Fic Post-SG:A, for Jenna
So, the prime_not_prime ficathon is over. And I wrote a fic for it!
For jenna_corinth Hope you like it! It was a really fun idea.
Snark, Gossip and Office Supplies
Sheppard and McKay snark, run, and find new stuff. Cool!
Slight spoilers for "Rising" and "Underground"
“You’re stuck.” Abusing his gift for stating the blatantly obvious, Sheppard pointed this out to McKay. They’d been ordered to stay planetside until some of this business with the Genii had cooled down. Sheppard figured this was more to show that Weir could command them to do something, and less about their safety.
Either way, he was stuck on base, and had very little to do. It wasn’t like there was a commanding officer who would want to inspect well, anything. Well, he could inspect the artillery, but whenever he moved near any sort of weaponry, someone would bat him away, or yell at him in languages he didn’t understand. And he was the senior officer! Sheppard wasn’t going to think about what the scientists were calling the Marines. Sheppard hadn’t quite straightened out all of the scientists’ names, but he figured that they’d never feel charitable towards him, especially if he reported them to Weir. And “War and Peace” just hadn’t called to him, especially since he had the feeling that the characters kept switching names.
So here he was.
“Yes, well, if you’d help, or get someone to help pull me out, I wouldn’t be stuck. And what are you touching? It could be a very fragile experiment, and the US Air Force would have is going to exceed its quota for ruining those, shortly.” A pile of wires underneath a desk shifted, and shook with McKay’s attempts to get out.
Sheppard sighed. He felt like he was doing this a lot more than usual. Come to new galaxies, see aliens, and sigh. Somehow, he doubted that anyone would sign up for the Stargate program, had that been part of the recruitment material. He would have, but most of the people here weren’t running from a mistake, as his superiors called it. Sheppard would have to guess that none of them, beside him, were. He had been trying to do the right thing, in Afghanistan, but then, no one had really cared about that.
Sheppard sighed again. Introspection made him antsy.
“So, McKay, what do you think the probability of you getting out of there in the next, oh” Sheppard made an exaggerated show of looking around for a clock, “five minutes? Because we’re supposed to go exploring, and I’m wondering if we couldn’t take someone else, if you’re still stuck under there.”
Spotting an unoccupied chair, which look unlikely to have any easily disturbed experiments running in it, Sheppard sat down and waited for the angry screams and stutters that resulted when anyone said that McKay couldn’t do something that he wanted to do. While McKay would come out, rather than let some other scientist explore one of the outer reaches of Atlantis, Sheppard definitely wanted to hear what the response to this would be. He wouldn’t make good on that threat to find another scientist, particularly as keeping McKay out of trouble was difficult enough, and he was probably the smartest guy here.
Sheppard could hear muffled cursing, so he figured things were going alright.
“Ah! I knew I’d find it, nothing can hide here, unlike that damn basement lab.” McKay wormed out from underneath the desk that he’d been stuck under, and proudly presented a small and pointed object.
“It looks kinda like a thumbtack. Did the Ancients have those?” Sheppard drawled, waiting for McKay to jump in, and tell him that this thing was capable of making walls transparent, or whatever else the Ancients had come up with. Come to think of it, that wasn’t a bad idea; transparent walls might be a nice touch. Maybe Sheppard could persuade Weir into letting him use it, for purely aesthetic purposes, of course.
“No, it’s not, and even if it was a thumbtack, which it isn’t, would I be holding up an expedition to the unexplored parts of Atlantis for it? I think the answer would be a resounding no.”
“I can’t really see them with bulletin boards.” Ignoring McKay’s explanation completely, Sheppard asked, while staring quizzically at the thing.
“Oh that’s good, considering that they didn’t have bulletin boards, and why are we even standing here? We could be going off, like the brave explorers that we are.” Seeing Sheppard’s look, McKay continued, “Yes, well, it’s not my fault that it fell behind the desk. And whoever heard of there being clutter behind Ancient tables?”
Looking over at the desk, Sheppard suspected the clutter was less a fault of Ancient design, and mostly due to McKay’s tendency to wait until the end of the world to even consider cleaning off his desk. Well, maybe end of the world was a bad way to put it. After all, there wasn’t much that could destroy an Ancient city, was there? Sheppard realized he was rationalizing McKay’s housekeeping ability, and tried to think of something else.
“Hey, have you cleaned your room lately?” Well, now that was out there, Sheppard could count himself as fixated on McKay’s organizational skills. Also, sounding like McKay’s mother was probably not such a smart idea.
