Math Camp, by Mel, [Harlequin Challenge]
Title: Math Camp
Author: Mel
Rating: PG only 'cause there's some swearing.
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Disclaimer: I borrowed everything. Sorry
Summary:John Sheppard remembers something he knows Rodney McKay doesn't. Will he ever share?
Notes: Based on the "They were friends/loves when children, and meet up as adults" cliche. And there's math camp. And. Stuff.
Thanks: Julad for sitting and laughing at me and going "Dude, comma" aka betaing. Also, first fic here. Hi.
It wasn't that he didn't want to tell Rodney, John assured himself, scrunching up the "TELL HIM TODAY!" note that was in his drawer on top of his underwear. And it wasn't even that big a deal, he added, scrunching up and tossing his "TELL HIM TODAY, I MEAN IT!" note that was stuck to his mirror into the bin.
Obviously it wasn't that big a deal, since Rodney didn't remember it at all, that little tiny part of him that was still eleven years old muttered forlornly. Since John had not been forlorn very much in the last 15 years, he ignored it. He also ignored the notes he'd left himself in desperation on his belt, inside his shoes and on the pile of ammunition beside the mirror.
He'd seen himself as an adult for some time, but not when it came to this particular issue, apparently.
And it was too late to think that this issue was a one-off. It had been around since he had started on the Atlantis project. Before, really. That moment, sitting in that chair in the middle of butt-fuck Antarctica, Rodney McKay had marched up to him and glared and ordered him around and he had swallowed and flashed back to his eleven-year-old self. His lonely, geeky, totally-in-love-with-Rodney McKay-at-Math-Camp self. He hadn't mentioned it then, pretending nothing had happened out of confusion, although it had probably only been chance he hadn't accidentally released another drone on the spot. Then he hadn't mentioned anything out of remembered painful embarrassment. He had been horribly, torturously geeky when he had gone to the nearest Math Camp to his father's Alaskan posting. He had pictures, and there was nothing redeeming about the huge thick glasses, the long socks with sandals, the polo-neck tucked firmly into his vinyl-belted shorts. He hadn't even been one of the cool Math Camp kids. Naturally he wouldn't bring this up when he accidentally, in the middle of butt-fuck Antarctica, ran into the One True Cool Kid at Math Camp. Naturally.
And naturally, he wouldn't mention it after they just started hanging out. Or, y'know, going to another galaxy and trying not to get killed. Whatever.
The problem was that it had become too late to bring it up casually. Now he couldn't, because it'd be embarrassing for entirely different reasons. He'd just feel dumb. But it kept preying on his mind. Relentlessly. Every time that he'd decided, that was it, he wasn't going to worry about it any more, Rodney got caught up in something, went on a rant and there was this long silence when people expected that he respond and inside his head he was stuttering something about up against the dance hall and we were just doing calculus and frantically behind his blank eyes you solved matrices then we kissed! Usually what everyone else got was an apparently well thought out "Okay".
John growled, annoyed at himself. This was dumb. He really wasn't going to keep thinking about this. He marched out of his room, pausing only briefly to rip the "TELL HIM TODAY OR GET THE FUCK OVER IT!!!" sign from the back of his door, scrunch it up and toss it over his shoulder to land perfectly in his trash can.
* * *
Johnny was truly, utterly miserable. He hadn't wanted to come to this stupid camp anyway, but his teacher had sent all these excited and enthusiastic letters home, and it wasn't like anyone was doing anything interesting with his summer, and next thing he he knew, off he went to the most exciting thing in Canadian math camps. And the thing was, he didn't even fit here. All the other kids his age had been to this camp before, and to workshops and seminars and stuff. And they were all Canadian. And he had been in 4 different schools, he hadn't gotten to go to anything mathy ever and he was American. So basically, Johnny Sheppard was the most miserable boy ever. And they didn't even have anything interesting to do because it was all math. Math, math and now they wanted to have this geeky dance like there was anyone here who was interested in anything but sigmoidal variables.
He was in the middle of getting up a really good sulk, the kind of sulk that only the the teen or prepubescent can manage, when around the corner came the camp's golden boy. Rodney McKay had been to math camps since he was about 2 years old, from what Johnny could work out, went to every seminar and workshop ever done ever, and was Canadian too. It really wasn't fair. He shuffled sideways, facing away so that Rodney McKay could treat him as part of the wall if he wanted. That was what everyone else did.
Rodney McKay was eating a muesli bar - as he always did - and almost walked past, then did an impressive double-take when he saw who it was. "Hello, uh, Baker," he said, removing muesli bar from his mouth in rather unexpected politeness.
Johnny scuffed a foot once in denial before saying, "Hey."
