This morning,
jadesfire2808 asked a very important question:
So where's my AU where Rodney and John are 9 and have an *actual* clubhouse, huh? Maybe a treehouse with a rope ladder and no girls allowed (except Teyla, of course, cos she can beat them all up and they're too scared to kick her out).
Where is it, hmmm? ;)
It was a question that I felt compelled to give her an answer to. This turned out about how my answers usually do. Cracky, with a side-order of snark. Oops?
Title: The East Pier Boys
Rating: G
Genre: Comment!Fic, Crack, AU, Kid!Fic, Humor... pick one
Word Count: ~1200
Characters: Team Dork
Somewhere, high above the vacant lot on East Pier Street...
Rodney looked up from tweaking the output on the motor of the the bright, yellow RC car in his lap as John clambered up the last knots of the old rope that served as their ladder. The other boy landed on the floor of their secret lair with a loud thump, shaking the entire structure and rustling the branches and leaves outside.
"What's the password?" Rodney asked sourly.
"I brought a friend!" John beamed.
"That's not it," Rodney muttered, and resumed his tinkering for a few seconds before looking up sharply. "You can't bring a friend! Remember what happened last time?"
The 'last time' cleared her throat loudly and arched a brow under a messy ponytail, but never once looked up from the Hardy Boys novel she was reading. Rodney coughed into his hand and looked back at John. "What I mean is the last friend you brought was so cool, the Batcave can't take anymore."
"For the last time, it's not the Batcave," John corrected. "It's the top floor of the Baxter Building!"
"Do we really need to relive the DC versus Marvel debate? About how Batman could single-handedly take out the Fantastic Four while saving the planet from Dr. Doom, the Joker, and the Legion of Doom?"
"You're just jealous because you never get to be Mr. Fantastic."
"Well, it makes no sense for me to be the Human Torch! I don't want to fly, mock bullies, or set myself on fire with a stupid catch-phrase unlike some people I know!"
"That would be so cool."
"No, I think you mean it would be blazing hot."
"No, I think I meant it would be cool--"
"Maybe that's what you meant, but what you said--"
"Is that your friend, John?" Teyla interrupted, voice strained.
"Oh, right." John sent Rodney a dirty glare at motioned at the giant hairy mass that could be hiding a human child underneath to come from where he was leisurely hanging on the rope outside. "Guys, this is Ronon."
"Hi," the hairy thing said.
"Pleased to meet you, Ronon," Teyla said, lowering the paperback long enough to send a welcoming smile.
"No girls allowed!" Rodney pointed to the sign clearly stating the Batcave's sacred rule. "Sorry, Rhoda!"
The hair-ball actually snarled, and climbed into the tree house despite Rodney's very explicit warning that the action was not permitted.
"His name is Ronon," John corrected with a roll of his eyes. "He's new in town."
"And?" Rodney prompted. "You decided to bring him here? It's not a secret lair if you keep showing it to everyone!"
"You can see it from the street," Ronon pointed out, very unnecessarily.
"I... that is... I'm working on that!"
"Well, Ronon, you've met Rodney. And that over there is Teyla."
Ronon might have raised a bushy brow, but under all of that hair, who could really tell? "I thought you said there were 'no girls allowed'."
"Teyla's not a girl!" Rodney huffed. "She's... Teyla."
"She hits us really hard," John whispered to Ronon. "With sticks."
All this did was produce a grin from the newest addition to the clubhouse. "Cool."
"Oh, great, another one," Rodney grumbled.
"That's Rodney's way of saying, 'welcome to the club'."
"It is not."
"Huh," Ronon grunted noncommittally as he ambled around the tree house. Rodney just gave him a dirty look and huddled his race car and tools closer as he pretended to ignore that anything untoward was going on in the Batcave. "So, what do you guys do for fun?"
"This is fun," Rodney said sourly. "If you don't like that--"
"We could play a game," John suggested. "Oh, I know! Now that we have four people, we totally can play--"
"All who oppose Fantastic Four and being lumped into misplaced roles at our 'leader's' arbitrary reasoning--" Rodney announced loudly, raising his free hand in the air, "--say 'aye'!"
"Aye." Teyla answered, raising one hand without breaking her reading stride. "I am not invisible," she stated archly.
With a shrug, Ronon raised his hand too, earning a betrayed look. "What?"
"This isn't fair," John whined.
"Majority rules is one of the tenets of democracy--"
"Does your mom read you big words out of a dictionary as your bedtime story?"
"For your information, it's the Encyclopedia Britannica! And just because some of us want to expand our bright, young minds--"
Teyla managed to make a loud production of putting down her paperback novel. "We will play Lost City of Atlantis."
"But we played that last week," Rodney whined, earning himself a narrow-eyed look. "And I had such a great time!"
"But Teyla," John joined in on the whining, managing to drag her name out to five syllables, "underwater cities are no fun."
"Then it will rise to the surface."
"Oh, come on," Rodney scoffed, "when does that ever happen?"
"But I want to fly," John continued to whine. "Mr. Fantastic has the Fantasticar, and it flys!"
"Then you can have the Fantasticar."
"No, no, no, that's all wrong," Rodney interrupted. "Only the Fantastic Four can use the Fantasticar. It only works for them."
"Then he can have a spaceship," she explained patiently.
"Wait, wait, in Atlantis?" Rodney interrupted. "That's crazy, Atlantis is a city on a lost continent here on Earth. You can't have spaceships on Earth--"
"Then Atlantis will be set in space."
"But humans can't breathe in space!"
"Then it will be set on another planet, and John will fly us there in his spaceship," Teyla ground out.
"But I don't like flying, especially John's. He goes too fast, cuts off all of the other soap-box-cars-turned-spaceships, and he also tries to make me throw up by taking really, really sharp turns--"
"C'mon, Rodney," John interrupted, "it'll be fun. We can be space explorers!"
"Like Star Trek?" Rodney asked hopefully.
"But better!"
"There's nothing better than Star Trek!"
"Can I have a sword?" Ronon asked.
"Yes, Ronon, you can," Teyla said patiently as she herded the two bickering boys toward the rope.
"And a gun that can shoot lasers?"
"Like phasers?" Rodney brightened up. "It could have a stun setting and--oh, I might have something that could work in my garage--"
"This is going to be so cool!" John crowed as he bounced on one of the rope's lower knots.
"Stop shaking the rope!" Rodney cried, clinging tighter. "Oh no, I'm getting vertigo!"
"So," Ronon said, "you beat them with sticks?"
"It's very effective at keeping them focused."
"Cool." Ronon grinned, before they both climbed down the rope to join the bickering duo in front of the soapbox Fantasticar/Batmobile/spaceship.
"We're not calling it that," John stated firmly.
"Well, why not?"
"Because it's stupid."
"Oh, and like Puddlejumper is a good name for a spaceship? Exactly what are you trying to imply with that name? We're going to break down at the first galactic turn-off on Athos Lane!"
"We only will if you forgot to oil the hinges that you promised to do last week--"
"I'll go get a stick," Ronon rumbled.
"Well, I wouldn't need to perform repairs on the thing if you didn't drive like one of the Duke Boys!" Rodney waved his arms frantically.
"Get two!" Teyla called.
"Ooh, that gives me an idea, we should totally jump the creek at Genii Drive." John grinned. "You know, let it earn its name."
"Oh, god, we're going to die--"
~Fin~
Because this argument will probably go on for a while...
...or at least until Ronon comes back with that stick.
Thank you to
justtheficsmaam for the totally ganked title!