How John & Rodney Got Married and Inherited a Trumpet... by Springwoof (Not Human Challenge)
Title: How John and Rodney Got Married and Inherited a Trumpet (and Other Details of Life in Pegasus)
Author: Springwoof
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG/Teen
Wordcount: 2000
Warnings: Omniscient narrator. And…um…is "crack" a warning?
Spoilers: An AU diverging sometime after Season 2's "Michael"
Betae: Thanks to brindel and especially to tesserae_, who held my hand, reassured me that it was funny, and made this a much better story.
Note: Dedicated to tardis80. This is what happened to your long-ago-requested "snugglefic," dear. ::shrugs:: Apparently, this is as close as I can come to "cute."
Summary: McKay's shrill insistence that he was not a clone for goodness sakes, and he was not going to high school again, no matter what they'd managed to talk O'Neill's clone into doing-fell on deaf ears.
How John and Rodney Got Married and Inherited a Trumpet (and Other Details of Life in Pegasus)
by Springwoof
Once upon a time, in the Lost City of the Ancients, there was a Scientist…
No, wait. This isn't that kind of a story.
Actually, it started when Rodney McKay accidentally walked into a trap.
Essentially, Radek Zelenka explained, it was an Ancient weapon, which somehow regressed Rodney to the appearance of childhood. It would have regressed Rodney back to fetushood, had Zelenka not managed to figure out how to spring the trap and rescue him. Of course, this being the Pegasus galaxy, he managed to lose a decade or more of his own. ("Not as pleasant a fate as one might think," Zelenka said morosely. His listeners nodded with sympathy.) In his early twenties, Radek had been skinny and gawky, and even shorter. But Zelenka was amazingly philosophical about it all-possibly because he could lord it over Rodney for all time that he'd saved his little butt.
And Rodney McKay's butt was little. McKay now looked like a child. As a little child, McKay was as brilliant as ever and just as arrogant, obnoxious, and loud-mouthed.
He was also, unfortunately, utterly adorable.
Pink cheeks, abundant blond curls, big blue eyes, long eyelashes--when he shut his big mouth long enough, the Lantean women found him almost too cute to resist. But he was still the same McKay inside. After the first few passes from the little cherub, or the first full-fledged McKay rant, the ladies of Atlantis learned to ignore the external trappings and dealt with Rodney as they always had.
Stargate Command wasn't as easily convinced to look beyond the externals as McKay's colleagues. They insisted that they knew how to deal with the problem, having dealt with it before when (then-Colonel) O'Neill "got himself a mini-me"-as McKay put it-courtesy of a rogue Asgard. McKay's shrill insistence that it was not the same issue, he was not a clone for goodness sakes, and was in a completely different galaxy besides, so his existence didn't have to be hidden or explained away-and he was not goddam going to high school again, no matter what they'd managed to talk O'Neill's clone into doing-all fell on deaf ears.
Caldwell showed up with orders and-over the vehement objections of John and Elizabeth-grimly towed a vigorously protesting McKay aboard the Daedalus. Or at least that was the plan.
After McKay escaped for the third time, Caldwell had Hermiod wait until the Daedalus was heading out of the Atlantis system to beam the boy-scientist up to a secure cabin. And that only worked because Caldwell had taken the precaution of begging Elizabeth to have a “discussion” with McKay beforehand. (The “discussion” involved a tantrum-and admittedly, a few tears-on Rodney’s part, and an awkward hug and impassioned promises on Elizabeth’s. “We’ll get you back, Rodney! I swear it.”)
Not being an idiot, Caldwell had also requested that the rest of McKay’s team be sent offworld on an important mission-lest they manage to pull off a daring rescue and extract their cherubic-looking scientist from the clutches of the SGC. (While this would have been emotionally satisfying for all involved, it would have definitely wrecked Sheppard’s already-shaky Air Force career. Never let it be said that Caldwell couldn’t do a fellow officer a favor-even if said officer didn’t particularly want that favor at the time.)