"I just wanted to say, I looked at your answer for Jackson's session, and I think you probably had it right, but how did you do that third figure?" McKay's eyes were bright and piercing.
"Uh," Johnny said intelligently under that gaze. "It sort of seemed that the equation worked."
This was apparently not good enough, and within minutes they were smoothing out the dust beside the building to better write things in it as disco, carefully chosed for pre-teens, blared out of the hall over their heads.
An hour later they were leaning against the wall arguing about what was more manly, football - American, naturally - or ice hockey, with emphatic hand-gestures, and they now both had muesli bars thanks to Rodney's many pockets. The music continued, ignored by them both.
Later still they were sitting down drawing on the ground, saying what they wanted most. Johnny was insisting he wanted to be an astronaut, he wanted to go as far and and as fast as anyone ever, and was watching Rodney McKay grasp at the air trying to explain that he was going to find out why, why everything, and how! How too, that was important. Johnny listened, then took a deep breath and leaned over to press a tiny, shy kiss on Rodney McKay's enthusiastic face.
Said enthusiastic face looked startled and confused for a long, long minute.
"I - uh, sorry!" Johnny stuttered. "I just. Um."
Then Rodney McKay shook his head once and kissed Johnny, equally chastely. Then, strangely quiet for him, reached over and wrapped his sticky fingers around Johnny's.
"Anyway," he said, not quite as stridently as might be normally expected, "they need scientists in space so that the astronauts don't mess things up too much."
***
Amongst the other things that Rodney had gotten in his shipment was a box of 'achievements', degrees, awards, things like that. He had gotten out the big ones, but was taking his time with the rest. Zelenka said he was gloating, but he was wrong, Rodney was just... savouring his achievements, was all. However, any way you put it, he had come to the end of the box and thus the end of the gloating and savouring. He reached in for the last, a group photo from his youth. He sighed, smiling a bit at the sad little nerdy faces of the first hill he'd been king of.
At the Smith-Rhonan Math Camp, he'd been master of all he surveyed. He surveyed again, the picture, running his eyes over all of the kids who had looked up to him. He still corresponded with a couple, but many of them had quietly disappeared after that, not able to cope with college grade competitions and puberty all at once. He shrugged away his traditional grin at the little dark haired kid in the corner, looking away from the camera, who had just faded away. Then he frowned. He looked harder. He frowned harder still.
"Fuck!" he growled, leaping to his feet, and he was running down the hall, his picture in his fist and snarling.
He did, in fact, dash around randomly for a while before he saw Sheppard ahead of him. He put on a burst of speed and spun his target around by the shoulder.
"You," Rodney growled. "You're Baker!"
Sheppard looked at him kindly. "No, McKay, I'm Sheppard, remember, John Sheppard?"
Ignoring the people looking at them, as he always did, Rodney was only more infuriated by Sheppard's casual response. "You were Baker and you never mentioned it!! This," he waved the picture around too fast for any of the audience or Sheppard to focus on it, "is you, and you didn't see fit to say anthing."
Sheppard shrugged. "I guess you mean Math Camp?" he asked.
Rodney rolled his eyes so hard his head went back. "What, did you think I meant ballet lessons? Yes Math Camp! I was there, you were there and you kissed me!"
Suddenly more audience appeared, as if they'd been called, which might have explained some of the intercoms and headsets being held facing the pair.
"You kissed me too," Sheppard said mildly, but the more discerning gawkers noticed that his ears were going slightly red. "Anyway, you didn't remember, so what makes you think that I remembered?"
Rodney's mouth opened and closed twice. This fact was murmured into a couple of headsets. "I didn't change my name and you did so remember," was his ultimate comeback, which even he thought was weak.
John shrugged. "My name didn't change, you got it wrong, and anyway, it isn't that much of a big deal," he said, looking painfully casually.
"This isn't about me," Rodney insisted. "This is about you and your perfidity and not telling me and--" he turned to the people staring at them-- "we were eleven so you can all just shut up." He turned back and glared at Sheppard again. "Anyway, you're all different now, with your - " he waved his hands to indicate all sorts of mysteries, presumably, like hair and clothes and abs. "You used to be so nerdy and, and shy."
"Nerdy?" Sheppard let his eyebrows make the 'pot meet kettle' comment for him. "And I grew up, McKay, some of us did when we weren't kids any more. It isn't that much of a big deal, some handholding and a couple of kisses. You couldn't even kiss right."
Rodney was beginning to lose track of his anger, but he couldn't just let that go. "I grew up."
Sheppard's doubtful eyebrows replied for him again. There was some sniggering from the sticky-beakers.
"And anyway, I can too kiss," Rodney said firmly.
