TEAM AWAY: Red letter day, "A Place On The Corner"
Title: A Place On The Corner
Author: almostnever
Team: Away
Prompt: Red letter day
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: Lots of pastry. Possible danger of sugar shock. :-)
Summary: Some things are worth waiting for.
Notes: Tons of credit to anatsuno for huge contributions to this AU and this Rodney, including several co-written passages. ♥
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**
Most needed are those 'third places' which lend a public balance to the increased privatization of home life. Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering places. The phrase 'third places' derives from considering our homes to be the 'first' places in our lives, and our work places the 'second.'
-- Ray Oldenburg
*
Ash Wednesday
Every morning's the same. John wakes up before dawn, goes down to the kitchen, and starts making honey bread. Next come muffins, turnovers, cinnamon twists, single batches of different kinds of cookies, and a second batch of honey bread for later.
He starts in on his deliveries at six-thirty. When he walks into Weir & Caldwell Accounting, the receptionist brightens and says, "Oh good, the bakery guy is here! Thanks!"
That's basically all he ever hears her say. He doesn't mind. He only knows her name is Laura Cadman because she signs the receipt neatly.
"Hey, pastry dude," says the guy at the next place. Aiden. His signature on the receipt is just a scribble, but he introduced himself once, and he's chattier than most. "You must have to get up really early to make these," he said once, and another time, "So do you just do deliveries, or do you work at the bakery?"
And John answered him, because the guy's friendly with a huge bright smile and seems pretty bored every time John stops by.
Today Aiden offers, "You want something to drink? They keep a lot of weird stuff around here for the brainiacs. Look at this stuff in the little green bottles. No label. I don't even know what it is. And 'Bawls', man. What the hell is guarana, anyway?"
John decides it's too much effort to go into it. "They used to call 'em smart drinks," he says instead. "But when they called 'em sports drinks, energy drinks, that's when they really took off."
"I started drinking Red Bull to get rid of hangovers," Aiden agrees.
At the next place there's no receptionist but a guy named Chuck always shows up to take the box and sign. Today Chuck's tagged with a blot of ashes on his forehead, John's only reminder: oh yeah. Today's a holiday.
Next place has a revolving cast at the front desk. Sometimes they ask him if he's the donut guy; mostly not. At the blood bank, he's usually "the muffin guy" when one of the nurses signs.
Sometimes there are two or three more stops after that, the once- or twice-a-weekers. Not today; John idles at the stoplight, drums his fingers on the steering wheel, wonders if the holiday has anything to do with today's lull. Maybe people are giving up sweets for Lent.
Not that it matters. He heads back to the bakery, racks up more of everything, slides it all into the ovens, pulls it back out, fills up the display case.
He usually doesn't open the shopfront til relatively late, missing the morning rush, which suits him fine. He doesn't have much overhead. The morning deliveries are just about enough to keep the place breaking even.
He only opens the doors at all to satisfy a certain imp of the perverse. When he first inherited the building, he replaced the pleasant bell on the door with the most irritating buzzer he could find, and he takes his time about filling orders and making change.
It's fun to hear the customers sigh and mutter and finally ask to speak to the manager, or the owner. It's satisfying to tell them that he's both.
It's really fucking bittersweet to remind himself every day that whether he likes it or not, these days, he doesn't answer to anybody.
*
"Chocolate chocolate chip muffin," says the guy with the silver travel cup. The side facing John says Astrophysicists do it with a big bang.
"The lady before you just got the last one."
"Aren't there more in the back? I still smell chocolate," Cup Guy says severely, like John's deliberately holding out on him.
"Maybe that's one of the five different kinds of chocolate cookies in the case here. Or the chocolate fudge cupcakes. Want one of those? They're basically the same as the chocolate muffins."
"Not for breakfast," says Cup Guy stubbornly, "I want a muffin, thanks." It's the least sincere thanks John's ever heard, and he spent ten years in the Air Force, where skirting insubordination by way of saying the right thing in the most sardonic possible tone of voice was raised to an art form.
John looks the guy over, waiting for him to inevitably either suck it up and ask for something else, or storm out in a dramatic flounce. It seems like he gets at least one of these guys every day; they're all the same.
Cup Guy just stands there with an expectant look on his face. He's got conspicuously blue eyes and a start on a Jack Nicholson hairline, the kind that drifts back and leaves the widow's peak poking out like a peninsula.
He's also wearing a really ugly shirt that's nevertheless not quite ugly enough to be ironically ugly. Plus, it's unbuttoned and open over a navy shirt that clashes with it. John didn't even know navy could clash with anything. And Cup Guy's coat is a weird gray-green that doesn't go with the ugly shirt or the navy shirt.
"I'll check the kitchen," John says, and retreats, getting a handful of coffee stirrers and straws from the bulk supplies while he's at it.
The chocolate chocolate chip muffins have three minutes left to go, and John's damned if he's going to pull them out early for some yuppie geek with entitlement issues. "Be a while," he says as he saunters back to the counter and restocks the straws and stirrers, "sorry," and he makes sure he says it as insincerely as Cup Guy's earlier 'thanks'.
"I know you're extremely busy preparing for all the hypothetical customers who might potentially wander in later," Cup Guy blusters, "but meanwhile you're neglecting the empirically verifiable customer who really is standing here right now."
"If you're in a hurry, there's another bakery a couple blocks east," John tells him, and lazily polishes the top of the cinnamon shaker just to be a dick.
"Which is exactly in the opposite direction from my lab. Look, you appear to be outwardly healthy, so the slowness, the drawl, is it some kind of neurological disorder? Abulia? Chronic fatigue syndrome? Erythromelalgia? I've given up on getting breakfast in a timely manner, so now I'm just asking out of concern for your personal well-being. I know a very good doctor, I'm sure he could help with your terrible affliction."
Halfway through Cup Guy's tirade, another customer comes in and lines up; the new one's a guy in a suit with glasses and a ponytail, a tiny black receiver plugging up one ear. He's actually dialing a cellphone while he waits, guaranteeing that he'll be talking into it when it's his turn at the sales counter, which in John's view is just about the only thing more rude than going around with a Bluetooth mike and earpiece on and blathering into a cellphone in public in the first place.
With company like Cup Guy and Ponytail to look forward to, John has no compunctions about stranding them up front again while he goes to the kitchen and pulls muffins and cookies out of the oven, racking them to cool.
"I already filed a formal complaint," Ponytail is saying when John ambles back. "Now how do I escalate it so that your boss does his job for a change and reads it? Wait. Hang on." Without even covering up the mike, Ponytail addresses Cup Guy brusquely: "If you've already told him what you want, why don't you move aside while you wait so that other people can order?"
"Because I'm incredibly fond of this square meter of tile floor. I'm negotiating to sublet it," Cup Guy says. "Why don't you finish your vitally important phone call before my ears start bleeding from the sheer overwhelming crucialness of every word you say?"
Ponytail snaps, "Blow me."
"Please. I wouldn't suck your cock if you were wearing chocolate pants."
John hides a snicker with another retreat to the kitchen, and picks out the biggest muffin for Cup Guy; he's an asshole, but he deserves a big muffin for coming up with that one on the fly.
Maybe it also has something to do with the easy, casual way he said suck your cock. John's only human.
"Here you go," John says, handing over the muffin, and even feels compelled to add, "Sorry about the wait."
"This hasn't touched anything made with citrus, has it?" Cup Guy demands. "I'm serious, it's a matter of life and death. I'm severely allergic and my lawyers are amazing."
"Came straight from the oven. It's touched the pan, my hand, and yours, and my hands are clean. So unless you've been washing up with tangerine soap, I think you're good."
"You'd better hope so." And then Cup Guy stands there and bites into it. Ponytail seethes, which John is guessing was the point, but Cup Guy lights up, talking through his gargantuan mouthful. "Warm! Mmmm." He swigs from his travel cup, takes another greedy bite of the muffin and adds, "Might even be worth the wait!"
"Hold on," Ponytail tells his earpiece, and then, over Cup Guy's shoulder at John, "Four apple turnovers and two coffees to go."
"Give me six more of these," says Cup Guy, slapping down a handful of crumpled cash. "I want to take them to the office and refuse to tell anyone where I got them."
John rings it up and bags it, and watches Cup Guy commune with the last few bites of his muffin as he leaves.
"The entire process was completely unprofessional," Ponytail's barking into his mike, "and I want an official review--"
"Can I help you?" John cuts in blandly, and enjoys the spectrum of delightful colors Ponytail turns, especially the lovely shade of puce he gets when he says "Hold on" again and the person on the other end of the line loudly hangs up on him.
*
St. Patrick's Day
The irritating door buzzer goes off, and John watches Dr. McKay flinch at it a little as he shoulders his way in, decked out in the usual gray-green jacket over ugly button-up shirt over ugly pullover, the usual silver travel cup in hand. The cellphone glued to his ear... that's new.
McKay claps his phone shut as he approaches, slamming his travel cup on the counter. "What a morning. I've been on the phone since four troubleshooting the latest disaster from across town before I was even awake. They're lucky I'm such a genius I can solve exotic particle problems in my sleep. Look at this!" He turns his travel cup upside-down dramatically. "Bone dry. It's not even eight yet!" He frowns, pauses, looks around. "Which... why are you open? Don't you usually take at least another couple of hours before you manage to slouch your way over to unlock the door?"
There's not a chance in hell John's going to admit he opened early because he saw McKay's car in the neighborhood. "Do you want coffee?"
"Desperately," says McKay, "And I don't really have time to stop at the cafe. I'm pushing it enough coming by here, but today's going to be a nightmare. I need a serious dose of chocolate-squared muffins to get me through it."
"You know, I have coffee here," John tells him patiently, though he's weirdly a little offended that McKay buys coffee somewhere else; he's been assuming the stuff in the travel cup was high-octane homemade, that McKay didn't trust anyone to brew his coffee but himself.
"Uh huh. I suppose you're brewing Folgers Premium back there," McKay's chin jabs up.
"I guess I can make you some Folgers if you want," John says in his most infuriating drawl. "Or you could have some cold brewed Yauco. Whatever."
"Oh you do not."
John gives him his best smartass stare and holds his hand out for the travel cup. McKay hesitates and shoves it over. "Fine, I'll try it. Fill it halfway."
The bottom of the mug disappears under the dark, silky concentrated coffee. The steaming water John adds on top churns the color within itself, an eruption of Brownian motion.
He stirs it up and puts the top back on. John's never seen the lee side of the thing before. It says Engineers do it with precision.
"At least you don't have green coffee or green cookies or Shamrock Shakes or anything like that," McKay says. "I hate it when people slather a bunch of commercialized festivity all over the food."
"Well thanks, Dr. McKay," John hands back the cup. "You say the sweetest things."
