Take Me Drunk, I'm Home. (Sheppard/Beckett)
Title: Take Me Drunk, I'm Home.
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2124
Summary:
Written for: beckettsheppard's He Said What challenge
Spoilers: none
Author's Notes: Silly, fluffy fic. I had originally planned to get 10 lines in, but then February went and ended early on me. Interpret as you will the relationship between Ronon, Rodney and Radek. This space intentionally left ambiguous.
Warnings: alcohol abuse. Seriously, they're very mean to Zelenka's hooch. :)
“I thought that thing was a myth. Like Atlantis’ own version of an urban legend,” John said, eyebrows pulled together as he thought.
“It was. Now it’s not,” Ronon answered simply. “Now it’s on the lowest explored level of the city.”
“Would that make it a sub-urban legend?” John asked, knowing the Satedan wouldn’t get the joke. “Nevermind,” he said to the expected confused expression. “So anyway who’s down there seeing if it works?” John asked incredulously.
“Come on,” Ronon said, knowing that some things had to be seen to be believed.
~~~***~~~***~~~
They were somewhere deep in the bowels of Atlantis when John spoke again. “How’d you find them?”
“I was running down here. Heard them laughing.”
John pouted, “I want to know why I wasn’t invited.”
They stopped near a door that was open a few inches. John wasn’t sure but he thought he smelled something like smoke drifting from the door. He slid silently up to the door and peeked in from where he hoped he couldn’t be observed.
~~~***~~~***~~~
“Gimme an’o’er one,” Rodney said from where he slouched over the arm of the sofa someone had dragged in the room.
Radek snorted and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. “I think you have had…” He paused, apparently trying to think of the word.
“Enough,” Rodney supplied.
“Yes. I agree.” That was Carson, who was flat on his back in the middle of the room looking for all the world like a policeman should come around and trace him in chalk.
“Me too!” Radek said loudly, thumping his metal cup on the small table. “We are all agreed. Rodney has had enough.”
“No! No… I wasn’t. I was just giving you the damn word. I am fine. Gimme some more.” Rodney thumped his cup down next to Radek’s.
“Aw hell, Radek give the poor man some more,” Carson said without shifting anything other than his opinion on Rodney’s state of inebriation.
They all burst into laughter and then Radek produced a pitcher that looked an awful lot like the ones from the mess. He sloshed something in and around Rodney’s cup. “Oh… I thing… no think… I think? Yes, I think I may not… I think it may not…” Radek seemed completely unable to finish that thought.
Rodney had tears leaking out of his eyes as he laughed at his attempt. “Are you even speaking English any more?”
Radek leaned against the back of the sofa, the pitcher now on the floor. “I do not even know.”
“Give him a break Rodney, he’s making at least as much sense as the rest of us are,” Carson said, sounding surprisingly coherent.
“Or at least as much sense as he ever does,” Rodney said, slouching further, almost kicking Carson in the head as he went.
Carson rolled his head to the side and was greeted with Rodney’s gray trainer right in his face. He began poking at the grommets to Rodney’s laces.
Rodney seemed unfazed by the poking and Carson began to wonder if he’d perhaps lost all feeling from the neck down or something. Anything was possible. This was a still built by an electrical engineer and an astrophysicist in an alien galaxy. And as soon as he’d ascertained that there was nothing inherently lethal in it - at least not when drunk in moderation - they’d proceeded to dispatch the first batch in rapid order. He poked Rodney’s foot harder to see if he could provoke a reaction.
***~~~***~~~***
Seeing Rodney pulling his foot back, John realized that Carson was about to get kicked in the head. He shoved the door open, hoping to distract Rodney or make Carson move before Carson ended up a resident in his own ward. “So, looks like we’re having a party.”
“It was an accident,” Carson said, still looking around to see where Rodney’s foot had gotten off to. “We just wanted to see if tasted okay.”
“Does it?” John asked.
“No,” Carson said sadly. “It’s pretty bloody awful.”
John shook his head. “Not that it seems to be slowing you down much.”
“Those two,” Carson said waving in the vague direction of the sofa, “Wanted a doctor around in case it made any one sick.” He looked over at John, paling as the motion made his head spin. “But so far, no one’s sick.”
“I told you,” Ronon said from his place behind Sheppard, “It’s fine.”
“Yes,” Radek said profoundly. “That’s right. Ronon said it was edible.”
Rodney kicked at Radek’s shoe. “You can’t say that. That’s not right!” It was, however, apparently very funny.
