Were you looking for that story where...?
Originally posted May 6, 2010, now made sticky.
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Warnings: 1. Don't look if you're under 18. Really not safe for work.
2. Descriptions are chock-full of story spoilers.
3.a This list is just a snapshot of a few 50 60-odd SGA stories as filed in my brain and how I perceive some of them are often searched for on sgastoryfinders. 3.b Someday there may be additions, or a detour to an actual delicious account. 3.c I seem to be adding and amending some more based on suggestions or inspiration. 3.d. Order: (What I believe are) the very most-frequently requested stories at the top, then a more random assortment, and the no-Stargate AU stories at the end.
4. Apologies to the person in The Sentinel fandom whose rec list was part of the inspiration for this post. Update: Geoffrey's "The One Where" Sentinel rec post was located by cesperanza.
Were you looking for...?
That story where John has no idea what they're doing and Rodney isn't really that attractive anyway and he is so fascinated by his sudden bisexuality and he fusses with his tie when they go meet John's brother Dave and his wife, and Rodney and Dave's wife click and snark a lot over dinner, but before that Rodney briefly goes catatonic on an offworld mission because the team thought aliens had cut off John's head but no and eventually there's sex -- though first the kissing's really weird ("Oh my god I can't believe I'm kissing this asshole!") before it goes hot. And then after John's dad is dead John and Rodney visit Earth and John has to talk about his beauty-queen mother who was bought off to go away and all his stepmothers even the evil one who his brother also hates and the only thing they keep from John's inheritance is a Ray Bradbury novel and Dave just wants John to be happy and Rodney was worried about passing muster with John's family but that wasn't what it was about at all.
That story where John gets the cultural insensitivity spanking from Teyla's allies because Rodney messed up and there's that memory tea and they find the other control chairs and the Havildar OFC is kinda cool and smart and John's all jealous and he wonders what color Rodney's nipples are and he stabs Rodney with a pen (mathy!John) and there are blue berries that aren't blueberries and Lorne gets in on the chair-telepathy action and they remote-control fly a fleet of Ancient ships in a space battle with the Wraith and the expedition patent lawyer is pleased for John and the Havildar jiggers the security cameras so there won't be a record of John and Rodney sneaking into each other's rooms at night.
That story where the Genii poison gas Elizabeth so they stick her in stasis to fix it and Rodney takes over and mathy!John likes debugging and says sarcasm isn't helpful but it's Rodney in charge so sarcasm is what it's all about and Rodney shows him his X-wing plans but also tosses him in the brig for disobeying orders even though they're kinda boyfriends now and pays him visits for conjugal purposes/strategy meetings. And John almost blows Rodney from under the desk during a meeting and Teyla is pissy about human rights a lot especially when they only let the Genii off their planet to get Frequent-Wraith-Killer Points (which they can buy supplies to kill more Wraith with) and they train the Athosian kids to commit psychological warfare using smileyface/frownyface points charts and they find some baby-ZPMs but actually it's also about styles of command and what works for whom and differing levels of ruthlessness and walking that fine edge between blowing up planets and conquering despair.
That story where to some of his students it's obvious that Rodney was in a combat zone and he doesn't realize his colleague is hitting on him but he explains he's a widower and Elizabeth married Ronon after they left Atlantis and Rodney singlehandedly is pulling the physics department of Podunk University out of obscurity but he makes his students cry and freak out a lot by teaching them Pegasus Ethics and other useful stuff in case they go offworld someday despite his warnings, even though after John's death he asked Atlantis and she agreed not to be used for military purposes. And every year he goes to John's empty grave in Arlington where the Athosian flowers bloom and tells him he's okay, truly.
That story where Ford says you can't make a submissive the military leader of Atlantis but Elizabeth is like whatever some of my best friends are subs, and subs are discriminated against in the armed forces and John bought himself a collar one time and his squad in Afghanistan was nice to him but wouldn't fuck him and he's so used to tops treating him badly that John doesn't quite understand when Rodney isn't like any other top he's known and won't hurt him or be mean and they miscommunicate a lot and worry about the "I have an unsafe top" pamphlet but when John finds the collar Rodney bought he wants it so bad -- and just oh, oh, John Sheppard!
That story where right at the start Rodney gets shot down by a blonde at a party and gets drunk, self-loathing, and bitter, but John finds it oddly interesting, though as he hasn't been gay for twenty years he waffles for ages before giving in to his attraction, and Rodney is kinda sweaty and pudgy and John is very hairy but then there is passionate, tongue in cheek kissing (with mouths like awakened Wraith and pearl diving to explore every tooth) and a lot of slow build of John and Rodney having a relationship, because Rodney's been head over heels for ages but doesn't have a lot of experience while John's had a lot of meaningless affairs but he can't love so well ever since his parents shunned him after his little brother died when they were kids. But Rodney plays John country western music on the baby grand the Daedalus delivered after they go to one of the new morale-boosting concerts (on a date) and John compares his feelings for Rodney with surfing, so Rodney buys the team surfboards except they arrive while he's being shunned for that little mistake on Doranda, which there's lots of soul-searching about and eventually there's careful reconnecting and renewed avowals of love.
That story where Rodney's being shunned after Doranda and the team's on a mission on a matriarchal desert planet and Rodney gets taken prisoner and staked out to be eaten alive by bugs but he survives though he's scarred and when he (eventually) gets back to Atlantis Rodney berates them all for their double standards and treating him so badly and John cries and knows he's not forgiven but is happy Rodney loves him after all.
That story where it's actually not a post-Trinity story though it feels like it because after The Siege Rodney fixes the transporters but Kavanagh breaks them and people get hurt and die because of it and Kavanagh blames Rodney so Rodney gets shunned and he's treated superbadly -- Carson's distant, John's an ass, Elizabeth's a jerk and they're all really unprofessional -- but when the transporters FUBARed Rodney's arm was broken so he has to set it himself (with pencils!) while confined to his quarters and eventually Carson notices so he and John and Elizabeth apologize that they were a little harsh but Rodney knows they didn't mean it and still think he's an arrogant asshole, but still he's let out of his room so he just goes on fixing Atlantis all by himself and barely sleeps or eats and only Radek (who took Rodney's job but only to avoid Kavanagh getting it) is nice to Rodney and then eventually Radek figures out it was Kavanagh who broke the transporters and John figures out Rodney never got enough sleep even before the Siege because the radio logs show everyone was always calling him at night to fix their stupid shit but meanwhile Rodney almost dies trying to fix another part of the city and John's sorry and they all sorta are but Rodney doesn't just forgive John right away even though they had a little thing going during the Siege because it really hurt that he let John close and thought for the first time that he had friends but they let him down.
That story where Rodney's hand gets crushed and John holds him while they get him free and post-surgery Rodney's in the infirmary for a long time so the team needs a temp and turns out Radek knows how to shoot because of his compulsory military service and John and Rodney watch Invader ZIM while he's laid up and Rodney's willing but John's isn't because he's worried about the regs but any touching of Rodney's injured hand is all a metaphor for love and repression ("I don't think I've ever practiced this level of denial before, and this is coming from a man who hit on Samantha Carter like there was no tomorrow.") but then there's mixed messages and some sex happens and John gets shot a little and Rodney's mad so John briefly wishes he could die in a tragic yet painless gurney accident and aliens keep wanting to trade other hostages to get McKay but John's really not okay with that and neither is Rodney, especially when it turns out to be Kolya (who Teyla distracts by taking her top off -- good for morale!) and John gets drugged offworld and becomes very chatty and tries to pet Radek's hair and Rodney drags him out of the gateroom before John blurts out how much he loves him and the few people who know are all cool about being discreet about their relationship which John is totally not freaking out about.
That story where John's parents were very religious and didn't sleep in the same bed and he's kinda touch-averse and it took years before he realized that his dad's lecture about being careful when putting the plane into the hangar might not have been about flying and he almost lost his virginity with a cute surfer-girl but it didn't quite work out and it kept not working out until Rodney gets him to drop his barriers bit by bit, especially one of those times they're locked up in some offworld prison, and confesses to having a little crush on John -- or actually being a lot in love with him -- and slowly John discovers various kinds of intimacy and eventually John and Rodney even have a PDA at the graveside after John's dad dies.
That story where they're on Earth and John keeps ending up at the emergency room because the doors on Earth don't automatically open when he thinks at them and Rodney yells at him for it and the earnest, trying-to-be-helpful E.R. doctor thinks Rodney's beating John but no, Rodney's offended by the very notion and anyway they're just friends not lovers until Rodney installs security-enhanced sliding doors with motion sensors in John's apartment as a surprise gift because home improvement is a lot more romantic than concerns and pamphlets about domestic abuse (even if Rodney still won't share his civet-processed coffee with John).
