Fic: Incorporating A Few Slight Adjustments by lavvyan (PG-13)
Title: Incorporating A Few Slight Adjustments
Author: lavvyan
Pairing or Character(s): MENSA-verse McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Um. Slash?
AN: For the "Getting To Know You" challenge (so obviously spoilers for M & MM).
"Look, what, my Sheppard is a know-it-all, my Teyla is hard to talk to, and, and my Ronon is… well, actually, those two are pretty similar. […] I envy you. You say exactly what's on your mind no matter how it makes you look. I can only imagine the freedom you must have, not caring if people like you or not."
Now available in Russian.
~~~
Incorporating A Few Slight Adjustments
The first time Rod told his Sheppard where he could stick his MENSA meetings, it was both frightening and exhilarating. Frightening, because you didn't ditch a lifetime of conditioning over night, and not being friendly and agreeable felt… off. Exhilarating, because he'd wanted to do so ever since Sheppard had come up to him and said, "you know, I realise you're not a real member, but you're smart - I mean, you've got two PhDs - so… why not join us? You could be an honorary member, just for Pegasus." The man hadn't even truly meant to be condescending.
That had been two and a half years ago.
For most of his life, Rod's picture could have been found in the lexicon right next to 'Canadian'. He'd figured out at an early age that being smarter than everyone around you meant you also had to be cooler than everyone around you, if you didn't want to get bullied on a regular basis. For Rod, that had meant playing the drums instead of the piano, topping his 'A's in natural sciences with resounding successes in every sport known to man, and most important, being everyone's best pal. It had meant eternal censoring of himself, but it had worked like a charm, and Rod liked to think it had brought him as far as Atlantis.
Then two weeks ago, he'd been to another universe on what he'd thought was a one-way trip. Their Rodney McKay was everything Rod had taught himself not to be: rude, arrogant, bad with people in general and his sister in particular, and yet he still had made it all the way to Atlantis as head of the science department, and he still was liked by some of the most awesome people Rod had ever met. Genuinely liked, despite his impossible personality, and his team…
Rod was sure he'd never have been more than a weird guest to those people, and frankly, they had been more than a little strange to him as well. The other universe's John Sheppard had been a lieutenant colonel; it had been hard to get his head around that at first. And still the man had been more approachable than Rod's version, how was that for a paradox? Their Teyla had been leader of her people instead of a liaison; obviously, Tagan had been dead there, for years. She was also more approachable: the first time Rod had made a joke and she'd just thrown her head back and laughed, he'd caught himself staring in awe. And Ronon… Ronon had still been following Sheppard, but Rod suspected that it had long become following a friend and leader instead of having been ordered to do so by Colonel O'Neill.
And these people had loved their Rodney like a brother, in Sheppard's case maybe even a little more, and Rod's initial feeling of smug superiority over being the better McKay had quickly given way to envy. Honest to god envy, because Rodney could be petty, could be an egoist, and he still had friends, and it was probably a truer friendship than anything Rod had ever had.
He'd wanted that. He still did.
Rodney had probably even gotten away with draining a ZPM the other Atlantis couldn't afford to lose, just to get Rod back home. And what a homecoming that had been; they'd even thrown him a party, after they'd been fully prepared to blow him to kingdom come with the other universe to save their own. Oh, they would have regretted it, of course, but Rod had a niggling suspicion that hell had to open an ice-skating rink before the other John Sheppard would ever allow anything to happen to his scientist.
He wanted that, too.
Straight into his brooding had marched Dr. Sheppard, wunderkind of Earth's mathematic community, with his arrogant little smile and his damn MENSA meetings, and for once in his life, Rod had said exactly what he'd wanted to say. Screw being accommodating and friendly, Rod McKay was pissed and prepared to show it. Sheppard's surprised face had been a sight to see, all that smugness wiped away to leave confusion and incredulity.
Rod had been so high on adrenaline he'd made his way to one of the more secluded balconies, where he stood looking over the ocean and wondered how the same people could be so different. How Rod himself could have been reacting instead of acting for years without even noticing.
Sheppard found him half an hour later, strolling awkwardly over to the railing and leaning against it next to Rod with forced casualness.
"So here you are."
