![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
.fic: Rodney McKay, Godhead (McKay/Sheppard PG13) 2.3
Title: Rodney McKay, Godhead
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating/Warning: PG13ish? Very bizarre, possibly crackfic-like.
Disclaimer: Not mine, which disappoints me profoundly.
Advertisements: um... ummm... sanctified!Rodney? For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wordclaim50 challenge #11 (Humor).
Last week's episode
Notes: I can't believe I wrote this. That is all.
CHAPTER TWO
Much, much later John and Teyla were cooling their heels in one of the huts near what Ulu had informed them was the temple. Night had come, no less stifling and miserable than the day – just as humid, only dark instead. The air inside the hut was stifling, made worse by the smoking piles of moss that were, according to Ulu, supposed to keep away the insects, especially the bloodfly, which was especially nasty.
John had just killed his tenth bloodfly, rendering it a wet, red stain on his forearm, when a young girl had pushed her way through the cloth covering their door. (And this, by the way, was the craziest thing ever; John had the distinct impression they were being guarded, though there was only this ridiculous blue cloth between them and freedom, and why the hell hadn’t they gone anywhere? Skulls on pikes outside, Sheppard. Skulls on pikes, and God knows where Rodney is.)
The girl had knelt on the floor, setting down a tray carrying bowls of what looked to be stew. Stew with chunks of meat in it.
“I bid you eat in good health,” she’d said and bowed until her forehead nearly brushed the floorboards.
“I’m a vegetarian,” John had told her.
“A what?” the girl had asked bewilderedly.
Teyla had sighed, thanked the girl, and shooed her out before rounding on John with a terse comment about offending the Imdari, who placed a high value on hospitality and politeness.
“The Imdari consider the refusal of food an insult,” she’d said.
“Did you or did you not notice the skulls on pikes out there?”
Teyla hadn’t had an answer for that. She still didn’t, and they’d sat in a festering silence for a half hour, until Ulu came. John watched sullenly as the two of them talked quietly in the Imdari tongue, Ulu very carefully because Teyla wasn’t fluent – she was, from what John could gather, asking Ulu to repeat himself, her tone one of either confusion or disbelief – their voices almost obscured by the music and chanting going on outside the hut.
And that was seriously starting to get annoying. It had been going on nonstop the second after the bowing and wailing had stopped, a series of ululating cries punctuated by drumbeats and the occasional “McKay!”
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” John asked, after Ulu bowed his way out.
“I know only a little of them,” Teyla admitted. She shifted on the reed mat that passed for a bed; for all their hospitality, the Imdari apparently weren’t into creature comforts. “The Imdari have always been quite isolated, by choice as much by the fact that their home is, well...” She gestured to the rain and mud outside the hut.
“And what are they smoking that makes them think Rodney’s a... whatever they think he is?”
“Smoking? Nothing that I know of, but from what Ulu has told me, ‘Macay’ is their word for ‘savior,’” Teyla said. “And, so far as I can gather, it is also the name of one of the Ancients who visited the Imdari not long before the Wraith came. The Imdari believe that Macay left them because they had committed some sin, and that the Wraith were sent as their penance – but, if they survived the Wraith, Macay would return and create a paradise for them.”
“So they think Rodney is some sort of... of god?”
“It would seem so,” Teyla said. And she sounded perfectly serious, like this whole thing was not the most bizarre, ridiculous, and vaguely horrifying situation in the world.
“You know, if there weren’t skulls out there – skulls on pikes, let me remind you – I would be laughing right now. I really would.”
Teyla smiled tightly and was about to say something when footsteps sounded wetly on the other side of the blue cloth, then more substantial thumps as their owner came up the wooden ramp.
It was Ulu again, dark eyes aglow with excitement. He flung himself on the floorboards in a bow that put the girl’s to shame.
“Ulu?” Teyla asked hesitantly. “Is anything the matter?”
“The Macay has bid me,” he said, nearly falling over the words in his desperation to get them out, “The Macay has bid me to bring you to him, O Holy Consort.”
