Fic: 7 McShep Fusions I'm Not Writing - Beetlejuice (I)
Title: 7 McShep Fusions I'm Not Writing - Beetlejuice
Author: Cypher
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Main Character(s): John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Lorne
Warnings: Slash, Fusion AU
Rating: R
Summary: “John Sheppard thought he had a pretty good life.”
Author's Notes: So this is something I've been working on for a while and, really, don't know if I'll ever finish. So! Since it's part of what started this whole fusion chain, it's only right it should finish it. Unbetaed. Enjoy!
14 Valentines: Day 14 - V-Day and International
John Sheppard thought he had a pretty good life. Sure, what had happened in the service had been pretty shitty, and there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think of Dex and Mitch, but the hurt was slowly fading, and the discharge was seeming more and more like a blessing than a curse. He’d found an isolated house in Colorado Springs where he could live off his pension (and his contributions to mathematical publications) and made it comfortable.
It was a large house, almost too big for one person, but John was ever hopeful in finding someone. In the Air Force he’d never found himself at a loss for company--male or female. So he figured it was only a matter of time before the enormous master bedroom had another set of furniture, and the currently empty third bedroom became his son’s (or daughter’s) room.
The only odd part was the garage. The house was on a hill, and situated “above” the garage, which meant he had to take a flight of stairs down, going through three sets of doors, all of which locked. It was weird, but he didn’t remove any of the doors; they gave the house character, in his opinion. And the garage was large enough that he began building himself a small plane. His goal was to finish it before the (at this point, theoretical) wedding so he and his bride could fly off to the Bahamas for their honeymoon.
All that changed on the late afternoon of August 16th. He was driving home after running to town to grab a few extra bolts for his plane project. He’d met a lovely woman named Sam Carter, who was smart and beautiful and offered up her number along with the words “It’s Colonel Carter,” which excited John in ways he didn’t want to explore alone. So he’d been driving in a good mood, softly singing to the Johnny Cash on his radio and thinking he’d give Colonel Carter a call tonight, when a puppy ran into the road.
John didn’t even think. He swerved to miss the helpless canine and slammed his car into one of the hundred year old oaks in someone’s front yard. He was unconscious immediately.
It was midnight when he woke up. He was in his house, there was a fire in the fireplace, and he couldn’t recall a single detail after hitting the tree. He didn’t seem hurt, nothing was broken, the only thing wrong were those missing ten hours. He looked in the mirror, to double check for injuries, and found himself staring at…nothing. He stared. He stared and tried not to panic because he was the cool, collected, laid back John Sheppard and nothing could rattle him.
His eyes trailed to the strange book on his coffee table entitled ‘The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.’
“Well crap.”
And it went downhill from there.
~*()*~
In life, Lorne had been John’s best friend in Colorado Springs. He was a Major in the Air Force, and was working in NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain. Since John had no family (his father was dead, his mother had passed away long ago, and he was an only child), he’d listed Evan Lorne as his next of kin. John had done everything to try and get his friend’s attention, and all he’d ended up doing was causing the curtains to billow (which Lorne ignored, since he’d opened the windows) and form ripples in Lorne‘s water glass.
All in all, a depressing day.
John didn’t have much stuff, but what he had Lorne neatly packed away and brought to the eBay store to sell off. It was only quick thinking and lots of focus that John was able to lock the final door into the garage (the big electric door had been busted for a month, and John hadn’t gotten around to fixing it since there wasn’t any rush). Lorne had given up trying to get in, and John spent the rest of the week locked in with his plane, learning to manipulate inanimate objects so he could continue building his dream.
Maybe he could fly over the endless sand dunes and giant striped roaring worms (snakes?) that now appeared whenever he left the house.
When he next ventured into the house, he found it devoid of all his things, stripped and bare as the first day he saw it. Then he heard the footsteps and found himself face to face with the very realtor who had sold him the place. Ms. Miko was as polite and firm as she had been with John, and Lorne was simply nodding. He looked fine, but John could see the hurt whenever Miko turned to look at something. “I’m sorry,” he said, placing his hand just above Evan’s shoulder. “I wish I were still here.” He’d forgotten death sucked both ways.
After that day, though, Evan never returned, and John returned to his garage because seeing people parade through his house as if he wasn’t there (which, he mentally reminded himself, he technically wasn’t) made his chest ache. Even with the seemingly endless swarm of buyers, though, no one wanted the house. John couldn’t understand why, but it gave him more time to work on his plane (he had enough supplies to keep going for a few months, and he could cannibalize his dusty motorcycle to tinker with building an engine), so he didn‘t think about it much.
And then there was such a ruckus in the house that he could hear it while buried in the guts of his plane, and he realized someone had finally purchased the last bit of his life.
~*()*~
What he found was a man only a few inches shorter than him, with blazing blue eyes and receding hair and a mouth that never seemed to close. From what he read on the paperwork, this was one Doctor Rodney McKay. And for some unfathomable reason, he had purchased John’s house without even looking at it (because he would’ve heard the yelling in the basement if he HAD come to see the house).
“No, no, no, no! Ronon!” McKay snapped his fingers, and a seven-foot Hawaiian (or Polynesian, John wasn’t sure) with dreadlocks and muscles turned to look at Rodney from where he was feeling along the tiled counters. From the header of the forms, Ronon was in charge of a construction company.
“Yeah, McKay?”
“This whole room has to go!”
“Hey!” The protest was involuntary, but John had rebuilt portions of this house, and the kitchen floor was one of his tedious, but finer accomplishments.
“Rodney, you will have aneurysm.” The short red-head (whose hair was crazy and had glasses that made him look like a mad doctor) patted Rodney’s arm. “Whole room is not bad. Windows look out upon the town.”
“Great, then a million people can look back in at me! And while they SHOULD be looking up at me,” to this, John saw everyone in the room roll their eyes, “I’d rather not be spied on by some peeping tom!”
“It’s only a problem if you’re not decent in the kitchen, Rodney,” the Scottish man wasn’t quite smiling, but there was an aura of mirth about him.
Rodney turned slightly red. “That’s none of your business!”
“Come, come, as your physician-”
“Carson! You’re not helping! YOU pushed me to buy this godforsaken monstrosity because YOU thought I needed some place that was quiet and refreshing and it’s HORRIBLE!”
John could understand the reason, but still, McKay didn’t have to insult his home, or even wreck it. But…John had come to terms with the fact that he was a ghost, and an apparent prisoner, and while it would tear at him to see his home gutted, he would just have to tolerate McKay until his sentence was up. Nonetheless, he had a feeling he wouldn’t be very happy with this Rodney McKay.
“I wanted a stainless steel kitchen, and as nice as this tiled counter is, it’s cheap and fake and I’ll bet Ronon could break it without any effort!” The construction worker shrugged. “I want this place state-of-the-art! I need the wiring ripped out and replaced because it’s decades behind what it should be--obviously the last owner wanted to live in a tinder box,” John’s frown deepened, “and I want a wrecking ball taken to that second bedroom so I can expand it into a proper lab!”
“I’ve already got my guys working on it, Dr. McKay.” The rant didn’t seem to bother Ronon, and if John had to guess, the man had heard it already.
Carson, with a calm smile and a gentle touch, led Rodney out of the kitchen. John followed automatically, walking along side the crazy-haired scientist (until he knew otherwise, John was going to stick with his first impression). “Let’s let the man do his job, Rodney. And have you seen the upstairs?”
“Of course I’ve seen the upstairs! If I could put in an elevator I would because those steps are just begging for me to trip and break my neck and cause the world to lose its greatest intellectual asset!” Rodney snapped his fingers and pointed at said stairs, which had movers carrying a large and (considering how much they were struggling) heavy mattress. “You ruin its firmness or break that banister and I’ll have you both deported to whatever backwater country you’re from!”
“They are from Wisconsin, Rodney.”
“That’s backwater enough, Radek.” Rodney suddenly stopped, blinking at the front door. John stepped to the side and he felt himself smile at seeing Lorne there. Ms. Miko was with him, smiling at Rodney, though why, he couldn’t guess. “Who the hell are you?”