“Yes, I have. Would you like to see? I don’t actually live in this lab, you know.” Sheppard figured he’d put himself into this situation, McKay would be at him about this for days. He could hear it now, the constant stream of ‘well, it’s not quite up to your standards, is it?’ McKay could be really annoying, when he put his mind to it.
“Alright. Let’s go, now. We have exploring to do, and then you can show me your room.” Sheppard was getting impatient, and he really wanted to get out of the damn lab. McKay, after dropping the thumbtack on his desk, looked quizzically at Sheppard. This sort of look suggested that McKay could talk about cleaning and all sorts of things, and why was Sheppard rushing him?
Sheppard hurried out of the room, making McKay run to keep up. Luckily, the labs in Atlantis were close to the gateroom, where they were due to depart from. This was so when the expedition crew departed, they could be tracked by the central sensors. Sheppard privately thought that it might be that no one could remember the locations of any of the other rooms. While running, Sheppard narrowly missed colliding with several scientists who never stopped their loud debate, not even when McKay nearly barreled into them a few moments later.
Sheppard arrived, out of breath, in the gateroom. Sprinting was not something he enjoyed very much, and he’d been doing it with alarming frequency. McKay arrived, nearly panting, and looking very angry. Sheppard figured it had something to do with the enforced run, but, hey, it was McKay’s fault that it’d taken them so long. McKay had found that damn thumbtack, after all.
Spotting Teyla and Ford, who managed to seem at attention, yet very bored, Sheppard nodded a greeting to them. McKay, who was still in the process of buttoning his vest up, grunted something that sounded like hello.
Teyla raised one eyebrow, managing to fit a whole lecture on being late into a very small movement. Sheppard, feeling the need to defend his actions, tried to think of something reasonable sounding. He was unsurprised that there was nothing. There really was no way to describe his conversations with McKay. “We, um, had to see how clean McKay’s room was.” Seeing Ford’s shocked expression, Sheppard stammered “His office, really. We should get going, right?”
With a very confused Teyla and Ford, and McKay snickering, and he could hear McKay saying something to Ford about “passions, really,” Sheppard led the way out to the edge of Atlantis that they were due to explore. He just hoped that word of this wouldn’t get out to anyone else.
Annnd the pacing is a bit odd, but yay, I like the plot. I'm not, you know, in love with my own writing.
For jenna_corinth Hope you like it! It was a really fun idea.
Snark, Gossip and Office Supplies
Sheppard and McKay snark, run, and find new stuff. Cool!
Slight spoilers for "Rising" and "Underground"
“You’re stuck.” Abusing his gift for stating the blatantly obvious, Sheppard pointed this out to McKay. They’d been ordered to stay planetside until some of this business with the Genii had cooled down. Sheppard figured this was more to show that Weir could command them to do something, and less about their safety.
Either way, he was stuck on base, and had very little to do. It wasn’t like there was a commanding officer who would want to inspect well, anything. Well, he could inspect the artillery, but whenever he moved near any sort of weaponry, someone would bat him away, or yell at him in languages he didn’t understand. And he was the senior officer! Sheppard wasn’t going to think about what the scientists were calling the Marines. Sheppard hadn’t quite straightened out all of the scientists’ names, but he figured that they’d never feel charitable towards him, especially if he reported them to Weir. And “War and Peace” just hadn’t called to him, especially since he had the feeling that the characters kept switching names.
So here he was.
“Yes, well, if you’d help, or get someone to help pull me out, I wouldn’t be stuck. And what are you touching? It could be a very fragile experiment, and the US Air Force would have is going to exceed its quota for ruining those, shortly.” A pile of wires underneath a desk shifted, and shook with McKay’s attempts to get out.
Sheppard sighed. He felt like he was doing this a lot more than usual. Come to new galaxies, see aliens, and sigh. Somehow, he doubted that anyone would sign up for the Stargate program, had that been part of the recruitment material. He would have, but most of the people here weren’t running from a mistake, as his superiors called it. Sheppard would have to guess that none of them, beside him, were. He had been trying to do the right thing, in Afghanistan, but then, no one had really cared about that.
Sheppard sighed again. Introspection made him antsy.
“So, McKay, what do you think the probability of you getting out of there in the next, oh” Sheppard made an exaggerated show of looking around for a clock, “five minutes? Because we’re supposed to go exploring, and I’m wondering if we couldn’t take someone else, if you’re still stuck under there.”