Teyla stared.
So did John.
“Consort?” Teyla said at last.
If possible, Ulu sank even lower.
“The Macay requests that I bring the Holy Consort to him, and you as well, Teyla Emmagan.”
* * *
“I’m your what?”
“Is that any way to talk to your divine master?” Rodney adjusted his field vest, which was now adorned with shell necklaces and pendants. The flimsy futon he was ensconced in creaked alarmingly as he turned over to frown disapprovingly at John. “For what it’s worth, I couldn’t get ‘boyfriend’ to translate properly. Apparently, the Imdari equivalent is highly insulting, something to do with being paid for sex.”
“You know, you could have just told Cahula or whoever that we’re at least minor deities or something.”
“Look, you always get to be some hot Ancient chick’s boy-toy,” Rodney said, “so this time you’re going to be a brilliant Canadian super genius deity’s boy-toy. Okay?”
“Not okay.” John leaned back against the wall of the hut – and, by the way, this was still a hut, though a much nicer hut than the one he and Teyla had been in earlier, with tapestries and decorations, and actual padding under the mats. He absently smacked at a bloodfly and wiped his hand on a trouser leg. “Look, Rodney – ”
“Tsk!”
“Look, Rodney” – John would rather have his skull end up decorating one of Ulu’s spears than call Rodney “O Most High Macay” – “In case you haven’t noticed, you aren’t a... what the Imdari think you are.” He managed to lower his voice at that last. “And when they find out you aren’t? We are going to be screwed.”
“How do you know I’m not?” Rodney waved moss-smoke out of his eyes.
“To begin with, you’re not an Ancient. You don’t even have the gene.”
“Not technically true. Carson – ”
“You know what I mean.” John sighed. Between the smoke and Rodney he was developing a fearsome headache. Teyla was gone, off to ‘lodgings fit for her exalted status as companion to the Most High Macay,’ according to Cahula, and John desperately wished she were back, so someone could take over trying to talk sense into Rodney for a while. But she was gone, and all the other Imdari were celebrating noisily outside, so it was just John, Rodney, and the bloodflies.
"Look, has it occurred to you that the only thing standing between you and being eaten is my divinity? You'd think you'd be... I don't know... grateful."
"Hallelujah."
“For what it’s worth, my consort,” Rodney said, lingering over ‘my consort’ with satisfaction, “I have been able to learn something about those energy readings I was picking up earlier.”
“Oh, I was beginning to worry that godhood would get in the way of scientific inquiry.”
Rodney scowled. “Do you want me to smite you? Because I can, you know.” He paused. “Well, I can have my legions of fanatically devoted warriors smite you for me. Did I mention they were fanatically devoted?”
“You did. The readings?”
“Definitely a ZPM.” Rodney paused. “I saw it. Fully functional, looks like it could run for centuries. And you know what? The Imdari aren’t even using it. It’s connected to some sort of device that hasn’t been running for... well, eons, and the Imdari don’t know what it’s for.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“‘Good?’ That’s great.” Rodney beamed. “I’d almost say it was divine intervention, but do you think I can intervene with myself?”
“Speaking of interventions,” John said, “do you have a plan to get the ZPM out of here without, oh, I don’t know, pissing the Imdari off – which is, I might add, in violation of your agreement? You’re supposed to create paradise for them, Teyla says, and I don’t think they’re going to let you skip out for another ten thousand years this time.”
“I’m a god, Sheppard, I can do what I want.” Rodney leaned back into his pillows and offered John his best superior smile, the one that made John either want to smack him or kiss him. Usually the former, though that sometimes led to the latter. “I figure I’ll take the ZPM, send Teyla back with it, and you and I can skip out of here, no problem. You still have your P90?”
“Ulu took it... I think they sacrificed it to you.” There had been deafening explosions, earlier, and panicked cries from the Imdari.
“Well, damn.”
“Damn indeed.”
