Roentgen Ray, by canadian_snoopy (Voyeur challenge)
Title: Roentgen Ray
Author: canadian_snoopy
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1751
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Ford figured that it was about time Ancient technology proved *useful*.
Notes: Silly, very silly. Title from too much time spent at dictionary.com. Unbeta'ed, as usual, and another sign that I can't write pr0n to save my life because this challenge? Ought to be all about the pr0n.
*****
McKay's face got gratifyingly dumbfounded, mouth dropping open with an expression of amazement.
"No way," Major Sheppard muttered behind him, sounding bemused even as he stepped up behind Aiden to drop a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "How about that far wall?" Sheppard asked, pointing in the general direction that he meant with the P-90 he held in his hand.
Aiden squinted a little. "I can't-- boxes, lots of them. They look like they're full of parts, like the stuff we keep in the storage seven, by the labs on the east pier."
McKay swallowed a sound of envy, leaning forward a bit and staring at his eyes with a calculating look that made Aiden distinctly nervous. Thank god Major Sheppard noticed the look too because he laughed a little before shaking his head, a long suffering tone on his voice when he said, "*No* Rodney, you can't go poking into Ford's eyes, so you can get that covetous look right off your face."
McKay could get scarily focused at times, and being the focus of that intense regard made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, his hands itch for defensive explosives and ammo. McKay scowled at Sheppard but at least he stopped looking at Aiden like he wanted to climb inside his head and see what made everything tick... which was more calming than Ford cared to think about.
He wasn't too proud to admit that McKay could be scary as shit at times.
A sudden spike of pain made him grimace. Teyla saw it and put a concerned hand on his arm. "Lieutenant? Are you alright?"
"A bit of a headache," he admitted, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand and missing the concerned look that passed between his team members over his head.
"We better let Carson take a look at you," McKay said, patting his arm once before shuffling over to poke at the statue that Ford had touched, scanning it with his equipment before stuffing it into his pack with a sound of success.
Before Aiden knew it they were heading back to the Jumper, Major Sheppard quickly running through the take-off procedures as Teyla took his temperature and blood pressure. The trip was quick, McKay informing them all how he thought that the statue had to have a naquadah power source embedded in the base, how that was likely powering whatever had emanated from the statue and hit Ford's eyes point-blank.
Doctor Beckett made Aiden take all sorts of tests and drew enough blood from him to forcibly remind Aiden why he'd hated needles *so* much as a kid. Enough time passed before he was allowed out and given a clean bill of health (entirely *too* much time, he felt, since the headaches weren't a problem as long as he didn't switch into airport-scanner mode) that Ford hoped to have lucked out on the jokes.
Ten minutes after escaping Doctor Beckett's clutches, Aiden realized that he was entirely too naive and trusting because his fellow explorers of new galaxies? They were *evil*.
It started with the whistling, which persistently followed him when he was walking in the corridors. He would scowl at the likely culprits -- which were just as often military personnel, the traitorous bastards -- but they always looked back at him so innocently that Aiden was starting to think that maybe it was all in his head.
Then, during a team meeting, McKay started humming, with Sheppard coming in and joining him during the chorus, and Aiden manfully bit back the urge to smack the both of them upside the head.
"Oh look," McKay said, glancing up his seat at the table and the report he'd been pretending to read, as if he'd only just noticed that Ford had entered the room. "It's a bird."
"No, it's a plane."
Ford scowled at his CO, who was entirely too amused for his tastes. "I believe it is Superman."
"You too?" Aiden gaped at Teyla, trying to figure out the logistics of an *alien* from another *galaxy* making Superman jokes. At *him*.
It boggled the mind.
Teyla flashed him a mischievous half-smile, shrugging. "Corporal Reyes has lent me several of his comic books. They were very... educational."
McKay sputtered, bringing up his hand to hide his face and the grin there. Sheppard didn't bother hiding his own amusement, his hands resting on his knees as he bent over with laughter. Aiden rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Very mature, guys."
Teyla begun humming tentatively, picking up the tune quickly, and that was all the encouragement the other two needed because that set McKay off yet *again* and made Major Sheppard collapse weakly against McKay's shoulder, shaking with laughter.
"You know, I *could* be dying," Ford grumbled, taking his seat and decidedly ignoring the way his team members were laughing at his expense. "Maybe x-ray vision is just the first step of a long, painful illness that makes me *die*." Aiden sniffed a little. "Won't you feel guilty then?"