“What?” Radek asked. “He ed it. I mean eat it. Ate it.”
“I’d call it a stiff drink,” Carson opined lazily, having abandoned his search for Rodney’s shoe, “But I don’t think it constitutes food yet.”
Radek squinted and pushed his glasses up again, clearly trying to sort out the various English terms for eating and drinking.
John lowered himself to the floor next to Carson. “I’d say you all have had more than -“ he stopped and turned to Ronon. “Hey wait, I thought you said you just happened to have passed them while you were running. You didn’t say anything about stopping to join them.”
Ronon just shrugged and gave John a goofy grin. “In my defense, they were still making sense when I left.”
John rolled his eyes. “So exactly how long did it take the city’s two resident geniuses to manage to create a still out of cobbled together ancient tech?”
Rodney laughed. “It’s gene activated! We said we should market it and call it Gene-y in a Bottle. ”
John thought it was a pretty good joke until he turned to see Radek with his arms folded across his chest. “The heating element, yes, is ATA technology. But now it has been activated. We do not longer need your mutant gene.”
Sheppard cringed internally. Apparently being the only one in the room without the gene had been a sore spot.
Rodney reached over and patted Radek’s arm. “We love you anyway.”
John shivered, “I think we’re getting into territory I don’t want to explore too deeply, if you take my meaning,” John said pulling himself up off the floor and extending a hand to Carson. “I think maybe it’s time to put you all to bed.”
“All of us?” Rodney said and John couldn’t help but notice a tinge of hopefulness in his voice.
John shook his head and nudged Carson’s hip with his foot to get him to grab his hand.
Carson sat up, but instead of letting John pull him up, he began doing a detailed examination of John’s fingers. John rolled his eyes. “I’ve got this one,” he told Ronon. “Can you get the other two? They live next door to each other.”
Ronon smiled and went over to pull Zelenka bodily to his feet, pausing only long enough to make sure he wouldn’t wilt straight back to the couch when he let go. “I’ve got ‘em,” he agreed.
John got his fingers back and wrapped them around Carson’s wrist, pulling him up off the floor. “Let’s go, Doc.”
Carson let John pull him up and then leaned in to put his head on John’s chest. “I’m not as think as you drunk I am.”
John knew better than to point out what Carson had said versus what he meant. He just patted the top of Carson’s head. “Of course you aren’t. Let’s get you to bed anyway. It’s late.”
Carson seemed to ponder that for a while. “Not unless you do it too,” he finally agreed.
John gave Ronon a tight smile. He wasn’t sure who knew what and while he wasn’t at all ashamed of his relationship with Carson, they’d both seen no reason to advertise their private lives. He really didn’t want to deal with whatever kind of weird guilt or awkwardness would spring up if Carson said something drunk that he wouldn’t have said sober. Of course, he’d probably not have to worry about Radek or Rodney remembering anything. All the same, he pulled Carson against his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Shut. Up.”
John gave Ronon a grin over Carson’s shoulder. “Tomorrow’s staff meeting should be fun.”
Rodney’s head whipped up at that and he glared at Radek. “You’re explaining this one to Elizabeth.”
John laughed and left Ronon to his charges. “Good luck with them,” he called as he hooked Carson’s arm around his back and half-dragged, half-led him out into the hall.
“You are so wasted!” John exclaimed as they tumbled into the transporter.
“I think so. Yes. Yes, I am.” Carson said taking John’s hand again and studying his fingers again. When the transporter changed direction, the usually imperceptible change in direction made Carson pitch forward, almost hitting the wall until John caught him. John’s hand on his arm reactivated Carson’s bizarre fixation on John’s fingers.
“I’m sure enough for both of us,” John said as the door whooshed open. He shook his hand free and gently grasped the back of Carson’s neck, propelling him down the hall in front of him.
As they walked, John noticed that about one in three doors opened just before they walked past them, but no one emerged from the room. And they were the only two in the hall. “What the hell?”
Carson just giggled behind his hand.
John shook his head as comprehension sat in. “Why are you opening all the doors?”
Carson snorted. “I figure eventually one of the rooms will look familiar. Because right now, they all look very much the same.”
John sighed and scolded, “Before you piss someone off in a big way, stop doing that. I’m still hoping to god that Rodney was kidding when he implied he wanted to come home with us; I do not need to look into some room and find … I don’t know Major Lorne and Doctor Biro doing naked gymnastics.”