Rod gave him a short nod.
"Here I am."
He could tell that Sheppard was trying to find a way to breach the subject, and failing. Eventually, Rod took pity on the man.
It was a habit.
"You know," he started, "your other self was pretty cool. Shooting golf balls from a balcony at six in the morning. Terrible backswing, though."
He chuckled. Sheppard said nothing, concentrated on scraping his thumbnail across the ancient railing.
"The other me was an ass, and yet they adored him. I wonder what I do wrong." Rod sighed. "He said whatever was on his mind, no censorship at all. If I had known I could pull that off, my life would have been a lot different."
Sheppard spoke up, his voice rough.
"I thought we were friends."
"Yeah, so did I." Rod shrugged. "Guess we were both wrong."
"Imagine that, hmm?" Sheppard tried a smile, but it didn't truly resemble the real thing.
Although, come to think of it, Rod had no idea what the real thing even looked like. He'd bet the other Rodney did.
God, he despised that guy. Pitied him for his insecurities, but really despised him for having something Rod hadn't even known he wanted.
"Look, I… I have to get my head around a few things, perhaps re-evaluate certain priorities in my life. Doesn't mean we're not cool."
Rod gave Sheppard a short reassuring smile, damn his people skills, and left him alone on the balcony.
When the doors closed behind him, he thought he heard Sheppard mutter, "no, you're cool, I'm fine."
~~~
Team McKay. Two scientists and two aliens, the ones who got sent on the easy missions, never into any danger. Up until then, Rod hadn't wanted it to be any different, but saving one's universe probably screwed with one's head, because now he wanted what the other team had had, where sparring wasn't just a way to stay in touch and bond with your team-mates, where you didn't feel daring for flying a puddle jumper from a Gate in orbit in a steep angle through the atmosphere.
It was insane, wanting to be shot at, but he couldn't help it.
He was a good shot, though, best marks on the shooting range, which was probably the only reason they made it out of the Wraith ambush, for Sheppard sure was useless with a gun. They stumbled through the Gate and into Atlantis' gateroom: Ronon limping from a stunner blast that had grazed him, Teyla probably trying to come up with the way to get out of the life debt she now owed Rod. Sheppard was pale, his body shaking almost imperceptibly, and any other time, Rod would have tried his best to cheer him up, calm him down.
This wasn't any other time, though, and he opened his mouth almost before he knew he would.
"Well. That sucked."
It was harmless; the other Rodney would have been throwing a fit right about now, but Sheppard stared at Rod like he'd been betrayed. Still, Rod couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing out on something, something important, and if Sheppard couldn't handle Rod being a little more himself, well, that was his problem, not Rod's.
It was Teyla, of all people, who pointed out the error in that reasoning when she visited his quarters for the first time in… ever, actually.
"Teyla." Rod smiled at her automatically, if a little puzzled. "What can I do for you at, ah," he checked his watch, raised his eyebrows at the time, "thirteen in the evening?"
She regarded him with those eternally unsmiling eyes.
"I am here to talk to you."
Rod frowned, but stepped aside to let her in.
"Is this about earlier?" he asked after they'd both sat down. "I wouldn't call you on your debt in front of the Council, you know that."
"No." Teyla seemed to search for words. "You have not met us for the breakfast hour the last four days," she said finally. "Is something the matter?"
Rod blinked. It wasn't that he was surprised they'd noticed, of course they had. Rod McKay attracted people like flies wherever he went. He was just… surprised they cared.
"No. Everything's fine."
"Dr. Sheppard thinks that you are homesick." She paused, then added, "for the other Atlantis."
What?
"What?"
"Is it true?"
"No!" And it wasn't, Rod realised. This Atlantis might be imperfect from a certain point of view, but so was he, and, as he'd told his other self, "this is home. You are my team."
"Then why do you distance yourself from us? Are we not your friends as well?"
He blinked. That was… more or less what Sheppard had said, wasn't it?
"Well, to be honest, I'm not sure," he said, shrugging a little in apology. "I… the other team, they seemed to know each other. Not so much each other's past; it was the little things. I hate to say it, but they had something we don't."
Teyla looked at him, her face completely unreadable.
"I see. Then perhaps now you will give us a chance to get to know you as well, Dr. McKay."
