SLASH FIC: [Stargate: Atlantis] His Bodyguard - Chapter One (R)
The main arc for the His Bodyguard timeline. Whilst there are other fics in this universe, this can be read 'standalone'.
Title: His Bodyguard
Author: Soraya
Rating: R
Genre: Slash, First Time, AU
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Disclaimer: Not mine, Wright, Cooper and others own Stargate Atlantis
Warnings: Contains descriptions of a burgeoning male/male relationship
Summary: John's ability to piss people off gets him everything he needs out of life
Chapter One
"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Translated as: But who shall guard the guards themselves?
'Satire VI' by Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis
---
On the way to Area 51, John promised himself that things would be different this time around.
He knew he wasn't the type to follow orders blindly. Still, as much as he didn't deserve this two year exile, occasionally he did have moments of clarity where he recognized that not all of this was the Air Force flexing its muscle and that he could, in fact, shoulder a lot of the blame for finding himself in this position.
With that in mind, he made a real effort to conform in his first few hours on post. He went through basic orientation with a bland smile, doing all the standard meet and greets, and generally he behaved like the kind of soldier the USAF wanted in its ranks.
Right until he met Colonel Dillon Everett: his new CO.
***
The sense he got in that office was more 'interrogation' than 'meet and greet'. Everett spent a long time eyeing him from the comfort of his chair while he stood under those bright lights waiting and waiting. He waited because he didn't have a choice, and because the new him didn't take deliberate baits. But every so often, his feet would shuffle, or his hands would clench; and as he watched Everett watching him squirm, a cold, hard feeling settled in his stomach.
No one here had his back. He'd guessed that coming in; he could see it now in Everett's eyes. Everett wasn't going to give him a real shot at making things work. The worst part was that he knew he'd had his chances not so long ago when he still had a career. Now, with hundreds of Everetts out there, waiting for him to fail so they could get rid of him once and for all, he wasn't sure how much time he had left.
The thought of that wound him so tight he started scowling and gritting his teeth. He didn't give a damn that he was broadcasting his feelings, until Everett sneered, "Now that's the Major Sheppard I expected!"
"Reporting for duty as ordered, sir!" And for once he bit his tongue after that, because he still needed this job and he really didn't want to fuck this up, at least not on day one.
"Well, I guess this must be my lucky day," Everett continued with another sneer, making him bite down even harder. And he stood there trying to keep it together while Everett pretended to read his file.
There was plenty of head-shaking going on, along with some sighing and the occasional disbelieving grunt. Signs that Everett was not happy with the situation-something he could absolutely relate to right then.
He hated being on the outside again; he hated the hollow feeling that came with it; he hated the way Everett kept eyeing him like he was something the cat had dragged in. The terrible part was that he couldn't see things changing any time soon. He'd met COs like this before: guys, who were so 'by the book' they wouldn't cut their own kids any slack let alone people like him with black marks on their record.
"You know, Colonel Marshall Sumner was a very good friend of mine," Everett murmured all of a sudden, making it seem almost like an afterthought.
Except it wasn't; he knew that because his tour in Afghanistan was the main reason he'd been grounded in the first place. Before he could respond, Everett changed track completely, saying, "Yes, I think 'Security Detail' would be perfect for you."
Which set off all his alarm bells, because Everett was mad as hell-he could see that now-and the only person around to blame for Sumner's death was him. He wasn't sure what worried him more: that Everett and Sumner went way back, or that they both seemed to be cut from the same cloth. Either way, now that any chance of a clean slate had gone, he didn't suppose it really mattered any more.
He thought about the past and about his future, about the choices he'd made to end up where he was, and about the way Everett finally waved him toward a chair like he was flipping him the bird instead of inviting him to sit down. And even though he'd sworn to keep a lid on the old John Sheppard, the one who liked pissing people off and skirting the line without crossing it, he whipped out his best 'fuck you' smile and said, "Prefer to stand, sir," in the laziest drawl he had.
Everything went downhill from there. Everett's face suddenly looked very pinched around the eyes. So, immediately, he cranked up the wattage on his smile. Like that, the lines were drawn. He stood on one side of the desk radiating his usual brand of insolence; Everett sat behind it with the furious glare of every CO determined to break him.
Strangely enough, that put him right at ease.
***
The team Everett gave him wasn't a big surprise. In fact, watching Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagen spar together in the gym, John figured out pretty fast that these were the guys no one else wanted. It meant they all had something in common. Which, at least, was a starting point; and he kept telling himself that after they stopped sparring and then started staring him down like he was the enemy not their new team lead.
The truth was he didn't know if he wanted these guys either! Neither one of them was US military. They were supposedly part of some law enforcement cultural exchange: Teyla from the NSA, and Ronon from some hush hush special ops group called Sateda. But, apparently, the only exchange they'd done so far was to beat the crap out of anyone, who got in their way. From their less than welcoming expressions, John had a feeling that rumour might actually be true.
"Hey," he said, trying not to look intimidated. "Maybe I could train with you guys from now on!" He threw it out there as a way to break the ice. Sure, he needed stay in shape, but that stick fighting they'd been doing earlier had looked pretty cool.
"I do not think that would be wise," Teyla responded with a visible cringe.
Ronon growled, "Yeah, what she said," in case he hadn't got the message.
Then they both proceeded to walk past him, taking special care to shoulder him out of the way.
Since, technically, they were all still getting to know each other, John decided to let that slide. "Okay, how about target practice," he suggested instead. And even he cringed at how desperate he sounded, but he was clutching at straws here. Something told him that if he didn't sort this out now, Teyla and Ronon would never respect him. "Look, we could get in some rounds, then just hang out, maybe grab a few beers afterwards."
Teyla turned round, looking suspicious but like she was weighing her options. "Are you spying on us?" she said in the end.
"He does kind of look like a rat," Ronon added before suddenly veering off to the left.
"Whoa, wait a minute!" And John threw both hands up in the universal sign of 'what the fuck?' because he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Is that what they told you? Because I am not that guy." He got a little concerned when Teyla started twirling her sticks again because Ronon had somehow managed to slip behind him, boxing him in. But he knew they weren't going to attack him. At least he was pretty sure they weren't going to attack him. "Look, I'm pretty new to this team thing," he admitted, trying to change their minds if they were. "But whatever you may have heard about me, I always put my team first and I never, ever leave my people behind. You got that?"
He'd barely finished speaking before Ronon slapped him on the back so hard he went flying.
"Okay, that's enough!" he yelled at them, scrambling to his feet and raising his fists, making both of them raise their eyebrows. "Seriously, you guys are officially pissing me off!"
He rounded in on Teyla first, thinking he stood a better chance of taking her down. And he was just about ready to charge at her when Ronon said, "Oh man, you should have seen your face," before Ronon just burst out laughing.
Teyla, suddenly, looked like she wanted to laugh as well but was holding it in to spare his feelings or something.
He figured out then that they'd been screwing with him all along. Only by that point, he almost didn't care that he'd passed some sort of a test; the way Ronon kept clutching at his sides and howling was really starting to get to him.
"Hey, it's not that funny," John tried not to whine, and he glared pointedly at Ronon, folding both arms across his chest.
Still, the more he thought about it, he realized it was kind of funny that he'd gone all Major CO back there! For a moment, he tried to imagine what it would be like to really lead these guys, to know that they would have his back no matter what and that he would have theirs. Watching the two of them shake with laughter, he got the strangest feeling that this really was his kind of team.
***
Aside from zero flight time, John really didn't mind his new job that much. He felt a bit weird admitting that to Mitch's grandma when she called one evening to check up on him. Especially since he had a feeling things wouldn't stay that way, if Everett had anything to say about with it. Still, for the time being, he wasn't complaining! "Basically, it's a series of milk runs," he told her. "We take people in, they tour the secure levels while we wait around for them, then we take them back out again. No one's shooting at us. So, yeah, I'm good!" And that at least was the truth.
The way things were going on the team front, he had no serious complaints there either. He and Ronon had bonded over non-regulation hair and a mutual dislike of Everett's command. Which pretty much cemented his path of insubordination now that he had a brother-in-arms. Teyla, on the other hand, was the sort of anchor he'd always wanted, because she never judged whenever something weird happened, she just rolled her eyes like he and Ronon were little boys she had to wrangle.
It still took him a while to settle on post. Having specialists on his team certainly made the job a lot easier. But all together, he, Ronon and Teyla made kind of a motley crew, and there were more than a few moments where they didn't quite see eye to eye.
Slowly, though, and through a process of trial and error, he worked out a series of compromises that everyone could live with.
The week usually started with one of Everett's pep talks, which usually went along the lines of *screw this up and you're history*, and which, by some mutual unspoken agreement, he started to take alone since no one else could tune them out like he could. Once he got their assignments, Ronon did the tactical planning while Teyla handled the diplomatic meet and greets, before they all fell into formation around their subject with him on point the rest of the way.
The real sticking point was having to stomach being nothing more than glorified tour guides. He knew there were other guys, who worked the secure levels, but his team never seemed to get those assignments. Occasionally, they were lucky enough to get a subject, who was tired of the usual show and who wanted to know what life on post was really like. Whenever that happened, John led the group off piste with the kind of enthusiasm that pushed Everett from pep talks into threats, but which he also hoped would get them noticed for all the right reasons.
***
In a bizarre twist of irony, Everett's new civilian counterpart took care of that by making a play for his team. The moment they met Dr. Elizabeth Weir, John had her tagged as a textbook off pister. She was smart, a little jaded, but still searching for the truth. So he made sure they showed her as much truth as they could find in a top secret military-run research facility. Which, admittedly, wasn't much given his clearance level.
Still, at the end of her first tour, Weir shocked the hell out of him by saying, "You've impressed me, Major; not many people do," in that neutral tone all the diplomats seemed to use. She then made a few comments about his refreshing brand of honesty before mentioning her plans for a more permanent security detail.
John tried not to get his hopes up. Weir's spiel about liking unconventional leadership styles seemed sincere. Privately, though, he had a feeling it was Ronon's inability to bullshit that had really caught her attention. Whatever it was, Weir surprised him again by making a formal request for his team; and despite Everett's attempts to block it, he, Teyla and Ronon became a regular fixture on Weir's detail whenever she was on post.
He found it much easier to settle after that. Ronon grumbled a lot less; Teyla looked more serene; they got comfortable working the diplomatic levels and even picked up a few more regulars along the way. Most of the time though, they handled Weir, who was patient and polite and who seemed to take a genuine interest in them as individuals.
***
With several months of this kind of treatment, John went from not minding his job to thinking it might actually help salvage his career. Until the week he walked into Everett's office where, instead of the usual pep talk, Everett threw a personnel file at him and then announced that his team had been pulled from Elizabeth Weir's detail effective immediately.
"Sir, may I ask why?" John ground out, shocked. It didn't make any sense. Weir liked them; she was one of the few people, who did!