Rodney sat up and swung his legs over the side of his futon. “Look, these people are eating out of my hand – as well they should – and I know I can get the ZPM out of them. They don’t even know what it is, only that it’s something left over from the time of the Ancients; it could be a... a lamp, for all they know. And we can bring them back with us, drop them on the mainland.” He looked around the tiny, smoke-filled hut. “Seriously, the mainland would be a paradise, compared to here.”
“Rodney, we can’t just – just –”
“Can’t just what? Bring them back to Atlantis? Look, they have this ceremony – Cahula explained it to me, when I told her that I’d been out of the Imdari loop for ten thousand years – called the... what was it? The Consummation or Translation, or something like that. When a person dies, Cahula said, the Imdari conduct this ceremony to ensure the soul will pass on to the paradise Macay – I mean, I – have created for them. We can tell them the mainland is it, and the continent is large enough they’d spend forever looking.”
“Okay, not only is that a really bad idea, it’s a really fucking bad idea.”
“Do you have any other plans?”
“Not at the moment, no, but I will.” Any moment now, John. Any moment now.
“Then when you come up with one, let me know.” Rodney paused. “Do you think I should start referring to myself in the plural?”
“No, I don’t.”
A sudden, alarmed cry broke into the endless drumbeats and chantings and John’s futile attempt at reasoning with Rodney. John sat up sharply, relieved to see that Rodney was at least apparently taking this seriously, heard the confused stampeding of the Imdari outside and more shouts, higher and more desperate now.
Cahula burst in, collapsing to the floor, her robes pooling around her. The priests from that afternoon were right behind her, and through the folded-back door John could see a cluster of dark, frightened faces illuminated in the firelight.
“You, ummm... you interrupted us,” Rodney said, trying and failing utterly to sound divine and disapproving. Cahula didn’t seem to hear.
“The Wraith!” she cried, wringing her hands so violently the bracelets on her wrists clattered. The Imdari clustered behind her wailed in reply. “The Wraith have come! We beseech you, O High Macay, to aid your servants in their hour of need.”
“Holy fucking god,” John muttered.
“Don’t take my name in vain,” said Rodney.
-tbc-
*flees*
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating/Warning: PG13ish? Very bizarre, possibly crackfic-like.
Disclaimer: Not mine, which disappoints me profoundly.
Advertisements: um... ummm... sanctified!Rodney? For
wordclaim50 challenge #11 (Humor).Last week's episode
Notes: I can't believe I wrote this. That is all.
CHAPTER TWO
Much, much later John and Teyla were cooling their heels in one of the huts near what Ulu had informed them was the temple. Night had come, no less stifling and miserable than the day – just as humid, only dark instead. The air inside the hut was stifling, made worse by the smoking piles of moss that were, according to Ulu, supposed to keep away the insects, especially the bloodfly, which was especially nasty.
John had just killed his tenth bloodfly, rendering it a wet, red stain on his forearm, when a young girl had pushed her way through the cloth covering their door. (And this, by the way, was the craziest thing ever; John had the distinct impression they were being guarded, though there was only this ridiculous blue cloth between them and freedom, and why the hell hadn’t they gone anywhere? Skulls on pikes outside, Sheppard. Skulls on pikes, and God knows where Rodney is.)
The girl had knelt on the floor, setting down a tray carrying bowls of what looked to be stew. Stew with chunks of meat in it.
“I bid you eat in good health,” she’d said and bowed until her forehead nearly brushed the floorboards.
“I’m a vegetarian,” John had told her.
“A what?” the girl had asked bewilderedly.
Teyla had sighed, thanked the girl, and shooed her out before rounding on John with a terse comment about offending the Imdari, who placed a high value on hospitality and politeness.
“The Imdari consider the refusal of food an insult,” she’d said.
“Did you or did you not notice the skulls on pikes out there?”
Teyla hadn’t had an answer for that. She still didn’t, and they’d sat in a festering silence for a half hour, until Ulu came. John watched sullenly as the two of them talked quietly in the Imdari tongue, Ulu very carefully because Teyla wasn’t fluent – she was, from what John could gather, asking Ulu to repeat himself, her tone one of either confusion or disbelief – their voices almost obscured by the music and chanting going on outside the hut.
