TEAM PLAY: hell or high water, "Double Feature"
Title: Double Feature
Author: pollitt
Team: Play
Prompt: hell or high water
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard (Ronon/Amelia)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Note: Thank you to my beta, who is awesome.
Summary: It's movie night on Atlantis.
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.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
(1) Public Viewing
"Ta da," Sheppard says, pulling the DVD from behind his back like a Saturday matinee magician.
Back to the Future. Of course.
Some others join me in groaning at the selection, but most--Radek included--look downright cheery and even applaud.
To tell you the truth, I'm surprised it's taken almost five years for the movies to make it into the rotation. Ford, who started the weekly movie nights and set up the rules and rotation of movie selection, would probably have been cheering the loudest.
Sheppard passes the movie to Chuck to queue up and then steps lithely through the assembled group--careful both to not step on anyone as well as to not step between the couples that have formed in the city. You know they're obvious if I'm noticing them.
"Did I see that right? You actually own those shames to science on Blu-Ray?" I ask, as Sheppard slides onto the couch next to me. I hand him the bowl of popcorn.
"Not just that. There's a feature about the ride. And a feature about the physics of the trilogy." He smiles that smile that has gotten us into trouble as many times as it's gotten us out of it. I lost my favorite life signs detector while fleeing an angry mob after Sheppard smiled at the magistrate's daughter.
I know full well he's baiting me, it's what we do. And if I were the better man, I would let the comment fade as the Huey Lewis and the News start singing about the power of love. But I'm not the better man.
"Let me guess," I say, raising an eyebrow at him. "My dear friend Michio answered the call to come up with some explanation as to how anything in this time traveling travesty of a trilogy could be remotely possible. And since he has a doctorate hanging in his office, and a PhD after his name, they filmed it and stuck it on the DVD."
"Blu-Ray."
A balled up piece of paper flies from the eastern quadrant of the audience and bounces off of Sheppard's chest. He uncurls it. It reads in military-precise, if hurried, handwriting Shut. Up. We look toward where the projectile originated and John executes a quick salute to Lorne--message received.
"You're just jealous because they didn't ask you," John says quietly, popping buttered kernels into his mouth.
"That'd be rich. If they were looking for someone to tear apart the films, maybe. If they needed someone to explain what they should have done, sure."
Onscreen, Marty McFly is attempting to reach 88 miles per hour in a car that never should have made it past the design stage.
I lean in and whisper in John's ear, determined to get the final word. "And who says they didn't ask."
John's bark of laughter causes some heads to turn and Ronon, who is sharing the couch with the two of us and Amelia, punches him lightly in the arm before everyone's attention goes back to the movie--and in Ronon's case, to Amelia and then the movie.
Right around the time that Marty is meeting his mother and the grandfather paradox goes into full swing, John's buttery fingers slide across my palm and lace with my own.
I turn to look at him, as I do every week when he--when we--do this, and he's looking at the screen, smiling. It makes me wonder what he was like as a 17 year old kid.
(It's close to that trouble smile. And it wasn't so much that John smiled at the magistrate's daughter that got the mob after us. It was that after he'd smiled at her, he'd smiled this close cousin of a smile at me. And she hadn't taken kindly to the fact that mine was full of promise and intent.)
When John stretches his arm out across the back of the couch, his thumb brushing against the nape of my neck first against and then with the grain, I think I might already know what a teenage John Sheppard was like. And were we not surrounded by coworkers and friends, were we not sharing a couch with Ronon and Amelia, I have a feeling I would be getting the full experience.
I keep quiet, or mostly quiet, for the remainder of the movie, reserving my comments for only the more egregious of errors and keeping my voice to a whisper. Lorne has exceptional aim and having been on the receiving end of more than a few projectiles, I've learned my lesson. Who knew that Junior Mints could leave a bruise.
Thankfully, we only watch the first movie.
The entertainment for the night over, the crowd begins to disperse, heading off in various directions.
"You sure you don't want to watch the extras, Rodney?" John asks, standing up from the couch and pulling me up with him. For the briefest of moments, we're pressed close--his shoulder to my chest, his hand pressing against the center of my back.
"I'd rather be eaten by the 3-D Jaws repeatedly. Kaku's a hack."