"Well, McKay's convinced that someone's out to get him," Everett explained. "You've heard about McKay haven't you? Dr. Rodney McKay? Our chief science officer just back from Antarctica?" Everett didn't wait for him to answer. "Anyway, McKay's a key asset with a lead in to some top priority research. Some genius at the Pentagon decided to bump his threat rating up to Sigma-eight. Which means he now needs protection on post and off. So, as of today, you and your team are on McKay rotation full time."
After that, Everett gave him a satisfied smile, like he'd just won something or had finally found a way to break him.
John refused to give Everett the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.
Deep down, though, he was worried. Because, across security teams, McKay was what they called BAD NEWS: Bossy,
Arrogant and
Difficult to work with, which meant that
Nobody
Ever
Wanted to
Stay.
By dropping McKay on him, Everett was clearly bringing out the big guns; and with no real weapons of his own, suddenly John felt hopelessly out-manoeuvred.
He kept his cool for the most part, used as he was to handling himself under fire. He even flicked through McKay's file, determined to make a show of reading it so Everett wouldn't know how rattled he was. But as he stood there with the words swirling in front of him and his stomach twisting into knots, it occurred to him that, unless he could pull off a 'hail Mary' here, this just might be the end of his career.
Then, his stomach twisted in an entirely different way when he spotted the picture of a man with bright blue eyes and an unhappy slant to his mouth.
Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD didn't look that bad, let alone like someone, who'd driven one detail so crazy they'd effectively gone on strike. He did look a bit conceited, as well as uptight and seriously pissed off. Though that was probably just bad lighting, John thought desperately, wondering who the hell he was trying to kid.
"Any idea who's after him?" He glanced at Everett, expecting the basic threat assessment. What he got instead was the kind of scornful laugh, which sounded like Everett was farting through his nose.
"See, with McKay, it could be anyone," Everett said once he'd calmed down a little. "I swear that guy has a talent for pissing people off. Everywhere he goes it's the same old story. But you would know all about that, wouldn't you, Major?"
John decided not to take the bait. He stared at the picture again, wondering what it was about McKay that unnerved him on such a personal level. The guy glaring up at him seemed harmless enough, if a little standoffish. None of which explained why just looking at McKay left him with that freshly punched in the gut feeling, or why the idea of McKay in danger tied his stomach up in knots. "I guess we need to watch out for allies and hostiles," he said as a note to self more than anything else.
"Personally, I would start with his staff. They're the only ones with any real reason to want to kill him."
John looked up, frowning, making Everett beam that smug I've won this round and quite possibly the whole war smile.
"You know, something tells me you two will hit it off, or just kill each other." From the gleam in Everett's eyes, it was clear which one he was rooting for. "Whatever you do, Major, do it quietly! And keep McKay on a tight leash!"
Everett dismissed him then with another one of those nose farting sounds. Since he didn't want to lose any more ground, he got out of there as fast as he could.
***
Under the circumstances, the team handled the McKay bombshell about as well as he'd expected, in that Ronon just snarled, "You've got to be kidding me!" Which wasn't a total shock given Ronon's spectacular crush on Elizabeth Weir. Surprisingly, it was Teyla, who seemed to shrug off the Weir months with a philosophical smile, before slipping into her TAC vest and loading up on extra ammunition-a signal that she wasn't happy either.
He kept an eye on both of them on the way to McKay's lab. Even though they weren't blaming him, he still felt like it was his fault they were all in this mess. He needed to make it up to them, and he was planning to, maybe with a nice team day somewhere out in the desert, where he and Ronon could blow shit up to their hearts' content and have Teyla watch them with a tolerant expression.
Outside the lab, however, once they'd all heard what was happening in there, it became clear that they were all going to need a lot more than a desert demolition derby to set things right.
"Okay, I'm pretty sure that's not our guy," John said brightly, hoping to Christ he was right. As a precaution, though, he checked his gun one more time, because if that was McKay they could hear shouting through several inches of Plexiglas, then Everett wasn't paying him enough to go in there.
Ronon snapped, "You're stalling," and promptly pushed open the door to McKay's lab, paying no attention to his denials that: *No, no, he really wasn't!*
Inside, the shouting hit extraordinary decibels.
They followed it to a workstation in the far corner, where four terrified looking scientists were cowering beside a smoke-filled piece of equipment while a man, who was undoubtedly Dr. Rodney McKay, pointed at it and screamed insults at them. McKay didn't notice they were there at first, deep as he was in the middle of: " . . . and frankly, at this stage, I would be better off asking an amoeba to do this work. They, at least, have one functioning brain cell!"
But one of the scientists, who was taking the brunt of McKay's invective, and who clearly thought they'd been sent to rescue him, gave them a huge smile before pointing frantically in their direction, causing McKay to turn on them like new prey.
"Who are you people?" McKay stormed up. "And what are you doing in my lab? Please God don't tell me you're lost!"
John bristled a little at the random insult. But before things could degenerate any further, Teyla stepped forward, completely ignoring McKay's furious expression, to handle the situation with a show of diplomatic hardball.
"Dr. McKay, I am Teyla Emmagen." She introduced herself by grabbing the hand McKay was waving in the air and then squeezing it in a way that made McKay wince. "With me are Ronon Dex and Major John Sheppard. We're your new personal security detail."
McKay's eyes swept round all of them before settling on him, and the way they widened all of a sudden brought that twisting, fluttering feeling back to his stomach. What shook him up even more was that the picture in McKay's file hadn't done him any justice. Up close, he thought McKay had a lot going for him with those broad shoulders and those piercing blue eyes. He also couldn't help thinking that he and McKay had a connection going on. Because, after wrenching his hand out of Teyla's grasp, McKay went from looking surprised to a little flushed before that turned into pure, red-faced alarm.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say something reassuring like: *Hey, it's okay! I'm here now and I promise I'll take good care of you.* Feelings which, for him, were surprising as hell, but which only seemed to grow stronger the more agitated McKay got.
But McKay blurted out: "Oh that’s just great! They gave me 'the Rejects'! I specifically asked not to get 'the Rejects'."
Which threw him right out of that illusion and straight into his first task: protecting McKay from his own personal security detail.
***
The first few days were all about explaining to Ronon that he wasn't allowed to shoot McKay, even if it was just to wing him a little. Ronon sulked a lot about that while Teyla, rather than mediating the way she usually did, chose to spend her time meditating at the back of the group.
When he'd called her on it a few hours in, she'd said, "It's either I cleanse my mind or I will hurt someone!" Which left him in the strange position of 'trouble-shooter' where McKay was concerned.
John didn't mind too much, since he kind of liked hanging out with McKay already. He'd never met anyone that good at deliberately and inadvertently upsetting people, so he was learning lots of new things. Plus, it kept the job interesting in a train wreck sort of way.
***
Once Teyla and Ronon had calmed down a little, John spent the rest of his week establishing boundaries.
McKay behaved like having a personal detail actually meant he had personal gofers. John could almost get how a genius might confuse the two ever since McKay had managed to add 'making coffee' to the course of their day to day duties. Usually, when McKay snapped his fingers, he just gritted his teeth and got McKay the laptop or the scanner or whatever the hell it was McKay wanted. But Ronon flat out refused to play ball, and Teyla was getting fed up with taking McKay's orders; and pretty soon John could see the cracks appearing all over his once solid team.
"Okay, you've got to stop doing that," he told McKay one morning after another one of those finger snaps.
As usual, McKay barely acknowledged his presence. Which was when John realized that liking the guy wasn't making him any easier to deal with.
"Don't push me on this, McKay," he snarled, and when McKay still didn't respond, he yanked McKay's chair away from his desk, making McKay jerk in surprise that he was even there.
He tried not to squirm as McKay looked him over. The whole thing about kind of liking McKay was that it made him want McKay to like him too. Right then, though, with the way McKay kept frowning up at him, he wasn't entirely sure McKay even knew his name.
McKay proceeded to prove him right by saying, "Fine! You with the hair-not you, Conan," after Ronon growled menacingly. "You: other guy! Listen, I'm a very busy man, so will you make yourself useful and just get me the case from Jorgenstern's lab."
"No, I won't!" John drew the line right there because that was too fucking much! "Now, you listen to me! We're here to protect you, not to fetch and carry for you!" And, leaning in, John made sure he got right up in McKay's face as he said, "By the way, for the record, he's Ronon, she's Teyla and I'm John Sheppard. Our names are not Conan, Xena and 'the other guy'; you got that?"
McKay looked a bit chagrined then, and to his credit he mumbled out an apology. Throughout the day, McKay even made an effort to use their real names at least twenty percent of the time. But the damage had already been done. Teyla and Ronon were pissed, so nothing really changed much there; and John didn't think he would ever forgive McKay for not giving him a cool action star nickname to begin with.
***
With McKay now trying to behave, John found running his detail nowhere near as bad as he'd anticipated. In reality, it was just complicated.
McKay came with a bunch of neuroses that needed very specific attention. At the start of week two, he announced, "You'll find my allergies listed in the table of contents," handing them each a printed manual, which had colour-coded tabs for the major physiological groups. "Also, there's a section on *things I'm technically not allergic to, but which I do find extremely irritating*. Naturally, I expect you to memorize everything, and I've emailed you soft-copies in case you lose these pocket books."
The first thing John did after reading the list was to write McKay a proper schedule. It wasn't payback exactly for the nickname oversight, though he was still smarting about that. The truth was: the insane hours McKay worked made it impossible to guard him effectively. They needed something more structured that they could all work to, and for that, McKay needed to go on a schedule. To do that, John pulled together a duty rota, which he then reviewed with Teyla and Ronon, and which he then emailed to McKay along with a bunch of spurious changes to McKay's manual.
Later, watching McKay scream, "What the hell do you call this?" whilst also cutting lines of red pen through his oh so incredibly wrong changes, John couldn't believe how well his decoy had worked. McKay was so annoyed at having his work corrected, he'd barely even mentioned being put on a schedule.
As he sat back to enjoy the fireworks in McKay's eyes, feeling quite tingly inside, something else occurred to him. Dr. Rodney McKay was an impatient, egotistical and surprisingly sensitive man, who hated being wrong and who was just this side of petty.
These were all things he could use to his advantage.
***
He spent the next few weeks studying McKay closely, trying to get inside his head, trying to understand what made McKay tick. Most of the time, that turned out to be coffee. But since over-caffeinating McKay led to problems of a different kind, John concentrated on finding other ways to handle McKay's various quirks.
Once he'd established that the way to McKay's co-operation was through his stomach, he got Teyla and Ronon to help him build an alternative and very secret reference manual, this one solely for their team.