McKay sniffs at it suspiciously before bringing it to his mouth with a dubious twist of his tilted lips. John watches him slurp and swallow, holds back the little grin that wants to surface at McKay's grudging, "Not bad. I usually like my coffee with a little more bite, but this is acceptable."
John's grin spreads as McKay takes another drink and... just keeps swallowing and swallowing. He frowns down into empty cup, his expression almost puzzled.
"Okay," he says. "More. Fill it up."
John does.
*
April Fool's Day
"What the hell are those animals doing in the bakery?" McKay demands.
Carson, the tall-haired Scottish guy with the little white dogs, smiles up at McKay, unquailed. "Good morning to you as well, Rodney."
John hadn't realized they knew each other. Carson's two terriers tangle their leashes, straining to get closer to the newcomer; McKay-- Rodney-- backs hastily away.
"Carson! I'm the one who told you about this place and what do you do? You come despoil it with your little highland monsters!" Rodney wipes his hands repeatedly on his jacket, even though he's come nowhere near the dogs. "This is so incredibly unsanitary!"
"Ah, now, it's harmless, Rodney," says Carson. "These two are hale and healthy. Probably more fit than you, I'll wager."
Staying well out of leash range, Rodney comes to the counter, already holding out one hand to give John his travel cup and the other to accept a chocolate chocolate chip muffin.
"I'm sure they are more fit than me," says Rodney. "Typhoid Mary was probably more fit than me too! They could still carry all kinds of diseases! Parvo, rabies, who knows what kind of germs they've picked up, or where their mouths have been..."
"Relaaax, Rodney," says John, with a little smirk when Rodney doesn't even notice that they're now on a first-name basis. Sort of.
Rodney whirls on him. "You're letting him get away with this? You could get reported to the health department!"
John shrugs. "Eh. Health department's more likely to get pissy about my pet rats. 'Specially since they usually nest in the chocolate chips."
Rodney gags on his chocolate muffin and gulps at his coffee.
"And the coffee beans," John adds.
Flailing, Rodney manages to grab a handful of napkins and splutters coffee-wet cake all over them.
"Hey, it's all the same color," John reasons. "And you're always talking about trying that coffee that cats crap out. I didn't think you'd mind."
"I just want you to know that I'm perfectly aware that you're joking," Rodney tells him with bruised dignity and a handful of damp paper napkins. "But I have multiple food allergies and an extremely vivid imagination. It's an automatic reaction to the slightest suspicion of, of germs, or contamination, or poison."
"I was just telling John about Elizabeth's topiary project," Carson cuts in. "You should come to ours for dinner sometime, Rodney, have a look."
"Why?" Rodney asks blankly, leaning over the sales counter to dump his sodden napkins into the trash underneath. John supposes there's no point protesting coffee drops getting on his jeans when the knees and most of the inner thighs are visibly frayed and worn thin anyway.
"Your name is John?" Rodney asks, and then to Carson with a scowl, "His name is John? How'd you know that?"
"I asked," Carson says mildly. "Getting the other fellow's name generally helps when you're introducing yourself."
"Huh. So-- John Foster?" Rodney asks, hitching a thumb at the shopfront, YREKAB S'RETSOF reversed from this side of the window.
"John Sheppard," says John. "Foster was my mother's maiden name."
"Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD," says Rodney importantly. "Astrophysics and mechanical--"
"--engineering," John can't resist saying along with him.
"How'd you,"
John pushes the filled travel cup across the counter and turns it, pointing.
"Oh. Right."
Hitching up his mouth in half a smile, John says, "Nice to meet you."
*
Good Friday
"I like this chair," Rodney says. "Much better than those other iron-wrought atrocities. My back hurts just looking at them. Are you going to replace them all?"
"Maybe, eventually," John answers vaguely.
"Well, at least a couple of people can sit in here without risking spinal injury now." Rodney only savors the fudge, coffee, and armchair for about thirty seconds before he pops open his bag and gets out a laptop, booting it up with one hand while chomping through the fudge square with the other. "C'mon, c'mon... oh yes, thank you very much, moron. Keep using WEP, I'll wipe my feet on it like a welcome mat. Please! WEP-40 even. Why not send out engraved invitations?"
John checks his watch and darts back into the kitchen, jerking honey bread out of the oven, scowling at himself. It's been ages since he let time get away from him while the ovens were going. The bread's far from burned, but it's a shade or two darker than the ideal golden brown.
He comes out front a little rattled, but of course Rodney doesn't notice. Without ever looking up, he starts in. "Don't you think it'd be good for business if you offered wi-fi? I'll set it up. Hell, now that you have decent places to sit, I'd pay for it just so I can use it. All I need is coffee and wi-fi, and I hate Starbucks."
"I'm pretty sure other places besides Starbucks have coffee and wi-fi."
"I'm pretty sure you put crack in the food here, because I get twitchy if I can't have some every couple of days. Anyway," Rodney swallows his coffee; he's the only person John's ever seen who talks not just through food in his mouth but also through liquids. "You might as well let me set up wi-fi here. It doesn't necessarily have to be voluntary. I could just break in and install it. Protection One systems are pathetically easy to disarm. You should upgrade."
"I don't really have a security system," says John. "I just have the sticker."
"What?! Are you crazy?"
"I'm not really too worried about someone coming in to burgle the place and steal the flour."
Rodney sputters and gestures, gestures and sputters. "What about the nuts and the chocolate and the coffee beans? I assume you have a safe for the cash, but--"
"Yeah, McKay. I have a gigantic safe back there for all the money and the precious, precious ingredients. The kitchen's pretty much one big bank vault with a massive lock on it. It doubles as a fallout shelter. So relax."
"Are you serious? You're joking, aren't you," Rodney says, with genuine disappointment. "If it were a former fallout shelter that'd be incredibly cool. It's kind of mean for you to lie about a thing like that."
"So's threatening to break into my bakery just so you can have wi-fi."
"I'm trying to do you a favor here!" Rodney pinwheels his hands wildly. And then with the odd frankness he can never seem to hold back, he adds, "Okay, a favor that primarily benefits me in the short-term, but eventually it'll bring in more business."
Exasperated, John says, "I don't need more business! I'm doing fine. Do you think it's not busy around here because I'm just that bad at running the place?"
Rodney fidgets. "Well. Evidence suggests."
"You know what, you want wi-fi here that bad, knock yourself out," says John. "But I'm not putting up a sign. And you have to set up WPA2 encryption and disable the SSID broadcast. I don't want wardrivers leeching my bandwidth."
Mouth snapping abruptly shut, Rodney blinks at him briefly and seems to lurch in place a little before he finally says, "...Okay."
*
Easter Sunday
"These armchairs, they are new, yes?"
"Nah. Picked 'em up used," John says.
"Vůl. You know what I mean." Dr. Zelenka dashes off a few more scribbled corrections with his red pen of academic doom, and draws a large B- at the top of the page. "This place, you are open for months with only hard chairs. Now, soft chairs. Not to mention the display case, it looks very two-faced these days. Zucchini muffins here, fudge there..."
John shrugs. "Trying out some new stuff."
"Mm-hm. This is some American custom I have not heard? You cannot ask a person for a date until you provide adequate sweets and furniture first?"
"Radek, you can have free pastries for life if we can stop talking now."
"In a way, I am glad to know this. Now I understand why this country has so many cushy armchairs."
"I'm trying to run a business here," John points out, ignoring the professor's snickers. "The guy's a loudmouth. If he likes the place he tells everyone he knows. He stops liking it, he'll be all over Colorado Springs, all over Yelp and-- and who knows, Slashdot, waging vendetta."
"How do you say it here?" inquires Radek politely. "I believe your pants are on fire?"
John wedges his hip against the counter, leans, gives Radek a mock sultry look. "Hey, whaddayou lookin' at my pants for?"
Radek snorts and waves that off. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, yes, yes, but I have colleagues who have worked with this McKay, I have reviewed his work. Biggest target on that man is his oversized head."
"Are you kidding? No way I'm flattering his ego. I think it's already metastasized."
"There, you see? You are an intelligent man. Demonstrate this to him," says Radek fondly.
John snorts. "Like what, do math at him?"
"That would serve well, yes." Radek snaps his fingers and beams. "A conspicuous game of prime/not-prime in his presence, hm? When is he usually here?"
"Okay, look, it's been hilarious," John stretches on an ill-fitting grin, "ha ha, it's like I'm out to turn McKay's head, laugh riot. But I'm gonna have to draw the line at conspiring with you to impress a customer."
"Mm, you only lack confidence, I think. So we practice! 4549."
"You know this is a boring game, right?"
"Must I repeat myself, John? 4549."
John blows out a breath. "Prime."
"7049."
"Not prime. Uh, 4293."
"Also not prime. 19,937."
"Prime..." John cocks his head, trying to get at the nagging little thought tucked somewhere in the recesses of his brain. "Oh; Mersenne prime."
The buzzer sounds and Rodney storms in like he owns the place, stamping on the heavy snow mat still just inside the door and already saying, "Did you know they were doing an egg hunt at Quail Lake Park this year? Who does that without putting signs up? And who hides eggs in nests? You're supposed to spread them out! I must've stepped on a carton's worth. I'll probably never get the yolk out of my shoe treads. And they have the gall to look at me like it's my fault for ruining their Kodak moment. Kids don't care anyway! Kids don't like eggs! Kids like candy!"
Still shedding mangled egg bits and colorful shell fragments onto the mat, Rodney continues, his tone changing, "Oh, that means it's Easter, huh. I'll have to stop by the store on my way home. The Easter candy'll be on sale."
John lets a few seconds go by before saying brightly, "Hi, Rodney."
"You're right, John, Mersenne prime," says Radek. "24,907?"
Rodney turns his head at that, looking surprised to find someone else sitting in his usual spot. He's been in the bakery at the same time as Dr. Zelenka before, but he's always summarily ignored him the way he does most of the other customers.
"Prime. Uh, 105,907," says John. To Rodney he adds, "Whaddayou need?"
Rodney jumps a little. "Hey-- what?" He points and gestures between Radek and John, as if tracking numbers flying through the air between them.
"Prime. Math game, yes?" Radek gives Rodney the world's least convincing innocent look. "213,619, John."
"Not prime," John sighs.
Rodney follows the exchange between them, head bouncing back and forth as if he's watching table tennis, his mouth fallen a little open. "Wha-- um, I mean, hello, why are you playing a math game? Also, math? Since when?" He stares balefully at John's face. "You're a baker!" Turning back to Dr. Zelenka, he says, "And who are you?"
"Radek Zelenka. Is, hm, interesting to meet you, Dr. McKay. Your peer review comments have been entertaining." Radek smiles. "As for John, he is a baker with a broken cash register, no calculator. Surprised you didn't notice, really."
Eyes going flinty, Rodney answers, "Oh, it's you! Well, at least that explains some of your eccentric remarks. I see your hair matches the oblique segues."