***
This was the Pegasus galaxy. Bad things didn't come one at a time; they came in bunches. Like bananas. (Or those little pink berries that Katie Brown grew in the Botany department's greenhouse. Mmmm…pie!)
What happened next was that Sheppard got captured by a Wraith scientist experimenting with gene therapy (heck, if mere humans could do it, the Wraith figured that they could try their hands at it as well) and got turned into a Wraith himself. A slouchy, drawling, country-music-loving Wraith, who liked to pin bizarre human nicknames on the other Wraiths in his vicinity.
“Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry” were particularly annoyed with their new “brother," who insisted on calling himself “Johnny” for no reason that they-or Johnny himself-could discern. The new Wraith's hair was also frustratingly individualistic and, while obligingly going Wraith-grey, did not otherwise conform to Wraith fashion dictates and, instead of flowing long and smooth down his back, (or at least in controlled dreadlocks) stood up in wild spikes and cowlicks, like a porcupine’s quills or a cock’s comb (or other creatures with which the Wraith had no familiarity whatsoever).
Unfortunately, the new Johnny-Wraith was as resourceful and inventive as John Sheppard had been, and was successfully used by a Hive Ship to infiltrate Atlantis. With a dramatic irony that anyone on Atlantis would have described as "typical," during the resulting epic battle Johnny-Wraith was inevitably drawn to the newly-triumphantly-returned young Rodney McKay. Like magnets, they came together with a nearly-audible “click.”
Johnny-Wraith fed.
Ronon saved McKay by shooting the Johnny-Wraith before he’d taken more than a decade or so.
"I believe your health will not be seriously compromised, Rodney," Teyla informed her teammate as she helped him up. "Dr. Beckett has explained to me that the physiological changes resulting from Wraith feeding just appear to be ageing-you have not actually aged."
McKay sputtered incoherently, windmilled his arms, and promptly fell down on his butt again.
"Whatever." Ronon gave Teyla a dubious look as he helped Rodney back to his feet. "You okay?" he asked Rodney.
He seemed okay, though he looked older now. Certainly, Rodney’s previous run-in with the Ancient Youthening Ray gave him an extra decade or two to spare. At least the weird Wraith hadn’t gotten to Elizabeth-the Daedalus was already bringing in enough Miss Clairol for her.
Teyla then saved Sheppard by preventing Ronon from following through and killing the odd-looking Wraith. “I sense something different about this one,” she said.
McKay finally regained his voice. “How, different? So, he enjoys the unique flavor of physicist! He still tried to eat me! Shoot him!” Rodney’s jumping-up-and-down tantrum may have been effective from the child he had appeared to be just five minutes previously, but the scrawny teenager he currently looked like (with torn and too-tight clothing, Batman underwear showing) just wasn’t able to pull it off.
“No,” Teyla insisted. “Rodney, look at his hair.”
All three looked down at the Wraith lying at their feet. The hair did look rather un-Wraithlike, although he did wear the rest of the leather Wraith-garb as if born to it. (Rodney sternly told himself that his observation-that this Wraith looked oddly sexy and hot in that outfit-was the product of his newly-surging hormones.) Then the prone Wraith brought a hand to his head, as if he was woozy, and opened hazel-green, distinctly un-Wraithlike eyes. His former teammates gasped with sudden recognition.
It didn’t prevent Ronon from shooting him again when the Johnny-Wraith surged up, intent on finishing his meal, but at least this time Ronon's weapon was set to stun.
The subsequent securing of the Johnny-Wraith, the eviction of the rest of the Wraith from Atlantis, and the destruction of the Hive ship required several acts of heroism and one or two minor scientific marvels, but the Atlantis Expedition was accustomed to producing each of those on a fairly regular basis.
Beckett complained bitterly for a while about being expected to do the impossible when they handed him the Johnny-Wraith and told him to turn it back into Colonel Sheppard. “They want me to do bloody miracles,” he groused. “This is much harder than when he turned into a bug.”