Together, they discovered that strategically placed MREs could get McKay to do almost anything apart from work out. There only infirmary food would do. Which John found even more bizarre than McKay's fondness for military rations. Reading NHL scores tended to take McKay's mind off the idiots in his lab, because hockey was predominantly Canadian and therefore superior to every American sport. Chocolate helped with pretty much every situation, unless it involved Dr. Kavanagh or Dr. Lee, in which case handing McKay a powerbar was akin to handing him some form of projectile weapon. Yet with all their calculated experiments, it was by sheer accident that they discovered that a combination of Jell-O, shoulder massages and Twinkies delivered in a specific order could not only calm McKay down, they could actually make him quite friendly. [I]
After that, they all found it a lot easier getting McKay to follow a schedule. And if, in the process, he found it necessary to molest McKay's shoulders far more than was strictly required, he was just going above and beyond the call of duty. Besides, McKay seemed happy enough when he did it, so that was what counted in the long run, more than the weird looks Teyla and Ronon tended to give him.
The only area where they didn't make much headway was with McKay's overall threat assessment, mostly because they hadn't received any threats. Still, Ronon kept track of anyone, who'd even looked at McKay funny, so they had a pretty large pool of potential suspects.
John took McKay aside to discuss it one day after yet another 'hostiles review'. "Look, we've gone through your staff lists several times," he told him, feeling at a loss. "Is there something we're missing? Someone we've overlooked? I know this is difficult, but we'll need to go into every aspect of your life if we want to know who's targeting you."
He got suspicious when McKay suddenly looked a bit shifty.
"You do think there's someone after you, right?"
"Of course there is," McKay snapped. "I'm extremely important. Why wouldn't there be someone after me?" Only now McKay looked incredibly shifty. Which made him ask the question he'd been avoiding all along.
"McKay, what aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing," said McKay, a little too quickly in his opinion.
But since none of them were ready to face the possibility that McKay had a detail just to satisfy his ego, John decided not to press further, telling himself that it never hurt to be extra vigilant, especially when it came to Rodney McKay.
***
In time, John got used to being a spectator in McKay's life, if not a major part of it.
Most of their work involved taking McKay to the labs, then hanging around running drills before forcing McKay to eat something round about what passed for lunchtime in McKay-land. Then came more lab-work and more drills, before finally one or all of them had to drag McKay home usually some time around midnight. Aside from the crazy hours, it was easy work, and no one had tried to kill them yet, but that still didn't solve the problem of just who was supposedly after McKay.
John had a horrible feeling that it was just McKay's paranoia talking or, worse, his ego. Still, he didn't share that theory with Teyla or Ronon, since they were all finally starting to get along and the last thing he needed was a setback.
The truth was, he thought the four of them together kind of made a great team. Because even though McKay was rude, sarcastic and had a tendency to make random people cry, he was also brilliant, laugh out loud funny and surprisingly generous to those he cared about. Even Teyla and Ronon were warming to him, though they tried very hard not to show it. Occasionally, though, it slipped through, and he would catch Teyla rolling her eyes fondly at something McKay said, or Ronon would try to get McKay to work out with him, which unbeknownst to McKay was a very big thing.
It also helped that McKay seemed to be warming to them as well.
There were plenty of signs, little things he saw every day, things that made all the difference. Like how concerned McKay got for their personal safety when he told McKay about their team picnic-slash-demolition-derby day in the desert. Of course, coming from McKay, concern sounded a lot like: "You're insane! Why on earth would you do that? Don't you have any idea how hot it gets out there in the middle of the day?" But it was still nice knowing that McKay cared enough to shout at him, and he was grateful for the home-made sun-screen 'protection factor 2000', which McKay whipped up specially for them, even if he did smell like coconuts for a week.
In many ways, he could see that he was on dangerous ground, because their group dynamic didn't feel like a security detail to him any more. He liked being with McKay, and he liked being with Teyla and Ronon; and when the four of them were together, things were even better. It made him feel like he was part of something: something important enough not to screw up. And for the first time in his life, he really started to give a damn, so much so that he couldn't imagine his future without these guys in it.
Then, one day the dynamic shifted dramatically when McKay announced that he was going on a date.
***
"This will not end well," Teyla said ominously outside McKay's lab. It was the third time she'd said it so far.
Ronon responded with a grunt, which could have meant anything at that point.
So, John just gritted his teeth and checked the safety on his gun again. They were all a bit on edge, so he didn't want to make things worse by 'adding his two cents' to the mix. Besides, he had his own reasons for worrying about McKay dating, and he didn't want to let on what those were. Privately, though, he thought they were both over-reacting. Still, he hadn't been overly concerned until Teyla had started hiding extra ammunition up her sleeves.
That was when he noticed the knives Ronon kept sliding into his hair.
"Oh, come on, it's just a date!" And he leant against the doorframe, playing it super cool. "McKay's a good-looking guy. I'm sure he has been on plenty of dates before. How bad can it be?"
Teyla glared at him like he'd lost his fucking mind. And now John thought, *Yeah, right, famous last words!* because this was McKay they were talking about here. Going out on a date. To a restaurant. With a woman. One, who was probably nowhere near as intelligent as McKay was.
"Oh, crap!" he muttered. "We'll need the taser!"
"Already packed it," Ronon said before waving a pack of deluxe Twinkies in his face. "I brought the big ones in case things get rough and we need a diversion!"
Once again, John thought it was nice to be on a team where they all seemed to get each other so effortlessly.
***
They didn't need the taser in the end, but for a moment during the entrees, it came pretty close. Or at least it would have done, if the three of them hadn't been laughing their asses off and had therefore been spectacularly unable to protect McKay when he said, "Oh, you're calling that a science," to his date, causing the kind of cataclysmic chain reaction, which ultimately brought the date to an end approximately ninety-five seconds later.
"Aren't you supposed to protect me?" McKay yelled afterwards, storming up to their table, dripping everywhere. "That woman attacked me and well, just look at you!" And there was a lot of finger pointing from McKay, which meant he was seriously pissed off.
John really didn't know what to say. Beside him, Teyla kept making these weird snorting sounds, which meant she was trying not to laugh but failing miserably. Then, Ronon gave him some kind of weird shoulder nudge, which apparently meant: *You're the team lead; you handle this one!* So, in his best serious team leader voice, he said, "Look, McKay, I'll take a bullet for you or a knife. That-" he gestured vaguely at McKay's soggy, palm-printed face. "Well, slaps just aren't in the job description."
Teyla snorted again, very loudly this time, and that was it: the three of them broke down with laughter.
It took a while, but eventually John noticed that McKay wasn't laughing with them. In fact, shoulders hunched and mouth slanting down at the corner, McKay looked distinctly unhappy about the situation.
"You okay there, buddy?" John wheezed, getting up and walking over, still wiping his eyes. When he didn't get an answer, he said, "Rodney, come on, we're not laughing at you, I swear!" It was really important to him that McKay understood that. "It's just, somehow you managed to insult her hair, her family and her job all in one sentence. Then, you called her dog a malicious waste of space. Seriously, McKay, her dog? What did Fluffy ever do to you?"
McKay responded with a delicate sniff. "I'm more of a cat person."
"Oh, believe me, we get that now!" And John reached for McKay's shoulders then, he couldn't help himself not while McKay still had that sad little look on his face. "You do know she wasn't right for you, right?" John murmured, certain his manly shoulder squeezes would help get that message across.
"Yes, yes, I know!" McKay sighed, leaning into him. "It's just, I won't-oh, never mind!" And McKay seemed to pull away without taking a single step.
Before he could ask what was wrong, Teyla said, "Rodney, don't leave. I know your date did not go as planned, but why don't you join us for dinner instead?"
"Yeah, come eat with us," Ronon insisted, waving McKay toward one of the empty chairs.
McKay looked at both of them suspiciously, as though he were half expecting them to start laughing again. "Well, I have already ordered my steak," he said in the end. "I suppose it would be a shame to waste it, since I'll have to pay for it anyway. So, uh, yes?" And McKay turned to him then, mouth quirking up at the corner. "Yes, okay, why not?"
"Great!" John told him, beaming right back, and he tried his best to ignore the strange melting feeling that was spreading through his chest.
After that, McKay sat down at their table, and John sat down next to him. And even though McKay ended up stealing most of his food, John couldn't remember when he'd last enjoyed a meal so much.
***
Despite his reservations about McKay dating, John started to enjoy those evenings because McKay was just so bad at it. And aside from impromptu team dinners when McKay's dates invariably went south, soon he found that there were other perks, which came from working on McKay's detail.
The jewel in McKay's crown was his research on wormhole physics. "It'll get me my first Nobel," McKay tended to say whenever the topic came up, which was a lot.
John wasn't allowed anywhere near that project since the day he'd accidentally called it a flux capacitor [II]. But since McKay also liked to invent other cool things that involved nanite technology and advanced energy dispersion, as part of his detail it became their privilege-no, their job-to help him during the final stages of testing.
For Teyla, usually that meant looking for design flaws, while Ronon got to run preliminary field tests.
He got stuck checking equations once McKay discovered his secret Maths skills after one too many games of 'Prime / not Prime'. He was okay with it for the most part, mostly because he got to spend ridiculous amounts of time hanging out with McKay in the labs. But it wasn't nearly as much fun as what Teyla and Ronon got to do, until he took the initiative to look for wider applications beyond McKay's limited it'll push the boundaries of science point of view.
"Okay, you see how cool that is?" John pointed at the makeshift track on the floor, yet more evidence of his brilliant initiative.
"Yeah!" Ronon crouched down beside him. "How many laps do you think they'll do?"
John shrugged, not really bothered. It was enough that they were trying to out-run each other, because McKay sure as hell hadn't programmed them to do that! This was why he loved his job. Even if McKay wouldn't let him name stuff any more, he still loved his job so damn much.
"Sheppard!" McKay yelled all of a sudden from the other side of the lab. "What are you two doing over there? Oh my God, are you racing them again?"
"No," they both replied at once.
"Because they're not toys," insisted McKay, who was so not buying their denials. "They are highly sophisticated mobile analytical telemetric devices designed to gather and transmit data through the most delicate of space-time bridges."
Trying not to look guilty, John strolled back with Ronon to where McKay and Teyla were waiting for them. "Look, I get it, Rodney: they're MATs," and he winked at McKay, just to be extra annoying. "So, what have you got for us now?" he asked, because in his experience, McKay yelling his name across the lab only meant one thing: more tests to run!
"Here-" McKay gave the weird gun-shaped thing he was carrying to Ronon. "Just press the red button here, and then point it over there."
Ronon did exactly what he was told, making the gun-thing shoot a beam of energy, which promptly melted one of Kavanagh's white-boards.
"Whoa!" John took a step back, stunned. Even Teyla, who wasn't fazed by anything, looked suitably impressed. Ronon just looked like he'd fallen in love.
"Can I keep it?" were the next words out of Ronon's mouth.