McKay snorted and lightly shoved Sheppard away, grinning at the way the other man stumbled back into his seat. "Don't be so melodramatic, Lieutenant," McKay said, smile still twitching on his face. "Carson said you were alright and Coleman said that she was close to completing the translations on the statue."
"Yeah?" he asked, forgetting his irritation as curiosity stirred. "Anything interesting?"
"Nothing about him being the last son of Krypton, is there?"
McKay snorted and Teyla patted his arm in silent commiseration, smiling. "Nothing quite that exciting, Major."
Sheppard grinned at him and Ford fixed him with an expression learned by subordinates everyone, the one that said that he was Not Amused, Sir. At the same time, and judging by Major Sheppard's amusement, it was an expression that was not likely to get him court-martialled.
"Coleman seems to think that this is strictly a temporary thing, a non-invasive method that the Ancients had to alter visual acuity."
"Obviously not limited to people with the Ancient gene," Teyla commented from her seat.
"Obviously," McKay agreed. "But the translations say something about it being temporary--"
"Thank you Jesus," Ford muttered.
"--and meant to enlighten."
Sheppard looked up at that, interested. "Enlighten? Really? Like 'what is the sound of one hand clapping' enlighten?"
Teyla frowned a little at that and Ford made a mental note to explain the concept of Zen koans to her when he *wasn't* shooting x-rays from his *eyes* and damn, there was a sentence he never expected to hear in his head. "No, more like, 'see how green the grass on the other side *isn't*' enlightened."
"Oh."
Ford decided to ignore the disappointment he heard in the Major's voice, focusing instead on the word 'temporary'. That was a good word, one that was doing wonders to loosen the knot of tension that had settled at the base of his spine sometime after finding out that he could now consider a new career as a really perverted Superman.
"You're sure?" he asked and McKay must have heard the tension in his words because he didn't berate him for doubting the wisdom From On High, like McKay would've have any other time.
"Coleman's people know their Ancient," McKay reassured him, grinning a little at Aiden's sound of relief.
"You got to admit though," Major Sheppard said, looking at his eyes -- still brown despite the fact that they could see through walls -- as though they were personally insulting him for looking so *normal*. Ford *liked* normal, he *missed* normal, and frankly, Major Sheppard could take a long walk off a short pier for not *appreciating* normal. "This *is* pretty neat."
"I would have preferred the super strength, myself," McKay said, grinning a little at Aiden's annoyed frown.
"Flying, for me."
"Well duh," McKay said, rolling his eyes at Sheppard's predictable response. "Only problem is that we'd never get you back down to terra firma."
"The bad thing," Ford admitted, coming to realization that he could either put up with the Superman jokes or be prepared to be pissed off for the rest of his tour, "Is that it gives me a headache every time I shift to x-ray."
"Still," McKay said, propping his head on his fist, staring at Aiden's eyes with unabashed curiosity. "The things you could get away with--"
"Doctor McKay!" Teyla sputtered, scowling.
Major Sheppard snorted, hiding his laugh with a hasty cough.
"What?" McKay said, rolling his eyes at Teyla's expression. Aiden had always known that McKay had more brains than sense but he'd never thought that the man had a *death* wish -- Teyla looked like she was contemplating reaching over and whacking him over the head with one of her sticks and McKay wasn't looking *nearly* scared enough. "It isn't like neither Sheppard nor Ford thought about it too."
"Hey, hey, leave me out of this," Sheppard said, raising hands in denial.
"I'll have you know that my mother raised me to be a *good* boy," Ford said primly.
McKay snorted, dismissing their words for lies. "You are so full of shit, Lieutenant. In fact, I fully expect to see you hanging around the ladies showers--OW!"
Teyla drew back her hand from where it had forcibly made contact with McKay's head and gave Aiden the gimlet eye. "What did *I* do?" he sputtered, voice mingling with McKay's outraged squawk.
"Perhaps you ought to make sure you don't find yourself by the ladies locker rooms for the next few days, Ford," Sheppard suggested in a helpful voice, snickering at McKay's scowl.
"That is *very* a good idea, Lieutenant," Teyla agreed, pinning Ford with a forbidding look even as she went to refill McKay's cup of coffee in silent apology. McKay accepted it with a glower for Teyla, who simply gave him a steely smile that promised worse things much than a smack to his head if he didn't stop giving Ford ideas.
Not that Aiden *needed* the ideas, of course and he knew better than to listen to McKay and he told as much to Teyla.
She smiled at him, as if she had expected nothing less from him, and Ford grinned back, relieved when the conversation moved away to other things, like future missions.
Leaving Ford to plan out his route back to his room in his head with a tiny grin, safe in the knowledge that he could run faster than a woman in a towel.