Carson stopped walking, his eyes going huge. “Major Lorne and -“
“It was just an example. I’m saying, ‘stop opening all the damn doors.’”
Carson nodded, looking as if someone had just told him he couldn’t have any ice cream for desert.
John finally got them back to Carson’s quarters, where they stood for several minutes, staring at the door. Finally, John twigged to the problem. As he took a breath to tell Carson they were home, Carson turned and said, “We’re in front of another door. Should I open this one?”
Grinning tightly, John reigned in his amusement that was quickly becoming frustration. “Yes Carson, this door you can open.”
The door slid back and John dragged Carson into the bathroom. He filled a glass with water and handed it to him. “Drink this.”
Carson sat on the closed commode taking several sips of his water. “People ought to lock their doors,” he said profoundly.
“You have a medical override. You can command locked doors to open if you try hard enough.” John dug around in the medicine cabinet until he located a bottle of aspirin. He shook two into his hand. “Here.”
“Do I have a headache?” Carson asked sincerely.
“Not yet. But the morning’s gonna be a doozy.”
Carson tossed back the pills and chased them with the rest of the water. “Isn’t that my line?”
“Not tonight,” John told him as he ran a cloth under a cool tap. He quickly wiped his own face before rinsing it out and handing it to Carson who traded him the empty cup for the cloth.
Carson washed his face and handed back the cloth. All at once he sagged, resting his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees. “I’m very tired,” he announced.
“Let’s get you in bed, then,” John said, pulling Carson to his feet again.
Quickly they both stripped down before climbing under the blankets. As they got settled, Carson became refascinated with John’s hands, then his ears, and various other parts of his anatomy. John was resigned to just let him poke until he fell asleep until Carson’s head disappeared under the covers. “That’s not my finger!” he squeeked as he shoved the blankets down and hauled Carson back up to the pillows. “Stay right there,” he told him severely.
Carson pouted at the reprimand, causing John to feel bad. He leaned in and kissed his lips gently.
Carson snuggled closer, whispering something like, “Not tonight. I have a headache.”
John seriously debating slapping him upside the head for that remark. But when Carson started snoring just then, John let it go in favor of getting a few hours sleep before he had to attempt to make Carson functional enough for a seven a.m. staff meeting.
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2124
Summary:
Written for: beckettsheppard's He Said What challenge
Spoilers: none
Author's Notes: Silly, fluffy fic. I had originally planned to get 10 lines in, but then February went and ended early on me. Interpret as you will the relationship between Ronon, Rodney and Radek. This space intentionally left ambiguous.
Warnings: alcohol abuse. Seriously, they're very mean to Zelenka's hooch. :)
“I thought that thing was a myth. Like Atlantis’ own version of an urban legend,” John said, eyebrows pulled together as he thought.
“It was. Now it’s not,” Ronon answered simply. “Now it’s on the lowest explored level of the city.”
“Would that make it a sub-urban legend?” John asked, knowing the Satedan wouldn’t get the joke. “Nevermind,” he said to the expected confused expression. “So anyway who’s down there seeing if it works?” John asked incredulously.
“Come on,” Ronon said, knowing that some things had to be seen to be believed.
~~~***~~~***~~~
They were somewhere deep in the bowels of Atlantis when John spoke again. “How’d you find them?”
“I was running down here. Heard them laughing.”
John pouted, “I want to know why I wasn’t invited.”
They stopped near a door that was open a few inches. John wasn’t sure but he thought he smelled something like smoke drifting from the door. He slid silently up to the door and peeked in from where he hoped he couldn’t be observed.
~~~***~~~***~~~
“Gimme an’o’er one,” Rodney said from where he slouched over the arm of the sofa someone had dragged in the room.
Radek snorted and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. “I think you have had…” He paused, apparently trying to think of the word.
“Enough,” Rodney supplied.
“Yes. I agree.” That was Carson, who was flat on his back in the middle of the room looking for all the world like a policeman should come around and trace him in chalk.
“Me too!” Radek said loudly, thumping his metal cup on the small table. “We are all agreed. Rodney has had enough.”
“No! No… I wasn’t. I was just giving you the damn word. I am fine. Gimme some more.” Rodney thumped his cup down next to Radek’s.
“Aw hell, Radek give the poor man some more,” Carson said without shifting anything other than his opinion on Rodney’s state of inebriation.