And that was seriously starting to get annoying. It had been going on nonstop the second after the bowing and wailing had stopped, a series of ululating cries punctuated by drumbeats and the occasional “McKay!”
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” John asked, after Ulu bowed his way out.
“I know only a little of them,” Teyla admitted. She shifted on the reed mat that passed for a bed; for all their hospitality, the Imdari apparently weren’t into creature comforts. “The Imdari have always been quite isolated, by choice as much by the fact that their home is, well...” She gestured to the rain and mud outside the hut.
“And what are they smoking that makes them think Rodney’s a... whatever they think he is?”
“Smoking? Nothing that I know of, but from what Ulu has told me, ‘Macay’ is their word for ‘savior,’” Teyla said. “And, so far as I can gather, it is also the name of one of the Ancients who visited the Imdari not long before the Wraith came. The Imdari believe that Macay left them because they had committed some sin, and that the Wraith were sent as their penance – but, if they survived the Wraith, Macay would return and create a paradise for them.”
“So they think Rodney is some sort of... of god?”
“It would seem so,” Teyla said. And she sounded perfectly serious, like this whole thing was not the most bizarre, ridiculous, and vaguely horrifying situation in the world.
“You know, if there weren’t skulls out there – skulls on pikes, let me remind you – I would be laughing right now. I really would.”
Teyla smiled tightly and was about to say something when footsteps sounded wetly on the other side of the blue cloth, then more substantial thumps as their owner came up the wooden ramp.
It was Ulu again, dark eyes aglow with excitement. He flung himself on the floorboards in a bow that put the girl’s to shame.
“Ulu?” Teyla asked hesitantly. “Is anything the matter?”
“The Macay has bid me,” he said, nearly falling over the words in his desperation to get them out, “The Macay has bid me to bring you to him, O Holy Consort.”
Teyla stared.
So did John.
“Consort?” Teyla said at last.
If possible, Ulu sank even lower.
“The Macay requests that I bring the Holy Consort to him, and you as well, Teyla Emmagan.”
“I’m your what?”
“Is that any way to talk to your divine master?” Rodney adjusted his field vest, which was now adorned with shell necklaces and pendants. The flimsy futon he was ensconced in creaked alarmingly as he turned over to frown disapprovingly at John. “For what it’s worth, I couldn’t get ‘boyfriend’ to translate properly. Apparently, the Imdari equivalent is highly insulting, something to do with being paid for sex.”
“You know, you could have just told Cahula or whoever that we’re at least minor deities or something.”
“Look, you always get to be some hot Ancient chick’s boy-toy,” Rodney said, “so this time you’re going to be a brilliant Canadian super genius deity’s boy-toy. Okay?”
“Not okay.” John leaned back against the wall of the hut – and, by the way, this was still a hut, though a much nicer hut than the one he and Teyla had been in earlier, with tapestries and decorations, and actual padding under the mats. He absently smacked at a bloodfly and wiped his hand on a trouser leg. “Look, Rodney – ”
“Tsk!”
“Look, Rodney” – John would rather have his skull end up decorating one of Ulu’s spears than call Rodney “O Most High Macay” – “In case you haven’t noticed, you aren’t a... what the Imdari think you are.” He managed to lower his voice at that last. “And when they find out you aren’t? We are going to be screwed.”
“How do you know I’m not?” Rodney waved moss-smoke out of his eyes.
“To begin with, you’re not an Ancient. You don’t even have the gene.”
“Not technically true. Carson – ”
“You know what I mean.” John sighed. Between the smoke and Rodney he was developing a fearsome headache. Teyla was gone, off to ‘lodgings fit for her exalted status as companion to the Most High Macay,’ according to Cahula, and John desperately wished she were back, so someone could take over trying to talk sense into Rodney for a while. But she was gone, and all the other Imdari were celebrating noisily outside, so it was just John, Rodney, and the bloodflies.