To which McKay replied: "I don't see why not," before reaching out to recalibrate some settings, spectacularly not noticing the jealous look in his eyes. "Of course, you can't take it out of the lab until we've finished looking at potential applications. Then you can only carry it through the secure levels, because it's incredibly top secret. But, yes, as of now it's yours to-"
"Wait a minute!" John cocked his head to one side, convinced he was having trouble with his hearing. "Did you just give Ronon the ray gun?"
"For the last time, Sheppard, it's a prototype of a highly sophisticated energy conversion wave that disrupts bond resonance at an atomic level!" And for some reason, McKay seemed to think shouting would make the message sink in; in reality that just made it sound even more like a ray gun to him.
"Well, can I get one too?" He tried to make the question sound casual, and not like he was desperate enough to beg.
McKay, now firmly in shouting mode, said, "Hello? Prototype? That means there's only one," before stalking off to his workbench, leaving his precious ray gun in Ronon's grabby little hands.
John was absolutely determined not to sulk about it.
It helped that Ronon didn't gloat much, and that Teyla was her usual quiet supportive self. Still, the manly 'not sulking' thing seemed like a good plan. So, he lounged by McKay's bench, where he didn't sulk at all. Then, he followed McKay around the lab, still not sulking. Later that evening, after not moping around all day, he sat next to McKay and didn't look absolutely miserable during another one of their impromptu team dinners.
In the middle of dessert, McKay snapped, "Oh my God! Yes, you can have one! Okay? I'll even make yours sing to you on cold winter nights. Just stop making that face! Seriously, you're worse than my niece!"
And while John had no clue what he'd done, he still chalked that up as a win for manly 'not sulking'.
Teyla said, "Why would anyone need a singing gun?" looking quite baffled about the whole thing.
Apparently, neither of them had an answer for that, hence the strange silence that seemed to drag on for a very long time. Inside, though, John could barely contain his glee that his ray gun was going to be much cooler than Ronon's.
Teyla gave him a pitying look, which meant she knew exactly what he was thinking. Ronon just laughed, which meant he knew it too and didn't care. John didn't give a damn either way. McKay was going to build a ray gun especially for him, and right then that was all that mattered.
***
He never did get that gun in the end. What he got, instead, the following afternoon was a memo summoning the entire team to an urgent meeting with Colonel Everett.
The meeting turned out not to be so urgent, since Everett kept them waiting outside his office for over three hours. Eventually, though, Everett strode out to meet them, looking pissed as hell. He was carrying another one of those dreaded manila files.
"You've got nine lives, haven't you, son?" Everett's voice seethed with anger. "I mean, you just must be the luckiest S.O.B. on post, huh?"
Suddenly, the file hit him in the face, and Everett stood there for a moment watching him fumble with it, looking like he was about to say something else before apparently deciding to just go back into his office and slam the door behind him.
Wondering what the hell had crawled up Everett's ass this time, John opened up the file and started reading. Half-way through it, he walked out of the building, heart in his throat, leaving Teyla and Ronon there without any sort of explanation.
***
McKay left for Cheyenne Mountain in the early evening that same day. John almost didn't get there in time to see him off, although seeing him off actually involved parking at the end of the road with his lights switched off so he could watch McKay load stuff into a black SUV. McKay's new detail looked very competent and 'by the book' with their dark suits and shiny regulation hair. John couldn't see a single 'reject' among them.
He finally stopped tailing them at the intersection three blocks down when he realized he was being slightly stalker-ish and completely insane. But it didn't stop the feelings of betrayal running thick and fast.
He couldn't believe McKay had just got up and left without saying goodbye.
*Well, neither did you,* he told himself, trying to maintain some objectivity. Still, McKay was the one doing the leaving, not him, and he was pretty sure that trumped whatever farewells he might have neglected to say.
Basically, it just bothered him that McKay was leaving in the first place.
***
The team reacted quite strangely after he broke the news about McKay.
Teyla got that bland look on her face, before she announced that she was going off to meditate. Ronon, meanwhile, went down to the gym, where he kicked the crap out of anyone stupid enough to want to spar with him.
As for him? Well, he just felt like someone had ripped his guts out. But he was handling it. They were all handling it in their own way, because they were professionals, who didn't need anyone and who didn't miss anyone and who certainly didn't need to talk about their feelings.
Over the next few days, John was very proud of how they all didn't bring up the fact that McKay had abandoned them. Except, it was always there, lurking in the shadows of their oh-so-polite conversations and in the way they were each very careful never to mention McKay's name.
A week passed by before he realized he was looking for McKay around every corner. Then, it took him several more days to snap himself out of it. McKay was long gone, off to his shiny new job with his shiny new detail. And John knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
It still didn't stop him feeling angry and a little betrayed. And he was really pissed off that McKay hadn't even said goodbye.
***
In the realm of changes, McKay's departure wasn't such a massive disruption to their routine. He still had a detail to run, and his team still had people to protect. But apparently knowing that it was no big deal didn't make it any easier to handle, and the real problem came when they got their next assignment.
They all should have been happy with it. They had Weir back. Weir, who was nice and very easy to handle, and who never ever shouted obscenities at anyone. But Ronon still wasn't smiling, and Teyla kept going off to meditate, and that strange hollow feeling in his gut still wouldn't go away.
Working with Weir felt off, they could all sense it. It was almost like she was too diplomatic for them or something; John wasn't even going to think about the lack of 'Prime / not Prime'. The worst part was that their performance as a team was suffering. They weren't nearly as slick as they used to be, and they were making the kind of pointless mistakes they used to make back when they were all still getting to know each other.
After weeks of this, John decided to call an intervention. He tried to disguise it as a morale-boosting team dinner, but deep down they all knew what it was.
"Okay, we're going to get through this," he said right off the bat. Though at that point, he wasn't sure if he was talking about the meal or life in general. It felt weird sitting down for dinner without first having to rescue McKay from one of his dates. Also, none of them could seem to look at the empty fourth chair at their table. "Come on, guys," he tried again when neither of them said anything. "Hey, look on the bright side! Weir thinks we're doing a great job. That has got to count for something, right?"
Teyla glared at him until he gave up and started playing with his food like the rest of them. And while he was pretty sure the situation couldn't get much worse, he knew something eventually had to give.
***
That something turned out to be the brass at Cheyenne Mountain.
At first, when Everett called him into his office and said, "I must have been born lucky! First, McKay and now you," John got a bit worried. Everett was honest to God smiling at him, and in his experience that was never a good thing.
"Ah, I can see you're confused!" And Everett looked very smug about that.
John decided it was safest not to ask why.
"Well, it seems McKay has been making a huge fuss over at Cheyenne Mountain. Something about his current detail being 'a bunch of Cro-Magnon cave dwelling idiots, who couldn't follow a simple instruction if it was drawn out for them in crayon'." Everett read that last part off a notebook, apparently wanting to get it just right. "Anyway, I happened to mention that you'd done an adequate job of keeping McKay on a leash. And with McKay demanding to have his old team back, it's all just a matter of paperwork now."
Everett settled back in his chair then, still grinning that smug little smile.
"I bet you never saw this day coming, huh? You really thought you'd managed to escape, didn't you? Well, not on my watch, Sheppard. No one gets away with your kind of crap on my watch!"
And since Everett clearly expected him to be distraught at the prospect of reuniting with McKay, John did his best not to blow it by leaping up and whooping for joy. The truth was, his heart was pounding so hard he could barely breathe, and that nameless hollow feeling he'd been carrying around suddenly started to fade.
It disappeared entirely once Everett said, "Pack your bags, Major! You and that sorry team of yours are off to Cheyenne Mountain."
***
On the way over there, Ronon became positively chatty for the first time ever. "Idiots!" he snarled; that seemed to be the word of the day. "What did they really expect? They're fucking idiots!"
"I agree with Ronon that this is not a surprising outcome given the particular nature of Rodney's requirements." And whilst Teyla sounded equally unsympathetic, she seemed happy enough. Her eyes were gleaming with a fierce kind of pride.
Ronon still looked like he wanted to make someone pay for what he'd been put through over the past few weeks. "They never should have taken him from us in the first place," he muttered. "And, when they did, we should have gone to get him back."
John made a note to look into Ronon's abandonment issues. Because, sure he'd missed McKay, and yes, occasionally, he might have had thoughts about sneaking into Cheyenne Mountain to break McKay out. But this was not fucking healthy!
"You do know he's going to be mad as hell, don't you?" Ronon grinned at him all of a sudden, looking all kinds of happy.
"Yeah." John smiled; he could hardly wait either.
***
The civilian liaison at Cheyenne Mountain greeted them with a heartfelt: "Oh, thank God, you're here!" The woman didn't give them any time to ask questions, she just made them sign several documents and then kept herding them through various different levels of security.
On the way to McKay's lab, John counted several bystanders, who gave them looks, which ranged from relief to you'd better fucking fix this right now. And when they finally saw McKay, John understood the urgency.
They arrived just in time to catch the tail end of: ". . . calling you a moron would be an insult to all morons. I think I might actually have to invent a new scale for your brand of stupidity-" which McKay was yelling at some hapless guy, who was blatantly cowering in the corner whilst also trying to look like he was in control of the situation.
Yep, John thought, definitely a meltdown! He didn't need to say anything to Teyla or Ronon; they all knew the drill now by heart.
John stepped up first. "Jesus, McKay, don't you ever to stop to breathe?" And he made sure he said it in a bored sounding tone, knowing that would just piss McKay off more.
Sure enough, McKay whirled round, looking simultaneously shocked, angry and very happy to see them. "There you are," he wheezed, taking in long gulping breaths now that it was apparently okay to do so without blunting the edge of his invective. "Oh my God, what took you so long? These idiots have been trying to kill me for weeks! Weeks!"
McKay turned back to 'hapless guy' and his team, as though the mere mention of it had reminded him of their incompetence. Then, McKay started ranting all over again, this time at full tilt.
Hapless guy sent him a pleading look over McKay's shoulder.
John responded with a mild shrug. He still hadn't forgiven these guys for breaking up his team, and it made him feel much better knowing that McKay was making them suffer. Besides, McKay on a roll was a thing of beauty, and it would have been criminal to stop that. So he folded his arms, watching with a kind of malicious glee as McKay tore several new strips off his soon to be ex-security detail.
After another minute, Ronon stepped forward; he had two Twinkies unwrapped and ready to go.
But John mouthed, 'Not yet,' wanting to give McKay a bit more time. He could tell from the set of McKay's shoulders that McKay really wasn't angry any more. Basically, McKay was just working off some steam, and maybe, just maybe showing off a little just for them.
That McKay had missed them enough to behave this way made him feel ten feet tall and happy as hell.
His team was back together. Beside him, Ronon and Teyla were beaming, both of them having already figured out what McKay was up to. And when McKay had apparently decided that he'd done enough damage, he stalked up to each of them in turn, taking first the Twinkie then the Jell-O pudding cup and then the platonic squeezes to the shoulder, as though they were his fucking due for having put up with this shit! Then, he went back to his desk and calmly got back to work.