"Well it's a good thing we have you out here then, while he's back in Hollywood."
With a pat on the arm, John leaves me standing next to the couch at a loss for how to respond.
It may look like he has the last word, but who am I kidding? The taste of buttered popcorn on John's lips and the opportunity to hold his hand in a crowded room is worth a crappy movie or two.
I might even go so far as to say I would sit through the fresh hell that is The Core. Not that I'm going to admit that to him anytime soon.
"Coming?" John asks, waving the Blu-Ray case next to his face.
Of course with the way he's looking at me right now, I'm pretty sure he already knows.
(2) Private Showing
"You want us to watch a movie about underwater aliens while we're on a floating city on an alien planet. That's not really original, is it?" I ask as Rodney holds up The Abyss.
"Oh I don't know, after two hours of bad science, I felt we could use a little quality," Rodney answers as I walk into his quarters.
After a two-hour tease, and in the privacy of his room, I do what I've wanted to do all evening and kiss him stupid. And considering it's Rodney, who's a hell of a lot smarter than the average man, that takes a lot of kissing. Good thing I'm up for the challenge.
I can't remember how it began--was it Empire after a viewing of Star Wars? Butch and Sundance after A Walk to Remember? (Rodney was right, Radek was never allowed to pick another movie. Ever.)--but sometime after Ford's first movie night and before the first time I woke up in Rodney's bed, this has become our routine. The movie part. The waking up in Rodney's bed is pretty much a daily thing now.
"Do you think that Lorne brings things specifically for their aerodynamic properties?" Rodney muses, his eyes a little glassy, which I take pride in having done.
"Knowing him, definitely." I toe off my shoes and climb onto my side of the bed.
Rodney smiles at my answer and grabs his laptop from his desk.
"And now for a good movie," Rodney announces, starting the movie as we settle onto the bed together--our backs against the wall, the back of his shoulder pressed against the front of mine.
One would think, given the simple math--two guys who are already sleeping together plus one bed would equal not paying attention to the screen and paying more attention to other...things.
But you'd be wrong, at least in the case of The Abyss. And 99.8% of the time, Empire Strikes Back. It's probably not entirely healthy to be jealous of a water alien, but then again, it's practically a requirement when you enlist that you're short at least one or two marbles, so I guess I'm okay.
That's not to say that I don't make sure that my hand is on his thigh. We're not two virgins on our first date.
Even though it's just the two of us, and I don't have any Junior Mints to throw, Rodney's commentary is never as loud or as extensive as it is when we're outside his room.
We watch as the team searches for the Montana, as Lindsey and Bud snark at one another to the amusement of the SEAL team. When Lindsey talks about how it's not easy being a cast-iron bitch. It takes discipline, and years of training... A lot of people don't appreciate that. Rodney laughs.
"It's probably good that Lorne's only comes packing confectionary heat," Rodney comments as Coffey attempts to send a nuke into the sea trench.
I'm not saying that our lives on Atlantis haven't been like something from the mind of James Cameron--and I have significantly more hair than Ed Harris--but the parallels are difficult to miss. And I could just imagine Rodney with a pseudopod of his own--Sam the Whale is enough of an alien pet for now.
"You're not going to win any points for subtlety, McKay," I tell him, bumping his shoulder.
"I didn't realize I was going for any, Sheppard," he answers, shifting and sliding his arm around my shoulders. "Besides, subtlety has never been my strong suit. Blunt and direct have served me quite well, thank you very much."
"Is that a fact?" I can't not smile at that.
"Got me you, didn't it?" If Rodney were grinning any wider, he'd be preening.
"It did at that."
There's yelling and the sounds of an alien ship rising up from the depths, but I have gained the upper hand against the water alien as Rodney's attention is now focused solely on me.
"Might want to just... So it doesn't fall..." I close the laptop and slide it off the bed and onto the floor--brushing against Rodney's chest and abdomen as I lean forward.
He's not the only one who can skip the subtlety.
"John." Rodney's fingers knot in my hair and I follow his lead as we stretch out onto the bed, wrapped up in each other.
Just like Lindsey and Bud, it's taken Rodney and me a long time to get to this point. But it's clear now, we're in it until the end. Come hell or high water.