Spotting an unoccupied chair, which look unlikely to have any easily disturbed experiments running in it, Sheppard sat down and waited for the angry screams and stutters that resulted when anyone said that McKay couldn’t do something that he wanted to do. While McKay would come out, rather than let some other scientist explore one of the outer reaches of Atlantis, Sheppard definitely wanted to hear what the response to this would be. He wouldn’t make good on that threat to find another scientist, particularly as keeping McKay out of trouble was difficult enough, and he was probably the smartest guy here.
Sheppard could hear muffled cursing, so he figured things were going alright.
“Ah! I knew I’d find it, nothing can hide here, unlike that damn basement lab.” McKay wormed out from underneath the desk that he’d been stuck under, and proudly presented a small and pointed object.
“It looks kinda like a thumbtack. Did the Ancients have those?” Sheppard drawled, waiting for McKay to jump in, and tell him that this thing was capable of making walls transparent, or whatever else the Ancients had come up with. Come to think of it, that wasn’t a bad idea; transparent walls might be a nice touch. Maybe Sheppard could persuade Weir into letting him use it, for purely aesthetic purposes, of course.
“No, it’s not, and even if it was a thumbtack, which it isn’t, would I be holding up an expedition to the unexplored parts of Atlantis for it? I think the answer would be a resounding no.”
“I can’t really see them with bulletin boards.” Ignoring McKay’s explanation completely, Sheppard asked, while staring quizzically at the thing.
“Oh that’s good, considering that they didn’t have bulletin boards, and why are we even standing here? We could be going off, like the brave explorers that we are.” Seeing Sheppard’s look, McKay continued, “Yes, well, it’s not my fault that it fell behind the desk. And whoever heard of there being clutter behind Ancient tables?”
Looking over at the desk, Sheppard suspected the clutter was less a fault of Ancient design, and mostly due to McKay’s tendency to wait until the end of the world to even consider cleaning off his desk. Well, maybe end of the world was a bad way to put it. After all, there wasn’t much that could destroy an Ancient city, was there? Sheppard realized he was rationalizing McKay’s housekeeping ability, and tried to think of something else.
“Hey, have you cleaned your room lately?” Well, now that was out there, Sheppard could count himself as fixated on McKay’s organizational skills. Also, sounding like McKay’s mother was probably not such a smart idea.
“Yes, I have. Would you like to see? I don’t actually live in this lab, you know.” Sheppard figured he’d put himself into this situation, McKay would be at him about this for days. He could hear it now, the constant stream of ‘well, it’s not quite up to your standards, is it?’ McKay could be really annoying, when he put his mind to it.
“Alright. Let’s go, now. We have exploring to do, and then you can show me your room.” Sheppard was getting impatient, and he really wanted to get out of the damn lab. McKay, after dropping the thumbtack on his desk, looked quizzically at Sheppard. This sort of look suggested that McKay could talk about cleaning and all sorts of things, and why was Sheppard rushing him?
Sheppard hurried out of the room, making McKay run to keep up. Luckily, the labs in Atlantis were close to the gateroom, where they were due to depart from. This was so when the expedition crew departed, they could be tracked by the central sensors. Sheppard privately thought that it might be that no one could remember the locations of any of the other rooms. While running, Sheppard narrowly missed colliding with several scientists who never stopped their loud debate, not even when McKay nearly barreled into them a few moments later.
Sheppard arrived, out of breath, in the gateroom. Sprinting was not something he enjoyed very much, and he’d been doing it with alarming frequency. McKay arrived, nearly panting, and looking very angry. Sheppard figured it had something to do with the enforced run, but, hey, it was McKay’s fault that it’d taken them so long. McKay had found that damn thumbtack, after all.
Spotting Teyla and Ford, who managed to seem at attention, yet very bored, Sheppard nodded a greeting to them. McKay, who was still in the process of buttoning his vest up, grunted something that sounded like hello.
Teyla raised one eyebrow, managing to fit a whole lecture on being late into a very small movement. Sheppard, feeling the need to defend his actions, tried to think of something reasonable sounding. He was unsurprised that there was nothing. There really was no way to describe his conversations with McKay. “We, um, had to see how clean McKay’s room was.” Seeing Ford’s shocked expression, Sheppard stammered “His office, really. We should get going, right?”
With a very confused Teyla and Ford, and McKay snickering, and he could hear McKay saying something to Ford about “passions, really,” Sheppard led the way out to the edge of Atlantis that they were due to explore. He just hoped that word of this wouldn’t get out to anyone else.
Annnd the pacing is a bit odd, but yay, I like the plot. I'm not, you know, in love with my own writing.