That was when John realized that he was more than a little in love with Rodney McKay.
***
End of Chapter One
Continued in Chapter Two
Title: His Bodyguard
Author: Soraya
Rating: R
Genre: Slash, First Time, AU
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Disclaimer: Not mine, Wright, Cooper and others own Stargate Atlantis
Warnings: Contains descriptions of a burgeoning male/male relationship
Summary: John's ability to piss people off gets him everything he needs out of life
Chapter One
"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Translated as: But who shall guard the guards themselves?
'Satire VI' by Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis
---
On the way to Area 51, John promised himself that things would be different this time around.
He knew he wasn't the type to follow orders blindly. Still, as much as he didn't deserve this two year exile, occasionally he did have moments of clarity where he recognized that not all of this was the Air Force flexing its muscle and that he could, in fact, shoulder a lot of the blame for finding himself in this position.
With that in mind, he made a real effort to conform in his first few hours on post. He went through basic orientation with a bland smile, doing all the standard meet and greets, and generally he behaved like the kind of soldier the USAF wanted in its ranks.
Right until he met Colonel Dillon Everett: his new CO.
***
The sense he got in that office was more 'interrogation' than 'meet and greet'. Everett spent a long time eyeing him from the comfort of his chair while he stood under those bright lights waiting and waiting. He waited because he didn't have a choice, and because the new him didn't take deliberate baits. But every so often, his feet would shuffle, or his hands would clench; and as he watched Everett watching him squirm, a cold, hard feeling settled in his stomach.
No one here had his back. He'd guessed that coming in; he could see it now in Everett's eyes. Everett wasn't going to give him a real shot at making things work. The worst part was that he knew he'd had his chances not so long ago when he still had a career. Now, with hundreds of Everetts out there, waiting for him to fail so they could get rid of him once and for all, he wasn't sure how much time he had left.
The thought of that wound him so tight he started scowling and gritting his teeth. He didn't give a damn that he was broadcasting his feelings, until Everett sneered, "Now that's the Major Sheppard I expected!"
"Reporting for duty as ordered, sir!" And for once he bit his tongue after that, because he still needed this job and he really didn't want to fuck this up, at least not on day one.
"Well, I guess this must be my lucky day," Everett continued with another sneer, making him bite down even harder. And he stood there trying to keep it together while Everett pretended to read his file.
There was plenty of head-shaking going on, along with some sighing and the occasional disbelieving grunt. Signs that Everett was not happy with the situation-something he could absolutely relate to right then.
He hated being on the outside again; he hated the hollow feeling that came with it; he hated the way Everett kept eyeing him like he was something the cat had dragged in. The terrible part was that he couldn't see things changing any time soon. He'd met COs like this before: guys, who were so 'by the book' they wouldn't cut their own kids any slack let alone people like him with black marks on their record.
"You know, Colonel Marshall Sumner was a very good friend of mine," Everett murmured all of a sudden, making it seem almost like an afterthought.
Except it wasn't; he knew that because his tour in Afghanistan was the main reason he'd been grounded in the first place. Before he could respond, Everett changed track completely, saying, "Yes, I think 'Security Detail' would be perfect for you."
Which set off all his alarm bells, because Everett was mad as hell-he could see that now-and the only person around to blame for Sumner's death was him. He wasn't sure what worried him more: that Everett and Sumner went way back, or that they both seemed to be cut from the same cloth. Either way, now that any chance of a clean slate had gone, he didn't suppose it really mattered any more.
He thought about the past and about his future, about the choices he'd made to end up where he was, and about the way Everett finally waved him toward a chair like he was flipping him the bird instead of inviting him to sit down. And even though he'd sworn to keep a lid on the old John Sheppard, the one who liked pissing people off and skirting the line without crossing it, he whipped out his best 'fuck you' smile and said, "Prefer to stand, sir," in the laziest drawl he had.
Everything went downhill from there. Everett's face suddenly looked very pinched around the eyes. So, immediately, he cranked up the wattage on his smile. Like that, the lines were drawn. He stood on one side of the desk radiating his usual brand of insolence; Everett sat behind it with the furious glare of every CO determined to break him.
Strangely enough, that put him right at ease.
***
The team Everett gave him wasn't a big surprise. In fact, watching Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagen spar together in the gym, John figured out pretty fast that these were the guys no one else wanted. It meant they all had something in common. Which, at least, was a starting point; and he kept telling himself that after they stopped sparring and then started staring him down like he was the enemy not their new team lead.
The truth was he didn't know if he wanted these guys either! Neither one of them was US military. They were supposedly part of some law enforcement cultural exchange: Teyla from the NSA, and Ronon from some hush hush special ops group called Sateda. But, apparently, the only exchange they'd done so far was to beat the crap out of anyone, who got in their way. From their less than welcoming expressions, John had a feeling that rumour might actually be true.
"Hey," he said, trying not to look intimidated. "Maybe I could train with you guys from now on!" He threw it out there as a way to break the ice. Sure, he needed stay in shape, but that stick fighting they'd been doing earlier had looked pretty cool.
"I do not think that would be wise," Teyla responded with a visible cringe.
Ronon growled, "Yeah, what she said," in case he hadn't got the message.
Then they both proceeded to walk past him, taking special care to shoulder him out of the way.
Since, technically, they were all still getting to know each other, John decided to let that slide. "Okay, how about target practice," he suggested instead. And even he cringed at how desperate he sounded, but he was clutching at straws here. Something told him that if he didn't sort this out now, Teyla and Ronon would never respect him. "Look, we could get in some rounds, then just hang out, maybe grab a few beers afterwards."
Teyla turned round, looking suspicious but like she was weighing her options. "Are you spying on us?" she said in the end.
"He does kind of look like a rat," Ronon added before suddenly veering off to the left.
"Whoa, wait a minute!" And John threw both hands up in the universal sign of 'what the fuck?' because he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Is that what they told you? Because I am not that guy." He got a little concerned when Teyla started twirling her sticks again because Ronon had somehow managed to slip behind him, boxing him in. But he knew they weren't going to attack him. At least he was pretty sure they weren't going to attack him. "Look, I'm pretty new to this team thing," he admitted, trying to change their minds if they were. "But whatever you may have heard about me, I always put my team first and I never, ever leave my people behind. You got that?"
He'd barely finished speaking before Ronon slapped him on the back so hard he went flying.
"Okay, that's enough!" he yelled at them, scrambling to his feet and raising his fists, making both of them raise their eyebrows. "Seriously, you guys are officially pissing me off!"
He rounded in on Teyla first, thinking he stood a better chance of taking her down. And he was just about ready to charge at her when Ronon said, "Oh man, you should have seen your face," before Ronon just burst out laughing.
Teyla, suddenly, looked like she wanted to laugh as well but was holding it in to spare his feelings or something.
He figured out then that they'd been screwing with him all along. Only by that point, he almost didn't care that he'd passed some sort of a test; the way Ronon kept clutching at his sides and howling was really starting to get to him.
"Hey, it's not that funny," John tried not to whine, and he glared pointedly at Ronon, folding both arms across his chest.
Still, the more he thought about it, he realized it was kind of funny that he'd gone all Major CO back there! For a moment, he tried to imagine what it would be like to really lead these guys, to know that they would have his back no matter what and that he would have theirs. Watching the two of them shake with laughter, he got the strangest feeling that this really was his kind of team.
***
Aside from zero flight time, John really didn't mind his new job that much. He felt a bit weird admitting that to Mitch's grandma when she called one evening to check up on him. Especially since he had a feeling things wouldn't stay that way, if Everett had anything to say about with it. Still, for the time being, he wasn't complaining! "Basically, it's a series of milk runs," he told her. "We take people in, they tour the secure levels while we wait around for them, then we take them back out again. No one's shooting at us. So, yeah, I'm good!" And that at least was the truth.
The way things were going on the team front, he had no serious complaints there either. He and Ronon had bonded over non-regulation hair and a mutual dislike of Everett's command. Which pretty much cemented his path of insubordination now that he had a brother-in-arms. Teyla, on the other hand, was the sort of anchor he'd always wanted, because she never judged whenever something weird happened, she just rolled her eyes like he and Ronon were little boys she had to wrangle.
It still took him a while to settle on post. Having specialists on his team certainly made the job a lot easier. But all together, he, Ronon and Teyla made kind of a motley crew, and there were more than a few moments where they didn't quite see eye to eye.
Slowly, though, and through a process of trial and error, he worked out a series of compromises that everyone could live with.
The week usually started with one of Everett's pep talks, which usually went along the lines of *screw this up and you're history*, and which, by some mutual unspoken agreement, he started to take alone since no one else could tune them out like he could. Once he got their assignments, Ronon did the tactical planning while Teyla handled the diplomatic meet and greets, before they all fell into formation around their subject with him on point the rest of the way.
The real sticking point was having to stomach being nothing more than glorified tour guides. He knew there were other guys, who worked the secure levels, but his team never seemed to get those assignments. Occasionally, they were lucky enough to get a subject, who was tired of the usual show and who wanted to know what life on post was really like. Whenever that happened, John led the group off piste with the kind of enthusiasm that pushed Everett from pep talks into threats, but which he also hoped would get them noticed for all the right reasons.
***
In a bizarre twist of irony, Everett's new civilian counterpart took care of that by making a play for his team. The moment they met Dr. Elizabeth Weir, John had her tagged as a textbook off pister. She was smart, a little jaded, but still searching for the truth. So he made sure they showed her as much truth as they could find in a top secret military-run research facility. Which, admittedly, wasn't much given his clearance level.
Still, at the end of her first tour, Weir shocked the hell out of him by saying, "You've impressed me, Major; not many people do," in that neutral tone all the diplomats seemed to use. She then made a few comments about his refreshing brand of honesty before mentioning her plans for a more permanent security detail.
John tried not to get his hopes up. Weir's spiel about liking unconventional leadership styles seemed sincere. Privately, though, he had a feeling it was Ronon's inability to bullshit that had really caught her attention. Whatever it was, Weir surprised him again by making a formal request for his team; and despite Everett's attempts to block it, he, Teyla and Ronon became a regular fixture on Weir's detail whenever she was on post.
He found it much easier to settle after that. Ronon grumbled a lot less; Teyla looked more serene; they got comfortable working the diplomatic levels and even picked up a few more regulars along the way. Most of the time though, they handled Weir, who was patient and polite and who seemed to take a genuine interest in them as individuals.
***
With several months of this kind of treatment, John went from not minding his job to thinking it might actually help salvage his career. Until the week he walked into Everett's office where, instead of the usual pep talk, Everett threw a personnel file at him and then announced that his team had been pulled from Elizabeth Weir's detail effective immediately.
"Sir, may I ask why?" John ground out, shocked. It didn't make any sense. Weir liked them; she was one of the few people, who did!