Lorne frowned. “I’m Major Lorne. You’ve seen me on base-”
Rodney waved his hand. “Whatever. If you have my equipment, the lab’s not ready. Come back in a week.”
John shot a dark look at McKay. Who was he to just dismiss Evan as a dumb grunt?
“Equipment?!” Carson broke in before anyone else could respond. “You’re supposed ta be relaxing not-”
“I’ll relax fine without all those idiots around me! If I have nothing I’ll be bored to tears and start building nuclear bombs in the garage again.” At that, everyone but Radek and Carson froze. “Non-functional,” he yelled to the room at large. “It’s all basic stuff, just research that I’ve been putting off. Nothing that’ll cause me to have a heart attack or wipe out half of the city.”
Radek patted Rodney’s shoulder. “Do not worry, Carson. I will stop by, make sure he is not working himself to death.” He glanced at Ms. Miko. “Or making bombs. Of any sort.”
There was a collective sigh of relief, which caused Rodney to let out an irritated huff. “So,” he finally returned his attention to Evan and Ms. Miko, “what’re you here for?”
“Oh,” Miko squeaked, then waved to Lorne. “This is Mr. Lorne, he sold the house.”
“Beginning to wish I hadn’t,” Evan muttered under his breath. John simply nodded. “Anyways,” he continued, louder, “I was going through some of John’s stuff and found the spare master key he’d given me.” Lorne held it out and, after a minute where Rodney looked Lorne over, the key was snatched away so quickly John felt Lorne jump back right through him. “And, uh,” Lorne coughed, “I noticed some guys tearing up the porch?”
“What?!” John ran to the living room window--since he couldn’t actually go out the front door--and found that, indeed, his porch was being torn up. His beautiful, handcrafted, solid wood porch he’d spent an entire summer on because it made for a wonderful sunrise view and glorious shady afternoon nap spot, was being ripped apart by construction workers with crowbars and hammers. “You leave that alone, damnit!”
“I don’t like porches, and I intend to stay inside where things like bees which, you know, can kill with one sting if you’re allergic, like I am, can’t get you.” Rodney glanced right through John to the outside. “If I want to enjoy the outside, I’ll look out the very safe, very clean windows.”
Evan’s voice took on a darker edge. “You know, John put a lot of work into that porch. You really shouldn’t just…rip it out because you’re afraid of bees.”
“You’ve never had an anaphylactic attack, have you?” Rodney waved his hand to the side, as if brushing off the question. “And as for you’re friend, I’m here, he’s not. Since he’s not using the porch--or this house for that matter--I’m not going to pander to his emotional attachment to some craft project he did with some help books from the Home Depot.” Rodney’s brow furrowed for a moment. “In fact, your friend is dead, so really? No reason to discuss it. It’s not like he’ll be back-”
“Rodney!” Carson shot Evan an apologetic look. “I’m sorry.”
Evan glared at Rodney, turned, and stomped out of the house. Ms. Miko bowed, then quickly followed. John stared at Lorne’s back, then turned a glare on Rodney McKay. Rodney could do as he liked with the house, but no one treated his friend like that. One way or another, John was going to see McKay out of this house, if it took every haunting skill a ghost like him had.
~*()*~
Unfortunately, the vow was easier declared than carried out.
He’d found out many things listening to McKay rant: he was allergic to bees, citrus could kill him, he was an astrophysicist with a crush on a Colonel Carter (the same Carter that had given him her number all that time ago), and he couldn’t stand idiots--of which everyone and their mother was with few exceptions.
He’d also found all these out while trying to scare McKay. He’d tried hanging himself from the bedroom fan, which Rodney turned on and John was nearly motion sick. Then he’d tried moving small objects about; a glass of water here, an epipen there, nothing large like a bookcase, just little things. McKay didn’t even notice, and when he did he verbally lashed out at the workers around him; one of them (a college kid, John guessed) even burst out crying. He’d even tried dressing up in a sheet to play Casper, but it seemed Radek had pulled a similar stunt at Rodney’s last house, and McKay simply shot off a nasty email regarding the Czech’s parentage.
The only thing he HAD done that had frustrated Rodney was keep the garage door locked shut. Every time someone tried to use the master key, John pushed it back out of the lock. Or if he didn’t have time to do that, simply held it shut with his bodyweight. There was talk of using an ax, but someone (from the accent, John guessed Carson) mentioned that without a garage Rodney was less likely to build any bombs. That seemed to be the end of the matter, and no one bothered trying to get in again.
He was sitting on a stool with his hands clenching his hair when he remembered the book. On the whole, it was worthless as it read like an instruction manual (a really dull one convoluted with legalize), but there were some things he’d understood. He was a ghost, he was trapped in his house (as if he couldn’t figure out those two things on his own), and there was a way to call for help. All he needed was some chalk, a wall, and knocking three times.
With no other recourse, John shrugged, dug out a marker (it wasn’t chalk, but he figured as long as he did the rest, it’d be fine), and went to work. Everything he was trying to do was failing, maybe it was time to see the higher ups for help. Granted, he still thought it was a little nuts, but when the stone cracked loose from the wall and mist and green light appeared, he tossed his pen aside and wandered in to get help from the great beyond.
~*()*~
“If this is it, I’m really disappointed.” John had appeared in a waiting room. A waiting room with lime green walls, worn yellow leather benches, and magazines dating back fifty years. It actually reminded John of the dentist’s office his father took him to as a kid. The main difference were in the clients. It was an office full of unusual dead people, instead of officers.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one man in uniform, a marine. Young, brown skinned, but what really made John avoid him was the fact that even though there was a huge hole in his chest (and John could actually see his lungs), he was grinning; with bright eyes and an eager-to-please aura about him. John smiled and nodded, and stepped just slightly away from him.
The next person was a kid, dressed in fur and leather like some sort of aborigine. He looked perfectly normal…except for the arrow in his neck and the piranhas hanging from some of his flesh. He was kneeling on the ground coloring in one of those “spot the hidden object” pages in a magazine. John made sure to avoid the still wriggling fish as he stepped over the kid’s legs.
The next person was sitting on the other side of the room. He looked like someone that had been barbequed. He was covered in ash, from head to toe. Only his eyes were white because, as John saw when the man opened his mouth to yawn, his teeth were gone (blown away, from the looks of things). Beside the ash man was a brown-haired woman, glowing green and molting flesh. She looked like a living survivor of some sort of radiation experiment gone wrong--and then realized she probably was. Hiding a wince, he nodded once more, then stood in front of receptionist’s window.
“Uh, hello? I’m here for some help?” The window slid open quickly, and John was faced with an older bald man. He blinked slowly, to make sure he really was seeing a man wearing a Miss Argentina sash along with a tiny bikini. The little sign said ‘Receptionist Caldwell.’ He wasn’t sure what to make of the man’s uniform, but no one else seemed bothered by it. “Um, hi. I’m John Sheppard, I’m having a bit of trouble with a person at my house.”
“Take a seat.” The voice was gruff, firm, and reminded John of many of his superiors. He couldn’t hide the grin at the realization. “Your caseworker will be with you shortly.” The window was slammed shut, and John kept grinning, even as it slid open again and Caldwell stood, revealing that, yes, he was indeed wearing nothing else. “Case number 5,478,458; Mr. Grodin, Ms. Weir.” Caldwell then sat back down, and once more John was facing a window.
The ash man and glowing woman stood and walked past John to the door in the corner, which opened by itself, let them in, then shut closed. Out of curiosity, John tried the knob and found it locked. Shrugging again, he took one of the empty seats and picked up a Newsweek from 1966. He felt someone staring, caught hole-in-his-chest grinning at him out of the corner of his eye, and scooted down. He really didn’t want to get involved with anyone else here.
John got through about half the article when the window opened again. “Sheppard!” John jumped up, snapping to attention by impulse. “You don’t have an appointment?”
“Sir, no, sir!” He shook off his conditioning. “I didn’t really know how…or for who. I just need help.”
Caldwell snorted. “You only have three vouchers, soldier. Don’t use them all up in the first year.”