"It's all right if you cannot follow my logic yet, Dr. McKay. All in good time."
"Don't even start to pretend to flatter yourself." Rodney shifts his attention, dividing his gaze between Radek and John. "And by the way, I did notice the broken cash register, but a knack for simple addition is to be expected from people working retail."
"Sure," John shrugs.
Dr. Zelenka says, "1,398,269."
"Mersenne prime," John says. "Again." Off Radek's look, John shrugs. "Anyway." He focuses on Rodney. "What can I getcha?"
"Ahem." Rodney lowers his voice to library levels, bending in over the counter a little. "Do you still have fudge?"
"Sure. Can't sell a pound of the stuff all in one weekend. Radek over here isn't helping, he wouldn't touch the stuff."
Dr. Zelenka takes up his red pen again. "Much too dense and sticky-sweet. Ugh, no thank you."
"You're insane," Rodney says flatly. "Your ideas about nonlinear stability in accretion disks are all over the place and you don't even like fudge."
"At least we can agree on the superior quality of John's baking," Radek answers tranquilly. He shifts to address John: "Primes present little real challenge to you, it seems. Next time, I bring my chessboard."
"Coffee!" Rodney blurts suddenly. "Yes, that's it, I need coffee. And maybe an oatmeal bar. To complement the fudge."
John holds out his hand expectantly for Rodney's usual travel cup with its familiar corny geek jokes stamped on either side.
Instead Rodney reaches with his own hand, then freezes, realizing, and yanks back as if he's been burned. "I don't have my cup. I'll, I'll have my coffee here?"
"Don't have your cup? I dunno how I even recognized you." John gets his order, hovering over the fudge. "How many squares?"
"Two, please."
"Six forty."
Radek grins. "Oh, now you are too easy on me. Not prime."
John can't help it, he has to laugh.
Sparing a narrow, penetrating glance for Rodney, Dr. Zelenka steeples his hands, a gleam in his eye. "It occurs to me, John, we shouldn't need the chessboard, no? I will even let you play white."
"Kinda busy, Radek."
"I'll play you," Rodney demands rather than offers, pulling the other armchair across the table from Radek and producing a pocket magnetic chess set. Because of course, the guy carries around a pocket magnetic chess set.
John tries hard to find that ridiculous.
Rodney, meanwhile, goes on: "That is, if you don't think your inevitable crushing defeat would be too humiliating."
John tries to find the arrogance annoying, too, but he doesn't have much luck with that one either.
*
Arbor Day
The hell of it is, Radek was right. John's been trying out healthier recipes for weeks now, because seriously, Rodney eats more pastries and junk food than can possibly be good for him. He doesn't seem to be gaining weight from it-- he has the same sturdy, softish build now as the first time John saw him. John suspects that's because Rodney's diet was just as bad before he ever started coming to the bakery.
But John's the one making the pastries now, so he knows exactly how much sugar and butter Rodney's scarfing down and chattering through. And it's not like John's going to cut him off, so he goes with plan B: tricking him into eating healthier stuff.
Today's attempt yields up a dozen carrot bran muffins with cream cheese frosting, made with half sugar and half sweetener-- all ingredients assiduously checked for any trace of citrus, of course. John pipes the icing on in a spiral; it still looks like plenty, but it's much less icing than a solidly frosted top.
He thought Rodney was oblivious to the changes-- he still crams the pastries down like cake is going out of style-- but today, Rodney strolls in and pretends surprise. "You're open? I thought you'd be out planting a forest, or maybe doing some organic gardening. Since you've been dishing out all this rabbit food lately."
"Guess you don't want a carrot muffin with cream cheese frosting then, huh," John replies, dangling one temptingly.
"Don't be stupid, give me two." Rodney scoots his travel cup across the counter. They execute their well-rehearsed exchange: pastries for empty mug, full mug for money, change dropped into Rodney's free hand while the other lifts a muffin to his mouth and he takes his first bite.
"Mmm," Rodney says, as usual. John's found that as long as the pastries are nicely soft with some kind of sweetness on top, Rodney is pretty much guaranteed to love them. John got him to eat stone-ground whole wheat muffins just by getting the texture right and topping them with an atom-thin layer of 70% cacao dark chocolate.
"Seriously though," Rodney says through a mouthful, "you're not going to go all hippie environmentalist macrobiotic on me, are you? Because so far everything's still good, but I'm not eating anything with tofu or sprouts."
John judiciously ignores that. "What about you? Planting a tree today?" There have been banners up all along the streets nearby, urging everyone to care for Mother Earth with a sapling or two. Personally John thought Mother Earth would probably feel a lot more cared-for if they'd quit logging up in Vail, but nobody's asking him.
"Please," Rodney snorts. "I don't own property and if I did I wouldn't put a bunch of bird and rodent hotels on it. It's going to take a lot more than a few privately planted trees to get things back on track. It'd take at least a North-America-wide initiative, which is another way of saying we're all doomed."
John parks his hip against the back counter and slouches. "If we're all so doomed, how come you drive a Prius?"
"If I really thought anything would help, I wouldn't drive at all," Rodney shrugs. "I don't particularly think hybrids are all that environmentally beneficial really. Save a little gas, so what, you're still driving, conforming to a society based on inefficient suburban sprawl. But everyone at work was complaining about how there were waiting lists to get one, so of course I had to show them up. Said I was buying it on Friday, drove up in it on Monday."
"So you're kind of saving the earth out of spite."
Rodney snorts, swallowing another wad of muffin. "If spite could do the trick, I could save the world a hundred times over."
"Ah, c'mon. What've you got to be so sour about?" John goads.
"Unsung genius, just for a start? That alone is the kind of thing that makes comic book characters turn to supervillainy."
"Peter Parker's a genius, he doesn't seem to mind keeping it on the down low and freelancing as a photographer," says John. "Superman's a superadvanced alien and he's putting in time as a lowly reporter. Bruce Wayne's a genius and no one knows about it."
"That's different!" Rodney snaps. "Those characters are hiding their lights under a bushel on purpose to keep their civilian identities secret. It's not as if Bruce Wayne's out there showing people the Batmobile and they're completely unimpressed and won't even give him the time of day." Mostly to himself he mutters on, "You make one tiny little first bad impression, you never hear the end of it."
"So where's your Batmobile?" It's probably the most overtly flirtatious thing John's let himself say in years, and definitely the geekiest.
"Hello, it was a metaphor?" Rodney says irritably, and stomps over to the armchair to flop down into it and curl over his laptop with broad, round slumped shoulders.
John's not getting the guy a computer lap desk.
At least, not until he hears a little more about this metaphorical Batmobile.
*
Memorial Day
"Hey, what're you doing up there?"
John tips back in his seat and looks down through the wooden railing that fronts his balcony. "I live up here."
"You live above the bakery?" Rodney squints up, shading his eyes, standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
"Nah, just on this balcony," John says.
"You're hilarious."
"I know." John hooks his thumb over his shoulder at the door behind him. "Studio loft on the second floor."
Rodney checks his watch, ignoring the streams of people flowing around him, the lone obstacle on the pavement. "It's almost two. Even you usually make it down to open up by now."
"Not today."
"Why not?"
"Why do you think?"
Glancing around, Rodney guesses, "Too many people out for all the sales? Since you apparently hate to actually sell the stuff you make. What, do you get too attached to it after it's been sitting in the display case for a while? What about your day-old stuff, where does all that go?"
"A volunteer from the women's shelter picks up everything that's left at the end of the day."
"Oh. Huh. That's... nice, I guess." Rodney frowns. "I can't believe you're actually closed. You were open on Easter. You were open on Mother's Day, and you had to know that was going to be a busy day for dessert places. I thought I was going to have to put on an apron and help out."
John raises his eyebrows.
"Okay, no, I wouldn't do that, but I thought somebody might. Radek's favorite student, what's his name, Rowan? Roland?"
"Ronon."
"Yeah, that guy. He did help actually, refilled a couple of coffee cups. Anyway, so it can't just be the crowds."
John shrugs and slips on his sunglasses. A second later he remembers they're his aviators and feels incredibly unsubtle. He might as well have USAF stamped in red across his forehead.
"No, really," Rodney says. "What's up? You're allergic to the smell of barbeque? You have an irrational fear of white sales? You don't like Mondays? What?"
Right. He doesn't exactly have to worry about being unsubtle around Rodney.
"I get tired of all the flags, myself," Rodney carries on obliviously.
John kicks his feet down from the railing and leans over it, tired, suddenly, and pissed off; the kind of pissed off that only comes from disappointment. He pulls his tags out from under his tee shirt and lets them hang, glinting silver, brushing against his crossed arms. "We're closed today."
"Oh." Rodney winces. "Huh. Well. Tomorrow?"
"Is another day, I hear." He already knows he's going to forgive and forget, and that Rodney probably won't even notice, and he kind of hates himself a little.
This whole thing's starting to seem sad, stupid, and while John doesn't mind feigning ignorant bliss, he doesn't like to really feel dumb.
"Okay." Rodney fords through the rush of pedestrians toward his Prius. Then his shoulders square and he turns around and marches right back. "I'm Canadian, is the thing."
"Is that the thing."
"Right, so we don't have," he spreads his hands expressively. "Well. Newfoundland has a Memorial Day, but that's just them. We have Remembrance Day. November eleventh. And it's, you know, on our Remembrance Day, it's poppies, not so much flags. I have certain theories about what it implies about the American character that Memorial Day is all about planting flags and shopping and grilling out--" he glances up at John again and grimaces at himself. "Okay, pretend I didn't say that part. Sorry?"
John wants to accept and shrug it off. He wants to tell Rodney to hang on and he'll open the door; he wants to invite him up to the loft. He wants to let him see the scars on John's chest, wants to ask him to stay.
He's wanted all that for a while now, though, and it's been a long time since he trusted himself that much.
"See you tomorrow," he says.
Rodney hesitates a moment more, his long mouth tipping down on one side. "Yeah, see you," he says, and walks away.
*
Labor Day
It's what passes for a full house at the bakery, as full as John ever wants it to be, anyway. Carson and Elizabeth have the table near the door, Carson's two West Highland terriers snuffling around their ankles.
Jennifer, Carson's protege, discreetly tucks her feet up as she chats with him; Elizabeth watches them fondly while her earpiece chirps away, probably an assistant summing up the day's financials for her. John still hates those Bluetooth headsets, but she's always discreet about it, and Carson generally orders for them anyway.
Nearby, Teyla sits with her tea and honey bread, her yoga mat neatly rolled up in the bag next to her chair. Radek's finally mustered up the guts to take the seat across from her, leaving Ronon at their usual table on his own.