"Well, McKay's convinced that someone's out to get him," Everett explained. "You've heard about McKay haven't you? Dr. Rodney McKay? Our chief science officer just back from Antarctica?" Everett didn't wait for him to answer. "Anyway, McKay's a key asset with a lead in to some top priority research. Some genius at the Pentagon decided to bump his threat rating up to Sigma-eight. Which means he now needs protection on post and off. So, as of today, you and your team are on McKay rotation full time."
After that, Everett gave him a satisfied smile, like he'd just won something or had finally found a way to break him.
John refused to give Everett the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.
Deep down, though, he was worried. Because, across security teams, McKay was what they called BAD NEWS: Bossy,
Arrogant and
Difficult to work with, which meant that
Nobody
Ever
Wanted to
Stay.
By dropping McKay on him, Everett was clearly bringing out the big guns; and with no real weapons of his own, suddenly John felt hopelessly out-manoeuvred.
He kept his cool for the most part, used as he was to handling himself under fire. He even flicked through McKay's file, determined to make a show of reading it so Everett wouldn't know how rattled he was. But as he stood there with the words swirling in front of him and his stomach twisting into knots, it occurred to him that, unless he could pull off a 'hail Mary' here, this just might be the end of his career.
Then, his stomach twisted in an entirely different way when he spotted the picture of a man with bright blue eyes and an unhappy slant to his mouth.
Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD didn't look that bad, let alone like someone, who'd driven one detail so crazy they'd effectively gone on strike. He did look a bit conceited, as well as uptight and seriously pissed off. Though that was probably just bad lighting, John thought desperately, wondering who the hell he was trying to kid.
"Any idea who's after him?" He glanced at Everett, expecting the basic threat assessment. What he got instead was the kind of scornful laugh, which sounded like Everett was farting through his nose.
"See, with McKay, it could be anyone," Everett said once he'd calmed down a little. "I swear that guy has a talent for pissing people off. Everywhere he goes it's the same old story. But you would know all about that, wouldn't you, Major?"
John decided not to take the bait. He stared at the picture again, wondering what it was about McKay that unnerved him on such a personal level. The guy glaring up at him seemed harmless enough, if a little standoffish. None of which explained why just looking at McKay left him with that freshly punched in the gut feeling, or why the idea of McKay in danger tied his stomach up in knots. "I guess we need to watch out for allies and hostiles," he said as a note to self more than anything else.
"Personally, I would start with his staff. They're the only ones with any real reason to want to kill him."
John looked up, frowning, making Everett beam that smug I've won this round and quite possibly the whole war smile.
"You know, something tells me you two will hit it off, or just kill each other." From the gleam in Everett's eyes, it was clear which one he was rooting for. "Whatever you do, Major, do it quietly! And keep McKay on a tight leash!"
Everett dismissed him then with another one of those nose farting sounds. Since he didn't want to lose any more ground, he got out of there as fast as he could.
***
Under the circumstances, the team handled the McKay bombshell about as well as he'd expected, in that Ronon just snarled, "You've got to be kidding me!" Which wasn't a total shock given Ronon's spectacular crush on Elizabeth Weir. Surprisingly, it was Teyla, who seemed to shrug off the Weir months with a philosophical smile, before slipping into her TAC vest and loading up on extra ammunition-a signal that she wasn't happy either.
He kept an eye on both of them on the way to McKay's lab. Even though they weren't blaming him, he still felt like it was his fault they were all in this mess. He needed to make it up to them, and he was planning to, maybe with a nice team day somewhere out in the desert, where he and Ronon could blow shit up to their hearts' content and have Teyla watch them with a tolerant expression.
Outside the lab, however, once they'd all heard what was happening in there, it became clear that they were all going to need a lot more than a desert demolition derby to set things right.
"Okay, I'm pretty sure that's not our guy," John said brightly, hoping to Christ he was right. As a precaution, though, he checked his gun one more time, because if that was McKay they could hear shouting through several inches of Plexiglas, then Everett wasn't paying him enough to go in there.
Ronon snapped, "You're stalling," and promptly pushed open the door to McKay's lab, paying no attention to his denials that: *No, no, he really wasn't!*
Inside, the shouting hit extraordinary decibels.
They followed it to a workstation in the far corner, where four terrified looking scientists were cowering beside a smoke-filled piece of equipment while a man, who was undoubtedly Dr. Rodney McKay, pointed at it and screamed insults at them. McKay didn't notice they were there at first, deep as he was in the middle of: " . . . and frankly, at this stage, I would be better off asking an amoeba to do this work. They, at least, have one functioning brain cell!"
But one of the scientists, who was taking the brunt of McKay's invective, and who clearly thought they'd been sent to rescue him, gave them a huge smile before pointing frantically in their direction, causing McKay to turn on them like new prey.
"Who are you people?" McKay stormed up. "And what are you doing in my lab? Please God don't tell me you're lost!"
John bristled a little at the random insult. But before things could degenerate any further, Teyla stepped forward, completely ignoring McKay's furious expression, to handle the situation with a show of diplomatic hardball.
"Dr. McKay, I am Teyla Emmagen." She introduced herself by grabbing the hand McKay was waving in the air and then squeezing it in a way that made McKay wince. "With me are Ronon Dex and Major John Sheppard. We're your new personal security detail."
McKay's eyes swept round all of them before settling on him, and the way they widened all of a sudden brought that twisting, fluttering feeling back to his stomach. What shook him up even more was that the picture in McKay's file hadn't done him any justice. Up close, he thought McKay had a lot going for him with those broad shoulders and those piercing blue eyes. He also couldn't help thinking that he and McKay had a connection going on. Because, after wrenching his hand out of Teyla's grasp, McKay went from looking surprised to a little flushed before that turned into pure, red-faced alarm.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say something reassuring like: *Hey, it's okay! I'm here now and I promise I'll take good care of you.* Feelings which, for him, were surprising as hell, but which only seemed to grow stronger the more agitated McKay got.
But McKay blurted out: "Oh that’s just great! They gave me 'the Rejects'! I specifically asked not to get 'the Rejects'."
Which threw him right out of that illusion and straight into his first task: protecting McKay from his own personal security detail.
***
The first few days were all about explaining to Ronon that he wasn't allowed to shoot McKay, even if it was just to wing him a little. Ronon sulked a lot about that while Teyla, rather than mediating the way she usually did, chose to spend her time meditating at the back of the group.
When he'd called her on it a few hours in, she'd said, "It's either I cleanse my mind or I will hurt someone!" Which left him in the strange position of 'trouble-shooter' where McKay was concerned.
John didn't mind too much, since he kind of liked hanging out with McKay already. He'd never met anyone that good at deliberately and inadvertently upsetting people, so he was learning lots of new things. Plus, it kept the job interesting in a train wreck sort of way.
***
Once Teyla and Ronon had calmed down a little, John spent the rest of his week establishing boundaries.
McKay behaved like having a personal detail actually meant he had personal gofers. John could almost get how a genius might confuse the two ever since McKay had managed to add 'making coffee' to the course of their day to day duties. Usually, when McKay snapped his fingers, he just gritted his teeth and got McKay the laptop or the scanner or whatever the hell it was McKay wanted. But Ronon flat out refused to play ball, and Teyla was getting fed up with taking McKay's orders; and pretty soon John could see the cracks appearing all over his once solid team.
"Okay, you've got to stop doing that," he told McKay one morning after another one of those finger snaps.
As usual, McKay barely acknowledged his presence. Which was when John realized that liking the guy wasn't making him any easier to deal with.
"Don't push me on this, McKay," he snarled, and when McKay still didn't respond, he yanked McKay's chair away from his desk, making McKay jerk in surprise that he was even there.
He tried not to squirm as McKay looked him over. The whole thing about kind of liking McKay was that it made him want McKay to like him too. Right then, though, with the way McKay kept frowning up at him, he wasn't entirely sure McKay even knew his name.
McKay proceeded to prove him right by saying, "Fine! You with the hair-not you, Conan," after Ronon growled menacingly. "You: other guy! Listen, I'm a very busy man, so will you make yourself useful and just get me the case from Jorgenstern's lab."
"No, I won't!" John drew the line right there because that was too fucking much! "Now, you listen to me! We're here to protect you, not to fetch and carry for you!" And, leaning in, John made sure he got right up in McKay's face as he said, "By the way, for the record, he's Ronon, she's Teyla and I'm John Sheppard. Our names are not Conan, Xena and 'the other guy'; you got that?"
McKay looked a bit chagrined then, and to his credit he mumbled out an apology. Throughout the day, McKay even made an effort to use their real names at least twenty percent of the time. But the damage had already been done. Teyla and Ronon were pissed, so nothing really changed much there; and John didn't think he would ever forgive McKay for not giving him a cool action star nickname to begin with.
***
With McKay now trying to behave, John found running his detail nowhere near as bad as he'd anticipated. In reality, it was just complicated.
McKay came with a bunch of neuroses that needed very specific attention. At the start of week two, he announced, "You'll find my allergies listed in the table of contents," handing them each a printed manual, which had colour-coded tabs for the major physiological groups. "Also, there's a section on *things I'm technically not allergic to, but which I do find extremely irritating*. Naturally, I expect you to memorize everything, and I've emailed you soft-copies in case you lose these pocket books."
The first thing John did after reading the list was to write McKay a proper schedule. It wasn't payback exactly for the nickname oversight, though he was still smarting about that. The truth was: the insane hours McKay worked made it impossible to guard him effectively. They needed something more structured that they could all work to, and for that, McKay needed to go on a schedule. To do that, John pulled together a duty rota, which he then reviewed with Teyla and Ronon, and which he then emailed to McKay along with a bunch of spurious changes to McKay's manual.
Later, watching McKay scream, "What the hell do you call this?" whilst also cutting lines of red pen through his oh so incredibly wrong changes, John couldn't believe how well his decoy had worked. McKay was so annoyed at having his work corrected, he'd barely even mentioned being put on a schedule.
As he sat back to enjoy the fireworks in McKay's eyes, feeling quite tingly inside, something else occurred to him. Dr. Rodney McKay was an impatient, egotistical and surprisingly sensitive man, who hated being wrong and who was just this side of petty.
These were all things he could use to his advantage.
***
He spent the next few weeks studying McKay closely, trying to get inside his head, trying to understand what made McKay tick. Most of the time, that turned out to be coffee. But since over-caffeinating McKay led to problems of a different kind, John concentrated on finding other ways to handle McKay's various quirks.
Once he'd established that the way to McKay's co-operation was through his stomach, he got Teyla and Ronon to help him build an alternative and very secret reference manual, this one solely for their team.