“I won’t.” At least, he didn’t think he would. Still standing, and feeling a bit like an idiot, he glanced around the room to find both the kid and the marine looking at him. He shifted his feet. “I’m kinda new at this.”
“You get used to it,” the marine said. “It’s actually kinda fun. Just watch out for Jewish Stars.”
John raised an eyebrow. “Not crosses?”
“Naw.” The man waved his hand. “It’s the stars that do the damage. You ever see how sharp those points are?” He rubbed his chest, right over the hole. “Still smarts, even after all this time.”
John stared at the smiling man, trying to figure out if he was pulling his leg or not, when Caldwell stood up again. “Case number 8,329,002. Sheppard!”
John waited a beat, then nodded at the two other people and headed for the now opening door. Frankly, the sooner he met with his caseworker, the better. This place was just weirding him out. Standing on the other side of the door, he nearly got body slammed by, well, a body. As he looked up, he found it was a hanging body of a very good looking blond woman. A blond woman with a noose around her neck. He felt his stomach roil, even though there was nothing in it to throw up.
“Sheppard? Just follow me.” She started moving, and John saw her rope was on a track that crisscrossed the ceiling. “I hear you got stuck with McKay.”
“How’d you hear that?”
She grinned, which would’ve been fairly comforting if her neck weren’t broken leaving her head hanging at an angle. “Word gets around, and haunted houses are very rare. Plus, McKay’s been a problem before. But I bet you can kick his ass.”
A problem? “How exactly was he a problem?”
“Oh, you know. Drove one of our insane ghosts sane. Man, that was a horrible loss. Guy threw great parties.”
John kept his eye on the skeleton secretaries before turning his attention back to the blond. “Really?”
“Well, not really. But he hasn’t been the same since he tried possessing McKay.” She suddenly jerked. “Whoops, that’s my stop. Just go down this hall, second door on the right. Look out for the room of Lost Souls. They prey on the new guys.” She started moving back across the room. “Catch ya later Sheppard!”
He watched her go, then scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He really couldn’t take much more of this. As he lowered his hands, a paper flew in front of his eyes, and he snatched it out of the air. ‘Having problems with the Living? Need to exorcise unwanted houseguests? The blessings of Athar can help you. Just pray to her acolyte, Chaya.’ The last name was repeated twice more.
Balling the paper up, John tossed it onto the floor, marched to the second door on the right (it actually looked like a hospital door, complete white with a small rectangular window above the doorknob), jerked the door open and entered his caseworker’s office.
~*()*~
“You were gone almost four months, John Sheppard.” The voice was soothing, calming even. John saw a woman above him, and realized he was on the floor because he had stormed into the room and promptly hit his head against a hanging frying pan. “John, can you hear me?”
“Yeah…why do you have a pan in your office?”
The woman smiled, bright teeth and an almost sympathetic glow around her, as she held his hand and used her other arm to help him sit up. “We are in your house, John.”
“What’re you talking about? I keep my pans-” As John sat up, he got a look at the room. It was a kitchen, stainless steel and top of the line, but the floor plan was exactly as he remembered it. The cabinets hadn’t moved, pans were hanging on the ceiling (one of which extended beyond the island, and John so hoped McKay forgot that fact every now and then), and the view out the window was exactly as he remembered it (apparently, they’d left the window in).
“Jesus…how long-” Then he remembered what she’d said. “Four months?! I’d barely read the magazine!”
“Time moves differently on the other side.” The woman helped him to his feet. She was stouter than him, but the strength he felt suggested she could take him in a fight. She looked Indian, and her calm did radiate like that one monk he’d met overseas; but the single bullet hole in her forehead spoke of a different lifestyle. “I am Teyla, your caseworker.”
“Great,” he rubbed his hands on his jeans. “Great, that’s great. That means you can help me, right? Get rid of McKay?”
Her smile dimmed. “I’m afraid I have many other cases I must attend to. I am simply here to encourage you.”
“Encourage?! How the hell-”
“You have read the manual, correct?”
He ducked his head. “Well, no.”
She let out a sigh, something between ‘I’m disappointed’ to ‘foolish man, of course you didn’t read the manual.’ “Chapter four clearly explains how to interact with the material world. Specifically, haunting, as you do know how to do some things.” She lifted a salt shaker. “Pouring this over the ground?”
He rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, not that great. But even when I put a sheet over my head, it didn’t work.”
“There are other things you can do. Read chapter four.” She nodded, then glanced around the kitchen. “It’s not exactly rattling chains,” she tapped her finger against the hanging pan, “but it could be as effective.”
John felt his grin start to return, and he nodded. “No wonder they pay you the big bucks.”
“I am merely a humble servant living out her thousand year sentence.” She bowed her head. “Until next time, John.” Then she stepped into the shadows and vanished.
“Hey, what about Chai, or whatever,” he called, but got no reply. Shrugging, he tapped the pan with his finger, grinned, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and started moving about the house while whistling. It was time to get used to his home again.
~*()*~
John realized it must’ve cost McKay a fortune to renovate the house, and that wasn’t even counting the stuff he couldn’t see (such as the wiring, plumbing, and other internal changes). Now John understood why Ronon put up with McKay’s bitching in the beginning. The payoff from this job would totally be worth dealing with the pain-in-the-ass.
The man himself was asleep in bed, lying on his stomach and head turned to the side. It looked awkward and painful, but Rodney (he couldn’t keep calling him McKay, he WAS living with the guy, after all…sorta) was snoring away peacefully, a little puddle of drool on the sheets. He was also a heavy sleeper (he discovered this by making moaning noises and rattling some safe-looking trinkets around), but John could explore just how heavy another day.
And John definitely ignored the tiny part of his mind that said Rodney looked cute asleep. The Labrador incident when he was twelve had taught him that cute sleeping things were exactly as they appeared…until awakened. He’d seen what Rodney was capable of, and there was no way his innocent sleeping act would convince John he was anything but an abrasive asshole.
The lab was state-of-the-art, like the rest of the house, and while John was tempted to do some damage there, he was almost afraid to. He wanted to scare Rodney away, but he didn’t want to kill the guy. Mainly because no one deserved to die no matter how much of a bastard they were, but also because John was worried (only worried, and absolutely not terrified) that Rodney would then be a ghost stuck in the house as well.
It still offered some opportunities. John was a fast learner, and by watching Rodney he could figure out what data to safely screw around with, what settings he could adjust without blowing up the house. After all, if scaring wouldn’t work, then annoying computer glitches and ruining research might be enough to run Rodney off. Convinced he had a plan, he left and went back down to the basement.
Stretching as he entered, he paused and looked around, hazel eyes narrowing. The place seemed…cleaner than he remembered. And if he’d really been gone four months, shouldn’t there be more dust? Then he saw his plane and his suspicions melted, because she looked like the most beautiful thing in the world. The rest of his home had been demolished, but this…this was still his. Petting the side affectionately, he whispered sweet nothings to its propeller, then went over to his cot and fell asleep.
Tomorrow he’d catch up on Chapter 4, as Teyla suggested, then go and find Rodney, and he would finally reclaim his house.
~*()*~
While John got up with the sun (a habit he hadn’t been able to break, no matter how long he’d been discharged from the military), he didn’t actually venture forth from his basement until the early afternoon. All his plans were put on hold as he spent the morning tearing apart the garage, then combing the rest of the downstairs (he had avoided the upstairs since he’d died) looking for ‘The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.’
He’d thought he’d left it on the small workbench by his cot, but it wasn’t there. Finally, he simply gave up. It was entirely possible, he realized, that he had brought it through the stone door into the waiting room from hell and simply…forgot. Or maybe he’d dropped it after crossing the threshold of the door. With a sigh, he realized he’d have to go back and look for it, but it wasn’t a priority. After all, the book was simply a guide, and John already knew how to manipulate the material world enough that he didn’t really need it.
He’d look for the book after McKay was out of the house. How long could it take?
Heading upstairs, he checked first the kitchen (Rodney struck him as the type to eat a lot), then the living room, then stuck his head in the lab. No Rodney. Frowning, John headed upstairs and checked the bedroom. No Rodney, but his eyebrows rose as he found his Handbook. Carefully eyeing the room, half expecting something to jump out at him or an alarm to go off, John walked over and picked up the book. Still giving the room a wary look, he flipped through and, yes, this was definitely his book.