That story where John and Cam Mitchell were tiny robots and John got crushed and they demanded Lorne read them "The Brave Little Toaster" and then they're humanoid and John runs away to be Rodney's sexbot because he's worried they're going to be shut down but he gets a virus and he's broken but Thor downloads him into his biobody and he gets to come to Atlantis (because it was all about the ATA gene) and be with Rodney anyway. But Cam's still a virgin and all embarrassed that he didn't know people would take notice when SG-1 visits Atlantis and Lorne is sorry and lots of people offer to help out and Jennifer does. And then there's a still-mechanical humanoid Cam from another universe who comes through the gate who was abused and alt!Lorne was horrible and killed alt!John and alt!Cam is traumatized so they make him a girl biobody and mini!O'Neill ends up thinking that's a great idea and alt!Jeannie sends over the backed up source code for alt!John who has anger management issues when they give him a biobody too.
That story where John gets turned into a cute black cat for a month but he can meow prime not-prime just fine and Rodney has to talk John out from under the medical equipment and Rodney's really mad at Carson and Elizabeth for ignoring John's medical proxy and Ronon got scratched trying to catch him and Heightmeyer plays ball with him and they make John a tiny skateboard and helmet and he's not fully relieved from duty just for being a cat and Lorne tells him his command style's not that different as a cat and the Johnny Cash poster is too big and scary so John sleeps with Rodney which apparently is also a good idea when he's human again.
That story where they find a kitten but actually it turns out to be a telepathic tiger and Daniel snuck off to Atlantis so what with DADT Jack retires and moves to Atlantis too and the city loves Daniel and there's banter and pining all around and even though Ronon hits on Daniel a few times Jack and Daniel and John and Rodney end up happily coupled up and they find out the tigers, who also decided to move to Atlantis, are really good at killing Wraith.
That story where Rodney can temporarily read people's thoughts but not John's, and it actually takes a look at consequences so Carson thinks loudly of broccoli and one Lieutenant comes to Rodney freaked out that Rodney will out him, wtf, and Rodney and Radek work together better than ever and Elizabeth is cool and John and Rodney camp out at the edge of the city so Rodney can sleep without seeing people's nightmares but then he lets his guard down for a few minutes and looks at John the way he almost did that time he had the epiphany on the balcony ("yes him, for me!") and John sees it but it's okay and even really really good.
That story where John keeps a paper bag in his tac vest because Rodney hyperventilates a lot and after debugifying John starts seeing people's thoughts -- more and more of them over time -- and too many of them think about sex or their fears but Rodney's are more interesting and brilliant and organized and compartmentalized than anyone else's, which makes him the best person to be around and then John ends up falling for more than just Rodney's brain.
That story where they find the device that makes everyone in the lab orgasm when John thinks at it (oops, accidental orgy, so embarrassing, also eew! with Kavanagh there) but talking about the weather helps with the awkward and there's banter and then the device ends up coming in handy when Milky Way Replicators invade Atlantis though it's hard for John to focus it on the Replicritters when Rodney's brain is so hot.
That story where John gives Rodney a multiple choice note as a marriage proposal but Rodney doesn't read it for hours and John freaks out because he hasn't answered and then Rodney freaks out because John's acting freaked but then Rodney finds it and checkmarks "yes" and it's all good.
That story where they're on Earth with the city and Jennifer takes Rodney on vacation but it's all a plot ("betrayal, thy name is Keller") to get him away while John is tortured because he won't fly Atlantis back to Pegasus to destroy it. But Rodney figures it out because of the fake emails from not-John and he and John escape and hole up on a sailboat in San Francisco and insult each other in capslock and discover their love and get smuggled around in giant cardboard boxes and eventually steal a puddlejumper and head back to Pegasus with some friends to find Teyla and Ronon.
That story where John keeps having unfortunate encounters with Rodney's erection when they're hiding in confined spaces and Rodney doesn't think to use the "it's just adrenalin!" excuse but instead confesses to maybe having a little crush on John that he's sure will go away soon just like his hard-on, what hard-on? but it doesn't and he's actually in love with John and John is surprisingly relaxed about it except for the occasional freaking-out but then Rodney gets hurt and John figures out that he might like to get to know Rodney's erections better, and once he does he only freaks out a little most days. And then Rodney gets territorial and on one planet Rodney's supposed to defend John's honor in a duel (in armor, with an axe) because someone said something mean about his boyfriend, but instead Rodney argues in favor of sex and gestures eloquently and they rappel down the tower wall to escape and John's concerned Rodney will bludgeon him with a PowerPoint presentation about prostates but he barely freaks out anymore and they continue being recklessly in love on Atlantis.
That story where they're environmental terrorists who get zapped with memory-reprogramming tech and they don't know each other or who they were. But in their commie-block-like prison colony John learns to make pizza and ice cream and when he's zapped again Rodney cooks for him and visits him in hospital even though he doesn't know who Rodney is again and John keeps a secret journal and the sex is great even if Rodney's worried about power imbalances of doing it with his servant until Teyla and Lorne -- who come to rescue them with Sam and a bunch of marines -- make it seem like the sex wasn't a good idea but then they get their memories back and turns out it was.
That story where the IOA doesn't want an American in charge of the military anymore so Rodney offers to marry John so he can be Canadian and sign up with the Canadian military (which has a tank, it does) and Elizabeth thinks it's a good idea even if she won't let them use "Do you? Do you? Kiss" as their entire wedding vows and Ronon helps John decide on the most aggravating pet names to call Rodney and Woolsey comes to Atlantis to check up on the genuineness of their marriage and first they're faking it with a carefully prepared plan but by the end of his visit it's so real they're confessing to semen! on each other! when all Woolsey was trying to do was tell them he was already planning to report on the clear evidence of their affection to the IOA, and the whole thing is funny and sweet.
That story where after Doranda Rodney's being shunned but then people are worried about him when their anger wears off a little and John starts secretly bringing him coffee and taking care of him because he doesn't fill the room up anymore and then Radek and Miko are thrilled when Rodney goes back to yelling in the labs and Elizabeth is happy when he smiles again and Rodney tells John he was the only one with a right to be that angry at Rodney but letting everyone else be mean wasn't cool.
That story where Rodney and John discover they're brothers after they started fucking but that's not the real problem, the real problem is the damned Trust trying to get the Ancient tech they found hidden in their dad's freezer after his funeral and John's ability to use it. And they're jealous of each others' childhoods and upset their parents sabotaged their getting into the SGC even if it was for their safety but then with the Trust chasing them as they road-trip their way to the SGC it's all moot and they end up heading to Atlantis happily together anyway.
That story where John and Rodney discover they're brothers after they started fucking but that's not the real problem, the real problem is the Ancient zombies and Rodney getting infected and smart people with the Ancient gene smelling the tastiest and John smelling like he'd be the very best thing to eat in the whole universe. But thank goodness for the expedition's medical ethics being almost as good as the Ancients' so they figure out a cure and the ex-zombie dying Ancient says sorry and Rodney only wants to swallow not actually eat John anymore.
That story where John is the last survivor of the expedition after the zombiefication virus came through the gate -- he and Rodney and Elizabeth had to kill everyone else, but then Elizabeth and Rodney got infected too and zombie-Rodney was a better friend than zombie-Elizabeth, even if they both just wanted to eat him, so sorry, bye-bye Elizabeth. And John's so very tired but he and Rodney still say goodnight to each other in their own way though maybe not for much longer.
That story where because of Rodney being a little insensitive and some Ancienty gas John becomes irresistible to everyone and stabs Ronon with a fork. Turns out Elizabeth in stockings and a bustier is scary and Rodney realizes he'd maybe prefer to help John than get a mediocre one-hour slot somewhere on the nascent all-expedition who-gets-John-when schedule. John's barricaded in with furniture and a lot of weapons ("survey says -- hot") but it won't keep everyone out for long so John and Rodney escape to a lab to figure it out and they get it on but at least John didn't get taken down like a gazelle by Zelenka and everyone in the mess. And eventually the gas's effect is mostly dissipated but not until the entire expedition had a giant orgy and Rodney fought Cadman to protect his prize -- and won! -- and Elizabeth's sitting kinda funny.
That story where John and Rodney are on Earth for a few weeks and John invites himself to Rodney's and Rodney has a mailbox and answering machine full of consulting offers for boatloads of money so John goes with him though he has to pretend to be his mathematician and takes Rodney's Amex Centurion card to the mall and goes into a shopping frenzy but he wears the tiny black Speedos at their beachhouse pool so Rodney will get the message and Rodney does and then John (in a tux!) is totally badass during the latest kidnapping attempt -- kinda James Bond meets Jason Bourne -- but he has to drink a lot a few times ("coffee-flavored brandy") what with the incriminating stains on the rug and because a general who knew his dad was there and says "So you're not so much his mathematician as his mathematician."