Together, they discovered that strategically placed MREs could get McKay to do almost anything apart from work out. There only infirmary food would do. Which John found even more bizarre than McKay's fondness for military rations. Reading NHL scores tended to take McKay's mind off the idiots in his lab, because hockey was predominantly Canadian and therefore superior to every American sport. Chocolate helped with pretty much every situation, unless it involved Dr. Kavanagh or Dr. Lee, in which case handing McKay a powerbar was akin to handing him some form of projectile weapon. Yet with all their calculated experiments, it was by sheer accident that they discovered that a combination of Jell-O, shoulder massages and Twinkies delivered in a specific order could not only calm McKay down, they could actually make him quite friendly. [I]
After that, they all found it a lot easier getting McKay to follow a schedule. And if, in the process, he found it necessary to molest McKay's shoulders far more than was strictly required, he was just going above and beyond the call of duty. Besides, McKay seemed happy enough when he did it, so that was what counted in the long run, more than the weird looks Teyla and Ronon tended to give him.
The only area where they didn't make much headway was with McKay's overall threat assessment, mostly because they hadn't received any threats. Still, Ronon kept track of anyone, who'd even looked at McKay funny, so they had a pretty large pool of potential suspects.
John took McKay aside to discuss it one day after yet another 'hostiles review'. "Look, we've gone through your staff lists several times," he told him, feeling at a loss. "Is there something we're missing? Someone we've overlooked? I know this is difficult, but we'll need to go into every aspect of your life if we want to know who's targeting you."
He got suspicious when McKay suddenly looked a bit shifty.
"You do think there's someone after you, right?"
"Of course there is," McKay snapped. "I'm extremely important. Why wouldn't there be someone after me?" Only now McKay looked incredibly shifty. Which made him ask the question he'd been avoiding all along.
"McKay, what aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing," said McKay, a little too quickly in his opinion.
But since none of them were ready to face the possibility that McKay had a detail just to satisfy his ego, John decided not to press further, telling himself that it never hurt to be extra vigilant, especially when it came to Rodney McKay.
***
In time, John got used to being a spectator in McKay's life, if not a major part of it.
Most of their work involved taking McKay to the labs, then hanging around running drills before forcing McKay to eat something round about what passed for lunchtime in McKay-land. Then came more lab-work and more drills, before finally one or all of them had to drag McKay home usually some time around midnight. Aside from the crazy hours, it was easy work, and no one had tried to kill them yet, but that still didn't solve the problem of just who was supposedly after McKay.
John had a horrible feeling that it was just McKay's paranoia talking or, worse, his ego. Still, he didn't share that theory with Teyla or Ronon, since they were all finally starting to get along and the last thing he needed was a setback.
The truth was, he thought the four of them together kind of made a great team. Because even though McKay was rude, sarcastic and had a tendency to make random people cry, he was also brilliant, laugh out loud funny and surprisingly generous to those he cared about. Even Teyla and Ronon were warming to him, though they tried very hard not to show it. Occasionally, though, it slipped through, and he would catch Teyla rolling her eyes fondly at something McKay said, or Ronon would try to get McKay to work out with him, which unbeknownst to McKay was a very big thing.
It also helped that McKay seemed to be warming to them as well.
There were plenty of signs, little things he saw every day, things that made all the difference. Like how concerned McKay got for their personal safety when he told McKay about their team picnic-slash-demolition-derby day in the desert. Of course, coming from McKay, concern sounded a lot like: "You're insane! Why on earth would you do that? Don't you have any idea how hot it gets out there in the middle of the day?" But it was still nice knowing that McKay cared enough to shout at him, and he was grateful for the home-made sun-screen 'protection factor 2000', which McKay whipped up specially for them, even if he did smell like coconuts for a week.
In many ways, he could see that he was on dangerous ground, because their group dynamic didn't feel like a security detail to him any more. He liked being with McKay, and he liked being with Teyla and Ronon; and when the four of them were together, things were even better. It made him feel like he was part of something: something important enough not to screw up. And for the first time in his life, he really started to give a damn, so much so that he couldn't imagine his future without these guys in it.
Then, one day the dynamic shifted dramatically when McKay announced that he was going on a date.
***
"This will not end well," Teyla said ominously outside McKay's lab. It was the third time she'd said it so far.
Ronon responded with a grunt, which could have meant anything at that point.
So, John just gritted his teeth and checked the safety on his gun again. They were all a bit on edge, so he didn't want to make things worse by 'adding his two cents' to the mix. Besides, he had his own reasons for worrying about McKay dating, and he didn't want to let on what those were. Privately, though, he thought they were both over-reacting. Still, he hadn't been overly concerned until Teyla had started hiding extra ammunition up her sleeves.
That was when he noticed the knives Ronon kept sliding into his hair.
"Oh, come on, it's just a date!" And he leant against the doorframe, playing it super cool. "McKay's a good-looking guy. I'm sure he has been on plenty of dates before. How bad can it be?"
Teyla glared at him like he'd lost his fucking mind. And now John thought, *Yeah, right, famous last words!* because this was McKay they were talking about here. Going out on a date. To a restaurant. With a woman. One, who was probably nowhere near as intelligent as McKay was.
"Oh, crap!" he muttered. "We'll need the taser!"
"Already packed it," Ronon said before waving a pack of deluxe Twinkies in his face. "I brought the big ones in case things get rough and we need a diversion!"
Once again, John thought it was nice to be on a team where they all seemed to get each other so effortlessly.
***
They didn't need the taser in the end, but for a moment during the entrees, it came pretty close. Or at least it would have done, if the three of them hadn't been laughing their asses off and had therefore been spectacularly unable to protect McKay when he said, "Oh, you're calling that a science," to his date, causing the kind of cataclysmic chain reaction, which ultimately brought the date to an end approximately ninety-five seconds later.
"Aren't you supposed to protect me?" McKay yelled afterwards, storming up to their table, dripping everywhere. "That woman attacked me and well, just look at you!" And there was a lot of finger pointing from McKay, which meant he was seriously pissed off.
John really didn't know what to say. Beside him, Teyla kept making these weird snorting sounds, which meant she was trying not to laugh but failing miserably. Then, Ronon gave him some kind of weird shoulder nudge, which apparently meant: *You're the team lead; you handle this one!* So, in his best serious team leader voice, he said, "Look, McKay, I'll take a bullet for you or a knife. That-" he gestured vaguely at McKay's soggy, palm-printed face. "Well, slaps just aren't in the job description."
Teyla snorted again, very loudly this time, and that was it: the three of them broke down with laughter.
It took a while, but eventually John noticed that McKay wasn't laughing with them. In fact, shoulders hunched and mouth slanting down at the corner, McKay looked distinctly unhappy about the situation.
"You okay there, buddy?" John wheezed, getting up and walking over, still wiping his eyes. When he didn't get an answer, he said, "Rodney, come on, we're not laughing at you, I swear!" It was really important to him that McKay understood that. "It's just, somehow you managed to insult her hair, her family and her job all in one sentence. Then, you called her dog a malicious waste of space. Seriously, McKay, her dog? What did Fluffy ever do to you?"
McKay responded with a delicate sniff. "I'm more of a cat person."
"Oh, believe me, we get that now!" And John reached for McKay's shoulders then, he couldn't help himself not while McKay still had that sad little look on his face. "You do know she wasn't right for you, right?" John murmured, certain his manly shoulder squeezes would help get that message across.
"Yes, yes, I know!" McKay sighed, leaning into him. "It's just, I won't-oh, never mind!" And McKay seemed to pull away without taking a single step.
Before he could ask what was wrong, Teyla said, "Rodney, don't leave. I know your date did not go as planned, but why don't you join us for dinner instead?"
"Yeah, come eat with us," Ronon insisted, waving McKay toward one of the empty chairs.
McKay looked at both of them suspiciously, as though he were half expecting them to start laughing again. "Well, I have already ordered my steak," he said in the end. "I suppose it would be a shame to waste it, since I'll have to pay for it anyway. So, uh, yes?" And McKay turned to him then, mouth quirking up at the corner. "Yes, okay, why not?"
"Great!" John told him, beaming right back, and he tried his best to ignore the strange melting feeling that was spreading through his chest.
After that, McKay sat down at their table, and John sat down next to him. And even though McKay ended up stealing most of his food, John couldn't remember when he'd last enjoyed a meal so much.
***
Despite his reservations about McKay dating, John started to enjoy those evenings because McKay was just so bad at it. And aside from impromptu team dinners when McKay's dates invariably went south, soon he found that there were other perks, which came from working on McKay's detail.
The jewel in McKay's crown was his research on wormhole physics. "It'll get me my first Nobel," McKay tended to say whenever the topic came up, which was a lot.
John wasn't allowed anywhere near that project since the day he'd accidentally called it a flux capacitor [II]. But since McKay also liked to invent other cool things that involved nanite technology and advanced energy dispersion, as part of his detail it became their privilege-no, their job-to help him during the final stages of testing.
For Teyla, usually that meant looking for design flaws, while Ronon got to run preliminary field tests.
He got stuck checking equations once McKay discovered his secret Maths skills after one too many games of 'Prime / not Prime'. He was okay with it for the most part, mostly because he got to spend ridiculous amounts of time hanging out with McKay in the labs. But it wasn't nearly as much fun as what Teyla and Ronon got to do, until he took the initiative to look for wider applications beyond McKay's limited it'll push the boundaries of science point of view.
"Okay, you see how cool that is?" John pointed at the makeshift track on the floor, yet more evidence of his brilliant initiative.
"Yeah!" Ronon crouched down beside him. "How many laps do you think they'll do?"
John shrugged, not really bothered. It was enough that they were trying to out-run each other, because McKay sure as hell hadn't programmed them to do that! This was why he loved his job. Even if McKay wouldn't let him name stuff any more, he still loved his job so damn much.
"Sheppard!" McKay yelled all of a sudden from the other side of the lab. "What are you two doing over there? Oh my God, are you racing them again?"
"No," they both replied at once.
"Because they're not toys," insisted McKay, who was so not buying their denials. "They are highly sophisticated mobile analytical telemetric devices designed to gather and transmit data through the most delicate of space-time bridges."
Trying not to look guilty, John strolled back with Ronon to where McKay and Teyla were waiting for them. "Look, I get it, Rodney: they're MATs," and he winked at McKay, just to be extra annoying. "So, what have you got for us now?" he asked, because in his experience, McKay yelling his name across the lab only meant one thing: more tests to run!
"Here-" McKay gave the weird gun-shaped thing he was carrying to Ronon. "Just press the red button here, and then point it over there."
Ronon did exactly what he was told, making the gun-thing shoot a beam of energy, which promptly melted one of Kavanagh's white-boards.
"Whoa!" John took a step back, stunned. Even Teyla, who wasn't fazed by anything, looked suitably impressed. Ronon just looked like he'd fallen in love.
"Can I keep it?" were the next words out of Ronon's mouth.
To which McKay replied: "I don't see why not," before reaching out to recalibrate some settings, spectacularly not noticing the jealous look in his eyes. "Of course, you can't take it out of the lab until we've finished looking at potential applications. Then you can only carry it through the secure levels, because it's incredibly top secret. But, yes, as of now it's yours to-"
"Wait a minute!" John cocked his head to one side, convinced he was having trouble with his hearing. "Did you just give Ronon the ray gun?"