“Suck it up, Carson,” McKay advised him. “Welcome to my life. I deal with those sorts of demands all the time.”
***
The first few weeks after Sheppard’s de-Wraithification were awkward for everyone: Sheppard himself, the entire command staff, Sheppard’s military command, and his offworld team as well. Most especially, it was extremely awkward between Sheppard and McKay. Their formerly easy, bantering friendship was strained.
Finally, Sheppard confronted McKay in his lab.
“Um, sorry for trying to feed off you when I was, uh-” Sheppard gestured vaguely, running his hand up the back of his neck into his hair. His hair had been an unfortunate casualty of the Wraithification and remained stubbornly Wraith-white.
McKay waved grandly, but he wouldn’t meet Sheppard’s eyes. “Well. Yes. Carson says he’s fairly sure by now that I probably won’t develop premature organ failure and die. So, anyway, what’s a few years-well, a decade or so, between friends, eh?”
Despite the feeding, McKay had kept the full head of-curly! blond!-hair from his second youth. Although his current physique could charitably be described as “rangy,” the broad shoulders held the promise of getting even broader, the eyes were, if anything, more piercingly blue. And McKay already possessed the fine, fine ass that the Lantean women surreptitiously checked out as he stalked down the hallways. Sheppard was not immune to the fact that his favorite scientist was commonly considered a hottie.
Luckily, McKay had been too wrapped up in his own discomfort to notice Sheppard’s wandering eyes. “Right. We--” McKay gestured between them. “We’re...we’ll get past this. We’re still friends. We can still work together.”
Sheppard blushed and whipped his eyes back to McKay's face. “Yeah. Of course.” He put his hands on his hips and licked his bottom lip. “Okay, then, um. We’re cool, right?”
McKay snapped and pointed his fingers. “You’re cool. I’m fine.”
Sheppard’s grin lit up his face, and he gave McKay a long, slow, up and down once-over. “Yeah,” he murmured. “You are damn fine.”
Looking rather satisfied with the encounter, and not acknowledging McKay's drowning-guppy expression, Sheppard sauntered out of the lab.
***
It was inevitable, after that. They took their time about it, made it a slow, old-fashioned courtship. Between emergencies, life-threatening catastrophes, and galaxy-wide meltdowns, Sheppard and McKay...dated. To outsiders, the chess tournaments in the rec room, the pseudo-whale watching off a North Tower balcony, and the afternoons engaged in puddle jumper repairs might not have looked much like dating, but for John and Rodney, it was all just spending time together. Which was the whole point.
They argued, went on adventures, and had lunch with the rest of their team. They went to meetings and on offworld missions, escaped from hostage situations, ran away from angry townsfolk, argued some more, stayed in the infirmary with various illnesses and injuries, and ran training sessions. They sat in the back and heckled during Teyla and Ronon’s induction seminar for all new personnel, entitled “Welcome to Pegasus: Beware the Wraith.” ("I don't care what Elizabeth says, introducing PowerPoint to Teyla was a mistake," Rodney insisted.)
Where one of them was, the other could often be found, if not immediately, then eventually. They went together “like chocolate and peanut butter” noted Sheppard with satisfaction. Of course, they argued about who got to be “chocolate” and who got to be “peanut butter.”
A few years later, after the repeal of DADT, and after more than one stern lecture from Halling about living in sin and setting a better example for Athosian youth, John and Rodney went ahead and got hitched. The civil ceremony that earned them a Canadian marriage license was small, presided over by Elizabeth in her office, and attended only by the rest of the team and Carson. Halling organized a much more lavish religious ceremony on the mainland, which was attended by most of the Atlantis Expedition, and almost the entire Athosian settlement, as well as several dignitaries from allied civilizations in Pegasus.
Radek was in charge of Rodney's bachelor party, which produced a very hung-over McKay and a truly astonishing number of gag gifts. And also a trumpet. Although nobody seemed to want to explain the latter.