That story where the team is captured and they drug Rodney and Teyla's Wraith-sense goes funny but the evil captors shove a mattress in the cell and the captors keep Rodney for his ATA gene but he's brave and protective and gets Ronon and Teyla and John out and at the gate he kisses John and says "I've learned so much from you" and shoves John through and John can't go on the rescue mission because he's got the gene so Teyla leads it and Rodney got bolted into the evil captors' weird bastardized Ancient/Wraith/everything else hybrid tech control chair and John was kinda oblivious but by the time they get Rodney back not so much.
That story where Rodney doesn't go to Atlantis but he and John get together after the expedition comes back and Rodney runs a bar and John is Jack's XO at the SGC and John has a kid who suddenly shows up and Rodney has a giant monster cat and John's family (so many brothers) is all nice and Rodney is a billionaire and a philanthropist and he buys John a plane and there are plots against them and fresh SGC recruits with crushes and the Prime Minister of Canada wants to plan their wedding.
That story where John's imaginary dead girlfriend makes him forget he was with Rodney but it's because John's pregnant with the seed of a new city because Atlantis was destroyed and then the new city promises them ZPMs and it all ends okay.
That story where John and Rodney get turned into penguins by some Ancient machine and are hard to catch and try to protect each other from being caught (McKay's vicious) and fuck a lot. As penguins. And Jack O'Neill freaks out a little because he's spending too much time considering the differences in their techniques or any aspect of their gay penguin sex. No, wait, that other story where they're turned into penguins that was offline for years where it's Ford who's faced with and doesn't want to be thinking about the gay penguin sex and Teyla penguin-sits and Elizabeth thinks they're adorable and John gets mad when they're human again because there's no take-backs on pebbles, damnit! (That one has the sequel that's still offline where Elizabeth taunts them with her penguin-love mug and they get turned into penguins again because Kavanagh is an ass and everyone helps hide the gay penguin sex from Caldwell.)
That story where John goes all primitive offworld and kidnaps Rodney and gets naked and claims Rodney as his mate and woos him by hunting and offering fresh beast but John freaks when he wakes up in the Atlantis infirmary without Rodney. No, the one where the claiming urge doesn't seem to be wearing off for John afterward and Rodney's unclear on why John's so freaked out about it. Or maybe that other story where Rodney gets infected too and when they get back to Atlantis they both freak out when they're separated in the infirmary and John slugs Carson. (Unless it was that story where John and Teyla and Ronon all go primitive because the offworlders are really creepy and Rodney eventually does too and they decide they're hunters not prey and they aren't too sure about getting back to Atlantis.)
That story where Rodney's parents gave him away to some shady government people when he was a kid and they experimented on him to give him superpowers because of his supergenius and when he escapes he makes himself a secret lair under one of the fake mountains in Disney World but eventually he gets to Atlantis and envious Kavanagh locks him into a small tank which gives him terrible claustrophobia flashbacks to when he was a test subject and the NID/Trust/baddies still want him and then there's a bit where the team's offworld and all the adults get a sleeping sickness except for Rodney and the kids, who he turns into mini-McKays as he uses his secret doctory-voodoo and geneticist skills to figure out that the sweets he and the kids have been chowing down made them immune and works out a cure. And then there's a sequel in the works where Woolsey tries to get the childhood backstory.
That story where Earth is lost and everyone's devastated so after the first suicide Sam and the senior staff decide no one should be alone for a while and John and Rodney end up rooming together but they keep it up and they share a bed, chastely, and John decides he's fine even if that's all he ever has and berates the military about sexual harassment that no means no and if he can use his right hand so can they and someone's surprised McKay isn't putting out but Rodney doesn't get it until he asks Jennifer for advice because although he's fucked guys in the past he never had feelings for them but John's his best friend where if he's not in the same bed he can't sleep properly and oh, huh. So they score big victories against the Wraith and go on a date and have a happy ending even if coffee and iPods are still only replicable in limited quantities.
That story where John learns 37 ways to suck cock, but really it's only eight ways plus variations, and scholar-slave Rodney becomes a junkie for a while and they try to avoid getting killed in the semi-Machiavellian court of a desert planet with succession problems, and then when John and Rodney are finally rescued from slavery after two years the expedition members act like jerks. They let Rodney almost pass out from hypoglycemia during the debriefing and harass John and Elizabeth organizes a welcome back party where all the drinks contain lemon. So Teyla and Rodney and John steal a puddlejumper (with a little help from some friends) and escape Atlantis and are almost eaten by a gigantic tentacle octopus Cthulhu through some random gate before they escape again and then they find Ronon and a pristine Ancient city and Rodney writes John love poetry that's also the secret recipe for Ascension and ZPMs.
That story where when they get to Atlantis the city's AI has decided opinions about who are acceptable residents and only likes ATA gene carriers but detects that Rodney's, um, carrying some of John's genetic material so it allows mates of ATA gene carriers too and John tells Rodney he never would have left him to drown like in old!Elizabeth's alternate expedition but this expedition's Elizabeth is pissed off because she got kicked out and John and Rodney and Jack run things and eventually non-gene carriers are allowed as second-class guests though the city likes Daniel (who's with Jack) a lot and the Atlantis AI is all for breeding more ATA gene carriers with assistance if needed so John and Rodney get a kid and so do Jack and Daniel (they name her Sam for their fallen comrade) and then the Tria shows up and Captain Helia tries to kick the Earthers out but that doesn't go so well and finally they agree to all live together on Atlantis in harmony with the (rather possessive) AI.
That story where it's interleaved moments from John and Rodney's pasts that show near-, not-, and actual parallels in their backgrounds and personalities and Rodney's CIA file may include that his mom is really scary from that time he built the atom bomb (non-working model!) and John's mom went kinda really eccentric whenever his dad was deployed and John and Rodney meet in Antarctica where Rodney thinks of John as the garbage/mailman and Rodney asks John to bring him chocolate and fruit and John does and the pears turn out to be obscene but John's sure it was the whisky that maybe made him gay (again) and John gets Rodney to go for a hike with him despite a certain lack of enthusiasm ("if we fall down a crevasse, I will beat you to death and eat you") and of course weather interrupts and they spend a night in a tent and there's sex and they have what was supposed to be a brief Antarctic affair but then Rodney makes John a pro/con list on coming to Atlantis but it's incomplete as Rodney's the only important thing about going so John joins the expedition after all.
That story where Lorne is kind of a jerk after John and Rodney come out of the virtual reality they were stuck in for a year (because they were injured) but Caldwell kind of isn't. And while they were in there Rodney taught John to play piano and they made a surfboard and a still and John wrote War and Peace fanfic and they fell in love and solved (mathy!John) a Millennium Problem and end up building a beach house like the one in the VR with the prize money.
That story where John is deeeeply repressed but obviously -- to his progressive, caring Marines -- in love with Rodney, and they like him as a commander for being badass and killing Genii even though he's completely poncho-wearing nuts so they keep helping by distracting him when Rodney's extra-obliviously rude (about John's bug phobia or by getting inadvertently naked offworld) and by trying to get him to clue in that he's gay -- without asking or telling of course -- and they set up a showing of Brokeback Mountain but there's an emergency so John never gets to see the relevant parts and the Marines have all kinds of elaborate systems in place and special PowerPoint presentations for newbies and they sneak him Rodney's old comforter and whenever they've managed to head off another emo-commander cutting himself moment they high-five each other, even if sometimes they have to do things that are distasteful to them like pretend to be sexist pigs.
That story where it's a slightly AU version of "Grace Under Pressure" where everyone on Atlantis and at the SGC is addicted to twitter and the story's retold entirely as tweets and people's inability to use twitter properly and DirectMessage instead of broadcasting to all is very frustrating to Caldwell and those tweets from Chulak just add that certain je ne sais quoi.
That story where John and Rodney have been BFFs since they were kids and John's always been gay and determined to marry Rodney who thought he was straight -- and John recognized he might have to wait for Rodney to accept the inevitability of their true love but it would be Rodney's job to help John get boyfriends and cheer on his sluttiness until he did -- and John's hippie mom has always been supportive and Rodney's dad is maybe the devil and John didn't become a pilot because of eye problems and Rodney runs the SGC labs where mathy!John works with him and Sam is by turns baffled and entertained when she shows up. And Rodney's all protective and makes Marines who insult John cry and he blew up John's cheating college boyfriend's car and when John and Rodney finally do get married ("wow, his ring is really pretty") their song is White and Nerdy and their honeymoon involves getting banned from a lot of places including Disneyland (for discussing the joy of blowjobs in front of lots of kids). And then John pretends he bought Teyla and Ronon's kid who he's babysitting as a surprise for aghast Rodney and when Madison comes for a visit Daniel and Jack teach her to curse in Arabic and later John and Rodney leave a voicemail of them loudly fucking on Jeannie's answering machine but Jeannie just thinks it's awesome because it horrified Caleb's mom and really there's no way to adequately describe the utter cracktasticness of this SG-1 Moebius dorkverse!AU.
