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.2-second gratuitous McKay/Sheppard ficlet
This doesn't even have a title because I wrote it in two seconds, under the combined influence of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
foxxcub (whose very brilliant idea provided the seed for this) and sheafrotherdon who wanted to see more on a related topic RIGHT NOW.
Involves beach volleyball, mostly as an excuse to get John's shirt off in the sunlight.
"Volleyball? What do you mean, volleyball?"
"It's an English word, Rodney." John twirls the volleyball on the tip of his finger. Satisfyingly, it makes about three revolutions before falling off and bouncing awkwardly off John's thigh when he reaches for it.
"Yes, but... volleyball?"
John shrugs. "We haven't been out to the mainland a lot lately, and I thought I'd teach Teyla and Ronon how to play."
Privately, Rodney thinks it's bad enough John's exposed them golf, but John's wearing his "You're my team and you do what I say" look, which is very authoritative and distracting, so Rodney resigns himself to a day of sand and sunburn and fending off John's attempts to make him play.
Once they're there, he parks himself on a towel with his SPF-100 sunscreen and water bottle and watches appreciatively as John strips off his shirt, leaving him in khaki cutoffs and sunglasses, and did... Rodney blinks, in case the sun's messing with his vision, but it isn't: John's tan is everywhere, running down his chest and stomach to where the cutoffs ride precariously on his hips, and Rodney's willing to bet it keeps going, too.
John starts to go over the rules, which flow over Rodney in a meaningless wave of drawling and patient explanation as he pretends to focus on his data tablet. The flex and give of John's muscles as he moves slowly to demonstrate, sunlight playing over his skin and catching in the dogtags on his chest, an absent hand pulling up khakis bent on falling off. (Because John isn't wearing boxers oh God.) Rodney gulps down half his water bottle.
They've started a game, Rodney successfully resisting John's attempts to pull him in, thank God because John in real-time is even better, everything hiding under t-shirts and tac vests stripped bare, only muscle and movement and sun gilding all of it as he twists and dives and comes up with a mouthful of sand and laughter.
Then Ronon returns John's volley with a vicious spike that connects with John's forehead instead of the hand he has upraised to deflect the blow, and Rodney, Rodney can move like the wind when he needs to, so he's by John's side in a second, glowering Ronon away and batting down John's inquisitive hands.
"I ask you, why does all that hair not protect you better?" He scowls down at his own reflection in John's sunglasses. "Seriously, it's practically shellacked."
"Ow," John mutters.
"Don't move," Rodney snaps. "Ronon probably drove part of your skull into your under-utilized temporal lobe." He turns to shout orders at Teyla to go to the puddle jumper and get... get stuff and Ronon to go do something other than try to kill people.
"I'll try," Ronon says, and follows Teyla.
So they're alone under the Pegasus version of a palm tree with John's impromptu volleyball net flapping in the breeze. John's cheek is warm and rough with sand and stubble against Rodney's knee.
"You're pretty good," Rodney says, after .9 seconds of unbearable silence.
"Thanks." John pauses. "Wait. You were watching?" Rodney doesn't need to say anything; John already looks far too victorious for a man with bone fragments lodged in his brain. "You were! You were watching."
"All three of you," Rodney says, not as forcefully as he would have liked. "And the concussion is making you hallucinate, so be quiet."
"You were." John says this quietly but with conviction. "We're going to... um, talk about this later, McKay."
The leer is visible even behind the outsized aviator glasses and Rodney almost smacks him in the head, but oh yeah, concussion, and settles for huffing and poking John's shoulder, which is sun-warm and firm and sleek under the sand.
-end-
Now with off-the-cuff comment!fic. What happens on the way back to the jumper.
foxxcub (whose very brilliant idea provided the seed for this) and sheafrotherdon who wanted to see more on a related topic RIGHT NOW.Involves beach volleyball, mostly as an excuse to get John's shirt off in the sunlight.
"Volleyball? What do you mean, volleyball?"
"It's an English word, Rodney." John twirls the volleyball on the tip of his finger. Satisfyingly, it makes about three revolutions before falling off and bouncing awkwardly off John's thigh when he reaches for it.
"Yes, but... volleyball?"
John shrugs. "We haven't been out to the mainland a lot lately, and I thought I'd teach Teyla and Ronon how to play."
Privately, Rodney thinks it's bad enough John's exposed them golf, but John's wearing his "You're my team and you do what I say" look, which is very authoritative and distracting, so Rodney resigns himself to a day of sand and sunburn and fending off John's attempts to make him play.
Once they're there, he parks himself on a towel with his SPF-100 sunscreen and water bottle and watches appreciatively as John strips off his shirt, leaving him in khaki cutoffs and sunglasses, and did... Rodney blinks, in case the sun's messing with his vision, but it isn't: John's tan is everywhere, running down his chest and stomach to where the cutoffs ride precariously on his hips, and Rodney's willing to bet it keeps going, too.
John starts to go over the rules, which flow over Rodney in a meaningless wave of drawling and patient explanation as he pretends to focus on his data tablet. The flex and give of John's muscles as he moves slowly to demonstrate, sunlight playing over his skin and catching in the dogtags on his chest, an absent hand pulling up khakis bent on falling off. (Because John isn't wearing boxers oh God.) Rodney gulps down half his water bottle.
They've started a game, Rodney successfully resisting John's attempts to pull him in, thank God because John in real-time is even better, everything hiding under t-shirts and tac vests stripped bare, only muscle and movement and sun gilding all of it as he twists and dives and comes up with a mouthful of sand and laughter.