Slowly, meaningfully, Sheppard smiled. "Prove it."
Author: Mel
Rating: PG only 'cause there's some swearing.
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Disclaimer: I borrowed everything. Sorry
Summary:John Sheppard remembers something he knows Rodney McKay doesn't. Will he ever share?
Notes: Based on the "They were friends/loves when children, and meet up as adults" cliche. And there's math camp. And. Stuff.
Thanks: Julad for sitting and laughing at me and going "Dude, comma" aka betaing. Also, first fic here. Hi.
It wasn't that he didn't want to tell Rodney, John assured himself, scrunching up the "TELL HIM TODAY!" note that was in his drawer on top of his underwear. And it wasn't even that big a deal, he added, scrunching up and tossing his "TELL HIM TODAY, I MEAN IT!" note that was stuck to his mirror into the bin.
Obviously it wasn't that big a deal, since Rodney didn't remember it at all, that little tiny part of him that was still eleven years old muttered forlornly. Since John had not been forlorn very much in the last 15 years, he ignored it. He also ignored the notes he'd left himself in desperation on his belt, inside his shoes and on the pile of ammunition beside the mirror.
He'd seen himself as an adult for some time, but not when it came to this particular issue, apparently.
And it was too late to think that this issue was a one-off. It had been around since he had started on the Atlantis project. Before, really. That moment, sitting in that chair in the middle of butt-fuck Antarctica, Rodney McKay had marched up to him and glared and ordered him around and he had swallowed and flashed back to his eleven-year-old self. His lonely, geeky, totally-in-love-with-Rodney McKay-at-Math-Camp self. He hadn't mentioned it then, pretending nothing had happened out of confusion, although it had probably only been chance he hadn't accidentally released another drone on the spot. Then he hadn't mentioned anything out of remembered painful embarrassment. He had been horribly, torturously geeky when he had gone to the nearest Math Camp to his father's Alaskan posting. He had pictures, and there was nothing redeeming about the huge thick glasses, the long socks with sandals, the polo-neck tucked firmly into his vinyl-belted shorts. He hadn't even been one of the cool Math Camp kids. Naturally he wouldn't bring this up when he accidentally, in the middle of butt-fuck Antarctica, ran into the One True Cool Kid at Math Camp. Naturally.
And naturally, he wouldn't mention it after they just started hanging out. Or, y'know, going to another galaxy and trying not to get killed. Whatever.
The problem was that it had become too late to bring it up casually. Now he couldn't, because it'd be embarrassing for entirely different reasons. He'd just feel dumb. But it kept preying on his mind. Relentlessly. Every time that he'd decided, that was it, he wasn't going to worry about it any more, Rodney got caught up in something, went on a rant and there was this long silence when people expected that he respond and inside his head he was stuttering something about up against the dance hall and we were just doing calculus and frantically behind his blank eyes you solved matrices then we kissed! Usually what everyone else got was an apparently well thought out "Okay".
John growled, annoyed at himself. This was dumb. He really wasn't going to keep thinking about this. He marched out of his room, pausing only briefly to rip the "TELL HIM TODAY OR GET THE FUCK OVER IT!!!" sign from the back of his door, scrunch it up and toss it over his shoulder to land perfectly in his trash can.
* * *
Johnny was truly, utterly miserable. He hadn't wanted to come to this stupid camp anyway, but his teacher had sent all these excited and enthusiastic letters home, and it wasn't like anyone was doing anything interesting with his summer, and next thing he he knew, off he went to the most exciting thing in Canadian math camps. And the thing was, he didn't even fit here. All the other kids his age had been to this camp before, and to workshops and seminars and stuff. And they were all Canadian. And he had been in 4 different schools, he hadn't gotten to go to anything mathy ever and he was American. So basically, Johnny Sheppard was the most miserable boy ever. And they didn't even have anything interesting to do because it was all math. Math, math and now they wanted to have this geeky dance like there was anyone here who was interested in anything but sigmoidal variables.
He was in the middle of getting up a really good sulk, the kind of sulk that only the the teen or prepubescent can manage, when around the corner came the camp's golden boy. Rodney McKay had been to math camps since he was about 2 years old, from what Johnny could work out, went to every seminar and workshop ever done ever, and was Canadian too. It really wasn't fair. He shuffled sideways, facing away so that Rodney McKay could treat him as part of the wall if he wanted. That was what everyone else did.
Rodney McKay was eating a muesli bar - as he always did - and almost walked past, then did an impressive double-take when he saw who it was. "Hello, uh, Baker," he said, removing muesli bar from his mouth in rather unexpected politeness.
Johnny scuffed a foot once in denial before saying, "Hey."