That story where John and Rodney meet a year after just about everyone else on Earth died and they've both gone rather around the bend, with Rodney's food-related OCD hitting record heights and John pretty much unable to talk, but Rodney cobbled up a life-signs detector and has some kind of plan that involves getting to Colorado so they get on the road and they learn to trust each other. And when Rodney's injured John gets him to what's left of Cheyenne Mountain and they find these survivors from an expedition to another galaxy who finally found a way to get back to Earth, oops, but at least they can pick up some antibiotics and maybe the few people left alive on Earth.
That story where everyone's kinda crazy -- okay, raging psychos -- and Atlantis is a prison colony and Elizabeth is an Ori cultist and Teyla an Athosian terrorist and Carson who really loves experimenting is married to Cadman and Sumner tries to break John but Rodney keeps putting him back together again so they can kill billions more people Together in their Epic Love when they take over the city and a galaxy or two even though Rodney's a little jealous of Lorne's longtime position as John's right-hand man in his merry band of mass murderers. But given the premise it's really a surprisingly upbeat story!
That story where after touching an Ancient device John gets pulled into all these alternate realities where he and Rodney can't stand each other and John asks the different Rodneys he meets for help getting back and in one reality a lot of Johns show up and Zelenka makes the Johns wear colored stickers to keep them sorted and eventually the Rodney who's an anthropologist (on SG-1!) figures out what the device did and John gets back and even though the other Johns and Rodneys don't get along John says "fuck it" and he and his Rodney do.
That story where Rodney accidentally ends up in a universe where John is Jane and his counterpart's an asshole millionaire who Jane is pregnant by but divorcing and alt!Rodney didn't go to Atlantis and Jane became a high-school teacher instead of joining the Air Force and she thinks alt!Rodney was having an affair with Sam Carter and they finally get Rodney back to his universe. And then in the alt!universe, after the baby's born Jane has an affair with Lex Luthor who seduces her with bad pick-up lines and dirty emails and sends her a puppy and Superman and alt!Rodney are both jealous until they all sort things out during the kidnapping.
That story where Jeannie is the one with the high-powered physics job, in Kenya, but Rodney has sexual-harassment and anger-management issues and he was nearly unemployable so Rodney's the stay-near-home-uncle taking care of Madison who has issues too and Ronon is their therapist and he sends them to Teyla's ("Discover Your Inner Power!") martial arts class where Rodney meets air ambulance pilot Jona -- who is very much Sheppard -- and who becomes their friend and Jeannie kind of blew up 5/6 of Kenya's Mt. Doranda and Madison will only wear purple sweats and has allergies and a neighbor once tried to feed her fruitcake because she thought Madison was deprived, but no, just averse to anaphylactic shock, and a bunch of other canon characters make appearances and eventually things progress between Rodney and Jona and then Jeannie behaves badly when she finds out Rodney's been seeing a transsexual but Rodney calls her on her bullshit and Jona's family are asses but in the end, Rodney and Jona, they do just fine. And then they're all at the company picnic and Kavanagh's a complete dick and Jeannie isn't and there's kissing.
That story where grad student Rodney is traumatized by being locked out of his lab and is forced to go socialize at a frat party where he meets a nice girl -- fine, guy in drag -- who turns out to be John. And the sex is good but the gay is confusing so over the weekend Rodney tutors John and Lorne and Ford so they won't fail physics and tells off his department head because people he tutors wouldn't bother cheating and anyway he's got his own funding from DARPA, so there! And it all ends happily because he gets his own key to the lab and John.
That story where Rodney completely forgets who he was but from kinetic memory calls John, who comes and gets him from hospital and helps him put his life together and Rodney and John and Carson roomed together in college and Rodney has a wall full of pictures of the team (all in Earth-based occupations) and he doesn't want to be a physicist anymore but starts composing music and John was kicked out of the Air Force for being gay and Rodney and John get together and Rodney never remembers who he used to be but they do find out he'd bought John a plane before he lost his memory.
That story where Rodney's a genius conductor and composer who had a nervous breakdown and now suffers from agoraphobia and John's a violinist who's completely overshadowed by his father but Rodney still wants John to play his new violin concerto and they start calling each other a lot and when John has a bad breakup he destroys his kitchen and Rodney corrects John's playing posture so he takes up the room he deserves and they kiss but John won't have sex while he's learning a piece and he gets drunk the night before the concert but when they perform the concerto it's so soaringly amazing that Rodney says "I'll write you a symphony."
That story where Rodney is a disorganized composer and John managed to get court-martialed and jail-time for something he didn't do while in Afghanistan and can't find a job until Rodney takes one look and refrains from jumping him but hires John as his general factotum and immediately sends him to get coffee but John thinks Rodney gave him his passwords too quick so then there's a lot of sarcasm and John's worried about having a crush but he displays sexy knowledge of classical music and there's a concerto and John becomes Rodney's lover/business manager and Rodney starts getting more commissions including a full-on symphony and one time Rodney blew John minutes before going on stage and John's family are hateful but Radek who's another composer is a friend and so's Teyla after Rodney reluctantly admits she's a disgustingly good conductor and even though Rodney's never dedicated a piece to John he explains that actually they're all for him and he buys John a plane.
That story where Rodney is John's agent, and in Hollywood fucking a man is maybe okay but fucking your agent is crazy, but they do it anyway in the restroom during the Academy Award ceremony (almost) -- Jake Gyllenhaal looks confused -- and in the limo on the way to the afterparties though Rodney says he will refuse to call John "Academy Award Winner John Sheppard" in bed. And because of slight stainage John wears Rodney's "I'm With Genius" t-shirt to the parties, but they live happily ever after and never get an offer good enough for John to show his dick on-screen instead of just to Rodney.
That story where John is a figure skater and Rodney is a skating coach and former Olympic figure skater. And John's really good at jumps but not at the other technical stuff or choreography and his mom makes his costumes (which are awful until Rodney tells her how) and Rodney has some clutter-hoarding issues and John damages himself a lot and one time Rodney accidentally almost has a gay threesome and Ronon teaches yoga and Teyla martial arts, and way back when Rodney didn't medal in the Olympics because Radek was his boyfriend but got in some kind of trouble with the Eastern Bloc secret services/game-fixers and Rodney came out to his family in his own inimitable way and then he got injured. But the coaching goes well despite ups and downs and moving in together even though John's a bit long in the tooth already and there might be some slight bias in the judging but eventually John shines and jumps and soars on the ice and gets the acclaim Rodney knew he could.
That story where Rodney is a raging perfectionist food stylist and John is a photographer and he almost eats a hero strawberry but Rodney makes him non-motor-oiled waffles anyway and Sam and Jack and Daniel are models and then Radek stops assisting Rodney to start his own restaurant for a while and one time Rodney almost cheats on John by having a fling with Jonas Quinn and eventually Ronon makes an appearance and all that's missing is Teyla and Teal'c showing up as creative director and managing editor of various fancy magazines.
That story where John's the ketchup and Rodney's the pea and it's a reasonable concern that their relationship's not going to last long but then there's a sequel, phew.
That story where Rodney is a unicorn and John is a rainbow and they don't get enough respect from the other unicorns and rainbows and Teyla's a dolphin who gives relationship advice and Ronon is the spring breeze who's courting her and John and Rodney totally step up to save the magical forest because together they are awesome. And then Rodney frolics under protest and they go to a con with great panel topic names and they want to have kids.
Endnotes:
i. For the subset of readers actually using this post to find stories -- hey, it's now listed as a resource in the comm userinfo at sgastoryfinders! (*explodes from swelled head*) -- mapsandlegends has a very useful post about things you can do to find a story yourself before asking at sgastoryfinders.
ii. Amazingly enough, there's ( again) a lot of McShep on here.
iii. It is possible that zombies and unicorns take up a disproportionate amount of the corner of my brain that's focused on SGA stories.
iv. This doesn't quite qualify as a rec list, because although many of my favorite stories are on here, they aren't all/wouldn't fit, nor are they organized as such. Sorry!
Added 08/11/10: Thinking about consent around how storyfinding posts are (re-)used for other purposes, for these summaries I tried to, to some extent, paraphrase search phrases I'd seen in my own (stream-of-semi-consciousness) style, but if you recognize a search term as especially yours and don't like it being in here, please tell me and I'll modify. Or if as a writer you object to one of your stories being on here, just let me know and I'll take it off the list. Thanks.