**
Poll
Author: pollitt
Team: Play
Prompt: hell or high water
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard (Ronon/Amelia)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Note: Thank you to my beta, who is awesome.
Summary: It's movie night on Atlantis.
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.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
(1) Public Viewing
"Ta da," Sheppard says, pulling the DVD from behind his back like a Saturday matinee magician.
Back to the Future. Of course.
Some others join me in groaning at the selection, but most--Radek included--look downright cheery and even applaud.
To tell you the truth, I'm surprised it's taken almost five years for the movies to make it into the rotation. Ford, who started the weekly movie nights and set up the rules and rotation of movie selection, would probably have been cheering the loudest.
Sheppard passes the movie to Chuck to queue up and then steps lithely through the assembled group--careful both to not step on anyone as well as to not step between the couples that have formed in the city. You know they're obvious if I'm noticing them.
"Did I see that right? You actually own those shames to science on Blu-Ray?" I ask, as Sheppard slides onto the couch next to me. I hand him the bowl of popcorn.
"Not just that. There's a feature about the ride. And a feature about the physics of the trilogy." He smiles that smile that has gotten us into trouble as many times as it's gotten us out of it. I lost my favorite life signs detector while fleeing an angry mob after Sheppard smiled at the magistrate's daughter.
I know full well he's baiting me, it's what we do. And if I were the better man, I would let the comment fade as the Huey Lewis and the News start singing about the power of love. But I'm not the better man.
"Let me guess," I say, raising an eyebrow at him. "My dear friend Michio answered the call to come up with some explanation as to how anything in this time traveling travesty of a trilogy could be remotely possible. And since he has a doctorate hanging in his office, and a PhD after his name, they filmed it and stuck it on the DVD."
"Blu-Ray."
A balled up piece of paper flies from the eastern quadrant of the audience and bounces off of Sheppard's chest. He uncurls it. It reads in military-precise, if hurried, handwriting Shut. Up. We look toward where the projectile originated and John executes a quick salute to Lorne--message received.
"You're just jealous because they didn't ask you," John says quietly, popping buttered kernels into his mouth.
"That'd be rich. If they were looking for someone to tear apart the films, maybe. If they needed someone to explain what they should have done, sure."
Onscreen, Marty McFly is attempting to reach 88 miles per hour in a car that never should have made it past the design stage.
I lean in and whisper in John's ear, determined to get the final word. "And who says they didn't ask."
John's bark of laughter causes some heads to turn and Ronon, who is sharing the couch with the two of us and Amelia, punches him lightly in the arm before everyone's attention goes back to the movie--and in Ronon's case, to Amelia and then the movie.
Right around the time that Marty is meeting his mother and the grandfather paradox goes into full swing, John's buttery fingers slide across my palm and lace with my own.
I turn to look at him, as I do every week when he--when we--do this, and he's looking at the screen, smiling. It makes me wonder what he was like as a 17 year old kid.
(It's close to that trouble smile. And it wasn't so much that John smiled at the magistrate's daughter that got the mob after us. It was that after he'd smiled at her, he'd smiled this close cousin of a smile at me. And she hadn't taken kindly to the fact that mine was full of promise and intent.)
When John stretches his arm out across the back of the couch, his thumb brushing against the nape of my neck first against and then with the grain, I think I might already know what a teenage John Sheppard was like. And were we not surrounded by coworkers and friends, were we not sharing a couch with Ronon and Amelia, I have a feeling I would be getting the full experience.
I keep quiet, or mostly quiet, for the remainder of the movie, reserving my comments for only the more egregious of errors and keeping my voice to a whisper. Lorne has exceptional aim and having been on the receiving end of more than a few projectiles, I've learned my lesson. Who knew that Junior Mints could leave a bruise.
Thankfully, we only watch the first movie.
The entertainment for the night over, the crowd begins to disperse, heading off in various directions.
"You sure you don't want to watch the extras, Rodney?" John asks, standing up from the couch and pulling me up with him. For the briefest of moments, we're pressed close--his shoulder to my chest, his hand pressing against the center of my back.
"I'd rather be eaten by the 3-D Jaws repeatedly. Kaku's a hack."