It was business as usual-at least in the Pegasus galaxy.
###
Author: Springwoof
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG/Teen
Wordcount: 2000
Warnings: Omniscient narrator. And…um…is "crack" a warning?
Spoilers: An AU diverging sometime after Season 2's "Michael"
Betae: Thanks to brindel and especially to tesserae_, who held my hand, reassured me that it was funny, and made this a much better story.
Note: Dedicated to tardis80. This is what happened to your long-ago-requested "snugglefic," dear. ::shrugs:: Apparently, this is as close as I can come to "cute."
Summary: McKay's shrill insistence that he was not a clone for goodness sakes, and he was not going to high school again, no matter what they'd managed to talk O'Neill's clone into doing-fell on deaf ears.
How John and Rodney Got Married and Inherited a Trumpet (and Other Details of Life in Pegasus)
by Springwoof
Once upon a time, in the Lost City of the Ancients, there was a Scientist…
No, wait. This isn't that kind of a story.
Actually, it started when Rodney McKay accidentally walked into a trap.
Essentially, Radek Zelenka explained, it was an Ancient weapon, which somehow regressed Rodney to the appearance of childhood. It would have regressed Rodney back to fetushood, had Zelenka not managed to figure out how to spring the trap and rescue him. Of course, this being the Pegasus galaxy, he managed to lose a decade or more of his own. ("Not as pleasant a fate as one might think," Zelenka said morosely. His listeners nodded with sympathy.) In his early twenties, Radek had been skinny and gawky, and even shorter. But Zelenka was amazingly philosophical about it all-possibly because he could lord it over Rodney for all time that he'd saved his little butt.
And Rodney McKay's butt was little. McKay now looked like a child. As a little child, McKay was as brilliant as ever and just as arrogant, obnoxious, and loud-mouthed.
He was also, unfortunately, utterly adorable.
Pink cheeks, abundant blond curls, big blue eyes, long eyelashes--when he shut his big mouth long enough, the Lantean women found him almost too cute to resist. But he was still the same McKay inside. After the first few passes from the little cherub, or the first full-fledged McKay rant, the ladies of Atlantis learned to ignore the external trappings and dealt with Rodney as they always had.
Stargate Command wasn't as easily convinced to look beyond the externals as McKay's colleagues. They insisted that they knew how to deal with the problem, having dealt with it before when (then-Colonel) O'Neill "got himself a mini-me"-as McKay put it-courtesy of a rogue Asgard. McKay's shrill insistence that it was not the same issue, he was not a clone for goodness sakes, and was in a completely different galaxy besides, so his existence didn't have to be hidden or explained away-and he was not goddam going to high school again, no matter what they'd managed to talk O'Neill's clone into doing-all fell on deaf ears.
Caldwell showed up with orders and-over the vehement objections of John and Elizabeth-grimly towed a vigorously protesting McKay aboard the Daedalus. Or at least that was the plan.
After McKay escaped for the third time, Caldwell had Hermiod wait until the Daedalus was heading out of the Atlantis system to beam the boy-scientist up to a secure cabin. And that only worked because Caldwell had taken the precaution of begging Elizabeth to have a “discussion” with McKay beforehand. (The “discussion” involved a tantrum-and admittedly, a few tears-on Rodney’s part, and an awkward hug and impassioned promises on Elizabeth’s. “We’ll get you back, Rodney! I swear it.”)
Not being an idiot, Caldwell had also requested that the rest of McKay’s team be sent offworld on an important mission-lest they manage to pull off a daring rescue and extract their cherubic-looking scientist from the clutches of the SGC. (While this would have been emotionally satisfying for all involved, it would have definitely wrecked Sheppard’s already-shaky Air Force career. Never let it be said that Caldwell couldn’t do a fellow officer a favor-even if said officer didn’t particularly want that favor at the time.)