He gaped at her, completely floored, as she rose and nodded at him.
"Good night, Dr. McKay. I hope we will meet tomorrow for breakfast."
Rod stared at the closed door for a long time after she had left.
He was an idiot.
~~~
Sheppard was already there when Rod arrived at the mess hall the next morning, looking tired. His face lit up when he spotted Rod, though he quickly tried to school his expression into his familiar scowl.
"You missed quite the uproar in lab four last night," he said as soon as Rod sat down at the table. "Zelenka and Kavanagh got into a fight over how that other Jean Miller's calculations impacted on tensor calculus as we know it. I had to tell them they were both wrong, of course."
"Of course," Rod echoed. His slight smile made the other man falter, and Sheppard visibly struggled to find another subject to talk about. But before Rod could puzzle over that, Teyla and Ronon arrived, and Teyla greeted him with a slow, serious nod.
He wondered if it was simply her equivalent of the other Teyla's sunny smile.
"McKay," Ronon grumbled, "you up for a little sparring later?"
"What, the marines being too easy for you?"
They both laughed, and Sheppard ducked his head, concentrating on his scrambled eggs.
"I don't see how beating the hell out of each other can be considered fun by anybody," he mumbled.
"Well, Ronon here doesn't see how trying to disprove general relativity in your spare time can be fun, either, so I guess that makes you even."
Ronon grinned at that, while Sheppard frowned. Rod took pity on him.
"Speaking of relativity, I hear you've been trying to find the Ancients' counterpart to quantum field physics?"
It was a peace offering, and Sheppard gladly accepted.
"Yeah, but the database is a complete mess. You'd think that a race as advanced as they're supposed to have been would have their own version of F3, but sadly, not so much."
"Hmm."
Rod dug into his breakfast without real enthusiasm while Sheppard tried to explain to the Pegasus locals what, exactly, was the meaning of F3. Sgt. Arlin had given him an extra-large portion this morning, a well-meant mountain of pancakes and real maple syrup. He tried to show some enthusiasm, and then remembered what Teyla had said about getting to know each other.
Rod's fork hit the table with a clink, interrupting the conversation around him.
"I don't really like pancakes," he muttered, and grimaced at how stupid he sounded. The others blinked at him, then Teyla tilted her head.
"I have never liked tuttleroot soup," she offered. "My tutor had me cook it many times before it met her requirements, and I did not enjoy tasting it."
Ronon grunted something about eating everything; at the same time, Sheppard pushed his plate towards Rod.
"Want to switch?"
Pancakes versus bacon and eggs, a no-brainer.
"Sure," Rod said, handing his too-sweet breakfast over and savouring the first bite of crispy fried bacon, before he joined his team's tales of what whacky stuff they'd had to eat over the years.
Soon, their table was the usual centre of attention, and if Rod tried to get his team members to make a few jokes of their own, nobody seemed to notice.
~~~
Over the next few days, Rod learned that Teyla got kind of pissy whenever someone said her father must be very proud, and that she preferred sparring with men because it was more satisfactory to kick their asses.
He learned that Ronon liked to share the old Satedan folk tales, and was quickly becoming a huge fan of The Box, as he called TV, after Rod traded Radek for his collection of Czech fairy tale movies and Sheppard for his VCR. He also learned that to Ronon, it didn't matter whether or not he understood the language.
He didn't really learn that much new stuff about Sheppard - the man still was an arrogant pain in the ass. But Rod managed to convince him that golf was all about velocity and calculating the right angles, and while they didn't play at six in the morning, they usually managed to find some time around mid-afternoon.
In turn, his team learned about the surprisingly many things Rod McKay didn't really like. Strangely enough, it made them work together better than ever before.
He wondered what else he'd missed without missing it.
~~~
In the end, though, he learned something new about Sheppard after all.
"So. I hear Katie Brown has asked you out," Sheppard said not really nonchalantly, after he'd invited himself into Rod's quarters.
Rod shrugged.
"Yes. I said no."
"She's been taking physics lessons from Zelenka for three weeks. Said she wanted to have something you both could talk about."
"She shouldn't have worried. I always find something to talk about."