Probably.
*****
THE END
Author: canadian_snoopy
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1751
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Ford figured that it was about time Ancient technology proved *useful*.
Notes: Silly, very silly. Title from too much time spent at dictionary.com. Unbeta'ed, as usual, and another sign that I can't write pr0n to save my life because this challenge? Ought to be all about the pr0n.
*****
McKay's face got gratifyingly dumbfounded, mouth dropping open with an expression of amazement.
"No way," Major Sheppard muttered behind him, sounding bemused even as he stepped up behind Aiden to drop a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "How about that far wall?" Sheppard asked, pointing in the general direction that he meant with the P-90 he held in his hand.
Aiden squinted a little. "I can't-- boxes, lots of them. They look like they're full of parts, like the stuff we keep in the storage seven, by the labs on the east pier."
McKay swallowed a sound of envy, leaning forward a bit and staring at his eyes with a calculating look that made Aiden distinctly nervous. Thank god Major Sheppard noticed the look too because he laughed a little before shaking his head, a long suffering tone on his voice when he said, "*No* Rodney, you can't go poking into Ford's eyes, so you can get that covetous look right off your face."
McKay could get scarily focused at times, and being the focus of that intense regard made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, his hands itch for defensive explosives and ammo. McKay scowled at Sheppard but at least he stopped looking at Aiden like he wanted to climb inside his head and see what made everything tick... which was more calming than Ford cared to think about.
He wasn't too proud to admit that McKay could be scary as shit at times.
A sudden spike of pain made him grimace. Teyla saw it and put a concerned hand on his arm. "Lieutenant? Are you alright?"
"A bit of a headache," he admitted, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand and missing the concerned look that passed between his team members over his head.
"We better let Carson take a look at you," McKay said, patting his arm once before shuffling over to poke at the statue that Ford had touched, scanning it with his equipment before stuffing it into his pack with a sound of success.
Before Aiden knew it they were heading back to the Jumper, Major Sheppard quickly running through the take-off procedures as Teyla took his temperature and blood pressure. The trip was quick, McKay informing them all how he thought that the statue had to have a naquadah power source embedded in the base, how that was likely powering whatever had emanated from the statue and hit Ford's eyes point-blank.
Doctor Beckett made Aiden take all sorts of tests and drew enough blood from him to forcibly remind Aiden why he'd hated needles *so* much as a kid. Enough time passed before he was allowed out and given a clean bill of health (entirely *too* much time, he felt, since the headaches weren't a problem as long as he didn't switch into airport-scanner mode) that Ford hoped to have lucked out on the jokes.
Ten minutes after escaping Doctor Beckett's clutches, Aiden realized that he was entirely too naive and trusting because his fellow explorers of new galaxies? They were *evil*.
It started with the whistling, which persistently followed him when he was walking in the corridors. He would scowl at the likely culprits -- which were just as often military personnel, the traitorous bastards -- but they always looked back at him so innocently that Aiden was starting to think that maybe it was all in his head.
Then, during a team meeting, McKay started humming, with Sheppard coming in and joining him during the chorus, and Aiden manfully bit back the urge to smack the both of them upside the head.
"Oh look," McKay said, glancing up his seat at the table and the report he'd been pretending to read, as if he'd only just noticed that Ford had entered the room. "It's a bird."
"No, it's a plane."
Ford scowled at his CO, who was entirely too amused for his tastes. "I believe it is Superman."
"You too?" Aiden gaped at Teyla, trying to figure out the logistics of an *alien* from another *galaxy* making Superman jokes. At *him*.
It boggled the mind.
Teyla flashed him a mischievous half-smile, shrugging. "Corporal Reyes has lent me several of his comic books. They were very... educational."
McKay sputtered, bringing up his hand to hide his face and the grin there. Sheppard didn't bother hiding his own amusement, his hands resting on his knees as he bent over with laughter. Aiden rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Very mature, guys."
Teyla begun humming tentatively, picking up the tune quickly, and that was all the encouragement the other two needed because that set McKay off yet *again* and made Major Sheppard collapse weakly against McKay's shoulder, shaking with laughter.
"You know, I *could* be dying," Ford grumbled, taking his seat and decidedly ignoring the way his team members were laughing at his expense. "Maybe x-ray vision is just the first step of a long, painful illness that makes me *die*." Aiden sniffed a little. "Won't you feel guilty then?"
McKay snorted and lightly shoved Sheppard away, grinning at the way the other man stumbled back into his seat. "Don't be so melodramatic, Lieutenant," McKay said, smile still twitching on his face. "Carson said you were alright and Coleman said that she was close to completing the translations on the statue."