Ronon looks a little like Radek's much longer, much bigger shadow, his hair falling messy around his ears and his glasses perched low on his nose like his teacher's. He takes notes while he reads The Scarlet Letter, throwing the occasional amused look over as the professor tries much too hard to explain the appeal of pigeon breeding to a stunningly beautiful woman in workout gear.
Teyla manages to look tranquil and interested despite Radek's occasional flustered aside in rapid Czech. In her stretchy top and clingy leggings, she looks radically different from the polished vice president who's been stopping by daily on her way back from lunch.
John wipes down the work counter, satisfied. It was true, what he told Radek all those months ago: a loudmouthed guy like Rodney could almost make or break a place all on his own. Sure, Radek told a few grad students about the bakery, but Ronon's the only one who became a regular.
Rodney harangued Carson into coming, and then Carson's wife, Elizabeth, the managing partner the accounting firm Rodney uses; and Elizabeth brought her VP, Teyla, and Carson brought Jennifer. Rodney's co-workers gradually found out where all the flaunted pastries were coming from, so John sees Simpson and Grodin and Kusanagi regularly too (though it's hard to remember their first names when Rodney only ever calls them by their last).
And apparently, oh the serendipity, Rodney does some consulting for the Air Force now and then. Not long after his Memorial Day foot-eating feast, he dragged a couple of blue suits in with him for a working lunch. John gritted his teeth and fought the whole time to keep his spine from snapping straight. The blond woman gave him a sympathetic look as they left, and no more uniforms showed up, but since then he's had more delivery business from the south near Cheyenne.
Plus, Rodney used to work where Aiden Ford's recently moved up to office manager, and now that Aiden usually misses the morning pastry delivery at work, he's in here every few days, probably as much for the fun of needling Rodney as for the food and the specially-ordered bottles of Bawls ("Someone should have warned me before I tried that stuff! I got totally addicted!") Aiden can't do without.
Rodney even knows Laura Cadman somehow. John's determined to get the story behind that sometime, but so far Rodney's been lobster-red and unforthcoming on the subject, and asked about it, Laura just laughs and laughs.
For such a socially inept and crabby guy, Rodney has a lot of unlikely friends.
But he's not with any of them tonight; he's been stationed in an armchair for hours, hunched over his computer, and the strain's starting to show. His hair's as disheveled as hair that short can get, and even with the lap desk propping his machine up, his posture sags.
The Westies lead Carson and Elizabeth out, and Ronon walks Jennifer to her car. Soon after, Radek and Teyla leave, still chatting, having gotten past pigeon lore to trade stories about the small towns where they grew up.
Later still, Katie Brown drops by, and John cleans out the display case, boxing everything up for the women's shelter. She glances over at Rodney, shakes her head, and exchanges rueful little smiles with John as they gather up the boxes and he helps her carry them out to her car.
Rodney's still lost to the world while John does his last cleanup sweep and gets ready to lock up.
Finally there's nothing left to do but go poke him. "Hey, are you okay? You've been at it for kind of a while, buddy."
"What?" Rodney blinks rapidly, tearing himself away from the computer for only a moment before focusing right back in on it. "No, no, I'm all right, it's this stupid asymptote--"
John picks up the travel mug, unsurprised to find it empty, and out of habit, takes it back to refill it. Thinking twice, he brings a bottle of water out instead. "You know, if you take a break, give your brain some time to keep working on the problem while you think about something else... might help."
Rodney frowns and clicks away at his keyboard a few more times, sighing. "Maybe you're right. I'm not getting anywhere with this. I'm sure Simpson's made a mistake somewhere but I'm just not finding it."
John looks over his shoulder at the screen. "It does look kind of hincky."
Eyes wide, Rodney swivels the chair to face him. "You can read this?"
"I think so. Landau notation?" John tilts his head, considering the variables. "This is astrophysics? These look more like compression algorithms."
"They are, yes-- it's a side project, I can't talk about it actually, but-- how do you-- why--"
"Okay, okay, maybe not," John backs off. "Sorry, it's been a while since I thought much about thermodynamic potentials."
Rodney gesticulates inarticulately, not quite managing to string together enough syllables to end up anywhere near language.
"Hey, breathe," John grins. "Should I be insulted that it's such a shock I went to college? You thought I was some kind of prime number idiot-savant?"
Rodney looks a little flushed, intriguing in itself regardless of cause. "Well. There're so many morons, you have to admit! It seemed like too much to hope that you weren't one of them. And you cook! It's not exactly cerebral!"
"I bake," John corrects. "And no, it's not cerebral. It's relaxing. Anyway. Thanks."
As if stymied by the thanks, Rodney shuts his mouth, color rising even higher, a bloom of brighter pink over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. He sets his laptop carefully on the small table in front of him, glaring in the general direction of the screen.
"I'm not sure I should've kept bringing you coffee all day. Your blood pressure's got to be going through the roof." John presses the water bottle into Rodney's hand. "Calm down. It's okay to occasionally say something that's not insulting. I won't blow your cover."
"Ha." Rodney smiles, only a little feebly. "Okay. Good."
John prompts, "And now's the part where you take a drink."
Rodney checks the label before uncapping the bottle, commenting suspiciously, "You're being awfully nice to me."
John rolls his shoulders in a lazy shrug, eases down sideways into the other armchair, drapes his arm over the seatback. "I can be nice, now and then. Just don't blow my cover."
"I'll watch your back if you watch mine." Rodney gives a sudden, almost dazzlingly happy smile. "While you're keeping my secrets, don't tell anyone I can be bought off with chocolate cupcakes."
"Anyone who can't figure that out for themselves doesn't deserve to know." The power cord's about to pull out of Rodney's computer; John pokes it back in til it's flush again.
Rodney closes the laptop, brushing John's hand with his, lingering.
John's heart rate steps up, his feet tapping restlessly. He covers by slouching even more bonelessly.
Rodney clears his throat. "So. College?"
"Yep. Fit it in somewhere between all the baking."
"And the flying."
John tenses, narrowing his eyes.
"I didn't look anything up, or get into any files," Rodney says. "And I should get points for that, by the way, because it'd be a walk in the park for me, and I was very tempted, but I didn't. There was Memorial Day, though. And the airshow, over the summer."
"I didn't go."
"No. But you closed up for that too. And when I brought Sam and Mitchell here for lunch, Sam asked me afterward if you were Air Force. Her instincts are usually pretty good. Her theories are preposterous, but her instincts... anyway."
John finds himself wishing Rodney had just hacked into his files after all. Right now he doesn't mind so much, the idea of Rodney knowing.
The thought of telling him, though, that's a problem. He doesn't want to talk about it, just wants the facts uploaded into Rodney's head: the orders John disobeyed, the rescue that failed, the friends he failed. The shots that took him down along with his copter.
"It's just... little things. You tell people you love the outdoors, but you never go up to the mountains."
The medical discharge that's probably the only thing that kept him from a court-martial. The scars, and the thin blue of the sky at high altitude.
"Even indoors, you always look up when you hear a plane."
And what the records could never explain, how he was so angry afterward, wound up tight and angry, all the time. How he'd needed something. Something to keep him busy, so he could blank out and let it go. Relax.
"--This is a good kind of quiet, right?" Rodney asks. "You're not about to flip out from post-traumatic stress?"
John bursts out laughing, and squeezes the hand he didn't even realize til now he was holding.
*
"Ah ha! I knew I was right!" Rodney says, sitting bolt upright, and tugs his laptop toward him into bed. "Have I told you lately how incredibly brilliant I am?"
"Yes," says John, and stuffs his head under the pillows.
"Unsung genius," Rodney murmurs, fingers flying over the keys. "They're just lucky I haven't built a death ray." He pauses dramatically. "Yet."
"No more cupcakes if you build a death ray," John tells him, cotton-muffled.
"What about a stun ray?"
John emerges, yawning. "Stun ray's cool." He looks at the clock, and immediately regrets it. "Jeez, Rodney. You complain about me getting up too early... why are you awake? It's practically still last night."
"I had an idea. I can't just let them go, I've got to get them down. Any one of them could be the ticket to my Nobel."
"I can't wait til you win that damn thing so I can stop hearing about it all the time." John throws back the blankets. "I'm up, I might as well go downstairs and get started."
"Wait! No! Just a second," Rodney holds up one finger, typing one-handed. John's always been fascinated by the way Rodney can deftly achieve complex tasks one-handed, even while the other's busy with something else. Considering how advantageous it is in the bedroom, his fixation's turned out to be well-founded.
Rodney saves his work and shoves the computer onto the bedside table, turning in almost the same motion to wind both arms around John's waist and all but haul him back into bed. "So! Blowjob?"
"Romantic," John comments. "What's up?"
"Why would anything be up?" Rodney scowls.
"Because if something wasn't up, you wouldn't ask. You'd just get to it."
"Get to it? Nice. And you're complaining about romance."
"Rodney. What's up, or do you want me to make tomato muffins again?" (Not all of John's experiments in healthy baking were entirely successful.)
"I got someone to do your morning deliveries today."
"Someone?"
"Aiden's baking, Ronon's delivering. Aiden seems pretty interested in this stuff. Though I suppose anything's fun compared to office drudgery at the hellmouth."
"Rodney..."
"It'll be fine! Aiden's been trying out your recipes to make sure he can get all the orders up to snuff. I did taste tests, they're almost as good as yours. And Ronon may look like he's as crazy as Zelenka, but I checked and he has a perfect driving record. And you don't have to open up the store." Rodney settles against him, the long expanse of bare skin against skin the most convincing argument of all. "Sleeeep," he croons, "sleeeep. Is this working? Sleeeeeep."
John tilts his head against Rodney's, feeling the weight of Rodney's hard skull protecting the mysterious big brain underneath. "Stop trying to half-assed hypnotize me. You're not even swinging a watch."
Rodney grabs the clock radio, dangles it by its cord, and swings it above John's face. "Sleeeeep."
Batting it out of Rodney's hands, John honks out a laugh, the embarrassing, uncontrollable one that always makes Rodney grin too.
He presses Rodney back against the pillows. "I'm okay with the plan, I just wanna know what this is about. What's the occasion? Is it your birthday or something? Carson's supposed to tell me these things."
"No occasion," Rodney says. "I just thought, you know, day off."
"Uh-huh. Whose idea was it? Carson's?"
"Teyla," Rodney admits. "But let it be noted that I asked her to suggest something nice."
"Nice?"
"Yes," Rodney says, just a little defensively. "I can do that. Just don't blow my cover."
John kisses him, his lips that always feel fuller than they look, just right for brushing against John's, for tracing with tongue and tugging with teeth. "You're sure it's nobody's birthday?"
"I'm sure it's somebody's birthday." Rodney gives him a skewed little smile. "No. It's just Tuesday."
"Tuesday: International Day Off Day."
Rodney grins, and flips them over, and gets to it without asking, one hand still warm in John's.