They all burst into laughter and then Radek produced a pitcher that looked an awful lot like the ones from the mess. He sloshed something in and around Rodney’s cup. “Oh… I thing… no think… I think? Yes, I think I may not… I think it may not…” Radek seemed completely unable to finish that thought.
Rodney had tears leaking out of his eyes as he laughed at his attempt. “Are you even speaking English any more?”
Radek leaned against the back of the sofa, the pitcher now on the floor. “I do not even know.”
“Give him a break Rodney, he’s making at least as much sense as the rest of us are,” Carson said, sounding surprisingly coherent.
“Or at least as much sense as he ever does,” Rodney said, slouching further, almost kicking Carson in the head as he went.
Carson rolled his head to the side and was greeted with Rodney’s gray trainer right in his face. He began poking at the grommets to Rodney’s laces.
Rodney seemed unfazed by the poking and Carson began to wonder if he’d perhaps lost all feeling from the neck down or something. Anything was possible. This was a still built by an electrical engineer and an astrophysicist in an alien galaxy. And as soon as he’d ascertained that there was nothing inherently lethal in it - at least not when drunk in moderation - they’d proceeded to dispatch the first batch in rapid order. He poked Rodney’s foot harder to see if he could provoke a reaction.
***~~~***~~~***
Seeing Rodney pulling his foot back, John realized that Carson was about to get kicked in the head. He shoved the door open, hoping to distract Rodney or make Carson move before Carson ended up a resident in his own ward. “So, looks like we’re having a party.”
“It was an accident,” Carson said, still looking around to see where Rodney’s foot had gotten off to. “We just wanted to see if tasted okay.”
“Does it?” John asked.
“No,” Carson said sadly. “It’s pretty bloody awful.”
John shook his head. “Not that it seems to be slowing you down much.”
“Those two,” Carson said waving in the vague direction of the sofa, “Wanted a doctor around in case it made any one sick.” He looked over at John, paling as the motion made his head spin. “But so far, no one’s sick.”
“I told you,” Ronon said from his place behind Sheppard, “It’s fine.”
“Yes,” Radek said profoundly. “That’s right. Ronon said it was edible.”
Rodney kicked at Radek’s shoe. “You can’t say that. That’s not right!” It was, however, apparently very funny.
“What?” Radek asked. “He ed it. I mean eat it. Ate it.”
“I’d call it a stiff drink,” Carson opined lazily, having abandoned his search for Rodney’s shoe, “But I don’t think it constitutes food yet.”
Radek squinted and pushed his glasses up again, clearly trying to sort out the various English terms for eating and drinking.
John lowered himself to the floor next to Carson. “I’d say you all have had more than -“ he stopped and turned to Ronon. “Hey wait, I thought you said you just happened to have passed them while you were running. You didn’t say anything about stopping to join them.”
Ronon just shrugged and gave John a goofy grin. “In my defense, they were still making sense when I left.”
John rolled his eyes. “So exactly how long did it take the city’s two resident geniuses to manage to create a still out of cobbled together ancient tech?”
Rodney laughed. “It’s gene activated! We said we should market it and call it Gene-y in a Bottle. ”
John thought it was a pretty good joke until he turned to see Radek with his arms folded across his chest. “The heating element, yes, is ATA technology. But now it has been activated. We do not longer need your mutant gene.”
Sheppard cringed internally. Apparently being the only one in the room without the gene had been a sore spot.
Rodney reached over and patted Radek’s arm. “We love you anyway.”
John shivered, “I think we’re getting into territory I don’t want to explore too deeply, if you take my meaning,” John said pulling himself up off the floor and extending a hand to Carson. “I think maybe it’s time to put you all to bed.”
“All of us?” Rodney said and John couldn’t help but notice a tinge of hopefulness in his voice.
John shook his head and nudged Carson’s hip with his foot to get him to grab his hand.
Carson sat up, but instead of letting John pull him up, he began doing a detailed examination of John’s fingers. John rolled his eyes. “I’ve got this one,” he told Ronon. “Can you get the other two? They live next door to each other.”
Ronon smiled and went over to pull Zelenka bodily to his feet, pausing only long enough to make sure he wouldn’t wilt straight back to the couch when he let go. “I’ve got ‘em,” he agreed.
John got his fingers back and wrapped them around Carson’s wrist, pulling him up off the floor. “Let’s go, Doc.”
Carson let John pull him up and then leaned in to put his head on John’s chest. “I’m not as think as you drunk I am.”