Maybe Teyla had moved it. Yeah, that was it. Because there was no way McKay could’ve gotten into the garage.
Unless Rodney had used the master key.
But his stuff was there, and untouched, so that couldn’t be.
Tucking the book under his arm, John headed downstairs and ran to his garage, setting the book back on his workbench. He sat on his bed, head propped up on his palms, watching it for a while. Finally he muttered, “idiot, of course it didn’t move by itself,” stood up, and hurried back upstairs. He had a scientist to find.
And find he did. What had been John’s (future) nursery Rodney had turned into a guest room and library. Rodney was currently sitting on a futon, letting the sun shine in and warm his legs, while reading through some scientific magazine. John carefully looked around the room, then found a set of heavy books standing on the top of a bookcase with no bookend. Perfect.
Walking over, he reached up to push them, when something made him freeze.
Specifically, a voice.
”Knock those over and I’ll make your afterlife a living hell.”
Ever so slowly, John turned his head towards Rodney. The man kept reading for another minute, then huffed and looked up, the magazine settling between his legs. “What? Don’t tell me you’re a retarded ghost!” He snapped his fingers at John. “Arm down.”
Still stunned, John let his arm drop. “You…can see me?”
McKay threw up his hands. “Of course I can see you! Figures I’d buy the one house with an idiot for a ghost!” He tilted his head. “You know, for a dead guy, you look hot--well, not at the moment. You look like all the blood’s drained away. Are you okay?”
John simply collapsed on the edge of the futon, struck dumb.
‘So much for my plan to haunt McKay into retreat,’ he finally thought.
~*()*~
“You know, it’s funny, you’d think as a ghost you couldn’t be surprised. Also, that’s a rather nasty scar on your forehead. Don’t they have doctors in the afterlife; voodoo practitioners that they are.”
John stared numbly at the man before him. He knew McKay was alive. There was mail on the table addressed to him, a coffee maker brewing coffee, a lab running simulations. There was no way Rodney was dead, which begged the question of how he could see John. “I…how can you see me?!”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “You left your book in plain view. And I’ve always known there had to be more than just rotting in the ground. I may not be strange and unusual, as the manual--and really, could it be anymore convoluted?--states, but once I had confirmation in my beliefs, obviously the whole ‘ghosts are invisible and can’t be seen by mortal eyes’ was thrown away.” He crossed his arms. “The gash?”
Instinctively, John reached up to his forehead. He actually hadn’t noticed a gash. He hadn’t felt any pain since his death, and he had no reflection. “I…I guess I got it when I died.” He must’ve hit his head on the steering wheel, or the dashboard, or maybe some glass from the windshield had sliced him. Shaking off the distracting thought trail, he pushed back his bewildered feelings. “How’d you get into the garage?”
“Hello! Master key ring a bell? I stole it from Carson and went to see what the fuss was about.” Rodney actually paused, tilting his head. “Are you building that plane? Cause it’s pretty much a waste of time, what with being unable to leave the interior of this ever so humble abode.” He crossed his arms. “Though what you have done? Pretty good. No where near as complex as a bomb.”
For some reason, that sounded almost like a compliment (at least, coming from McKay). “Thanks…?”
“Waste of time, but then, I guess since you’re dead, you’re remarkably bored. But that won’t keep you busy for 125 years.”
John scowled slightly. “You know, you really should--” What Rodney said finally registered. “Wait, 125 years?! I’m stuck here for over a century?!”
“Didn’t you read the book?” Rodney looked him over, then snorted. “Dumb question. You’re stuck here, within the boundaries of the foundation of this house for 125 years, after which you’ll be allowed to leave to,” Rodney waved his hand upward, “somewhere. It’s not very specific on that point.”
John had pretty much figured that much out, but he hadn’t thought he’d be here so long. “I…how did I get stuck on Earth that long?”
“Actually, you’re lucky. According to the book, most ghosts are stuck to a road, or a sign, or become some sort of administrative servants. Most have a least 200 years of service, or more. You should count your blessings.” Rodney smirked. “Or maybe not, since blessings might hurt you.”
John briefly recalled Teyla’s comment of 1000 year service and shuddered. “Great,” his shoulders slumped. “Stuck with you for decades. I was hoping I’d be gone by then.”
“Hey! How do you think I feel? Last place I had a ghost he tried to make me sleepwalk out a window!” Rodney crossed his arms. “And judging by your lack of knowledge of your predicament not to mention your rather childish attempt to disrupt my afternoon, I’d say you’re new at this.”
John crossed his arms and glared at Rodney, sulking on the inside.
“So I’ll make it simple. Stay in the garage and build your little plane, leave me and my research alone, and I won’t haul my exorcist out here and condemn you to Purgatory.” Mouth twisted smugly, he picked up his magazine. “Now I’m busy, so go oil your gears or whatever it is you’re working on.”
John let out a growl. “Bite me, McKay.” Rodney ignored him, and John turned to stomp out of the room. At the last minute, he reached up and knocked the books off the top of the bookcase. As far as John was concerned, McKay might understand the Handbook better, but John was an ex-soldier.
And this? This…was war.
~*()*~
John started small. Stopping the simulations Rodney left running through the night, deactivating the automatic coffee maker, turning off the hot water heater while McKay was in the shower. Petty stuff, really, but it was only the opening salvo. Rodney, of course, kept no citrus in the house (and John wasn’t about to play with the man’s life), but John screwed up the rest of the food. He poured salt into the milk, turned down the freezing unit of the fridge to spoil the food earlier, and pushed the plethora of sugar foodstuffs near windows to encourage ants.
Rodney was upset, but it was the coffee maker that led to utensils flying towards--and consequently, through--John’s head. After seeing the destruction, and how Rodney dealt with the cleaning service, John decided to leave the coffee alone. He wanted to be annoying, but Rodney had made three of the cleaning women cry taking out his anger over the coffee loss. Other than that, though, the softening of McKay’s defenses was complete.
Phase two took longer. Not just stopping the simulations, but altering the variables and then rerunning them, so that Rodney had to start from scratch. Rearranging layouts took over a week; changing drawers in the kitchen, shuffling what shelves held DVDs and books in the living room, and his personal favorite: completely reorganizing the library from Rodney’s system to stored via color coding of the spine. It meant he had to sleep in the afternoon, when Rodney was gone, but it left him highly satisfied.
At least, until the next Saturday, when Rodney caught him moving his clothes about. “I should’ve known you were trying to get into my boxers. You look sort of slutty.”
John yanked his hands from the underwear drawer and glared at McKay, fighting the blush he knew was appearing on his face. “I don’t think there’s anyone who wants to get into your boxers, McKay.”
Rodney sniffed. “I’ll have you know that there will be plenty of women fighting to get into them once I win the Nobel Prize.”
“From the way your research is going, you won’t have to worry about it for a long time.”
That caused Rodney to scowl, and he crossed his arms. “That’s why you’re going to stop interfering.’
John grinned. “Of course, McKay.”
“I mean it,” the scowl deepened. “Keep this up, and you’ll be sorry.”
“What, you’ll throw another fork through my head?”
A cruel smirk appeared on Rodney’s face. “You’d be surprised what damage a sledgehammer can do.” That wiped the smile off John’s face. “You try to lock me out, I’ll get Ronon to rip the main door off and let him haul that junk away. You can make life annoying for me, but I can make your eternity so dull you’ll wish for exorcism.”
John stood up and loomed over Rodney. “If you so much as breathe on my plane, I’ll-”
“Make my life annoying. Yes, you’ve shown me you can do that.” McKay looked smug.
John wanted nothing more than to wipe that look off Rodney’s face. Clenching his fists, John growled, “You win this time, McKay.” Then he stomped through the open door and back down to his garage. There’d be a point, he knew, where he’d be willing to sacrifice his plane; but he wasn’t there yet. He’d scale back the overt warfare, but he wouldn’t stop it. He’d find a way. It would take longer than his initial plans, but he’d find a way around this obstacle.