Tuesday
**
Poll Vote for this story
Author: almostnever
Team: Away
Prompt: Red letter day
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: Lots of pastry. Possible danger of sugar shock. :-)
Summary: Some things are worth waiting for.
Notes: Tons of credit to anatsuno for huge contributions to this AU and this Rodney, including several co-written passages. ♥
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
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**
Most needed are those 'third places' which lend a public balance to the increased privatization of home life. Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering places. The phrase 'third places' derives from considering our homes to be the 'first' places in our lives, and our work places the 'second.'
-- Ray Oldenburg
*
Ash Wednesday
Every morning's the same. John wakes up before dawn, goes down to the kitchen, and starts making honey bread. Next come muffins, turnovers, cinnamon twists, single batches of different kinds of cookies, and a second batch of honey bread for later.
He starts in on his deliveries at six-thirty. When he walks into Weir & Caldwell Accounting, the receptionist brightens and says, "Oh good, the bakery guy is here! Thanks!"
That's basically all he ever hears her say. He doesn't mind. He only knows her name is Laura Cadman because she signs the receipt neatly.
"Hey, pastry dude," says the guy at the next place. Aiden. His signature on the receipt is just a scribble, but he introduced himself once, and he's chattier than most. "You must have to get up really early to make these," he said once, and another time, "So do you just do deliveries, or do you work at the bakery?"
And John answered him, because the guy's friendly with a huge bright smile and seems pretty bored every time John stops by.
Today Aiden offers, "You want something to drink? They keep a lot of weird stuff around here for the brainiacs. Look at this stuff in the little green bottles. No label. I don't even know what it is. And 'Bawls', man. What the hell is guarana, anyway?"
John decides it's too much effort to go into it. "They used to call 'em smart drinks," he says instead. "But when they called 'em sports drinks, energy drinks, that's when they really took off."
"I started drinking Red Bull to get rid of hangovers," Aiden agrees.
At the next place there's no receptionist but a guy named Chuck always shows up to take the box and sign. Today Chuck's tagged with a blot of ashes on his forehead, John's only reminder: oh yeah. Today's a holiday.
Next place has a revolving cast at the front desk. Sometimes they ask him if he's the donut guy; mostly not. At the blood bank, he's usually "the muffin guy" when one of the nurses signs.
Sometimes there are two or three more stops after that, the once- or twice-a-weekers. Not today; John idles at the stoplight, drums his fingers on the steering wheel, wonders if the holiday has anything to do with today's lull. Maybe people are giving up sweets for Lent.
Not that it matters. He heads back to the bakery, racks up more of everything, slides it all into the ovens, pulls it back out, fills up the display case.
He usually doesn't open the shopfront til relatively late, missing the morning rush, which suits him fine. He doesn't have much overhead. The morning deliveries are just about enough to keep the place breaking even.
He only opens the doors at all to satisfy a certain imp of the perverse. When he first inherited the building, he replaced the pleasant bell on the door with the most irritating buzzer he could find, and he takes his time about filling orders and making change.
It's fun to hear the customers sigh and mutter and finally ask to speak to the manager, or the owner. It's satisfying to tell them that he's both.
It's really fucking bittersweet to remind himself every day that whether he likes it or not, these days, he doesn't answer to anybody.
*
"Chocolate chocolate chip muffin," says the guy with the silver travel cup. The side facing John says Astrophysicists do it with a big bang.
"The lady before you just got the last one."
"Aren't there more in the back? I still smell chocolate," Cup Guy says severely, like John's deliberately holding out on him.
"Maybe that's one of the five different kinds of chocolate cookies in the case here. Or the chocolate fudge cupcakes. Want one of those? They're basically the same as the chocolate muffins."
"Not for breakfast," says Cup Guy stubbornly, "I want a muffin, thanks." It's the least sincere thanks John's ever heard, and he spent ten years in the Air Force, where skirting insubordination by way of saying the right thing in the most sardonic possible tone of voice was raised to an art form.
John looks the guy over, waiting for him to inevitably either suck it up and ask for something else, or storm out in a dramatic flounce. It seems like he gets at least one of these guys every day; they're all the same.
Cup Guy just stands there with an expectant look on his face. He's got conspicuously blue eyes and a start on a Jack Nicholson hairline, the kind that drifts back and leaves the widow's peak poking out like a peninsula.
He's also wearing a really ugly shirt that's nevertheless not quite ugly enough to be ironically ugly. Plus, it's unbuttoned and open over a navy shirt that clashes with it. John didn't even know navy could clash with anything. And Cup Guy's coat is a weird gray-green that doesn't go with the ugly shirt or the navy shirt.
"I'll check the kitchen," John says, and retreats, getting a handful of coffee stirrers and straws from the bulk supplies while he's at it.
The chocolate chocolate chip muffins have three minutes left to go, and John's damned if he's going to pull them out early for some yuppie geek with entitlement issues. "Be a while," he says as he saunters back to the counter and restocks the straws and stirrers, "sorry," and he makes sure he says it as insincerely as Cup Guy's earlier 'thanks'.
"I know you're extremely busy preparing for all the hypothetical customers who might potentially wander in later," Cup Guy blusters, "but meanwhile you're neglecting the empirically verifiable customer who really is standing here right now."
"If you're in a hurry, there's another bakery a couple blocks east," John tells him, and lazily polishes the top of the cinnamon shaker just to be a dick.
"Which is exactly in the opposite direction from my lab. Look, you appear to be outwardly healthy, so the slowness, the drawl, is it some kind of neurological disorder? Abulia? Chronic fatigue syndrome? Erythromelalgia? I've given up on getting breakfast in a timely manner, so now I'm just asking out of concern for your personal well-being. I know a very good doctor, I'm sure he could help with your terrible affliction."
Halfway through Cup Guy's tirade, another customer comes in and lines up; the new one's a guy in a suit with glasses and a ponytail, a tiny black receiver plugging up one ear. He's actually dialing a cellphone while he waits, guaranteeing that he'll be talking into it when it's his turn at the sales counter, which in John's view is just about the only thing more rude than going around with a Bluetooth mike and earpiece on and blathering into a cellphone in public in the first place.
With company like Cup Guy and Ponytail to look forward to, John has no compunctions about stranding them up front again while he goes to the kitchen and pulls muffins and cookies out of the oven, racking them to cool.
"I already filed a formal complaint," Ponytail is saying when John ambles back. "Now how do I escalate it so that your boss does his job for a change and reads it? Wait. Hang on." Without even covering up the mike, Ponytail addresses Cup Guy brusquely: "If you've already told him what you want, why don't you move aside while you wait so that other people can order?"
"Because I'm incredibly fond of this square meter of tile floor. I'm negotiating to sublet it," Cup Guy says. "Why don't you finish your vitally important phone call before my ears start bleeding from the sheer overwhelming crucialness of every word you say?"
Ponytail snaps, "Blow me."
"Please. I wouldn't suck your cock if you were wearing chocolate pants."
John hides a snicker with another retreat to the kitchen, and picks out the biggest muffin for Cup Guy; he's an asshole, but he deserves a big muffin for coming up with that one on the fly.
Maybe it also has something to do with the easy, casual way he said suck your cock. John's only human.
"Here you go," John says, handing over the muffin, and even feels compelled to add, "Sorry about the wait."
"This hasn't touched anything made with citrus, has it?" Cup Guy demands. "I'm serious, it's a matter of life and death. I'm severely allergic and my lawyers are amazing."
"Came straight from the oven. It's touched the pan, my hand, and yours, and my hands are clean. So unless you've been washing up with tangerine soap, I think you're good."
"You'd better hope so." And then Cup Guy stands there and bites into it. Ponytail seethes, which John is guessing was the point, but Cup Guy lights up, talking through his gargantuan mouthful. "Warm! Mmmm." He swigs from his travel cup, takes another greedy bite of the muffin and adds, "Might even be worth the wait!"
"Hold on," Ponytail tells his earpiece, and then, over Cup Guy's shoulder at John, "Four apple turnovers and two coffees to go."
"Give me six more of these," says Cup Guy, slapping down a handful of crumpled cash. "I want to take them to the office and refuse to tell anyone where I got them."
John rings it up and bags it, and watches Cup Guy commune with the last few bites of his muffin as he leaves.
"The entire process was completely unprofessional," Ponytail's barking into his mike, "and I want an official review--"
"Can I help you?" John cuts in blandly, and enjoys the spectrum of delightful colors Ponytail turns, especially the lovely shade of puce he gets when he says "Hold on" again and the person on the other end of the line loudly hangs up on him.
*
St. Patrick's Day
The irritating door buzzer goes off, and John watches Dr. McKay flinch at it a little as he shoulders his way in, decked out in the usual gray-green jacket over ugly button-up shirt over ugly pullover, the usual silver travel cup in hand. The cellphone glued to his ear... that's new.
McKay claps his phone shut as he approaches, slamming his travel cup on the counter. "What a morning. I've been on the phone since four troubleshooting the latest disaster from across town before I was even awake. They're lucky I'm such a genius I can solve exotic particle problems in my sleep. Look at this!" He turns his travel cup upside-down dramatically. "Bone dry. It's not even eight yet!" He frowns, pauses, looks around. "Which... why are you open? Don't you usually take at least another couple of hours before you manage to slouch your way over to unlock the door?"
There's not a chance in hell John's going to admit he opened early because he saw McKay's car in the neighborhood. "Do you want coffee?"
"Desperately," says McKay, "And I don't really have time to stop at the cafe. I'm pushing it enough coming by here, but today's going to be a nightmare. I need a serious dose of chocolate-squared muffins to get me through it."
"You know, I have coffee here," John tells him patiently, though he's weirdly a little offended that McKay buys coffee somewhere else; he's been assuming the stuff in the travel cup was high-octane homemade, that McKay didn't trust anyone to brew his coffee but himself.
"Uh huh. I suppose you're brewing Folgers Premium back there," McKay's chin jabs up.
"I guess I can make you some Folgers if you want," John says in his most infuriating drawl. "Or you could have some cold brewed Yauco. Whatever."
"Oh you do not."
John gives him his best smartass stare and holds his hand out for the travel cup. McKay hesitates and shoves it over. "Fine, I'll try it. Fill it halfway."
The bottom of the mug disappears under the dark, silky concentrated coffee. The steaming water John adds on top churns the color within itself, an eruption of Brownian motion.
He stirs it up and puts the top back on. John's never seen the lee side of the thing before. It says Engineers do it with precision.
"At least you don't have green coffee or green cookies or Shamrock Shakes or anything like that," McKay says. "I hate it when people slather a bunch of commercialized festivity all over the food."
"Well thanks, Dr. McKay," John hands back the cup. "You say the sweetest things."