"For the last time, Sheppard, it's a prototype of a highly sophisticated energy conversion wave that disrupts bond resonance at an atomic level!" And for some reason, McKay seemed to think shouting would make the message sink in; in reality that just made it sound even more like a ray gun to him.
"Well, can I get one too?" He tried to make the question sound casual, and not like he was desperate enough to beg.
McKay, now firmly in shouting mode, said, "Hello? Prototype? That means there's only one," before stalking off to his workbench, leaving his precious ray gun in Ronon's grabby little hands.
John was absolutely determined not to sulk about it.
It helped that Ronon didn't gloat much, and that Teyla was her usual quiet supportive self. Still, the manly 'not sulking' thing seemed like a good plan. So, he lounged by McKay's bench, where he didn't sulk at all. Then, he followed McKay around the lab, still not sulking. Later that evening, after not moping around all day, he sat next to McKay and didn't look absolutely miserable during another one of their impromptu team dinners.
In the middle of dessert, McKay snapped, "Oh my God! Yes, you can have one! Okay? I'll even make yours sing to you on cold winter nights. Just stop making that face! Seriously, you're worse than my niece!"
And while John had no clue what he'd done, he still chalked that up as a win for manly 'not sulking'.
Teyla said, "Why would anyone need a singing gun?" looking quite baffled about the whole thing.
Apparently, neither of them had an answer for that, hence the strange silence that seemed to drag on for a very long time. Inside, though, John could barely contain his glee that his ray gun was going to be much cooler than Ronon's.
Teyla gave him a pitying look, which meant she knew exactly what he was thinking. Ronon just laughed, which meant he knew it too and didn't care. John didn't give a damn either way. McKay was going to build a ray gun especially for him, and right then that was all that mattered.
***
He never did get that gun in the end. What he got, instead, the following afternoon was a memo summoning the entire team to an urgent meeting with Colonel Everett.
The meeting turned out not to be so urgent, since Everett kept them waiting outside his office for over three hours. Eventually, though, Everett strode out to meet them, looking pissed as hell. He was carrying another one of those dreaded manila files.
"You've got nine lives, haven't you, son?" Everett's voice seethed with anger. "I mean, you just must be the luckiest S.O.B. on post, huh?"
Suddenly, the file hit him in the face, and Everett stood there for a moment watching him fumble with it, looking like he was about to say something else before apparently deciding to just go back into his office and slam the door behind him.
Wondering what the hell had crawled up Everett's ass this time, John opened up the file and started reading. Half-way through it, he walked out of the building, heart in his throat, leaving Teyla and Ronon there without any sort of explanation.
***
McKay left for Cheyenne Mountain in the early evening that same day. John almost didn't get there in time to see him off, although seeing him off actually involved parking at the end of the road with his lights switched off so he could watch McKay load stuff into a black SUV. McKay's new detail looked very competent and 'by the book' with their dark suits and shiny regulation hair. John couldn't see a single 'reject' among them.
He finally stopped tailing them at the intersection three blocks down when he realized he was being slightly stalker-ish and completely insane. But it didn't stop the feelings of betrayal running thick and fast.
He couldn't believe McKay had just got up and left without saying goodbye.
*Well, neither did you,* he told himself, trying to maintain some objectivity. Still, McKay was the one doing the leaving, not him, and he was pretty sure that trumped whatever farewells he might have neglected to say.
Basically, it just bothered him that McKay was leaving in the first place.
***
The team reacted quite strangely after he broke the news about McKay.
Teyla got that bland look on her face, before she announced that she was going off to meditate. Ronon, meanwhile, went down to the gym, where he kicked the crap out of anyone stupid enough to want to spar with him.
As for him? Well, he just felt like someone had ripped his guts out. But he was handling it. They were all handling it in their own way, because they were professionals, who didn't need anyone and who didn't miss anyone and who certainly didn't need to talk about their feelings.
Over the next few days, John was very proud of how they all didn't bring up the fact that McKay had abandoned them. Except, it was always there, lurking in the shadows of their oh-so-polite conversations and in the way they were each very careful never to mention McKay's name.
A week passed by before he realized he was looking for McKay around every corner. Then, it took him several more days to snap himself out of it. McKay was long gone, off to his shiny new job with his shiny new detail. And John knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
It still didn't stop him feeling angry and a little betrayed. And he was really pissed off that McKay hadn't even said goodbye.
***
In the realm of changes, McKay's departure wasn't such a massive disruption to their routine. He still had a detail to run, and his team still had people to protect. But apparently knowing that it was no big deal didn't make it any easier to handle, and the real problem came when they got their next assignment.
They all should have been happy with it. They had Weir back. Weir, who was nice and very easy to handle, and who never ever shouted obscenities at anyone. But Ronon still wasn't smiling, and Teyla kept going off to meditate, and that strange hollow feeling in his gut still wouldn't go away.
Working with Weir felt off, they could all sense it. It was almost like she was too diplomatic for them or something; John wasn't even going to think about the lack of 'Prime / not Prime'. The worst part was that their performance as a team was suffering. They weren't nearly as slick as they used to be, and they were making the kind of pointless mistakes they used to make back when they were all still getting to know each other.
After weeks of this, John decided to call an intervention. He tried to disguise it as a morale-boosting team dinner, but deep down they all knew what it was.
"Okay, we're going to get through this," he said right off the bat. Though at that point, he wasn't sure if he was talking about the meal or life in general. It felt weird sitting down for dinner without first having to rescue McKay from one of his dates. Also, none of them could seem to look at the empty fourth chair at their table. "Come on, guys," he tried again when neither of them said anything. "Hey, look on the bright side! Weir thinks we're doing a great job. That has got to count for something, right?"
Teyla glared at him until he gave up and started playing with his food like the rest of them. And while he was pretty sure the situation couldn't get much worse, he knew something eventually had to give.
***
That something turned out to be the brass at Cheyenne Mountain.
At first, when Everett called him into his office and said, "I must have been born lucky! First, McKay and now you," John got a bit worried. Everett was honest to God smiling at him, and in his experience that was never a good thing.
"Ah, I can see you're confused!" And Everett looked very smug about that.
John decided it was safest not to ask why.
"Well, it seems McKay has been making a huge fuss over at Cheyenne Mountain. Something about his current detail being 'a bunch of Cro-Magnon cave dwelling idiots, who couldn't follow a simple instruction if it was drawn out for them in crayon'." Everett read that last part off a notebook, apparently wanting to get it just right. "Anyway, I happened to mention that you'd done an adequate job of keeping McKay on a leash. And with McKay demanding to have his old team back, it's all just a matter of paperwork now."
Everett settled back in his chair then, still grinning that smug little smile.
"I bet you never saw this day coming, huh? You really thought you'd managed to escape, didn't you? Well, not on my watch, Sheppard. No one gets away with your kind of crap on my watch!"
And since Everett clearly expected him to be distraught at the prospect of reuniting with McKay, John did his best not to blow it by leaping up and whooping for joy. The truth was, his heart was pounding so hard he could barely breathe, and that nameless hollow feeling he'd been carrying around suddenly started to fade.
It disappeared entirely once Everett said, "Pack your bags, Major! You and that sorry team of yours are off to Cheyenne Mountain."
***
On the way over there, Ronon became positively chatty for the first time ever. "Idiots!" he snarled; that seemed to be the word of the day. "What did they really expect? They're fucking idiots!"
"I agree with Ronon that this is not a surprising outcome given the particular nature of Rodney's requirements." And whilst Teyla sounded equally unsympathetic, she seemed happy enough. Her eyes were gleaming with a fierce kind of pride.
Ronon still looked like he wanted to make someone pay for what he'd been put through over the past few weeks. "They never should have taken him from us in the first place," he muttered. "And, when they did, we should have gone to get him back."
John made a note to look into Ronon's abandonment issues. Because, sure he'd missed McKay, and yes, occasionally, he might have had thoughts about sneaking into Cheyenne Mountain to break McKay out. But this was not fucking healthy!
"You do know he's going to be mad as hell, don't you?" Ronon grinned at him all of a sudden, looking all kinds of happy.
"Yeah." John smiled; he could hardly wait either.
***
The civilian liaison at Cheyenne Mountain greeted them with a heartfelt: "Oh, thank God, you're here!" The woman didn't give them any time to ask questions, she just made them sign several documents and then kept herding them through various different levels of security.
On the way to McKay's lab, John counted several bystanders, who gave them looks, which ranged from relief to you'd better fucking fix this right now. And when they finally saw McKay, John understood the urgency.
They arrived just in time to catch the tail end of: ". . . calling you a moron would be an insult to all morons. I think I might actually have to invent a new scale for your brand of stupidity-" which McKay was yelling at some hapless guy, who was blatantly cowering in the corner whilst also trying to look like he was in control of the situation.
Yep, John thought, definitely a meltdown! He didn't need to say anything to Teyla or Ronon; they all knew the drill now by heart.
John stepped up first. "Jesus, McKay, don't you ever to stop to breathe?" And he made sure he said it in a bored sounding tone, knowing that would just piss McKay off more.
Sure enough, McKay whirled round, looking simultaneously shocked, angry and very happy to see them. "There you are," he wheezed, taking in long gulping breaths now that it was apparently okay to do so without blunting the edge of his invective. "Oh my God, what took you so long? These idiots have been trying to kill me for weeks! Weeks!"
McKay turned back to 'hapless guy' and his team, as though the mere mention of it had reminded him of their incompetence. Then, McKay started ranting all over again, this time at full tilt.
Hapless guy sent him a pleading look over McKay's shoulder.
John responded with a mild shrug. He still hadn't forgiven these guys for breaking up his team, and it made him feel much better knowing that McKay was making them suffer. Besides, McKay on a roll was a thing of beauty, and it would have been criminal to stop that. So he folded his arms, watching with a kind of malicious glee as McKay tore several new strips off his soon to be ex-security detail.
After another minute, Ronon stepped forward; he had two Twinkies unwrapped and ready to go.
But John mouthed, 'Not yet,' wanting to give McKay a bit more time. He could tell from the set of McKay's shoulders that McKay really wasn't angry any more. Basically, McKay was just working off some steam, and maybe, just maybe showing off a little just for them.
That McKay had missed them enough to behave this way made him feel ten feet tall and happy as hell.
His team was back together. Beside him, Ronon and Teyla were beaming, both of them having already figured out what McKay was up to. And when McKay had apparently decided that he'd done enough damage, he stalked up to each of them in turn, taking first the Twinkie then the Jell-O pudding cup and then the platonic squeezes to the shoulder, as though they were his fucking due for having put up with this shit! Then, he went back to his desk and calmly got back to work.
That was when John realized that he was more than a little in love with Rodney McKay.
***
End of Chapter One
Continued in Chapter Two