Hopefully, without sacrificing the lone anchor to his life.
~*( Part 2)*~
Author: Cypher
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Main Character(s): John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Lorne
Warnings: Slash, Fusion AU
Rating: R
Summary: “John Sheppard thought he had a pretty good life.”
Author's Notes: So this is something I've been working on for a while and, really, don't know if I'll ever finish. So! Since it's part of what started this whole fusion chain, it's only right it should finish it. Unbetaed. Enjoy!
14 Valentines: Day 14 - V-Day and International
John Sheppard thought he had a pretty good life. Sure, what had happened in the service had been pretty shitty, and there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think of Dex and Mitch, but the hurt was slowly fading, and the discharge was seeming more and more like a blessing than a curse. He’d found an isolated house in Colorado Springs where he could live off his pension (and his contributions to mathematical publications) and made it comfortable.
It was a large house, almost too big for one person, but John was ever hopeful in finding someone. In the Air Force he’d never found himself at a loss for company--male or female. So he figured it was only a matter of time before the enormous master bedroom had another set of furniture, and the currently empty third bedroom became his son’s (or daughter’s) room.
The only odd part was the garage. The house was on a hill, and situated “above” the garage, which meant he had to take a flight of stairs down, going through three sets of doors, all of which locked. It was weird, but he didn’t remove any of the doors; they gave the house character, in his opinion. And the garage was large enough that he began building himself a small plane. His goal was to finish it before the (at this point, theoretical) wedding so he and his bride could fly off to the Bahamas for their honeymoon.
All that changed on the late afternoon of August 16th. He was driving home after running to town to grab a few extra bolts for his plane project. He’d met a lovely woman named Sam Carter, who was smart and beautiful and offered up her number along with the words “It’s Colonel Carter,” which excited John in ways he didn’t want to explore alone. So he’d been driving in a good mood, softly singing to the Johnny Cash on his radio and thinking he’d give Colonel Carter a call tonight, when a puppy ran into the road.
John didn’t even think. He swerved to miss the helpless canine and slammed his car into one of the hundred year old oaks in someone’s front yard. He was unconscious immediately.
It was midnight when he woke up. He was in his house, there was a fire in the fireplace, and he couldn’t recall a single detail after hitting the tree. He didn’t seem hurt, nothing was broken, the only thing wrong were those missing ten hours. He looked in the mirror, to double check for injuries, and found himself staring at…nothing. He stared. He stared and tried not to panic because he was the cool, collected, laid back John Sheppard and nothing could rattle him.
His eyes trailed to the strange book on his coffee table entitled ‘The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.’
“Well crap.”
And it went downhill from there.
~*()*~
In life, Lorne had been John’s best friend in Colorado Springs. He was a Major in the Air Force, and was working in NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain. Since John had no family (his father was dead, his mother had passed away long ago, and he was an only child), he’d listed Evan Lorne as his next of kin. John had done everything to try and get his friend’s attention, and all he’d ended up doing was causing the curtains to billow (which Lorne ignored, since he’d opened the windows) and form ripples in Lorne‘s water glass.
All in all, a depressing day.
John didn’t have much stuff, but what he had Lorne neatly packed away and brought to the eBay store to sell off. It was only quick thinking and lots of focus that John was able to lock the final door into the garage (the big electric door had been busted for a month, and John hadn’t gotten around to fixing it since there wasn’t any rush). Lorne had given up trying to get in, and John spent the rest of the week locked in with his plane, learning to manipulate inanimate objects so he could continue building his dream.
Maybe he could fly over the endless sand dunes and giant striped roaring worms (snakes?) that now appeared whenever he left the house.
When he next ventured into the house, he found it devoid of all his things, stripped and bare as the first day he saw it. Then he heard the footsteps and found himself face to face with the very realtor who had sold him the place. Ms. Miko was as polite and firm as she had been with John, and Lorne was simply nodding. He looked fine, but John could see the hurt whenever Miko turned to look at something. “I’m sorry,” he said, placing his hand just above Evan’s shoulder. “I wish I were still here.” He’d forgotten death sucked both ways.
After that day, though, Evan never returned, and John returned to his garage because seeing people parade through his house as if he wasn’t there (which, he mentally reminded himself, he technically wasn’t) made his chest ache. Even with the seemingly endless swarm of buyers, though, no one wanted the house. John couldn’t understand why, but it gave him more time to work on his plane (he had enough supplies to keep going for a few months, and he could cannibalize his dusty motorcycle to tinker with building an engine), so he didn‘t think about it much.
And then there was such a ruckus in the house that he could hear it while buried in the guts of his plane, and he realized someone had finally purchased the last bit of his life.
~*()*~
What he found was a man only a few inches shorter than him, with blazing blue eyes and receding hair and a mouth that never seemed to close. From what he read on the paperwork, this was one Doctor Rodney McKay. And for some unfathomable reason, he had purchased John’s house without even looking at it (because he would’ve heard the yelling in the basement if he HAD come to see the house).
“No, no, no, no! Ronon!” McKay snapped his fingers, and a seven-foot Hawaiian (or Polynesian, John wasn’t sure) with dreadlocks and muscles turned to look at Rodney from where he was feeling along the tiled counters. From the header of the forms, Ronon was in charge of a construction company.
“Yeah, McKay?”
“This whole room has to go!”
“Hey!” The protest was involuntary, but John had rebuilt portions of this house, and the kitchen floor was one of his tedious, but finer accomplishments.
“Rodney, you will have aneurysm.” The short red-head (whose hair was crazy and had glasses that made him look like a mad doctor) patted Rodney’s arm. “Whole room is not bad. Windows look out upon the town.”
“Great, then a million people can look back in at me! And while they SHOULD be looking up at me,” to this, John saw everyone in the room roll their eyes, “I’d rather not be spied on by some peeping tom!”
“It’s only a problem if you’re not decent in the kitchen, Rodney,” the Scottish man wasn’t quite smiling, but there was an aura of mirth about him.
Rodney turned slightly red. “That’s none of your business!”
“Come, come, as your physician-”
“Carson! You’re not helping! YOU pushed me to buy this godforsaken monstrosity because YOU thought I needed some place that was quiet and refreshing and it’s HORRIBLE!”
John could understand the reason, but still, McKay didn’t have to insult his home, or even wreck it. But…John had come to terms with the fact that he was a ghost, and an apparent prisoner, and while it would tear at him to see his home gutted, he would just have to tolerate McKay until his sentence was up. Nonetheless, he had a feeling he wouldn’t be very happy with this Rodney McKay.
“I wanted a stainless steel kitchen, and as nice as this tiled counter is, it’s cheap and fake and I’ll bet Ronon could break it without any effort!” The construction worker shrugged. “I want this place state-of-the-art! I need the wiring ripped out and replaced because it’s decades behind what it should be--obviously the last owner wanted to live in a tinder box,” John’s frown deepened, “and I want a wrecking ball taken to that second bedroom so I can expand it into a proper lab!”
“I’ve already got my guys working on it, Dr. McKay.” The rant didn’t seem to bother Ronon, and if John had to guess, the man had heard it already.
Carson, with a calm smile and a gentle touch, led Rodney out of the kitchen. John followed automatically, walking along side the crazy-haired scientist (until he knew otherwise, John was going to stick with his first impression). “Let’s let the man do his job, Rodney. And have you seen the upstairs?”
“Of course I’ve seen the upstairs! If I could put in an elevator I would because those steps are just begging for me to trip and break my neck and cause the world to lose its greatest intellectual asset!” Rodney snapped his fingers and pointed at said stairs, which had movers carrying a large and (considering how much they were struggling) heavy mattress. “You ruin its firmness or break that banister and I’ll have you both deported to whatever backwater country you’re from!”
“They are from Wisconsin, Rodney.”
“That’s backwater enough, Radek.” Rodney suddenly stopped, blinking at the front door. John stepped to the side and he felt himself smile at seeing Lorne there. Ms. Miko was with him, smiling at Rodney, though why, he couldn’t guess. “Who the hell are you?”
Lorne frowned. “I’m Major Lorne. You’ve seen me on base-”
Rodney waved his hand. “Whatever. If you have my equipment, the lab’s not ready. Come back in a week.”