McKay sniffs at it suspiciously before bringing it to his mouth with a dubious twist of his tilted lips. John watches him slurp and swallow, holds back the little grin that wants to surface at McKay's grudging, "Not bad. I usually like my coffee with a little more bite, but this is acceptable."
John's grin spreads as McKay takes another drink and... just keeps swallowing and swallowing. He frowns down into empty cup, his expression almost puzzled.
"Okay," he says. "More. Fill it up."
John does.
*
April Fool's Day
"What the hell are those animals doing in the bakery?" McKay demands.
Carson, the tall-haired Scottish guy with the little white dogs, smiles up at McKay, unquailed. "Good morning to you as well, Rodney."
John hadn't realized they knew each other. Carson's two terriers tangle their leashes, straining to get closer to the newcomer; McKay-- Rodney-- backs hastily away.
"Carson! I'm the one who told you about this place and what do you do? You come despoil it with your little highland monsters!" Rodney wipes his hands repeatedly on his jacket, even though he's come nowhere near the dogs. "This is so incredibly unsanitary!"
"Ah, now, it's harmless, Rodney," says Carson. "These two are hale and healthy. Probably more fit than you, I'll wager."
Staying well out of leash range, Rodney comes to the counter, already holding out one hand to give John his travel cup and the other to accept a chocolate chocolate chip muffin.
"I'm sure they are more fit than me," says Rodney. "Typhoid Mary was probably more fit than me too! They could still carry all kinds of diseases! Parvo, rabies, who knows what kind of germs they've picked up, or where their mouths have been..."
"Relaaax, Rodney," says John, with a little smirk when Rodney doesn't even notice that they're now on a first-name basis. Sort of.
Rodney whirls on him. "You're letting him get away with this? You could get reported to the health department!"
John shrugs. "Eh. Health department's more likely to get pissy about my pet rats. 'Specially since they usually nest in the chocolate chips."
Rodney gags on his chocolate muffin and gulps at his coffee.
"And the coffee beans," John adds.
Flailing, Rodney manages to grab a handful of napkins and splutters coffee-wet cake all over them.
"Hey, it's all the same color," John reasons. "And you're always talking about trying that coffee that cats crap out. I didn't think you'd mind."
"I just want you to know that I'm perfectly aware that you're joking," Rodney tells him with bruised dignity and a handful of damp paper napkins. "But I have multiple food allergies and an extremely vivid imagination. It's an automatic reaction to the slightest suspicion of, of germs, or contamination, or poison."
"I was just telling John about Elizabeth's topiary project," Carson cuts in. "You should come to ours for dinner sometime, Rodney, have a look."
"Why?" Rodney asks blankly, leaning over the sales counter to dump his sodden napkins into the trash underneath. John supposes there's no point protesting coffee drops getting on his jeans when the knees and most of the inner thighs are visibly frayed and worn thin anyway.
"Your name is John?" Rodney asks, and then to Carson with a scowl, "His name is John? How'd you know that?"
"I asked," Carson says mildly. "Getting the other fellow's name generally helps when you're introducing yourself."
"Huh. So-- John Foster?" Rodney asks, hitching a thumb at the shopfront, YREKAB S'RETSOF reversed from this side of the window.
"John Sheppard," says John. "Foster was my mother's maiden name."
"Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD," says Rodney importantly. "Astrophysics and mechanical--"
"--engineering," John can't resist saying along with him.
"How'd you,"
John pushes the filled travel cup across the counter and turns it, pointing.
"Oh. Right."
Hitching up his mouth in half a smile, John says, "Nice to meet you."
*
Good Friday
"I like this chair," Rodney says. "Much better than those other iron-wrought atrocities. My back hurts just looking at them. Are you going to replace them all?"
"Maybe, eventually," John answers vaguely.
"Well, at least a couple of people can sit in here without risking spinal injury now." Rodney only savors the fudge, coffee, and armchair for about thirty seconds before he pops open his bag and gets out a laptop, booting it up with one hand while chomping through the fudge square with the other. "C'mon, c'mon... oh yes, thank you very much, moron. Keep using WEP, I'll wipe my feet on it like a welcome mat. Please! WEP-40 even. Why not send out engraved invitations?"
John checks his watch and darts back into the kitchen, jerking honey bread out of the oven, scowling at himself. It's been ages since he let time get away from him while the ovens were going. The bread's far from burned, but it's a shade or two darker than the ideal golden brown.
He comes out front a little rattled, but of course Rodney doesn't notice. Without ever looking up, he starts in. "Don't you think it'd be good for business if you offered wi-fi? I'll set it up. Hell, now that you have decent places to sit, I'd pay for it just so I can use it. All I need is coffee and wi-fi, and I hate Starbucks."
"I'm pretty sure other places besides Starbucks have coffee and wi-fi."
"I'm pretty sure you put crack in the food here, because I get twitchy if I can't have some every couple of days. Anyway," Rodney swallows his coffee; he's the only person John's ever seen who talks not just through food in his mouth but also through liquids. "You might as well let me set up wi-fi here. It doesn't necessarily have to be voluntary. I could just break in and install it. Protection One systems are pathetically easy to disarm. You should upgrade."
"I don't really have a security system," says John. "I just have the sticker."
"What?! Are you crazy?"
"I'm not really too worried about someone coming in to burgle the place and steal the flour."
Rodney sputters and gestures, gestures and sputters. "What about the nuts and the chocolate and the coffee beans? I assume you have a safe for the cash, but--"
"Yeah, McKay. I have a gigantic safe back there for all the money and the precious, precious ingredients. The kitchen's pretty much one big bank vault with a massive lock on it. It doubles as a fallout shelter. So relax."
"Are you serious? You're joking, aren't you," Rodney says, with genuine disappointment. "If it were a former fallout shelter that'd be incredibly cool. It's kind of mean for you to lie about a thing like that."
"So's threatening to break into my bakery just so you can have wi-fi."
"I'm trying to do you a favor here!" Rodney pinwheels his hands wildly. And then with the odd frankness he can never seem to hold back, he adds, "Okay, a favor that primarily benefits me in the short-term, but eventually it'll bring in more business."
Exasperated, John says, "I don't need more business! I'm doing fine. Do you think it's not busy around here because I'm just that bad at running the place?"
Rodney fidgets. "Well. Evidence suggests."
"You know what, you want wi-fi here that bad, knock yourself out," says John. "But I'm not putting up a sign. And you have to set up WPA2 encryption and disable the SSID broadcast. I don't want wardrivers leeching my bandwidth."
Mouth snapping abruptly shut, Rodney blinks at him briefly and seems to lurch in place a little before he finally says, "...Okay."
*
Easter Sunday
"These armchairs, they are new, yes?"
"Nah. Picked 'em up used," John says.
"Vůl. You know what I mean." Dr. Zelenka dashes off a few more scribbled corrections with his red pen of academic doom, and draws a large B- at the top of the page. "This place, you are open for months with only hard chairs. Now, soft chairs. Not to mention the display case, it looks very two-faced these days. Zucchini muffins here, fudge there..."
John shrugs. "Trying out some new stuff."
"Mm-hm. This is some American custom I have not heard? You cannot ask a person for a date until you provide adequate sweets and furniture first?"
"Radek, you can have free pastries for life if we can stop talking now."
"In a way, I am glad to know this. Now I understand why this country has so many cushy armchairs."
"I'm trying to run a business here," John points out, ignoring the professor's snickers. "The guy's a loudmouth. If he likes the place he tells everyone he knows. He stops liking it, he'll be all over Colorado Springs, all over Yelp and-- and who knows, Slashdot, waging vendetta."
"How do you say it here?" inquires Radek politely. "I believe your pants are on fire?"
John wedges his hip against the counter, leans, gives Radek a mock sultry look. "Hey, whaddayou lookin' at my pants for?"
Radek snorts and waves that off. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, yes, yes, but I have colleagues who have worked with this McKay, I have reviewed his work. Biggest target on that man is his oversized head."
"Are you kidding? No way I'm flattering his ego. I think it's already metastasized."
"There, you see? You are an intelligent man. Demonstrate this to him," says Radek fondly.
John snorts. "Like what, do math at him?"
"That would serve well, yes." Radek snaps his fingers and beams. "A conspicuous game of prime/not-prime in his presence, hm? When is he usually here?"
"Okay, look, it's been hilarious," John stretches on an ill-fitting grin, "ha ha, it's like I'm out to turn McKay's head, laugh riot. But I'm gonna have to draw the line at conspiring with you to impress a customer."
"Mm, you only lack confidence, I think. So we practice! 4549."
"You know this is a boring game, right?"
"Must I repeat myself, John? 4549."
John blows out a breath. "Prime."
"7049."
"Not prime. Uh, 4293."
"Also not prime. 19,937."
"Prime..." John cocks his head, trying to get at the nagging little thought tucked somewhere in the recesses of his brain. "Oh; Mersenne prime."
The buzzer sounds and Rodney storms in like he owns the place, stamping on the heavy snow mat still just inside the door and already saying, "Did you know they were doing an egg hunt at Quail Lake Park this year? Who does that without putting signs up? And who hides eggs in nests? You're supposed to spread them out! I must've stepped on a carton's worth. I'll probably never get the yolk out of my shoe treads. And they have the gall to look at me like it's my fault for ruining their Kodak moment. Kids don't care anyway! Kids don't like eggs! Kids like candy!"
Still shedding mangled egg bits and colorful shell fragments onto the mat, Rodney continues, his tone changing, "Oh, that means it's Easter, huh. I'll have to stop by the store on my way home. The Easter candy'll be on sale."
John lets a few seconds go by before saying brightly, "Hi, Rodney."
"You're right, John, Mersenne prime," says Radek. "24,907?"
Rodney turns his head at that, looking surprised to find someone else sitting in his usual spot. He's been in the bakery at the same time as Dr. Zelenka before, but he's always summarily ignored him the way he does most of the other customers.
"Prime. Uh, 105,907," says John. To Rodney he adds, "Whaddayou need?"
Rodney jumps a little. "Hey-- what?" He points and gestures between Radek and John, as if tracking numbers flying through the air between them.
"Prime. Math game, yes?" Radek gives Rodney the world's least convincing innocent look. "213,619, John."
"Not prime," John sighs.
Rodney follows the exchange between them, head bouncing back and forth as if he's watching table tennis, his mouth fallen a little open. "Wha-- um, I mean, hello, why are you playing a math game? Also, math? Since when?" He stares balefully at John's face. "You're a baker!" Turning back to Dr. Zelenka, he says, "And who are you?"
"Radek Zelenka. Is, hm, interesting to meet you, Dr. McKay. Your peer review comments have been entertaining." Radek smiles. "As for John, he is a baker with a broken cash register, no calculator. Surprised you didn't notice, really."
Eyes going flinty, Rodney answers, "Oh, it's you! Well, at least that explains some of your eccentric remarks. I see your hair matches the oblique segues."