"Yeah?" he asked, forgetting his irritation as curiosity stirred. "Anything interesting?"
"Nothing about him being the last son of Krypton, is there?"
McKay snorted and Teyla patted his arm in silent commiseration, smiling. "Nothing quite that exciting, Major."
Sheppard grinned at him and Ford fixed him with an expression learned by subordinates everyone, the one that said that he was Not Amused, Sir. At the same time, and judging by Major Sheppard's amusement, it was an expression that was not likely to get him court-martialled.
"Coleman seems to think that this is strictly a temporary thing, a non-invasive method that the Ancients had to alter visual acuity."
"Obviously not limited to people with the Ancient gene," Teyla commented from her seat.
"Obviously," McKay agreed. "But the translations say something about it being temporary--"
"Thank you Jesus," Ford muttered.
"--and meant to enlighten."
Sheppard looked up at that, interested. "Enlighten? Really? Like 'what is the sound of one hand clapping' enlighten?"
Teyla frowned a little at that and Ford made a mental note to explain the concept of Zen koans to her when he *wasn't* shooting x-rays from his *eyes* and damn, there was a sentence he never expected to hear in his head. "No, more like, 'see how green the grass on the other side *isn't*' enlightened."
"Oh."
Ford decided to ignore the disappointment he heard in the Major's voice, focusing instead on the word 'temporary'. That was a good word, one that was doing wonders to loosen the knot of tension that had settled at the base of his spine sometime after finding out that he could now consider a new career as a really perverted Superman.
"You're sure?" he asked and McKay must have heard the tension in his words because he didn't berate him for doubting the wisdom From On High, like McKay would've have any other time.
"Coleman's people know their Ancient," McKay reassured him, grinning a little at Aiden's sound of relief.
"You got to admit though," Major Sheppard said, looking at his eyes -- still brown despite the fact that they could see through walls -- as though they were personally insulting him for looking so *normal*. Ford *liked* normal, he *missed* normal, and frankly, Major Sheppard could take a long walk off a short pier for not *appreciating* normal. "This *is* pretty neat."
"I would have preferred the super strength, myself," McKay said, grinning a little at Aiden's annoyed frown.
"Flying, for me."
"Well duh," McKay said, rolling his eyes at Sheppard's predictable response. "Only problem is that we'd never get you back down to terra firma."
"The bad thing," Ford admitted, coming to realization that he could either put up with the Superman jokes or be prepared to be pissed off for the rest of his tour, "Is that it gives me a headache every time I shift to x-ray."
"Still," McKay said, propping his head on his fist, staring at Aiden's eyes with unabashed curiosity. "The things you could get away with--"
"Doctor McKay!" Teyla sputtered, scowling.
Major Sheppard snorted, hiding his laugh with a hasty cough.
"What?" McKay said, rolling his eyes at Teyla's expression. Aiden had always known that McKay had more brains than sense but he'd never thought that the man had a *death* wish -- Teyla looked like she was contemplating reaching over and whacking him over the head with one of her sticks and McKay wasn't looking *nearly* scared enough. "It isn't like neither Sheppard nor Ford thought about it too."
"Hey, hey, leave me out of this," Sheppard said, raising hands in denial.
"I'll have you know that my mother raised me to be a *good* boy," Ford said primly.
McKay snorted, dismissing their words for lies. "You are so full of shit, Lieutenant. In fact, I fully expect to see you hanging around the ladies showers--OW!"
Teyla drew back her hand from where it had forcibly made contact with McKay's head and gave Aiden the gimlet eye. "What did *I* do?" he sputtered, voice mingling with McKay's outraged squawk.
"Perhaps you ought to make sure you don't find yourself by the ladies locker rooms for the next few days, Ford," Sheppard suggested in a helpful voice, snickering at McKay's scowl.
"That is *very* a good idea, Lieutenant," Teyla agreed, pinning Ford with a forbidding look even as she went to refill McKay's cup of coffee in silent apology. McKay accepted it with a glower for Teyla, who simply gave him a steely smile that promised worse things much than a smack to his head if he didn't stop giving Ford ideas.
Not that Aiden *needed* the ideas, of course and he knew better than to listen to McKay and he told as much to Teyla.
She smiled at him, as if she had expected nothing less from him, and Ford grinned back, relieved when the conversation moved away to other things, like future missions.
Leaving Ford to plan out his route back to his room in his head with a tiny grin, safe in the knowledge that he could run faster than a woman in a towel.
Probably.
*****
THE END