John shot a dark look at McKay. Who was he to just dismiss Evan as a dumb grunt?
“Equipment?!” Carson broke in before anyone else could respond. “You’re supposed ta be relaxing not-”
“I’ll relax fine without all those idiots around me! If I have nothing I’ll be bored to tears and start building nuclear bombs in the garage again.” At that, everyone but Radek and Carson froze. “Non-functional,” he yelled to the room at large. “It’s all basic stuff, just research that I’ve been putting off. Nothing that’ll cause me to have a heart attack or wipe out half of the city.”
Radek patted Rodney’s shoulder. “Do not worry, Carson. I will stop by, make sure he is not working himself to death.” He glanced at Ms. Miko. “Or making bombs. Of any sort.”
There was a collective sigh of relief, which caused Rodney to let out an irritated huff. “So,” he finally returned his attention to Evan and Ms. Miko, “what’re you here for?”
“Oh,” Miko squeaked, then waved to Lorne. “This is Mr. Lorne, he sold the house.”
“Beginning to wish I hadn’t,” Evan muttered under his breath. John simply nodded. “Anyways,” he continued, louder, “I was going through some of John’s stuff and found the spare master key he’d given me.” Lorne held it out and, after a minute where Rodney looked Lorne over, the key was snatched away so quickly John felt Lorne jump back right through him. “And, uh,” Lorne coughed, “I noticed some guys tearing up the porch?”
“What?!” John ran to the living room window--since he couldn’t actually go out the front door--and found that, indeed, his porch was being torn up. His beautiful, handcrafted, solid wood porch he’d spent an entire summer on because it made for a wonderful sunrise view and glorious shady afternoon nap spot, was being ripped apart by construction workers with crowbars and hammers. “You leave that alone, damnit!”
“I don’t like porches, and I intend to stay inside where things like bees which, you know, can kill with one sting if you’re allergic, like I am, can’t get you.” Rodney glanced right through John to the outside. “If I want to enjoy the outside, I’ll look out the very safe, very clean windows.”
Evan’s voice took on a darker edge. “You know, John put a lot of work into that porch. You really shouldn’t just…rip it out because you’re afraid of bees.”
“You’ve never had an anaphylactic attack, have you?” Rodney waved his hand to the side, as if brushing off the question. “And as for you’re friend, I’m here, he’s not. Since he’s not using the porch--or this house for that matter--I’m not going to pander to his emotional attachment to some craft project he did with some help books from the Home Depot.” Rodney’s brow furrowed for a moment. “In fact, your friend is dead, so really? No reason to discuss it. It’s not like he’ll be back-”
“Rodney!” Carson shot Evan an apologetic look. “I’m sorry.”
Evan glared at Rodney, turned, and stomped out of the house. Ms. Miko bowed, then quickly followed. John stared at Lorne’s back, then turned a glare on Rodney McKay. Rodney could do as he liked with the house, but no one treated his friend like that. One way or another, John was going to see McKay out of this house, if it took every haunting skill a ghost like him had.
~*()*~
Unfortunately, the vow was easier declared than carried out.
He’d found out many things listening to McKay rant: he was allergic to bees, citrus could kill him, he was an astrophysicist with a crush on a Colonel Carter (the same Carter that had given him her number all that time ago), and he couldn’t stand idiots--of which everyone and their mother was with few exceptions.
He’d also found all these out while trying to scare McKay. He’d tried hanging himself from the bedroom fan, which Rodney turned on and John was nearly motion sick. Then he’d tried moving small objects about; a glass of water here, an epipen there, nothing large like a bookcase, just little things. McKay didn’t even notice, and when he did he verbally lashed out at the workers around him; one of them (a college kid, John guessed) even burst out crying. He’d even tried dressing up in a sheet to play Casper, but it seemed Radek had pulled a similar stunt at Rodney’s last house, and McKay simply shot off a nasty email regarding the Czech’s parentage.
The only thing he HAD done that had frustrated Rodney was keep the garage door locked shut. Every time someone tried to use the master key, John pushed it back out of the lock. Or if he didn’t have time to do that, simply held it shut with his bodyweight. There was talk of using an ax, but someone (from the accent, John guessed Carson) mentioned that without a garage Rodney was less likely to build any bombs. That seemed to be the end of the matter, and no one bothered trying to get in again.
He was sitting on a stool with his hands clenching his hair when he remembered the book. On the whole, it was worthless as it read like an instruction manual (a really dull one convoluted with legalize), but there were some things he’d understood. He was a ghost, he was trapped in his house (as if he couldn’t figure out those two things on his own), and there was a way to call for help. All he needed was some chalk, a wall, and knocking three times.
With no other recourse, John shrugged, dug out a marker (it wasn’t chalk, but he figured as long as he did the rest, it’d be fine), and went to work. Everything he was trying to do was failing, maybe it was time to see the higher ups for help. Granted, he still thought it was a little nuts, but when the stone cracked loose from the wall and mist and green light appeared, he tossed his pen aside and wandered in to get help from the great beyond.
~*()*~
“If this is it, I’m really disappointed.” John had appeared in a waiting room. A waiting room with lime green walls, worn yellow leather benches, and magazines dating back fifty years. It actually reminded John of the dentist’s office his father took him to as a kid. The main difference were in the clients. It was an office full of unusual dead people, instead of officers.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one man in uniform, a marine. Young, brown skinned, but what really made John avoid him was the fact that even though there was a huge hole in his chest (and John could actually see his lungs), he was grinning; with bright eyes and an eager-to-please aura about him. John smiled and nodded, and stepped just slightly away from him.
The next person was a kid, dressed in fur and leather like some sort of aborigine. He looked perfectly normal…except for the arrow in his neck and the piranhas hanging from some of his flesh. He was kneeling on the ground coloring in one of those “spot the hidden object” pages in a magazine. John made sure to avoid the still wriggling fish as he stepped over the kid’s legs.
The next person was sitting on the other side of the room. He looked like someone that had been barbequed. He was covered in ash, from head to toe. Only his eyes were white because, as John saw when the man opened his mouth to yawn, his teeth were gone (blown away, from the looks of things). Beside the ash man was a brown-haired woman, glowing green and molting flesh. She looked like a living survivor of some sort of radiation experiment gone wrong--and then realized she probably was. Hiding a wince, he nodded once more, then stood in front of receptionist’s window.
“Uh, hello? I’m here for some help?” The window slid open quickly, and John was faced with an older bald man. He blinked slowly, to make sure he really was seeing a man wearing a Miss Argentina sash along with a tiny bikini. The little sign said ‘Receptionist Caldwell.’ He wasn’t sure what to make of the man’s uniform, but no one else seemed bothered by it. “Um, hi. I’m John Sheppard, I’m having a bit of trouble with a person at my house.”
“Take a seat.” The voice was gruff, firm, and reminded John of many of his superiors. He couldn’t hide the grin at the realization. “Your caseworker will be with you shortly.” The window was slammed shut, and John kept grinning, even as it slid open again and Caldwell stood, revealing that, yes, he was indeed wearing nothing else. “Case number 5,478,458; Mr. Grodin, Ms. Weir.” Caldwell then sat back down, and once more John was facing a window.
The ash man and glowing woman stood and walked past John to the door in the corner, which opened by itself, let them in, then shut closed. Out of curiosity, John tried the knob and found it locked. Shrugging again, he took one of the empty seats and picked up a Newsweek from 1966. He felt someone staring, caught hole-in-his-chest grinning at him out of the corner of his eye, and scooted down. He really didn’t want to get involved with anyone else here.
John got through about half the article when the window opened again. “Sheppard!” John jumped up, snapping to attention by impulse. “You don’t have an appointment?”
“Sir, no, sir!” He shook off his conditioning. “I didn’t really know how…or for who. I just need help.”
Caldwell snorted. “You only have three vouchers, soldier. Don’t use them all up in the first year.”
“I won’t.” At least, he didn’t think he would. Still standing, and feeling a bit like an idiot, he glanced around the room to find both the kid and the marine looking at him. He shifted his feet. “I’m kinda new at this.”