If you're not seeing the one-line teaser descriptions and want to scroll down them first, try here.
Warnings: 1. Don't look if you're under 18. Really not safe for work.
2. Descriptions are chock-full of story spoilers.
3.a This list is just a snapshot of a few 50 60-odd SGA stories as filed in my brain and how I perceive some of them are often searched for on sgastoryfinders. 3.b Someday there may be additions, or a detour to an actual delicious account. 3.c I seem to be adding and amending some more based on suggestions or inspiration. 3.d. Order: (What I believe are) the very most-frequently requested stories at the top, then a more random assortment, and the no-Stargate AU stories at the end.
4. Apologies to the person in The Sentinel fandom whose rec list was part of the inspiration for this post. Update: Geoffrey's "The One Where" Sentinel rec post was located by cesperanza.
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That story where John has no idea what they're doing and Rodney isn't really that attractive anyway and he is so fascinated by his sudden bisexuality and he fusses with his tie when they go meet John's brother Dave and his wife, and Rodney and Dave's wife click and snark a lot over dinner, but before that Rodney briefly goes catatonic on an offworld mission because the team thought aliens had cut off John's head but no and eventually there's sex -- though first the kissing's really weird ("Oh my god I can't believe I'm kissing this asshole!") before it goes hot. And then after John's dad is dead John and Rodney visit Earth and John has to talk about his beauty-queen mother who was bought off to go away and all his stepmothers even the evil one who his brother also hates and the only thing they keep from John's inheritance is a Ray Bradbury novel and Dave just wants John to be happy and Rodney was worried about passing muster with John's family but that wasn't what it was about at all.
That story where John gets the cultural insensitivity spanking from Teyla's allies because Rodney messed up and there's that memory tea and they find the other control chairs and the Havildar OFC is kinda cool and smart and John's all jealous and he wonders what color Rodney's nipples are and he stabs Rodney with a pen (mathy!John) and there are blue berries that aren't blueberries and Lorne gets in on the chair-telepathy action and they remote-control fly a fleet of Ancient ships in a space battle with the Wraith and the expedition patent lawyer is pleased for John and the Havildar jiggers the security cameras so there won't be a record of John and Rodney sneaking into each other's rooms at night.
That story where the Genii poison gas Elizabeth so they stick her in stasis to fix it and Rodney takes over and mathy!John likes debugging and says sarcasm isn't helpful but it's Rodney in charge so sarcasm is what it's all about and Rodney shows him his X-wing plans but also tosses him in the brig for disobeying orders even though they're kinda boyfriends now and pays him visits for conjugal purposes/strategy meetings. And John almost blows Rodney from under the desk during a meeting and Teyla is pissy about human rights a lot especially when they only let the Genii off their planet to get Frequent-Wraith-Killer Points (which they can buy supplies to kill more Wraith with) and they train the Athosian kids to commit psychological warfare using smileyface/frownyface points charts and they find some baby-ZPMs but actually it's also about styles of command and what works for whom and differing levels of ruthlessness and walking that fine edge between blowing up planets and conquering despair.
That story where to some of his students it's obvious that Rodney was in a combat zone and he doesn't realize his colleague is hitting on him but he explains he's a widower and Elizabeth married Ronon after they left Atlantis and Rodney singlehandedly is pulling the physics department of Podunk University out of obscurity but he makes his students cry and freak out a lot by teaching them Pegasus Ethics and other useful stuff in case they go offworld someday despite his warnings, even though after John's death he asked Atlantis and she agreed not to be used for military purposes. And every year he goes to John's empty grave in Arlington where the Athosian flowers bloom and tells him he's okay, truly.
That story where Ford says you can't make a submissive the military leader of Atlantis but Elizabeth is like whatever some of my best friends are subs, and subs are discriminated against in the armed forces and John bought himself a collar one time and his squad in Afghanistan was nice to him but wouldn't fuck him and he's so used to tops treating him badly that John doesn't quite understand when Rodney isn't like any other top he's known and won't hurt him or be mean and they miscommunicate a lot and worry about the "I have an unsafe top" pamphlet but when John finds the collar Rodney bought he wants it so bad -- and just oh, oh, John Sheppard!
That story where right at the start Rodney gets shot down by a blonde at a party and gets drunk, self-loathing, and bitter, but John finds it oddly interesting, though as he hasn't been gay for twenty years he waffles for ages before giving in to his attraction, and Rodney is kinda sweaty and pudgy and John is very hairy but then there is passionate, tongue in cheek kissing (with mouths like awakened Wraith and pearl diving to explore every tooth) and a lot of slow build of John and Rodney having a relationship, because Rodney's been head over heels for ages but doesn't have a lot of experience while John's had a lot of meaningless affairs but he can't love so well ever since his parents shunned him after his little brother died when they were kids. But Rodney plays John country western music on the baby grand the Daedalus delivered after they go to one of the new morale-boosting concerts (on a date) and John compares his feelings for Rodney with surfing, so Rodney buys the team surfboards except they arrive while he's being shunned for that little mistake on Doranda, which there's lots of soul-searching about and eventually there's careful reconnecting and renewed avowals of love.
That story where Rodney's being shunned after Doranda and the team's on a mission on a matriarchal desert planet and Rodney gets taken prisoner and staked out to be eaten alive by bugs but he survives though he's scarred and when he (eventually) gets back to Atlantis Rodney berates them all for their double standards and treating him so badly and John cries and knows he's not forgiven but is happy Rodney loves him after all.
That story where it's actually not a post-Trinity story though it feels like it because after The Siege Rodney fixes the transporters but Kavanagh breaks them and people get hurt and die because of it and Kavanagh blames Rodney so Rodney gets shunned and he's treated superbadly -- Carson's distant, John's an ass, Elizabeth's a jerk and they're all really unprofessional -- but when the transporters FUBARed Rodney's arm was broken so he has to set it himself (with pencils!) while confined to his quarters and eventually Carson notices so he and John and Elizabeth apologize that they were a little harsh but Rodney knows they didn't mean it and still think he's an arrogant asshole, but still he's let out of his room so he just goes on fixing Atlantis all by himself and barely sleeps or eats and only Radek (who took Rodney's job but only to avoid Kavanagh getting it) is nice to Rodney and then eventually Radek figures out it was Kavanagh who broke the transporters and John figures out Rodney never got enough sleep even before the Siege because the radio logs show everyone was always calling him at night to fix their stupid shit but meanwhile Rodney almost dies trying to fix another part of the city and John's sorry and they all sorta are but Rodney doesn't just forgive John right away even though they had a little thing going during the Siege because it really hurt that he let John close and thought for the first time that he had friends but they let him down.
That story where Rodney's hand gets crushed and John holds him while they get him free and post-surgery Rodney's in the infirmary for a long time so the team needs a temp and turns out Radek knows how to shoot because of his compulsory military service and John and Rodney watch Invader ZIM while he's laid up and Rodney's willing but John's isn't because he's worried about the regs but any touching of Rodney's injured hand is all a metaphor for love and repression ("I don't think I've ever practiced this level of denial before, and this is coming from a man who hit on Samantha Carter like there was no tomorrow.") but then there's mixed messages and some sex happens and John gets shot a little and Rodney's mad so John briefly wishes he could die in a tragic yet painless gurney accident and aliens keep wanting to trade other hostages to get McKay but John's really not okay with that and neither is Rodney, especially when it turns out to be Kolya (who Teyla distracts by taking her top off -- good for morale!) and John gets drugged offworld and becomes very chatty and tries to pet Radek's hair and Rodney drags him out of the gateroom before John blurts out how much he loves him and the few people who know are all cool about being discreet about their relationship which John is totally not freaking out about.
That story where John's parents were very religious and didn't sleep in the same bed and he's kinda touch-averse and it took years before he realized that his dad's lecture about being careful when putting the plane into the hangar might not have been about flying and he almost lost his virginity with a cute surfer-girl but it didn't quite work out and it kept not working out until Rodney gets him to drop his barriers bit by bit, especially one of those times they're locked up in some offworld prison, and confesses to having a little crush on John -- or actually being a lot in love with him -- and slowly John discovers various kinds of intimacy and eventually John and Rodney even have a PDA at the graveside after John's dad dies.
That story where they're on Earth and John keeps ending up at the emergency room because the doors on Earth don't automatically open when he thinks at them and Rodney yells at him for it and the earnest, trying-to-be-helpful E.R. doctor thinks Rodney's beating John but no, Rodney's offended by the very notion and anyway they're just friends not lovers until Rodney installs security-enhanced sliding doors with motion sensors in John's apartment as a surprise gift because home improvement is a lot more romantic than concerns and pamphlets about domestic abuse (even if Rodney still won't share his civet-processed coffee with John).
