincerely. “Thank you,” he says. “Only a hobby.”
Ronon sits on the edge of the desk beside Radek’s, and it takes Radek an entire two seconds to realize he is initiating a conversation. This is...puzzling. He pulls a tin of Altoids out of his coat pocket and flips it open, offering it toward Radek, and Radek takes two, still a little afraid Ronon intends to snap the lid shut on his fingers. Ronon shakes a small handful into his own palm and downs them all at once. Radek supposes curiously strong does not frighten Ronon. He smiles, which is faintly terrifying. “I like Earth pirates,” he says.
“What do you know about Earth pirates?” Radek asks. This is a man who still doesn’t quite seem to understand what flags are for; pirates seem like a niche interest within the larger field of Earth culture.
He shrugs and admits, “Not a lot, but I think I’ve got the basics down. Big ships, ruthless killers, canons. Rum, sodomy, and the lash.”
Radek chokes brutally on his tasteless, generic powdered cocoa.
“I mean, in a way I get it, and in a way I don’t,” Ronon continues almost airily. “Rodney doesn’t even drink rum, and I don’t think he cares anything about the lashes, except mainly for atmosphere, which makes it all just a lot of trouble to go to just to get sod- “
“I am not hearing this!” Radek says, very very loudly. Shouts, truthfully. “We are not having this conversation!”
It’s a shout, really, so it’s impossible to believe Ronon doesn’t hear him, but he seems unaffected by it. “It does explain a lot about this whole military thing, though. I mean, I never would have figured Rodney for the type, but he did spend all those years working for the Air Force, so there must be something about it he liked.”
He shouldn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know.
Ronon watches him patiently.
He does not want to know. He wants to be able to look his supervisor in the eye again, sometime within this lifetime.
Oh, God. “I don’t see the connection. Pirates aren’t a military, you know.”
“No, but the other part,” Ronon says, as though it should be obvious. “The heroic British naval captain who loses his ship and gets taken captive by the- “
“Kde domov muj,” Radek begins to sing, desperately. “Kde domov muj? Voda huci po lucinach- “
“I think if he had a ship, he’d probably surrender it right away and then blow it up later,” Ronon says thoughtfully. “He’s a lot sneakier than heroic naval captains are in the movies, but whatever. It’s his fantasy, and you know Rodney.”
“No,” Radek says. “No, not nearly this well, as a matter of fact, and I’m sure that’s the way he likes it.” That’s the way everyone likes it. When Radek said that he liked Rodney better than most people, this is not what he meant. Not at all.
Just then, Rodney wanders into the office, apparently trying to read from two datapads simultaneously. “Oh, thank God you’re here,” Radek says.
Rodney gives him a moderately worried look, as if Radek might be feverish and contagious. “Why, what’s gone wrong?”
The inside of my *brain,* Radek wants to say, but that would only mean that Rodney will find out why Radek can’t look him in the eye anymore, and if things can get worse, that’s how it will happen. “You have a visitor,” he says instead.
Rodney nods in Ronon’s general direction and says, “Hello. What time is it?”
“Late,” Ronon says. “Do you ever sleep, or what?”
“Of course I do. Otherwise I’d be cranky.”
“I just wanted to give your book back to you,” Ronon says, pulling a tattered paperback out of those bottomless coat pockets. Radek doesn’t look, he won’t look, he doesn’t want to know....
Hell. The cover says Devils of the Caribbee: A Thrilling Adventure of the West Indes. Radek notices this because he can’t not read something that’s being passed directly under his nose.
“Thanks,” Rodney says, still distracted, as though it doesn’t even matter to him that he’s been instrumental in destroying what little peace of mind Radek has won for himself, here in the Pegasus Galaxy. “What’d you think?”
“I liked it,” Ronon says, low and velvety, a tone that Radek has heard from him before and happily never associated with pornography, until now. “There’s some parts I’m not sure I understood though. You want to get a drink and explain them to me?”
“Mmmm,” Rodney says, entirely absorbed in his datapads. “If I.... Well, it is late. I suppose I have time. Why not? Actually, listen, let me meet you in about thirty minutes. Your place?”
It all seems so...normal, the kind of polite, tightly formal facade Rodney and his...gentlemen callers always put up. Radek always thought of it as a sign of Rodney’s essential decency and respect for the working environment, the actions of an eminently rational and cautious man.
It’s not possible that Rodney McKay has a - secret life - a side of him that - that - Good God. Even the more outre aspects of his social life.... Well, Radek had always felt certain that these things simply happened to Rodney, for whatever unfathomable reason. He doesn’t like the thought that there’s...something to Rodney, something in his brain that....
Strangely enough, it has never occurred to Radek that either of Rodney’s lovers understands how he thinks better than Radek does.
But then...but then.... Rodney is a terrible liar. Can he really be hiding something right now, right as Radek sits here watching him toss a pirate book backwards onto a pile of junk on the far side of his desk? Can he possibly be thinking about half the things Radek is now being forced to think about - rum, sodomy, and the lash, good God! - and still look so...so...like Rodney?
No. Rodney is a terrible liar. Ronon Dex, on the other hand.... Well, who knows how he thinks at all?
Radek finds a pretense to move near the door, so that Ronon has to pass him by as he exits. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” he murmurs. “You made up that story, whole cloth, just to frighten me.”
The doors open for him, but he doesn’t go through immediately, and they stay indecisively half-open as well, waiting. Ronon smiles, slow and confident and ruthless as Blackbeard himself, and says, “Okay. If you say so.”