"Look, has it occurred to you that the only thing standing between you and being eaten is my divinity? You'd think you'd be... I don't know... grateful."
"Hallelujah."
“For what it’s worth, my consort,” Rodney said, lingering over ‘my consort’ with satisfaction, “I have been able to learn something about those energy readings I was picking up earlier.”
“Oh, I was beginning to worry that godhood would get in the way of scientific inquiry.”
Rodney scowled. “Do you want me to smite you? Because I can, you know.” He paused. “Well, I can have my legions of fanatically devoted warriors smite you for me. Did I mention they were fanatically devoted?”
“You did. The readings?”
“Definitely a ZPM.” Rodney paused. “I saw it. Fully functional, looks like it could run for centuries. And you know what? The Imdari aren’t even using it. It’s connected to some sort of device that hasn’t been running for... well, eons, and the Imdari don’t know what it’s for.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“‘Good?’ That’s great.” Rodney beamed. “I’d almost say it was divine intervention, but do you think I can intervene with myself?”
“Speaking of interventions,” John said, “do you have a plan to get the ZPM out of here without, oh, I don’t know, pissing the Imdari off – which is, I might add, in violation of your agreement? You’re supposed to create paradise for them, Teyla says, and I don’t think they’re going to let you skip out for another ten thousand years this time.”
“I’m a god, Sheppard, I can do what I want.” Rodney leaned back into his pillows and offered John his best superior smile, the one that made John either want to smack him or kiss him. Usually the former, though that sometimes led to the latter. “I figure I’ll take the ZPM, send Teyla back with it, and you and I can skip out of here, no problem. You still have your P90?”
“Ulu took it... I think they sacrificed it to you.” There had been deafening explosions, earlier, and panicked cries from the Imdari.
“Well, damn.”
“Damn indeed.”
Rodney sat up and swung his legs over the side of his futon. “Look, these people are eating out of my hand – as well they should – and I know I can get the ZPM out of them. They don’t even know what it is, only that it’s something left over from the time of the Ancients; it could be a... a lamp, for all they know. And we can bring them back with us, drop them on the mainland.” He looked around the tiny, smoke-filled hut. “Seriously, the mainland would be a paradise, compared to here.”
“Rodney, we can’t just – just –”
“Can’t just what? Bring them back to Atlantis? Look, they have this ceremony – Cahula explained it to me, when I told her that I’d been out of the Imdari loop for ten thousand years – called the... what was it? The Consummation or Translation, or something like that. When a person dies, Cahula said, the Imdari conduct this ceremony to ensure the soul will pass on to the paradise Macay – I mean, I – have created for them. We can tell them the mainland is it, and the continent is large enough they’d spend forever looking.”
“Okay, not only is that a really bad idea, it’s a really fucking bad idea.”
“Do you have any other plans?”
“Not at the moment, no, but I will.” Any moment now, John. Any moment now.
“Then when you come up with one, let me know.” Rodney paused. “Do you think I should start referring to myself in the plural?”
“No, I don’t.”
A sudden, alarmed cry broke into the endless drumbeats and chantings and John’s futile attempt at reasoning with Rodney. John sat up sharply, relieved to see that Rodney was at least apparently taking this seriously, heard the confused stampeding of the Imdari outside and more shouts, higher and more desperate now.
Cahula burst in, collapsing to the floor, her robes pooling around her. The priests from that afternoon were right behind her, and through the folded-back door John could see a cluster of dark, frightened faces illuminated in the firelight.
“You, ummm... you interrupted us,” Rodney said, trying and failing utterly to sound divine and disapproving. Cahula didn’t seem to hear.
“The Wraith!” she cried, wringing her hands so violently the bracelets on her wrists clattered. The Imdari clustered behind her wailed in reply. “The Wraith have come! We beseech you, O High Macay, to aid your servants in their hour of need.”
“Holy fucking god,” John muttered.
“Don’t take my name in vain,” said Rodney.
-tbc-
*flees*