That story where John and Cam Mitchell were tiny robots and John got crushed and they demanded Lorne read them "The Brave Little Toaster" and then they're humanoid and John runs away to be Rodney's sexbot because he's worried they're going to be shut down but he gets a virus and he's broken but Thor downloads him into his biobody and he gets to come to Atlantis (because it was all about the ATA gene) and be with Rodney anyway. But Cam's still a virgin and all embarrassed that he didn't know people would take notice when SG-1 visits Atlantis and Lorne is sorry and lots of people offer to help out and Jennifer does. And then there's a still-mechanical humanoid Cam from another universe who comes through the gate who was abused and alt!Lorne was horrible and killed alt!John and alt!Cam is traumatized so they make him a girl biobody and mini!O'Neill ends up thinking that's a great idea and alt!Jeannie sends over the backed up source code for alt!John who has anger management issues when they give him a biobody too.
That story where John gets turned into a cute black cat for a month but he can meow prime not-prime just fine and Rodney has to talk John out from under the medical equipment and Rodney's really mad at Carson and Elizabeth for ignoring John's medical proxy and Ronon got scratched trying to catch him and Heightmeyer plays ball with him and they make John a tiny skateboard and helmet and he's not fully relieved from duty just for being a cat and Lorne tells him his command style's not that different as a cat and the Johnny Cash poster is too big and scary so John sleeps with Rodney which apparently is also a good idea when he's human again.
That story where they find a kitten but actually it turns out to be a telepathic tiger and Daniel snuck off to Atlantis so what with DADT Jack retires and moves to Atlantis too and the city loves Daniel and there's banter and pining all around and even though Ronon hits on Daniel a few times Jack and Daniel and John and Rodney end up happily coupled up and they find out the tigers, who also decided to move to Atlantis, are really good at killing Wraith.
That story where Rodney can temporarily read people's thoughts but not John's, and it actually takes a look at consequences so Carson thinks loudly of broccoli and one Lieutenant comes to Rodney freaked out that Rodney will out him, wtf, and Rodney and Radek work together better than ever and Elizabeth is cool and John and Rodney camp out at the edge of the city so Rodney can sleep without seeing people's nightmares but then he lets his guard down for a few minutes and looks at John the way he almost did that time he had the epiphany on the balcony ("yes him, for me!") and John sees it but it's okay and even really really good.
That story where John keeps a paper bag in his tac vest because Rodney hyperventilates a lot and after debugifying John starts seeing people's thoughts -- more and more of them over time -- and too many of them think about sex or their fears but Rodney's are more interesting and brilliant and organized and compartmentalized than anyone else's, which makes him the best person to be around and then John ends up falling for more than just Rodney's brain.
That story where they find the device that makes everyone in the lab orgasm when John thinks at it (oops, accidental orgy, so embarrassing, also eew! with Kavanagh there) but talking about the weather helps with the awkward and there's banter and then the device ends up coming in handy when Milky Way Replicators invade Atlantis though it's hard for John to focus it on the Replicritters when Rodney's brain is so hot.
That story where John gives Rodney a multiple choice note as a marriage proposal but Rodney doesn't read it for hours and John freaks out because he hasn't answered and then Rodney freaks out because John's acting freaked but then Rodney finds it and checkmarks "yes" and it's all good.
That story where they're on Earth with the city and Jennifer takes Rodney on vacation but it's all a plot ("betrayal, thy name is Keller") to get him away while John is tortured because he won't fly Atlantis back to Pegasus to destroy it. But Rodney figures it out because of the fake emails from not-John and he and John escape and hole up on a sailboat in San Francisco and insult each other in capslock and discover their love and get smuggled around in giant cardboard boxes and eventually steal a puddlejumper and head back to Pegasus with some friends to find Teyla and Ronon.
That story where John keeps having unfortunate encounters with Rodney's erection when they're hiding in confined spaces and Rodney doesn't think to use the "it's just adrenalin!" excuse but instead confesses to maybe having a little crush on John that he's sure will go away soon just like his hard-on, what hard-on? but it doesn't and he's actually in love with John and John is surprisingly relaxed about it except for the occasional freaking-out but then Rodney gets hurt and John figures out that he might like to get to know Rodney's erections better, and once he does he only freaks out a little most days. And then Rodney gets territorial and on one planet Rodney's supposed to defend John's honor in a duel (in armor, with an axe) because someone said something mean about his boyfriend, but instead Rodney argues in favor of sex and gestures eloquently and they rappel down the tower wall to escape and John's concerned Rodney will bludgeon him with a PowerPoint presentation about prostates but he barely freaks out anymore and they continue being recklessly in love on Atlantis.
That story where they're environmental terrorists who get zapped with memory-reprogramming tech and they don't know each other or who they were. But in their commie-block-like prison colony John learns to make pizza and ice cream and when he's zapped again Rodney cooks for him and visits him in hospital even though he doesn't know who Rodney is again and John keeps a secret journal and the sex is great even if Rodney's worried about power imbalances of doing it with his servant until Teyla and Lorne -- who come to rescue them with Sam and a bunch of marines -- make it seem like the sex wasn't a good idea but then they get their memories back and turns out it was.
That story where the IOA doesn't want an American in charge of the military anymore so Rodney offers to marry John so he can be Canadian and sign up with the Canadian military (which has a tank, it does) and Elizabeth thinks it's a good idea even if she won't let them use "Do you? Do you? Kiss" as their entire wedding vows and Ronon helps John decide on the most aggravating pet names to call Rodney and Woolsey comes to Atlantis to check up on the genuineness of their marriage and first they're faking it with a carefully prepared plan but by the end of his visit it's so real they're confessing to semen! on each other! when all Woolsey was trying to do was tell them he was already planning to report on the clear evidence of their affection to the IOA, and the whole thing is funny and sweet.
That story where after Doranda Rodney's being shunned but then people are worried about him when their anger wears off a little and John starts secretly bringing him coffee and taking care of him because he doesn't fill the room up anymore and then Radek and Miko are thrilled when Rodney goes back to yelling in the labs and Elizabeth is happy when he smiles again and Rodney tells John he was the only one with a right to be that angry at Rodney but letting everyone else be mean wasn't cool.
That story where Rodney and John discover they're brothers after they started fucking but that's not the real problem, the real problem is the damned Trust trying to get the Ancient tech they found hidden in their dad's freezer after his funeral and John's ability to use it. And they're jealous of each others' childhoods and upset their parents sabotaged their getting into the SGC even if it was for their safety but then with the Trust chasing them as they road-trip their way to the SGC it's all moot and they end up heading to Atlantis happily together anyway.
That story where John and Rodney discover they're brothers after they started fucking but that's not the real problem, the real problem is the Ancient zombies and Rodney getting infected and smart people with the Ancient gene smelling the tastiest and John smelling like he'd be the very best thing to eat in the whole universe. But thank goodness for the expedition's medical ethics being almost as good as the Ancients' so they figure out a cure and the ex-zombie dying Ancient says sorry and Rodney only wants to swallow not actually eat John anymore.
That story where John is the last survivor of the expedition after the zombiefication virus came through the gate -- he and Rodney and Elizabeth had to kill everyone else, but then Elizabeth and Rodney got infected too and zombie-Rodney was a better friend than zombie-Elizabeth, even if they both just wanted to eat him, so sorry, bye-bye Elizabeth. And John's so very tired but he and Rodney still say goodnight to each other in their own way though maybe not for much longer.
That story where because of Rodney being a little insensitive and some Ancienty gas John becomes irresistible to everyone and stabs Ronon with a fork. Turns out Elizabeth in stockings and a bustier is scary and Rodney realizes he'd maybe prefer to help John than get a mediocre one-hour slot somewhere on the nascent all-expedition who-gets-John-when schedule. John's barricaded in with furniture and a lot of weapons ("survey says -- hot") but it won't keep everyone out for long so John and Rodney escape to a lab to figure it out and they get it on but at least John didn't get taken down like a gazelle by Zelenka and everyone in the mess. And eventually the gas's effect is mostly dissipated but not until the entire expedition had a giant orgy and Rodney fought Cadman to protect his prize -- and won! -- and Elizabeth's sitting kinda funny.
That story where John and Rodney are on Earth for a few weeks and John invites himself to Rodney's and Rodney has a mailbox and answering machine full of consulting offers for boatloads of money so John goes with him though he has to pretend to be his mathematician and takes Rodney's Amex Centurion card to the mall and goes into a shopping frenzy but he wears the tiny black Speedos at their beachhouse pool so Rodney will get the message and Rodney does and then John (in a tux!) is totally badass during the latest kidnapping attempt -- kinda James Bond meets Jason Bourne -- but he has to drink a lot a few times ("coffee-flavored brandy") what with the incriminating stains on the rug and because a general who knew his dad was there and says "So you're not so much his mathematician as his mathematician."