"Well it's a good thing we have you out here then, while he's back in Hollywood."
With a pat on the arm, John leaves me standing next to the couch at a loss for how to respond.
It may look like he has the last word, but who am I kidding? The taste of buttered popcorn on John's lips and the opportunity to hold his hand in a crowded room is worth a crappy movie or two.
I might even go so far as to say I would sit through the fresh hell that is The Core. Not that I'm going to admit that to him anytime soon.
"Coming?" John asks, waving the Blu-Ray case next to his face.
Of course with the way he's looking at me right now, I'm pretty sure he already knows.
(2) Private Showing
"You want us to watch a movie about underwater aliens while we're on a floating city on an alien planet. That's not really original, is it?" I ask as Rodney holds up The Abyss.
"Oh I don't know, after two hours of bad science, I felt we could use a little quality," Rodney answers as I walk into his quarters.
After a two-hour tease, and in the privacy of his room, I do what I've wanted to do all evening and kiss him stupid. And considering it's Rodney, who's a hell of a lot smarter than the average man, that takes a lot of kissing. Good thing I'm up for the challenge.
I can't remember how it began--was it Empire after a viewing of Star Wars? Butch and Sundance after A Walk to Remember? (Rodney was right, Radek was never allowed to pick another movie. Ever.)--but sometime after Ford's first movie night and before the first time I woke up in Rodney's bed, this has become our routine. The movie part. The waking up in Rodney's bed is pretty much a daily thing now.
"Do you think that Lorne brings things specifically for their aerodynamic properties?" Rodney muses, his eyes a little glassy, which I take pride in having done.
"Knowing him, definitely." I toe off my shoes and climb onto my side of the bed.
Rodney smiles at my answer and grabs his laptop from his desk.
"And now for a good movie," Rodney announces, starting the movie as we settle onto the bed together--our backs against the wall, the back of his shoulder pressed against the front of mine.
One would think, given the simple math--two guys who are already sleeping together plus one bed would equal not paying attention to the screen and paying more attention to other...things.
But you'd be wrong, at least in the case of The Abyss. And 99.8% of the time, Empire Strikes Back. It's probably not entirely healthy to be jealous of a water alien, but then again, it's practically a requirement when you enlist that you're short at least one or two marbles, so I guess I'm okay.
That's not to say that I don't make sure that my hand is on his thigh. We're not two virgins on our first date.
Even though it's just the two of us, and I don't have any Junior Mints to throw, Rodney's commentary is never as loud or as extensive as it is when we're outside his room.
We watch as the team searches for the Montana, as Lindsey and Bud snark at one another to the amusement of the SEAL team. When Lindsey talks about how it's not easy being a cast-iron bitch. It takes discipline, and years of training... A lot of people don't appreciate that. Rodney laughs.
"It's probably good that Lorne's only comes packing confectionary heat," Rodney comments as Coffey attempts to send a nuke into the sea trench.
I'm not saying that our lives on Atlantis haven't been like something from the mind of James Cameron--and I have significantly more hair than Ed Harris--but the parallels are difficult to miss. And I could just imagine Rodney with a pseudopod of his own--Sam the Whale is enough of an alien pet for now.
"You're not going to win any points for subtlety, McKay," I tell him, bumping his shoulder.
"I didn't realize I was going for any, Sheppard," he answers, shifting and sliding his arm around my shoulders. "Besides, subtlety has never been my strong suit. Blunt and direct have served me quite well, thank you very much."
"Is that a fact?" I can't not smile at that.
"Got me you, didn't it?" If Rodney were grinning any wider, he'd be preening.
"It did at that."
There's yelling and the sounds of an alien ship rising up from the depths, but I have gained the upper hand against the water alien as Rodney's attention is now focused solely on me.
"Might want to just... So it doesn't fall..." I close the laptop and slide it off the bed and onto the floor--brushing against Rodney's chest and abdomen as I lean forward.
He's not the only one who can skip the subtlety.
"John." Rodney's fingers knot in my hair and I follow his lead as we stretch out onto the bed, wrapped up in each other.
Just like Lindsey and Bud, it's taken Rodney and me a long time to get to this point. But it's clear now, we're in it until the end. Come hell or high water.
**
Poll