"It's all right if you cannot follow my logic yet, Dr. McKay. All in good time."
"Don't even start to pretend to flatter yourself." Rodney shifts his attention, dividing his gaze between Radek and John. "And by the way, I did notice the broken cash register, but a knack for simple addition is to be expected from people working retail."
"Sure," John shrugs.
Dr. Zelenka says, "1,398,269."
"Mersenne prime," John says. "Again." Off Radek's look, John shrugs. "Anyway." He focuses on Rodney. "What can I getcha?"
"Ahem." Rodney lowers his voice to library levels, bending in over the counter a little. "Do you still have fudge?"
"Sure. Can't sell a pound of the stuff all in one weekend. Radek over here isn't helping, he wouldn't touch the stuff."
Dr. Zelenka takes up his red pen again. "Much too dense and sticky-sweet. Ugh, no thank you."
"You're insane," Rodney says flatly. "Your ideas about nonlinear stability in accretion disks are all over the place and you don't even like fudge."
"At least we can agree on the superior quality of John's baking," Radek answers tranquilly. He shifts to address John: "Primes present little real challenge to you, it seems. Next time, I bring my chessboard."
"Coffee!" Rodney blurts suddenly. "Yes, that's it, I need coffee. And maybe an oatmeal bar. To complement the fudge."
John holds out his hand expectantly for Rodney's usual travel cup with its familiar corny geek jokes stamped on either side.
Instead Rodney reaches with his own hand, then freezes, realizing, and yanks back as if he's been burned. "I don't have my cup. I'll, I'll have my coffee here?"
"Don't have your cup? I dunno how I even recognized you." John gets his order, hovering over the fudge. "How many squares?"
"Two, please."
"Six forty."
Radek grins. "Oh, now you are too easy on me. Not prime."
John can't help it, he has to laugh.
Sparing a narrow, penetrating glance for Rodney, Dr. Zelenka steeples his hands, a gleam in his eye. "It occurs to me, John, we shouldn't need the chessboard, no? I will even let you play white."
"Kinda busy, Radek."
"I'll play you," Rodney demands rather than offers, pulling the other armchair across the table from Radek and producing a pocket magnetic chess set. Because of course, the guy carries around a pocket magnetic chess set.
John tries hard to find that ridiculous.
Rodney, meanwhile, goes on: "That is, if you don't think your inevitable crushing defeat would be too humiliating."
John tries to find the arrogance annoying, too, but he doesn't have much luck with that one either.
*
Arbor Day
The hell of it is, Radek was right. John's been trying out healthier recipes for weeks now, because seriously, Rodney eats more pastries and junk food than can possibly be good for him. He doesn't seem to be gaining weight from it-- he has the same sturdy, softish build now as the first time John saw him. John suspects that's because Rodney's diet was just as bad before he ever started coming to the bakery.
But John's the one making the pastries now, so he knows exactly how much sugar and butter Rodney's scarfing down and chattering through. And it's not like John's going to cut him off, so he goes with plan B: tricking him into eating healthier stuff.
Today's attempt yields up a dozen carrot bran muffins with cream cheese frosting, made with half sugar and half sweetener-- all ingredients assiduously checked for any trace of citrus, of course. John pipes the icing on in a spiral; it still looks like plenty, but it's much less icing than a solidly frosted top.
He thought Rodney was oblivious to the changes-- he still crams the pastries down like cake is going out of style-- but today, Rodney strolls in and pretends surprise. "You're open? I thought you'd be out planting a forest, or maybe doing some organic gardening. Since you've been dishing out all this rabbit food lately."
"Guess you don't want a carrot muffin with cream cheese frosting then, huh," John replies, dangling one temptingly.
"Don't be stupid, give me two." Rodney scoots his travel cup across the counter. They execute their well-rehearsed exchange: pastries for empty mug, full mug for money, change dropped into Rodney's free hand while the other lifts a muffin to his mouth and he takes his first bite.
"Mmm," Rodney says, as usual. John's found that as long as the pastries are nicely soft with some kind of sweetness on top, Rodney is pretty much guaranteed to love them. John got him to eat stone-ground whole wheat muffins just by getting the texture right and topping them with an atom-thin layer of 70% cacao dark chocolate.
"Seriously though," Rodney says through a mouthful, "you're not going to go all hippie environmentalist macrobiotic on me, are you? Because so far everything's still good, but I'm not eating anything with tofu or sprouts."
John judiciously ignores that. "What about you? Planting a tree today?" There have been banners up all along the streets nearby, urging everyone to care for Mother Earth with a sapling or two. Personally John thought Mother Earth would probably feel a lot more cared-for if they'd quit logging up in Vail, but nobody's asking him.
"Please," Rodney snorts. "I don't own property and if I did I wouldn't put a bunch of bird and rodent hotels on it. It's going to take a lot more than a few privately planted trees to get things back on track. It'd take at least a North-America-wide initiative, which is another way of saying we're all doomed."
John parks his hip against the back counter and slouches. "If we're all so doomed, how come you drive a Prius?"
"If I really thought anything would help, I wouldn't drive at all," Rodney shrugs. "I don't particularly think hybrids are all that environmentally beneficial really. Save a little gas, so what, you're still driving, conforming to a society based on inefficient suburban sprawl. But everyone at work was complaining about how there were waiting lists to get one, so of course I had to show them up. Said I was buying it on Friday, drove up in it on Monday."
"So you're kind of saving the earth out of spite."
Rodney snorts, swallowing another wad of muffin. "If spite could do the trick, I could save the world a hundred times over."
"Ah, c'mon. What've you got to be so sour about?" John goads.
"Unsung genius, just for a start? That alone is the kind of thing that makes comic book characters turn to supervillainy."
"Peter Parker's a genius, he doesn't seem to mind keeping it on the down low and freelancing as a photographer," says John. "Superman's a superadvanced alien and he's putting in time as a lowly reporter. Bruce Wayne's a genius and no one knows about it."
"That's different!" Rodney snaps. "Those characters are hiding their lights under a bushel on purpose to keep their civilian identities secret. It's not as if Bruce Wayne's out there showing people the Batmobile and they're completely unimpressed and won't even give him the time of day." Mostly to himself he mutters on, "You make one tiny little first bad impression, you never hear the end of it."
"So where's your Batmobile?" It's probably the most overtly flirtatious thing John's let himself say in years, and definitely the geekiest.
"Hello, it was a metaphor?" Rodney says irritably, and stomps over to the armchair to flop down into it and curl over his laptop with broad, round slumped shoulders.
John's not getting the guy a computer lap desk.
At least, not until he hears a little more about this metaphorical Batmobile.
*
Memorial Day
"Hey, what're you doing up there?"
John tips back in his seat and looks down through the wooden railing that fronts his balcony. "I live up here."
"You live above the bakery?" Rodney squints up, shading his eyes, standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
"Nah, just on this balcony," John says.
"You're hilarious."
"I know." John hooks his thumb over his shoulder at the door behind him. "Studio loft on the second floor."
Rodney checks his watch, ignoring the streams of people flowing around him, the lone obstacle on the pavement. "It's almost two. Even you usually make it down to open up by now."
"Not today."
"Why not?"
"Why do you think?"
Glancing around, Rodney guesses, "Too many people out for all the sales? Since you apparently hate to actually sell the stuff you make. What, do you get too attached to it after it's been sitting in the display case for a while? What about your day-old stuff, where does all that go?"
"A volunteer from the women's shelter picks up everything that's left at the end of the day."
"Oh. Huh. That's... nice, I guess." Rodney frowns. "I can't believe you're actually closed. You were open on Easter. You were open on Mother's Day, and you had to know that was going to be a busy day for dessert places. I thought I was going to have to put on an apron and help out."
John raises his eyebrows.
"Okay, no, I wouldn't do that, but I thought somebody might. Radek's favorite student, what's his name, Rowan? Roland?"
"Ronon."
"Yeah, that guy. He did help actually, refilled a couple of coffee cups. Anyway, so it can't just be the crowds."
John shrugs and slips on his sunglasses. A second later he remembers they're his aviators and feels incredibly unsubtle. He might as well have USAF stamped in red across his forehead.
"No, really," Rodney says. "What's up? You're allergic to the smell of barbeque? You have an irrational fear of white sales? You don't like Mondays? What?"
Right. He doesn't exactly have to worry about being unsubtle around Rodney.
"I get tired of all the flags, myself," Rodney carries on obliviously.
John kicks his feet down from the railing and leans over it, tired, suddenly, and pissed off; the kind of pissed off that only comes from disappointment. He pulls his tags out from under his tee shirt and lets them hang, glinting silver, brushing against his crossed arms. "We're closed today."
"Oh." Rodney winces. "Huh. Well. Tomorrow?"
"Is another day, I hear." He already knows he's going to forgive and forget, and that Rodney probably won't even notice, and he kind of hates himself a little.
This whole thing's starting to seem sad, stupid, and while John doesn't mind feigning ignorant bliss, he doesn't like to really feel dumb.
"Okay." Rodney fords through the rush of pedestrians toward his Prius. Then his shoulders square and he turns around and marches right back. "I'm Canadian, is the thing."
"Is that the thing."
"Right, so we don't have," he spreads his hands expressively. "Well. Newfoundland has a Memorial Day, but that's just them. We have Remembrance Day. November eleventh. And it's, you know, on our Remembrance Day, it's poppies, not so much flags. I have certain theories about what it implies about the American character that Memorial Day is all about planting flags and shopping and grilling out--" he glances up at John again and grimaces at himself. "Okay, pretend I didn't say that part. Sorry?"
John wants to accept and shrug it off. He wants to tell Rodney to hang on and he'll open the door; he wants to invite him up to the loft. He wants to let him see the scars on John's chest, wants to ask him to stay.
He's wanted all that for a while now, though, and it's been a long time since he trusted himself that much.
"See you tomorrow," he says.
Rodney hesitates a moment more, his long mouth tipping down on one side. "Yeah, see you," he says, and walks away.
*
Labor Day
It's what passes for a full house at the bakery, as full as John ever wants it to be, anyway. Carson and Elizabeth have the table near the door, Carson's two West Highland terriers snuffling around their ankles.
Jennifer, Carson's protege, discreetly tucks her feet up as she chats with him; Elizabeth watches them fondly while her earpiece chirps away, probably an assistant summing up the day's financials for her. John still hates those Bluetooth headsets, but she's always discreet about it, and Carson generally orders for them anyway.
Nearby, Teyla sits with her tea and honey bread, her yoga mat neatly rolled up in the bag next to her chair. Radek's finally mustered up the guts to take the seat across from her, leaving Ronon at their usual table on his own.