Then Ronon returns John's volley with a vicious spike that connects with John's forehead instead of the hand he has upraised to deflect the blow, and Rodney, Rodney can move like the wind when he needs to, so he's by John's side in a second, glowering Ronon away and batting down John's inquisitive hands.
"I ask you, why does all that hair not protect you better?" He scowls down at his own reflection in John's sunglasses. "Seriously, it's practically shellacked."
"Ow," John mutters.
"Don't move," Rodney snaps. "Ronon probably drove part of your skull into your under-utilized temporal lobe." He turns to shout orders at Teyla to go to the puddle jumper and get... get stuff and Ronon to go do something other than try to kill people.
"I'll try," Ronon says, and follows Teyla.
So they're alone under the Pegasus version of a palm tree with John's impromptu volleyball net flapping in the breeze. John's cheek is warm and rough with sand and stubble against Rodney's knee.
"You're pretty good," Rodney says, after .9 seconds of unbearable silence.
"Thanks." John pauses. "Wait. You were watching?" Rodney doesn't need to say anything; John already looks far too victorious for a man with bone fragments lodged in his brain. "You were! You were watching."
"All three of you," Rodney says, not as forcefully as he would have liked. "And the concussion is making you hallucinate, so be quiet."
"You were." John says this quietly but with conviction. "We're going to... um, talk about this later, McKay."
The leer is visible even behind the outsized aviator glasses and Rodney almost smacks him in the head, but oh yeah, concussion, and settles for huffing and poking John's shoulder, which is sun-warm and firm and sleek under the sand.
-end-
Now with off-the-cuff comment!fic. What happens on the way back to the jumper.
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And while Rodney pretends to be an impressive ten years old, John knows he's just as five as he is ;)
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*headesk*
And now I shall be imagining a five year old Rodney and John, playing in the sand and making castles with Rodney being oh so particular about the placement of each grain before John divebombs a plane into it.*slaps self*
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Once he'd managed to get the sand-to-water ratio perfect, he started building, if you could call sandcastles "building." At least the sand was holding together and the huge turrets of sand weren't collapsing, which was about the only thing that had gone right today.
Within about three seconds of setting foot on the beach, Rodney McKay had decided he hated it. A lot.
"We've spent a lot of money on this vacation, so you're coming with us," his mother had snapped when he'd begged to go back up to their hotel room. Even at seven and a half and three days, Rodney knew enough to know that air conditioning was much more enjoyable than sand, heat, and water that evaporated and left a sticky coating of salt on your skin, but his mother was impervious to logic.
Building sandcastles wasn't a complete waste of time, though. Completely ridiculous materials, of course--crude plastic tools, sand, nothing to measure with--but he sort of liked the challenge.
He wouldn't mind living in his sandcastle, come to think of it, behind a huge moat filled with alligators and great white sharks. With a drawbridge, with him safe in his turrets and his parents and Jeannie on the other side of the moat.
Just as he turned to look for the plastic spade to start digging said moat, he heard an unearthly eeeeeeeeeeeeee approaching swiftly, and just as he turned back to see what it was saw a whirlwind of dark hair, long arms and legs, plastic, and a huge grin.
"Direct hit!" shrieked the whirlwind as it picked itself up from the sand.
"My castle!" shrieked Rodney. Ruins.
"The F-4 Phantom never misses." The whirlwind settled down into a boy around Rodney's age, unfortunately taller and probably capable of beating Rodney up, like most of the kids at school.
"You wrecked it." He glared at the other boy, who was dusting off a model plane. "You wrecked my castle."
"Sorry," said the other boy, not sounding particularly sorry at all. He collapsed in a gangly heap next to the sad ruins of Rodney's masterpiece. "It was a lousy castle anyway. Where're the guns?"
"They didn't have guns back then. Don't you know anything?" Rodney began to gather the sand into a pile so he could start again. "They had bows and arrows and stuff."
"Oh." The boy turned the plane over in his hands, as though contemplating what Rodney had said. "Maybe you should build a future castle, so you could have guns."
"Whatever." He scooped huge handfuls of sand into buckets, and hoped that, maybe if he ignored him, the kid would go away. The kid didn't budge, though, and even offered Rodney his name.
"Rodney," Rodney said sulkily. "Make yourself useful and that over."
John smacked the shovel into Rodney's hand, then reached for one of the other buckets and started filling that.
"You have to swear not to dive-bomb this," he told John in the tone he usually reserved for Jeannie. "Pinky swear."
They pinky swore on it, and John even parked the plane on a flat strip of sand that was supposed to be the runway. Rodney had to concede that, despite his wild hair and stupid remarks ("Where're the guns?"), John was pretty good at sandcastle-building, and John told him that his family came to this beach whenever his dad was back "stateside."
"We come here never," Rodney said. "This is our first time."
"Maybe you can come again next year," John said, which was a very stupid and hopeful thing to say, and Rodney thought about your father spent a lot of money on this trip, which meant they'd probably be spending next summer with their grandparents.
He said yes, anyway, and John grinned, a huge dopey grin that Rodney had to tell him was huge and dopey, and John threw sand at him.
So Rodney had to throw sand back, and soon the future castle was destroyed, but the F-4 Phantom was safe on its runway.
I hate you.
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I. Win. At. Life.
*pumps fist*
Also, pinky swears are adorable and intense little seven and a half (and three days) years old Rodney makes my ovaries whimper and-ack!
*flails*
Am I allowed to say it's worth it?no subject
*glowers horribly*
I had a seven-year streak of no kid!fic going and you ruined it.
So I suppose you could say that you win. And that it's worth it.
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