“You get used to it,” the marine said. “It’s actually kinda fun. Just watch out for Jewish Stars.”
John raised an eyebrow. “Not crosses?”
“Naw.” The man waved his hand. “It’s the stars that do the damage. You ever see how sharp those points are?” He rubbed his chest, right over the hole. “Still smarts, even after all this time.”
John stared at the smiling man, trying to figure out if he was pulling his leg or not, when Caldwell stood up again. “Case number 8,329,002. Sheppard!”
John waited a beat, then nodded at the two other people and headed for the now opening door. Frankly, the sooner he met with his caseworker, the better. This place was just weirding him out. Standing on the other side of the door, he nearly got body slammed by, well, a body. As he looked up, he found it was a hanging body of a very good looking blond woman. A blond woman with a noose around her neck. He felt his stomach roil, even though there was nothing in it to throw up.
“Sheppard? Just follow me.” She started moving, and John saw her rope was on a track that crisscrossed the ceiling. “I hear you got stuck with McKay.”
“How’d you hear that?”
She grinned, which would’ve been fairly comforting if her neck weren’t broken leaving her head hanging at an angle. “Word gets around, and haunted houses are very rare. Plus, McKay’s been a problem before. But I bet you can kick his ass.”
A problem? “How exactly was he a problem?”
“Oh, you know. Drove one of our insane ghosts sane. Man, that was a horrible loss. Guy threw great parties.”
John kept his eye on the skeleton secretaries before turning his attention back to the blond. “Really?”
“Well, not really. But he hasn’t been the same since he tried possessing McKay.” She suddenly jerked. “Whoops, that’s my stop. Just go down this hall, second door on the right. Look out for the room of Lost Souls. They prey on the new guys.” She started moving back across the room. “Catch ya later Sheppard!”
He watched her go, then scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He really couldn’t take much more of this. As he lowered his hands, a paper flew in front of his eyes, and he snatched it out of the air. ‘Having problems with the Living? Need to exorcise unwanted houseguests? The blessings of Athar can help you. Just pray to her acolyte, Chaya.’ The last name was repeated twice more.
Balling the paper up, John tossed it onto the floor, marched to the second door on the right (it actually looked like a hospital door, complete white with a small rectangular window above the doorknob), jerked the door open and entered his caseworker’s office.
~*()*~
“You were gone almost four months, John Sheppard.” The voice was soothing, calming even. John saw a woman above him, and realized he was on the floor because he had stormed into the room and promptly hit his head against a hanging frying pan. “John, can you hear me?”
“Yeah…why do you have a pan in your office?”
The woman smiled, bright teeth and an almost sympathetic glow around her, as she held his hand and used her other arm to help him sit up. “We are in your house, John.”
“What’re you talking about? I keep my pans-” As John sat up, he got a look at the room. It was a kitchen, stainless steel and top of the line, but the floor plan was exactly as he remembered it. The cabinets hadn’t moved, pans were hanging on the ceiling (one of which extended beyond the island, and John so hoped McKay forgot that fact every now and then), and the view out the window was exactly as he remembered it (apparently, they’d left the window in).
“Jesus…how long-” Then he remembered what she’d said. “Four months?! I’d barely read the magazine!”
“Time moves differently on the other side.” The woman helped him to his feet. She was stouter than him, but the strength he felt suggested she could take him in a fight. She looked Indian, and her calm did radiate like that one monk he’d met overseas; but the single bullet hole in her forehead spoke of a different lifestyle. “I am Teyla, your caseworker.”
“Great,” he rubbed his hands on his jeans. “Great, that’s great. That means you can help me, right? Get rid of McKay?”
Her smile dimmed. “I’m afraid I have many other cases I must attend to. I am simply here to encourage you.”
“Encourage?! How the hell-”
“You have read the manual, correct?”
He ducked his head. “Well, no.”
She let out a sigh, something between ‘I’m disappointed’ to ‘foolish man, of course you didn’t read the manual.’ “Chapter four clearly explains how to interact with the material world. Specifically, haunting, as you do know how to do some things.” She lifted a salt shaker. “Pouring this over the ground?”
He rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, not that great. But even when I put a sheet over my head, it didn’t work.”
“There are other things you can do. Read chapter four.” She nodded, then glanced around the kitchen. “It’s not exactly rattling chains,” she tapped her finger against the hanging pan, “but it could be as effective.”
John felt his grin start to return, and he nodded. “No wonder they pay you the big bucks.”
“I am merely a humble servant living out her thousand year sentence.” She bowed her head. “Until next time, John.” Then she stepped into the shadows and vanished.
“Hey, what about Chai, or whatever,” he called, but got no reply. Shrugging, he tapped the pan with his finger, grinned, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and started moving about the house while whistling. It was time to get used to his home again.
~*()*~
John realized it must’ve cost McKay a fortune to renovate the house, and that wasn’t even counting the stuff he couldn’t see (such as the wiring, plumbing, and other internal changes). Now John understood why Ronon put up with McKay’s bitching in the beginning. The payoff from this job would totally be worth dealing with the pain-in-the-ass.
The man himself was asleep in bed, lying on his stomach and head turned to the side. It looked awkward and painful, but Rodney (he couldn’t keep calling him McKay, he WAS living with the guy, after all…sorta) was snoring away peacefully, a little puddle of drool on the sheets. He was also a heavy sleeper (he discovered this by making moaning noises and rattling some safe-looking trinkets around), but John could explore just how heavy another day.
And John definitely ignored the tiny part of his mind that said Rodney looked cute asleep. The Labrador incident when he was twelve had taught him that cute sleeping things were exactly as they appeared…until awakened. He’d seen what Rodney was capable of, and there was no way his innocent sleeping act would convince John he was anything but an abrasive asshole.
The lab was state-of-the-art, like the rest of the house, and while John was tempted to do some damage there, he was almost afraid to. He wanted to scare Rodney away, but he didn’t want to kill the guy. Mainly because no one deserved to die no matter how much of a bastard they were, but also because John was worried (only worried, and absolutely not terrified) that Rodney would then be a ghost stuck in the house as well.
It still offered some opportunities. John was a fast learner, and by watching Rodney he could figure out what data to safely screw around with, what settings he could adjust without blowing up the house. After all, if scaring wouldn’t work, then annoying computer glitches and ruining research might be enough to run Rodney off. Convinced he had a plan, he left and went back down to the basement.
Stretching as he entered, he paused and looked around, hazel eyes narrowing. The place seemed…cleaner than he remembered. And if he’d really been gone four months, shouldn’t there be more dust? Then he saw his plane and his suspicions melted, because she looked like the most beautiful thing in the world. The rest of his home had been demolished, but this…this was still his. Petting the side affectionately, he whispered sweet nothings to its propeller, then went over to his cot and fell asleep.
Tomorrow he’d catch up on Chapter 4, as Teyla suggested, then go and find Rodney, and he would finally reclaim his house.
~*()*~
While John got up with the sun (a habit he hadn’t been able to break, no matter how long he’d been discharged from the military), he didn’t actually venture forth from his basement until the early afternoon. All his plans were put on hold as he spent the morning tearing apart the garage, then combing the rest of the downstairs (he had avoided the upstairs since he’d died) looking for ‘The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.’
He’d thought he’d left it on the small workbench by his cot, but it wasn’t there. Finally, he simply gave up. It was entirely possible, he realized, that he had brought it through the stone door into the waiting room from hell and simply…forgot. Or maybe he’d dropped it after crossing the threshold of the door. With a sigh, he realized he’d have to go back and look for it, but it wasn’t a priority. After all, the book was simply a guide, and John already knew how to manipulate the material world enough that he didn’t really need it.
He’d look for the book after McKay was out of the house. How long could it take?
Heading upstairs, he checked first the kitchen (Rodney struck him as the type to eat a lot), then the living room, then stuck his head in the lab. No Rodney. Frowning, John headed upstairs and checked the bedroom. No Rodney, but his eyebrows rose as he found his Handbook. Carefully eyeing the room, half expecting something to jump out at him or an alarm to go off, John walked over and picked up the book. Still giving the room a wary look, he flipped through and, yes, this was definitely his book.