That story where the team is captured and they drug Rodney and Teyla's Wraith-sense goes funny but the evil captors shove a mattress in the cell and the captors keep Rodney for his ATA gene but he's brave and protective and gets Ronon and Teyla and John out and at the gate he kisses John and says "I've learned so much from you" and shoves John through and John can't go on the rescue mission because he's got the gene so Teyla leads it and Rodney got bolted into the evil captors' weird bastardized Ancient/Wraith/everything else hybrid tech control chair and John was kinda oblivious but by the time they get Rodney back not so much.
That story where Rodney doesn't go to Atlantis but he and John get together after the expedition comes back and Rodney runs a bar and John is Jack's XO at the SGC and John has a kid who suddenly shows up and Rodney has a giant monster cat and John's family (so many brothers) is all nice and Rodney is a billionaire and a philanthropist and he buys John a plane and there are plots against them and fresh SGC recruits with crushes and the Prime Minister of Canada wants to plan their wedding.
That story where John's imaginary dead girlfriend makes him forget he was with Rodney but it's because John's pregnant with the seed of a new city because Atlantis was destroyed and then the new city promises them ZPMs and it all ends okay.
That story where John and Rodney get turned into penguins by some Ancient machine and are hard to catch and try to protect each other from being caught (McKay's vicious) and fuck a lot. As penguins. And Jack O'Neill freaks out a little because he's spending too much time considering the differences in their techniques or any aspect of their gay penguin sex. No, wait, that other story where they're turned into penguins that was offline for years where it's Ford who's faced with and doesn't want to be thinking about the gay penguin sex and Teyla penguin-sits and Elizabeth thinks they're adorable and John gets mad when they're human again because there's no take-backs on pebbles, damnit! (That one has the sequel that's still offline where Elizabeth taunts them with her penguin-love mug and they get turned into penguins again because Kavanagh is an ass and everyone helps hide the gay penguin sex from Caldwell.)
That story where John goes all primitive offworld and kidnaps Rodney and gets naked and claims Rodney as his mate and woos him by hunting and offering fresh beast but John freaks when he wakes up in the Atlantis infirmary without Rodney. No, the one where the claiming urge doesn't seem to be wearing off for John afterward and Rodney's unclear on why John's so freaked out about it. Or maybe that other story where Rodney gets infected too and when they get back to Atlantis they both freak out when they're separated in the infirmary and John slugs Carson. (Unless it was that story where John and Teyla and Ronon all go primitive because the offworlders are really creepy and Rodney eventually does too and they decide they're hunters not prey and they aren't too sure about getting back to Atlantis.)
That story where Rodney's parents gave him away to some shady government people when he was a kid and they experimented on him to give him superpowers because of his supergenius and when he escapes he makes himself a secret lair under one of the fake mountains in Disney World but eventually he gets to Atlantis and envious Kavanagh locks him into a small tank which gives him terrible claustrophobia flashbacks to when he was a test subject and the NID/Trust/baddies still want him and then there's a bit where the team's offworld and all the adults get a sleeping sickness except for Rodney and the kids, who he turns into mini-McKays as he uses his secret doctory-voodoo and geneticist skills to figure out that the sweets he and the kids have been chowing down made them immune and works out a cure. And then there's a sequel in the works where Woolsey tries to get the childhood backstory.
That story where Earth is lost and everyone's devastated so after the first suicide Sam and the senior staff decide no one should be alone for a while and John and Rodney end up rooming together but they keep it up and they share a bed, chastely, and John decides he's fine even if that's all he ever has and berates the military about sexual harassment that no means no and if he can use his right hand so can they and someone's surprised McKay isn't putting out but Rodney doesn't get it until he asks Jennifer for advice because although he's fucked guys in the past he never had feelings for them but John's his best friend where if he's not in the same bed he can't sleep properly and oh, huh. So they score big victories against the Wraith and go on a date and have a happy ending even if coffee and iPods are still only replicable in limited quantities.
That story where John learns 37 ways to suck cock, but really it's only eight ways plus variations, and scholar-slave Rodney becomes a junkie for a while and they try to avoid getting killed in the semi-Machiavellian court of a desert planet with succession problems, and then when John and Rodney are finally rescued from slavery after two years the expedition members act like jerks. They let Rodney almost pass out from hypoglycemia during the debriefing and harass John and Elizabeth organizes a welcome back party where all the drinks contain lemon. So Teyla and Rodney and John steal a puddlejumper (with a little help from some friends) and escape Atlantis and are almost eaten by a gigantic tentacle octopus Cthulhu through some random gate before they escape again and then they find Ronon and a pristine Ancient city and Rodney writes John love poetry that's also the secret recipe for Ascension and ZPMs.
That story where when they get to Atlantis the city's AI has decided opinions about who are acceptable residents and only likes ATA gene carriers but detects that Rodney's, um, carrying some of John's genetic material so it allows mates of ATA gene carriers too and John tells Rodney he never would have left him to drown like in old!Elizabeth's alternate expedition but this expedition's Elizabeth is pissed off because she got kicked out and John and Rodney and Jack run things and eventually non-gene carriers are allowed as second-class guests though the city likes Daniel (who's with Jack) a lot and the Atlantis AI is all for breeding more ATA gene carriers with assistance if needed so John and Rodney get a kid and so do Jack and Daniel (they name her Sam for their fallen comrade) and then the Tria shows up and Captain Helia tries to kick the Earthers out but that doesn't go so well and finally they agree to all live together on Atlantis in harmony with the (rather possessive) AI.
That story where it's interleaved moments from John and Rodney's pasts that show near-, not-, and actual parallels in their backgrounds and personalities and Rodney's CIA file may include that his mom is really scary from that time he built the atom bomb (non-working model!) and John's mom went kinda really eccentric whenever his dad was deployed and John and Rodney meet in Antarctica where Rodney thinks of John as the garbage/mailman and Rodney asks John to bring him chocolate and fruit and John does and the pears turn out to be obscene but John's sure it was the whisky that maybe made him gay (again) and John gets Rodney to go for a hike with him despite a certain lack of enthusiasm ("if we fall down a crevasse, I will beat you to death and eat you") and of course weather interrupts and they spend a night in a tent and there's sex and they have what was supposed to be a brief Antarctic affair but then Rodney makes John a pro/con list on coming to Atlantis but it's incomplete as Rodney's the only important thing about going so John joins the expedition after all.
That story where Lorne is kind of a jerk after John and Rodney come out of the virtual reality they were stuck in for a year (because they were injured) but Caldwell kind of isn't. And while they were in there Rodney taught John to play piano and they made a surfboard and a still and John wrote War and Peace fanfic and they fell in love and solved (mathy!John) a Millennium Problem and end up building a beach house like the one in the VR with the prize money.
That story where John is deeeeply repressed but obviously -- to his progressive, caring Marines -- in love with Rodney, and they like him as a commander for being badass and killing Genii even though he's completely poncho-wearing nuts so they keep helping by distracting him when Rodney's extra-obliviously rude (about John's bug phobia or by getting inadvertently naked offworld) and by trying to get him to clue in that he's gay -- without asking or telling of course -- and they set up a showing of Brokeback Mountain but there's an emergency so John never gets to see the relevant parts and the Marines have all kinds of elaborate systems in place and special PowerPoint presentations for newbies and they sneak him Rodney's old comforter and whenever they've managed to head off another emo-commander cutting himself moment they high-five each other, even if sometimes they have to do things that are distasteful to them like pretend to be sexist pigs.
That story where it's a slightly AU version of "Grace Under Pressure" where everyone on Atlantis and at the SGC is addicted to twitter and the story's retold entirely as tweets and people's inability to use twitter properly and DirectMessage instead of broadcasting to all is very frustrating to Caldwell and those tweets from Chulak just add that certain je ne sais quoi.
That story where John and Rodney have been BFFs since they were kids and John's always been gay and determined to marry Rodney who thought he was straight -- and John recognized he might have to wait for Rodney to accept the inevitability of their true love but it would be Rodney's job to help John get boyfriends and cheer on his sluttiness until he did -- and John's hippie mom has always been supportive and Rodney's dad is maybe the devil and John didn't become a pilot because of eye problems and Rodney runs the SGC labs where mathy!John works with him and Sam is by turns baffled and entertained when she shows up. And Rodney's all protective and makes Marines who insult John cry and he blew up John's cheating college boyfriend's car and when John and Rodney finally do get married ("wow, his ring is really pretty") their song is White and Nerdy and their honeymoon involves getting banned from a lot of places including Disneyland (for discussing the joy of blowjobs in front of lots of kids). And then John pretends he bought Teyla and Ronon's kid who he's babysitting as a surprise for aghast Rodney and when Madison comes for a visit Daniel and Jack teach her to curse in Arabic and later John and Rodney leave a voicemail of them loudly fucking on Jeannie's answering machine but Jeannie just thinks it's awesome because it horrified Caleb's mom and really there's no way to adequately describe the utter cracktasticness of this SG-1 Moebius dorkverse!AU.