John knew better than to point out what Carson had said versus what he meant. He just patted the top of Carson’s head. “Of course you aren’t. Let’s get you to bed anyway. It’s late.”
Carson seemed to ponder that for a while. “Not unless you do it too,” he finally agreed.
John gave Ronon a tight smile. He wasn’t sure who knew what and while he wasn’t at all ashamed of his relationship with Carson, they’d both seen no reason to advertise their private lives. He really didn’t want to deal with whatever kind of weird guilt or awkwardness would spring up if Carson said something drunk that he wouldn’t have said sober. Of course, he’d probably not have to worry about Radek or Rodney remembering anything. All the same, he pulled Carson against his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Shut. Up.”
John gave Ronon a grin over Carson’s shoulder. “Tomorrow’s staff meeting should be fun.”
Rodney’s head whipped up at that and he glared at Radek. “You’re explaining this one to Elizabeth.”
John laughed and left Ronon to his charges. “Good luck with them,” he called as he hooked Carson’s arm around his back and half-dragged, half-led him out into the hall.
“You are so wasted!” John exclaimed as they tumbled into the transporter.
“I think so. Yes. Yes, I am.” Carson said taking John’s hand again and studying his fingers again. When the transporter changed direction, the usually imperceptible change in direction made Carson pitch forward, almost hitting the wall until John caught him. John’s hand on his arm reactivated Carson’s bizarre fixation on John’s fingers.
“I’m sure enough for both of us,” John said as the door whooshed open. He shook his hand free and gently grasped the back of Carson’s neck, propelling him down the hall in front of him.
As they walked, John noticed that about one in three doors opened just before they walked past them, but no one emerged from the room. And they were the only two in the hall. “What the hell?”
Carson just giggled behind his hand.
John shook his head as comprehension sat in. “Why are you opening all the doors?”
Carson snorted. “I figure eventually one of the rooms will look familiar. Because right now, they all look very much the same.”
John sighed and scolded, “Before you piss someone off in a big way, stop doing that. I’m still hoping to god that Rodney was kidding when he implied he wanted to come home with us; I do not need to look into some room and find … I don’t know Major Lorne and Doctor Biro doing naked gymnastics.”
Carson stopped walking, his eyes going huge. “Major Lorne and -“
“It was just an example. I’m saying, ‘stop opening all the damn doors.’”
Carson nodded, looking as if someone had just told him he couldn’t have any ice cream for desert.
John finally got them back to Carson’s quarters, where they stood for several minutes, staring at the door. Finally, John twigged to the problem. As he took a breath to tell Carson they were home, Carson turned and said, “We’re in front of another door. Should I open this one?”
Grinning tightly, John reigned in his amusement that was quickly becoming frustration. “Yes Carson, this door you can open.”
The door slid back and John dragged Carson into the bathroom. He filled a glass with water and handed it to him. “Drink this.”
Carson sat on the closed commode taking several sips of his water. “People ought to lock their doors,” he said profoundly.
“You have a medical override. You can command locked doors to open if you try hard enough.” John dug around in the medicine cabinet until he located a bottle of aspirin. He shook two into his hand. “Here.”
“Do I have a headache?” Carson asked sincerely.
“Not yet. But the morning’s gonna be a doozy.”
Carson tossed back the pills and chased them with the rest of the water. “Isn’t that my line?”
“Not tonight,” John told him as he ran a cloth under a cool tap. He quickly wiped his own face before rinsing it out and handing it to Carson who traded him the empty cup for the cloth.
Carson washed his face and handed back the cloth. All at once he sagged, resting his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees. “I’m very tired,” he announced.
“Let’s get you in bed, then,” John said, pulling Carson to his feet again.
Quickly they both stripped down before climbing under the blankets. As they got settled, Carson became refascinated with John’s hands, then his ears, and various other parts of his anatomy. John was resigned to just let him poke until he fell asleep until Carson’s head disappeared under the covers. “That’s not my finger!” he squeeked as he shoved the blankets down and hauled Carson back up to the pillows. “Stay right there,” he told him severely.
Carson pouted at the reprimand, causing John to feel bad. He leaned in and kissed his lips gently.
Carson snuggled closer, whispering something like, “Not tonight. I have a headache.”
John seriously debating slapping him upside the head for that remark. But when Carson started snoring just then, John let it go in favor of getting a few hours sleep before he had to attempt to make Carson functional enough for a seven a.m. staff meeting.