Maybe Teyla had moved it. Yeah, that was it. Because there was no way McKay could’ve gotten into the garage.
Unless Rodney had used the master key.
But his stuff was there, and untouched, so that couldn’t be.
Tucking the book under his arm, John headed downstairs and ran to his garage, setting the book back on his workbench. He sat on his bed, head propped up on his palms, watching it for a while. Finally he muttered, “idiot, of course it didn’t move by itself,” stood up, and hurried back upstairs. He had a scientist to find.
And find he did. What had been John’s (future) nursery Rodney had turned into a guest room and library. Rodney was currently sitting on a futon, letting the sun shine in and warm his legs, while reading through some scientific magazine. John carefully looked around the room, then found a set of heavy books standing on the top of a bookcase with no bookend. Perfect.
Walking over, he reached up to push them, when something made him freeze.
Specifically, a voice.
”Knock those over and I’ll make your afterlife a living hell.”
Ever so slowly, John turned his head towards Rodney. The man kept reading for another minute, then huffed and looked up, the magazine settling between his legs. “What? Don’t tell me you’re a retarded ghost!” He snapped his fingers at John. “Arm down.”
Still stunned, John let his arm drop. “You…can see me?”
McKay threw up his hands. “Of course I can see you! Figures I’d buy the one house with an idiot for a ghost!” He tilted his head. “You know, for a dead guy, you look hot--well, not at the moment. You look like all the blood’s drained away. Are you okay?”
John simply collapsed on the edge of the futon, struck dumb.
‘So much for my plan to haunt McKay into retreat,’ he finally thought.
~*()*~
“You know, it’s funny, you’d think as a ghost you couldn’t be surprised. Also, that’s a rather nasty scar on your forehead. Don’t they have doctors in the afterlife; voodoo practitioners that they are.”
John stared numbly at the man before him. He knew McKay was alive. There was mail on the table addressed to him, a coffee maker brewing coffee, a lab running simulations. There was no way Rodney was dead, which begged the question of how he could see John. “I…how can you see me?!”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “You left your book in plain view. And I’ve always known there had to be more than just rotting in the ground. I may not be strange and unusual, as the manual--and really, could it be anymore convoluted?--states, but once I had confirmation in my beliefs, obviously the whole ‘ghosts are invisible and can’t be seen by mortal eyes’ was thrown away.” He crossed his arms. “The gash?”
Instinctively, John reached up to his forehead. He actually hadn’t noticed a gash. He hadn’t felt any pain since his death, and he had no reflection. “I…I guess I got it when I died.” He must’ve hit his head on the steering wheel, or the dashboard, or maybe some glass from the windshield had sliced him. Shaking off the distracting thought trail, he pushed back his bewildered feelings. “How’d you get into the garage?”
“Hello! Master key ring a bell? I stole it from Carson and went to see what the fuss was about.” Rodney actually paused, tilting his head. “Are you building that plane? Cause it’s pretty much a waste of time, what with being unable to leave the interior of this ever so humble abode.” He crossed his arms. “Though what you have done? Pretty good. No where near as complex as a bomb.”
For some reason, that sounded almost like a compliment (at least, coming from McKay). “Thanks…?”
“Waste of time, but then, I guess since you’re dead, you’re remarkably bored. But that won’t keep you busy for 125 years.”
John scowled slightly. “You know, you really should--” What Rodney said finally registered. “Wait, 125 years?! I’m stuck here for over a century?!”
“Didn’t you read the book?” Rodney looked him over, then snorted. “Dumb question. You’re stuck here, within the boundaries of the foundation of this house for 125 years, after which you’ll be allowed to leave to,” Rodney waved his hand upward, “somewhere. It’s not very specific on that point.”
John had pretty much figured that much out, but he hadn’t thought he’d be here so long. “I…how did I get stuck on Earth that long?”
“Actually, you’re lucky. According to the book, most ghosts are stuck to a road, or a sign, or become some sort of administrative servants. Most have a least 200 years of service, or more. You should count your blessings.” Rodney smirked. “Or maybe not, since blessings might hurt you.”
John briefly recalled Teyla’s comment of 1000 year service and shuddered. “Great,” his shoulders slumped. “Stuck with you for decades. I was hoping I’d be gone by then.”
“Hey! How do you think I feel? Last place I had a ghost he tried to make me sleepwalk out a window!” Rodney crossed his arms. “And judging by your lack of knowledge of your predicament not to mention your rather childish attempt to disrupt my afternoon, I’d say you’re new at this.”
John crossed his arms and glared at Rodney, sulking on the inside.
“So I’ll make it simple. Stay in the garage and build your little plane, leave me and my research alone, and I won’t haul my exorcist out here and condemn you to Purgatory.” Mouth twisted smugly, he picked up his magazine. “Now I’m busy, so go oil your gears or whatever it is you’re working on.”
John let out a growl. “Bite me, McKay.” Rodney ignored him, and John turned to stomp out of the room. At the last minute, he reached up and knocked the books off the top of the bookcase. As far as John was concerned, McKay might understand the Handbook better, but John was an ex-soldier.
And this? This…was war.
~*()*~
John started small. Stopping the simulations Rodney left running through the night, deactivating the automatic coffee maker, turning off the hot water heater while McKay was in the shower. Petty stuff, really, but it was only the opening salvo. Rodney, of course, kept no citrus in the house (and John wasn’t about to play with the man’s life), but John screwed up the rest of the food. He poured salt into the milk, turned down the freezing unit of the fridge to spoil the food earlier, and pushed the plethora of sugar foodstuffs near windows to encourage ants.
Rodney was upset, but it was the coffee maker that led to utensils flying towards--and consequently, through--John’s head. After seeing the destruction, and how Rodney dealt with the cleaning service, John decided to leave the coffee alone. He wanted to be annoying, but Rodney had made three of the cleaning women cry taking out his anger over the coffee loss. Other than that, though, the softening of McKay’s defenses was complete.
Phase two took longer. Not just stopping the simulations, but altering the variables and then rerunning them, so that Rodney had to start from scratch. Rearranging layouts took over a week; changing drawers in the kitchen, shuffling what shelves held DVDs and books in the living room, and his personal favorite: completely reorganizing the library from Rodney’s system to stored via color coding of the spine. It meant he had to sleep in the afternoon, when Rodney was gone, but it left him highly satisfied.
At least, until the next Saturday, when Rodney caught him moving his clothes about. “I should’ve known you were trying to get into my boxers. You look sort of slutty.”
John yanked his hands from the underwear drawer and glared at McKay, fighting the blush he knew was appearing on his face. “I don’t think there’s anyone who wants to get into your boxers, McKay.”
Rodney sniffed. “I’ll have you know that there will be plenty of women fighting to get into them once I win the Nobel Prize.”
“From the way your research is going, you won’t have to worry about it for a long time.”
That caused Rodney to scowl, and he crossed his arms. “That’s why you’re going to stop interfering.’
John grinned. “Of course, McKay.”
“I mean it,” the scowl deepened. “Keep this up, and you’ll be sorry.”
“What, you’ll throw another fork through my head?”
A cruel smirk appeared on Rodney’s face. “You’d be surprised what damage a sledgehammer can do.” That wiped the smile off John’s face. “You try to lock me out, I’ll get Ronon to rip the main door off and let him haul that junk away. You can make life annoying for me, but I can make your eternity so dull you’ll wish for exorcism.”
John stood up and loomed over Rodney. “If you so much as breathe on my plane, I’ll-”
“Make my life annoying. Yes, you’ve shown me you can do that.” McKay looked smug.
John wanted nothing more than to wipe that look off Rodney’s face. Clenching his fists, John growled, “You win this time, McKay.” Then he stomped through the open door and back down to his garage. There’d be a point, he knew, where he’d be willing to sacrifice his plane; but he wasn’t there yet. He’d scale back the overt warfare, but he wouldn’t stop it. He’d find a way. It would take longer than his initial plans, but he’d find a way around this obstacle.
Hopefully, without sacrificing the lone anchor to his life.
~*( Part 2)*~