That story where John and Rodney meet a year after just about everyone else on Earth died and they've both gone rather around the bend, with Rodney's food-related OCD hitting record heights and John pretty much unable to talk, but Rodney cobbled up a life-signs detector and has some kind of plan that involves getting to Colorado so they get on the road and they learn to trust each other. And when Rodney's injured John gets him to what's left of Cheyenne Mountain and they find these survivors from an expedition to another galaxy who finally found a way to get back to Earth, oops, but at least they can pick up some antibiotics and maybe the few people left alive on Earth.
That story where everyone's kinda crazy -- okay, raging psychos -- and Atlantis is a prison colony and Elizabeth is an Ori cultist and Teyla an Athosian terrorist and Carson who really loves experimenting is married to Cadman and Sumner tries to break John but Rodney keeps putting him back together again so they can kill billions more people Together in their Epic Love when they take over the city and a galaxy or two even though Rodney's a little jealous of Lorne's longtime position as John's right-hand man in his merry band of mass murderers. But given the premise it's really a surprisingly upbeat story!
That story where after touching an Ancient device John gets pulled into all these alternate realities where he and Rodney can't stand each other and John asks the different Rodneys he meets for help getting back and in one reality a lot of Johns show up and Zelenka makes the Johns wear colored stickers to keep them sorted and eventually the Rodney who's an anthropologist (on SG-1!) figures out what the device did and John gets back and even though the other Johns and Rodneys don't get along John says "fuck it" and he and his Rodney do.
That story where Rodney accidentally ends up in a universe where John is Jane and his counterpart's an asshole millionaire who Jane is pregnant by but divorcing and alt!Rodney didn't go to Atlantis and Jane became a high-school teacher instead of joining the Air Force and she thinks alt!Rodney was having an affair with Sam Carter and they finally get Rodney back to his universe. And then in the alt!universe, after the baby's born Jane has an affair with Lex Luthor who seduces her with bad pick-up lines and dirty emails and sends her a puppy and Superman and alt!Rodney are both jealous until they all sort things out during the kidnapping.
That story where Jeannie is the one with the high-powered physics job, in Kenya, but Rodney has sexual-harassment and anger-management issues and he was nearly unemployable so Rodney's the stay-near-home-uncle taking care of Madison who has issues too and Ronon is their therapist and he sends them to Teyla's ("Discover Your Inner Power!") martial arts class where Rodney meets air ambulance pilot Jona -- who is very much Sheppard -- and who becomes their friend and Jeannie kind of blew up 5/6 of Kenya's Mt. Doranda and Madison will only wear purple sweats and has allergies and a neighbor once tried to feed her fruitcake because she thought Madison was deprived, but no, just averse to anaphylactic shock, and a bunch of other canon characters make appearances and eventually things progress between Rodney and Jona and then Jeannie behaves badly when she finds out Rodney's been seeing a transsexual but Rodney calls her on her bullshit and Jona's family are asses but in the end, Rodney and Jona, they do just fine. And then they're all at the company picnic and Kavanagh's a complete dick and Jeannie isn't and there's kissing.
That story where grad student Rodney is traumatized by being locked out of his lab and is forced to go socialize at a frat party where he meets a nice girl -- fine, guy in drag -- who turns out to be John. And the sex is good but the gay is confusing so over the weekend Rodney tutors John and Lorne and Ford so they won't fail physics and tells off his department head because people he tutors wouldn't bother cheating and anyway he's got his own funding from DARPA, so there! And it all ends happily because he gets his own key to the lab and John.
That story where Rodney completely forgets who he was but from kinetic memory calls John, who comes and gets him from hospital and helps him put his life together and Rodney and John and Carson roomed together in college and Rodney has a wall full of pictures of the team (all in Earth-based occupations) and he doesn't want to be a physicist anymore but starts composing music and John was kicked out of the Air Force for being gay and Rodney and John get together and Rodney never remembers who he used to be but they do find out he'd bought John a plane before he lost his memory.
That story where Rodney's a genius conductor and composer who had a nervous breakdown and now suffers from agoraphobia and John's a violinist who's completely overshadowed by his father but Rodney still wants John to play his new violin concerto and they start calling each other a lot and when John has a bad breakup he destroys his kitchen and Rodney corrects John's playing posture so he takes up the room he deserves and they kiss but John won't have sex while he's learning a piece and he gets drunk the night before the concert but when they perform the concerto it's so soaringly amazing that Rodney says "I'll write you a symphony."
That story where Rodney is a disorganized composer and John managed to get court-martialed and jail-time for something he didn't do while in Afghanistan and can't find a job until Rodney takes one look and refrains from jumping him but hires John as his general factotum and immediately sends him to get coffee but John thinks Rodney gave him his passwords too quick so then there's a lot of sarcasm and John's worried about having a crush but he displays sexy knowledge of classical music and there's a concerto and John becomes Rodney's lover/business manager and Rodney starts getting more commissions including a full-on symphony and one time Rodney blew John minutes before going on stage and John's family are hateful but Radek who's another composer is a friend and so's Teyla after Rodney reluctantly admits she's a disgustingly good conductor and even though Rodney's never dedicated a piece to John he explains that actually they're all for him and he buys John a plane.
That story where Rodney is John's agent, and in Hollywood fucking a man is maybe okay but fucking your agent is crazy, but they do it anyway in the restroom during the Academy Award ceremony (almost) -- Jake Gyllenhaal looks confused -- and in the limo on the way to the afterparties though Rodney says he will refuse to call John "Academy Award Winner John Sheppard" in bed. And because of slight stainage John wears Rodney's "I'm With Genius" t-shirt to the parties, but they live happily ever after and never get an offer good enough for John to show his dick on-screen instead of just to Rodney.
That story where John is a figure skater and Rodney is a skating coach and former Olympic figure skater. And John's really good at jumps but not at the other technical stuff or choreography and his mom makes his costumes (which are awful until Rodney tells her how) and Rodney has some clutter-hoarding issues and John damages himself a lot and one time Rodney accidentally almost has a gay threesome and Ronon teaches yoga and Teyla martial arts, and way back when Rodney didn't medal in the Olympics because Radek was his boyfriend but got in some kind of trouble with the Eastern Bloc secret services/game-fixers and Rodney came out to his family in his own inimitable way and then he got injured. But the coaching goes well despite ups and downs and moving in together even though John's a bit long in the tooth already and there might be some slight bias in the judging but eventually John shines and jumps and soars on the ice and gets the acclaim Rodney knew he could.
That story where Rodney is a raging perfectionist food stylist and John is a photographer and he almost eats a hero strawberry but Rodney makes him non-motor-oiled waffles anyway and Sam and Jack and Daniel are models and then Radek stops assisting Rodney to start his own restaurant for a while and one time Rodney almost cheats on John by having a fling with Jonas Quinn and eventually Ronon makes an appearance and all that's missing is Teyla and Teal'c showing up as creative director and managing editor of various fancy magazines.
That story where John's the ketchup and Rodney's the pea and it's a reasonable concern that their relationship's not going to last long but then there's a sequel, phew.
That story where Rodney is a unicorn and John is a rainbow and they don't get enough respect from the other unicorns and rainbows and Teyla's a dolphin who gives relationship advice and Ronon is the spring breeze who's courting her and John and Rodney totally step up to save the magical forest because together they are awesome. And then Rodney frolics under protest and they go to a con with great panel topic names and they want to have kids.
Endnotes:
i. For the subset of readers actually using this post to find stories -- hey, it's now listed as a resource in the comm userinfo at sgastoryfinders! (*explodes from swelled head*) -- mapsandlegends has a very useful post about things you can do to find a story yourself before asking at sgastoryfinders.
ii. Amazingly enough, there's ( again) a lot of McShep on here.
iii. It is possible that zombies and unicorns take up a disproportionate amount of the corner of my brain that's focused on SGA stories.
iv. This doesn't quite qualify as a rec list, because although many of my favorite stories are on here, they aren't all/wouldn't fit, nor are they organized as such. Sorry!
Added 08/11/10: Thinking about consent around how storyfinding posts are (re-)used for other purposes, for these summaries I tried to, to some extent, paraphrase search phrases I'd seen in my own (stream-of-semi-consciousness) style, but if you recognize a search term as especially yours and don't like it being in here, please tell me and I'll modify. Or if as a writer you object to one of your stories being on here, just let me know and I'll take it off the list. Thanks.