Ronon looks a little like Radek's much longer, much bigger shadow, his hair falling messy around his ears and his glasses perched low on his nose like his teacher's. He takes notes while he reads The Scarlet Letter, throwing the occasional amused look over as the professor tries much too hard to explain the appeal of pigeon breeding to a stunningly beautiful woman in workout gear.
Teyla manages to look tranquil and interested despite Radek's occasional flustered aside in rapid Czech. In her stretchy top and clingy leggings, she looks radically different from the polished vice president who's been stopping by daily on her way back from lunch.
John wipes down the work counter, satisfied. It was true, what he told Radek all those months ago: a loudmouthed guy like Rodney could almost make or break a place all on his own. Sure, Radek told a few grad students about the bakery, but Ronon's the only one who became a regular.
Rodney harangued Carson into coming, and then Carson's wife, Elizabeth, the managing partner the accounting firm Rodney uses; and Elizabeth brought her VP, Teyla, and Carson brought Jennifer. Rodney's co-workers gradually found out where all the flaunted pastries were coming from, so John sees Simpson and Grodin and Kusanagi regularly too (though it's hard to remember their first names when Rodney only ever calls them by their last).
And apparently, oh the serendipity, Rodney does some consulting for the Air Force now and then. Not long after his Memorial Day foot-eating feast, he dragged a couple of blue suits in with him for a working lunch. John gritted his teeth and fought the whole time to keep his spine from snapping straight. The blond woman gave him a sympathetic look as they left, and no more uniforms showed up, but since then he's had more delivery business from the south near Cheyenne.
Plus, Rodney used to work where Aiden Ford's recently moved up to office manager, and now that Aiden usually misses the morning pastry delivery at work, he's in here every few days, probably as much for the fun of needling Rodney as for the food and the specially-ordered bottles of Bawls ("Someone should have warned me before I tried that stuff! I got totally addicted!") Aiden can't do without.
Rodney even knows Laura Cadman somehow. John's determined to get the story behind that sometime, but so far Rodney's been lobster-red and unforthcoming on the subject, and asked about it, Laura just laughs and laughs.
For such a socially inept and crabby guy, Rodney has a lot of unlikely friends.
But he's not with any of them tonight; he's been stationed in an armchair for hours, hunched over his computer, and the strain's starting to show. His hair's as disheveled as hair that short can get, and even with the lap desk propping his machine up, his posture sags.
The Westies lead Carson and Elizabeth out, and Ronon walks Jennifer to her car. Soon after, Radek and Teyla leave, still chatting, having gotten past pigeon lore to trade stories about the small towns where they grew up.
Later still, Katie Brown drops by, and John cleans out the display case, boxing everything up for the women's shelter. She glances over at Rodney, shakes her head, and exchanges rueful little smiles with John as they gather up the boxes and he helps her carry them out to her car.
Rodney's still lost to the world while John does his last cleanup sweep and gets ready to lock up.
Finally there's nothing left to do but go poke him. "Hey, are you okay? You've been at it for kind of a while, buddy."
"What?" Rodney blinks rapidly, tearing himself away from the computer for only a moment before focusing right back in on it. "No, no, I'm all right, it's this stupid asymptote--"
John picks up the travel mug, unsurprised to find it empty, and out of habit, takes it back to refill it. Thinking twice, he brings a bottle of water out instead. "You know, if you take a break, give your brain some time to keep working on the problem while you think about something else... might help."
Rodney frowns and clicks away at his keyboard a few more times, sighing. "Maybe you're right. I'm not getting anywhere with this. I'm sure Simpson's made a mistake somewhere but I'm just not finding it."
John looks over his shoulder at the screen. "It does look kind of hincky."
Eyes wide, Rodney swivels the chair to face him. "You can read this?"
"I think so. Landau notation?" John tilts his head, considering the variables. "This is astrophysics? These look more like compression algorithms."
"They are, yes-- it's a side project, I can't talk about it actually, but-- how do you-- why--"
"Okay, okay, maybe not," John backs off. "Sorry, it's been a while since I thought much about thermodynamic potentials."
Rodney gesticulates inarticulately, not quite managing to string together enough syllables to end up anywhere near language.
"Hey, breathe," John grins. "Should I be insulted that it's such a shock I went to college? You thought I was some kind of prime number idiot-savant?"
Rodney looks a little flushed, intriguing in itself regardless of cause. "Well. There're so many morons, you have to admit! It seemed like too much to hope that you weren't one of them. And you cook! It's not exactly cerebral!"
"I bake," John corrects. "And no, it's not cerebral. It's relaxing. Anyway. Thanks."
As if stymied by the thanks, Rodney shuts his mouth, color rising even higher, a bloom of brighter pink over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. He sets his laptop carefully on the small table in front of him, glaring in the general direction of the screen.
"I'm not sure I should've kept bringing you coffee all day. Your blood pressure's got to be going through the roof." John presses the water bottle into Rodney's hand. "Calm down. It's okay to occasionally say something that's not insulting. I won't blow your cover."
"Ha." Rodney smiles, only a little feebly. "Okay. Good."
John prompts, "And now's the part where you take a drink."
Rodney checks the label before uncapping the bottle, commenting suspiciously, "You're being awfully nice to me."
John rolls his shoulders in a lazy shrug, eases down sideways into the other armchair, drapes his arm over the seatback. "I can be nice, now and then. Just don't blow my cover."
"I'll watch your back if you watch mine." Rodney gives a sudden, almost dazzlingly happy smile. "While you're keeping my secrets, don't tell anyone I can be bought off with chocolate cupcakes."
"Anyone who can't figure that out for themselves doesn't deserve to know." The power cord's about to pull out of Rodney's computer; John pokes it back in til it's flush again.
Rodney closes the laptop, brushing John's hand with his, lingering.
John's heart rate steps up, his feet tapping restlessly. He covers by slouching even more bonelessly.
Rodney clears his throat. "So. College?"
"Yep. Fit it in somewhere between all the baking."
"And the flying."
John tenses, narrowing his eyes.
"I didn't look anything up, or get into any files," Rodney says. "And I should get points for that, by the way, because it'd be a walk in the park for me, and I was very tempted, but I didn't. There was Memorial Day, though. And the airshow, over the summer."
"I didn't go."
"No. But you closed up for that too. And when I brought Sam and Mitchell here for lunch, Sam asked me afterward if you were Air Force. Her instincts are usually pretty good. Her theories are preposterous, but her instincts... anyway."
John finds himself wishing Rodney had just hacked into his files after all. Right now he doesn't mind so much, the idea of Rodney knowing.
The thought of telling him, though, that's a problem. He doesn't want to talk about it, just wants the facts uploaded into Rodney's head: the orders John disobeyed, the rescue that failed, the friends he failed. The shots that took him down along with his copter.
"It's just... little things. You tell people you love the outdoors, but you never go up to the mountains."
The medical discharge that's probably the only thing that kept him from a court-martial. The scars, and the thin blue of the sky at high altitude.
"Even indoors, you always look up when you hear a plane."
And what the records could never explain, how he was so angry afterward, wound up tight and angry, all the time. How he'd needed something. Something to keep him busy, so he could blank out and let it go. Relax.
"--This is a good kind of quiet, right?" Rodney asks. "You're not about to flip out from post-traumatic stress?"
John bursts out laughing, and squeezes the hand he didn't even realize til now he was holding.
*
"Ah ha! I knew I was right!" Rodney says, sitting bolt upright, and tugs his laptop toward him into bed. "Have I told you lately how incredibly brilliant I am?"
"Yes," says John, and stuffs his head under the pillows.
"Unsung genius," Rodney murmurs, fingers flying over the keys. "They're just lucky I haven't built a death ray." He pauses dramatically. "Yet."
"No more cupcakes if you build a death ray," John tells him, cotton-muffled.
"What about a stun ray?"
John emerges, yawning. "Stun ray's cool." He looks at the clock, and immediately regrets it. "Jeez, Rodney. You complain about me getting up too early... why are you awake? It's practically still last night."
"I had an idea. I can't just let them go, I've got to get them down. Any one of them could be the ticket to my Nobel."
"I can't wait til you win that damn thing so I can stop hearing about it all the time." John throws back the blankets. "I'm up, I might as well go downstairs and get started."
"Wait! No! Just a second," Rodney holds up one finger, typing one-handed. John's always been fascinated by the way Rodney can deftly achieve complex tasks one-handed, even while the other's busy with something else. Considering how advantageous it is in the bedroom, his fixation's turned out to be well-founded.
Rodney saves his work and shoves the computer onto the bedside table, turning in almost the same motion to wind both arms around John's waist and all but haul him back into bed. "So! Blowjob?"
"Romantic," John comments. "What's up?"
"Why would anything be up?" Rodney scowls.
"Because if something wasn't up, you wouldn't ask. You'd just get to it."
"Get to it? Nice. And you're complaining about romance."
"Rodney. What's up, or do you want me to make tomato muffins again?" (Not all of John's experiments in healthy baking were entirely successful.)
"I got someone to do your morning deliveries today."
"Someone?"
"Aiden's baking, Ronon's delivering. Aiden seems pretty interested in this stuff. Though I suppose anything's fun compared to office drudgery at the hellmouth."
"Rodney..."
"It'll be fine! Aiden's been trying out your recipes to make sure he can get all the orders up to snuff. I did taste tests, they're almost as good as yours. And Ronon may look like he's as crazy as Zelenka, but I checked and he has a perfect driving record. And you don't have to open up the store." Rodney settles against him, the long expanse of bare skin against skin the most convincing argument of all. "Sleeeep," he croons, "sleeeep. Is this working? Sleeeeeep."
John tilts his head against Rodney's, feeling the weight of Rodney's hard skull protecting the mysterious big brain underneath. "Stop trying to half-assed hypnotize me. You're not even swinging a watch."
Rodney grabs the clock radio, dangles it by its cord, and swings it above John's face. "Sleeeeep."
Batting it out of Rodney's hands, John honks out a laugh, the embarrassing, uncontrollable one that always makes Rodney grin too.
He presses Rodney back against the pillows. "I'm okay with the plan, I just wanna know what this is about. What's the occasion? Is it your birthday or something? Carson's supposed to tell me these things."
"No occasion," Rodney says. "I just thought, you know, day off."
"Uh-huh. Whose idea was it? Carson's?"
"Teyla," Rodney admits. "But let it be noted that I asked her to suggest something nice."
"Nice?"
"Yes," Rodney says, just a little defensively. "I can do that. Just don't blow my cover."
John kisses him, his lips that always feel fuller than they look, just right for brushing against John's, for tracing with tongue and tugging with teeth. "You're sure it's nobody's birthday?"
"I'm sure it's somebody's birthday." Rodney gives him a skewed little smile. "No. It's just Tuesday."
"Tuesday: International Day Off Day."
Rodney grins, and flips them over, and gets to it without asking, one hand still warm in John's.
Tuesday
**
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