"I just wanted to say, I looked at your answer for Jackson's session, and I think you probably had it right, but how did you do that third figure?" McKay's eyes were bright and piercing.
"Uh," Johnny said intelligently under that gaze. "It sort of seemed that the equation worked."
This was apparently not good enough, and within minutes they were smoothing out the dust beside the building to better write things in it as disco, carefully chosed for pre-teens, blared out of the hall over their heads.
An hour later they were leaning against the wall arguing about what was more manly, football - American, naturally - or ice hockey, with emphatic hand-gestures, and they now both had muesli bars thanks to Rodney's many pockets. The music continued, ignored by them both.
Later still they were sitting down drawing on the ground, saying what they wanted most. Johnny was insisting he wanted to be an astronaut, he wanted to go as far and and as fast as anyone ever, and was watching Rodney McKay grasp at the air trying to explain that he was going to find out why, why everything, and how! How too, that was important. Johnny listened, then took a deep breath and leaned over to press a tiny, shy kiss on Rodney McKay's enthusiastic face.
Said enthusiastic face looked startled and confused for a long, long minute.
"I - uh, sorry!" Johnny stuttered. "I just. Um."
Then Rodney McKay shook his head once and kissed Johnny, equally chastely. Then, strangely quiet for him, reached over and wrapped his sticky fingers around Johnny's.
"Anyway," he said, not quite as stridently as might be normally expected, "they need scientists in space so that the astronauts don't mess things up too much."
***
Amongst the other things that Rodney had gotten in his shipment was a box of 'achievements', degrees, awards, things like that. He had gotten out the big ones, but was taking his time with the rest. Zelenka said he was gloating, but he was wrong, Rodney was just... savouring his achievements, was all. However, any way you put it, he had come to the end of the box and thus the end of the gloating and savouring. He reached in for the last, a group photo from his youth. He sighed, smiling a bit at the sad little nerdy faces of the first hill he'd been king of.
At the Smith-Rhonan Math Camp, he'd been master of all he surveyed. He surveyed again, the picture, running his eyes over all of the kids who had looked up to him. He still corresponded with a couple, but many of them had quietly disappeared after that, not able to cope with college grade competitions and puberty all at once. He shrugged away his traditional grin at the little dark haired kid in the corner, looking away from the camera, who had just faded away. Then he frowned. He looked harder. He frowned harder still.
"Fuck!" he growled, leaping to his feet, and he was running down the hall, his picture in his fist and snarling.
He did, in fact, dash around randomly for a while before he saw Sheppard ahead of him. He put on a burst of speed and spun his target around by the shoulder.
"You," Rodney growled. "You're Baker!"
Sheppard looked at him kindly. "No, McKay, I'm Sheppard, remember, John Sheppard?"
Ignoring the people looking at them, as he always did, Rodney was only more infuriated by Sheppard's casual response. "You were Baker and you never mentioned it!! This," he waved the picture around too fast for any of the audience or Sheppard to focus on it, "is you, and you didn't see fit to say anthing."
Sheppard shrugged. "I guess you mean Math Camp?" he asked.
Rodney rolled his eyes so hard his head went back. "What, did you think I meant ballet lessons? Yes Math Camp! I was there, you were there and you kissed me!"
Suddenly more audience appeared, as if they'd been called, which might have explained some of the intercoms and headsets being held facing the pair.
"You kissed me too," Sheppard said mildly, but the more discerning gawkers noticed that his ears were going slightly red. "Anyway, you didn't remember, so what makes you think that I remembered?"
Rodney's mouth opened and closed twice. This fact was murmured into a couple of headsets. "I didn't change my name and you did so remember," was his ultimate comeback, which even he thought was weak.
John shrugged. "My name didn't change, you got it wrong, and anyway, it isn't that much of a big deal," he said, looking painfully casually.
"This isn't about me," Rodney insisted. "This is about you and your perfidity and not telling me and--" he turned to the people staring at them-- "we were eleven so you can all just shut up." He turned back and glared at Sheppard again. "Anyway, you're all different now, with your - " he waved his hands to indicate all sorts of mysteries, presumably, like hair and clothes and abs. "You used to be so nerdy and, and shy."
"Nerdy?" Sheppard let his eyebrows make the 'pot meet kettle' comment for him. "And I grew up, McKay, some of us did when we weren't kids any more. It isn't that much of a big deal, some handholding and a couple of kisses. You couldn't even kiss right."
Rodney was beginning to lose track of his anger, but he couldn't just let that go. "I grew up."
Sheppard's doubtful eyebrows replied for him again. There was some sniggering from the sticky-beakers.
"And anyway, I can too kiss," Rodney said firmly.
Slowly, meaningfully, Sheppard smiled. "Prove it."