***
This was the Pegasus galaxy. Bad things didn't come one at a time; they came in bunches. Like bananas. (Or those little pink berries that Katie Brown grew in the Botany department's greenhouse. Mmmm…pie!)
What happened next was that Sheppard got captured by a Wraith scientist experimenting with gene therapy (heck, if mere humans could do it, the Wraith figured that they could try their hands at it as well) and got turned into a Wraith himself. A slouchy, drawling, country-music-loving Wraith, who liked to pin bizarre human nicknames on the other Wraiths in his vicinity.
“Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry” were particularly annoyed with their new “brother," who insisted on calling himself “Johnny” for no reason that they-or Johnny himself-could discern. The new Wraith's hair was also frustratingly individualistic and, while obligingly going Wraith-grey, did not otherwise conform to Wraith fashion dictates and, instead of flowing long and smooth down his back, (or at least in controlled dreadlocks) stood up in wild spikes and cowlicks, like a porcupine’s quills or a cock’s comb (or other creatures with which the Wraith had no familiarity whatsoever).
Unfortunately, the new Johnny-Wraith was as resourceful and inventive as John Sheppard had been, and was successfully used by a Hive Ship to infiltrate Atlantis. With a dramatic irony that anyone on Atlantis would have described as "typical," during the resulting epic battle Johnny-Wraith was inevitably drawn to the newly-triumphantly-returned young Rodney McKay. Like magnets, they came together with a nearly-audible “click.”
Johnny-Wraith fed.
Ronon saved McKay by shooting the Johnny-Wraith before he’d taken more than a decade or so.
"I believe your health will not be seriously compromised, Rodney," Teyla informed her teammate as she helped him up. "Dr. Beckett has explained to me that the physiological changes resulting from Wraith feeding just appear to be ageing-you have not actually aged."
McKay sputtered incoherently, windmilled his arms, and promptly fell down on his butt again.
"Whatever." Ronon gave Teyla a dubious look as he helped Rodney back to his feet. "You okay?" he asked Rodney.
He seemed okay, though he looked older now. Certainly, Rodney’s previous run-in with the Ancient Youthening Ray gave him an extra decade or two to spare. At least the weird Wraith hadn’t gotten to Elizabeth-the Daedalus was already bringing in enough Miss Clairol for her.
Teyla then saved Sheppard by preventing Ronon from following through and killing the odd-looking Wraith. “I sense something different about this one,” she said.
McKay finally regained his voice. “How, different? So, he enjoys the unique flavor of physicist! He still tried to eat me! Shoot him!” Rodney’s jumping-up-and-down tantrum may have been effective from the child he had appeared to be just five minutes previously, but the scrawny teenager he currently looked like (with torn and too-tight clothing, Batman underwear showing) just wasn’t able to pull it off.
“No,” Teyla insisted. “Rodney, look at his hair.”
All three looked down at the Wraith lying at their feet. The hair did look rather un-Wraithlike, although he did wear the rest of the leather Wraith-garb as if born to it. (Rodney sternly told himself that his observation-that this Wraith looked oddly sexy and hot in that outfit-was the product of his newly-surging hormones.) Then the prone Wraith brought a hand to his head, as if he was woozy, and opened hazel-green, distinctly un-Wraithlike eyes. His former teammates gasped with sudden recognition.
It didn’t prevent Ronon from shooting him again when the Johnny-Wraith surged up, intent on finishing his meal, but at least this time Ronon's weapon was set to stun.
The subsequent securing of the Johnny-Wraith, the eviction of the rest of the Wraith from Atlantis, and the destruction of the Hive ship required several acts of heroism and one or two minor scientific marvels, but the Atlantis Expedition was accustomed to producing each of those on a fairly regular basis.
Beckett complained bitterly for a while about being expected to do the impossible when they handed him the Johnny-Wraith and told him to turn it back into Colonel Sheppard. “They want me to do bloody miracles,” he groused. “This is much harder than when he turned into a bug.”
“Suck it up, Carson,” McKay advised him. “Welcome to my life. I deal with those sorts of demands all the time.”
***
The first few weeks after Sheppard’s de-Wraithification were awkward for everyone: Sheppard himself, the entire command staff, Sheppard’s military command, and his offworld team as well. Most especially, it was extremely awkward between Sheppard and McKay. Their formerly easy, bantering friendship was strained.
Finally, Sheppard confronted McKay in his lab.
“Um, sorry for trying to feed off you when I was, uh-” Sheppard gestured vaguely, running his hand up the back of his neck into his hair. His hair had been an unfortunate casualty of the Wraithification and remained stubbornly Wraith-white.
McKay waved grandly, but he wouldn’t meet Sheppard’s eyes. “Well. Yes. Carson says he’s fairly sure by now that I probably won’t develop premature organ failure and die. So, anyway, what’s a few years-well, a decade or so, between friends, eh?”
Despite the feeding, McKay had kept the full head of-curly! blond!-hair from his second youth. Although his current physique could charitably be described as “rangy,” the broad shoulders held the promise of getting even broader, the eyes were, if anything, more piercingly blue. And McKay already possessed the fine, fine ass that the Lantean women surreptitiously checked out as he stalked down the hallways. Sheppard was not immune to the fact that his favorite scientist was commonly considered a hottie.
Luckily, McKay had been too wrapped up in his own discomfort to notice Sheppard’s wandering eyes. “Right. We--” McKay gestured between them. “We’re...we’ll get past this. We’re still friends. We can still work together.”
Sheppard blushed and whipped his eyes back to McKay's face. “Yeah. Of course.” He put his hands on his hips and licked his bottom lip. “Okay, then, um. We’re cool, right?”
McKay snapped and pointed his fingers. “You’re cool. I’m fine.”
Sheppard’s grin lit up his face, and he gave McKay a long, slow, up and down once-over. “Yeah,” he murmured. “You are damn fine.”
Looking rather satisfied with the encounter, and not acknowledging McKay's drowning-guppy expression, Sheppard sauntered out of the lab.
***
It was inevitable, after that. They took their time about it, made it a slow, old-fashioned courtship. Between emergencies, life-threatening catastrophes, and galaxy-wide meltdowns, Sheppard and McKay...dated. To outsiders, the chess tournaments in the rec room, the pseudo-whale watching off a North Tower balcony, and the afternoons engaged in puddle jumper repairs might not have looked much like dating, but for John and Rodney, it was all just spending time together. Which was the whole point.
They argued, went on adventures, and had lunch with the rest of their team. They went to meetings and on offworld missions, escaped from hostage situations, ran away from angry townsfolk, argued some more, stayed in the infirmary with various illnesses and injuries, and ran training sessions. They sat in the back and heckled during Teyla and Ronon’s induction seminar for all new personnel, entitled “Welcome to Pegasus: Beware the Wraith.” ("I don't care what Elizabeth says, introducing PowerPoint to Teyla was a mistake," Rodney insisted.)
Where one of them was, the other could often be found, if not immediately, then eventually. They went together “like chocolate and peanut butter” noted Sheppard with satisfaction. Of course, they argued about who got to be “chocolate” and who got to be “peanut butter.”
A few years later, after the repeal of DADT, and after more than one stern lecture from Halling about living in sin and setting a better example for Athosian youth, John and Rodney went ahead and got hitched. The civil ceremony that earned them a Canadian marriage license was small, presided over by Elizabeth in her office, and attended only by the rest of the team and Carson. Halling organized a much more lavish religious ceremony on the mainland, which was attended by most of the Atlantis Expedition, and almost the entire Athosian settlement, as well as several dignitaries from allied civilizations in Pegasus.
Radek was in charge of Rodney's bachelor party, which produced a very hung-over McKay and a truly astonishing number of gag gifts. And also a trumpet. Although nobody seemed to want to explain the latter.
It was business as usual-at least in the Pegasus galaxy.
###