He watched Sheppard pace, clearly annoyed about something Rod didn't quite get.
"Don't you feel the least bit guilty?"
"Sheppard, what do you want from me?"
"I want to know what it takes!" Sheppard exploded. "She took physics lessons, a botanist, and now you say she 'shouldn't have worried'! I named a theory on the large-scale structure of the cosmos after you, and all you said was, 'cool'! What does it take to flap the unflappable Rod McKay?"
Rod stared at him with growing realisation.
"You have a crush on me."
"What? No!" Sheppard paled, fists clenching and unclenching as he stood in the middle of Rod's quarters, looking like a deer in headlights. "I just, I mean-"
"You do. That's why you’ve been acting so strange since I came back." It even made sense. Rod's brief personality crisis would have looked to Sheppard like rejection.
Oh dear.
"I've been acting strange?" Sheppard spluttered, "you're the one who-"
Rod interrupted him with a kiss. It was all he could think of at that moment. To be honest, it was all he'd been thinking about ever since he'd seen the other Sheppard watch his Rodney with more than just fondness. Sheppard flailed for a second or two, then his hands slipped hesitantly around Rod's back and clenched into the fabric of his shirt.
Another thing Rod had missed without knowing it: for someone usually so full of himself, Sheppard kissed surprisingly shy.
There was silence when they pulled apart, blinking at each other, then Sheppard cleared his throat.
"Well. I can honestly say that this wasn't what I expected when I came here." It sounded bewildered and a little miffed, like Sheppard not anticipating something was completely unheard of.
"Are you complaining?" Rod wanted to know, already leaning in again.
"Not really, no," Sheppard mumbled against his lips, and then they were kissing again, the feel of Sheppard's warm body melting against Rod's own positively addictive.
For the first time in years, Rod could feel his heart pound.
~~~
End.
Author: lavvyan
Pairing or Character(s): MENSA-verse McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Um. Slash?
AN: For the "Getting To Know You" challenge (so obviously spoilers for M & MM).
"Look, what, my Sheppard is a know-it-all, my Teyla is hard to talk to, and, and my Ronon is… well, actually, those two are pretty similar. […] I envy you. You say exactly what's on your mind no matter how it makes you look. I can only imagine the freedom you must have, not caring if people like you or not."
Now available in Russian.
~~~
Incorporating A Few Slight Adjustments
The first time Rod told his Sheppard where he could stick his MENSA meetings, it was both frightening and exhilarating. Frightening, because you didn't ditch a lifetime of conditioning over night, and not being friendly and agreeable felt… off. Exhilarating, because he'd wanted to do so ever since Sheppard had come up to him and said, "you know, I realise you're not a real member, but you're smart - I mean, you've got two PhDs - so… why not join us? You could be an honorary member, just for Pegasus." The man hadn't even truly meant to be condescending.
That had been two and a half years ago.
For most of his life, Rod's picture could have been found in the lexicon right next to 'Canadian'. He'd figured out at an early age that being smarter than everyone around you meant you also had to be cooler than everyone around you, if you didn't want to get bullied on a regular basis. For Rod, that had meant playing the drums instead of the piano, topping his 'A's in natural sciences with resounding successes in every sport known to man, and most important, being everyone's best pal. It had meant eternal censoring of himself, but it had worked like a charm, and Rod liked to think it had brought him as far as Atlantis.
Then two weeks ago, he'd been to another universe on what he'd thought was a one-way trip. Their Rodney McKay was everything Rod had taught himself not to be: rude, arrogant, bad with people in general and his sister in particular, and yet he still had made it all the way to Atlantis as head of the science department, and he still was liked by some of the most awesome people Rod had ever met. Genuinely liked, despite his impossible personality, and his team…
Rod was sure he'd never have been more than a weird guest to those people, and frankly, they had been more than a little strange to him as well. The other universe's John Sheppard had been a lieutenant colonel; it had been hard to get his head around that at first. And still the man had been more approachable than Rod's version, how was that for a paradox? Their Teyla had been leader of her people instead of a liaison; obviously, Tagan had been dead there, for years. She was also more approachable: the first time Rod had made a joke and she'd just thrown her head back and laughed, he'd caught himself staring in awe. And Ronon… Ronon had still been following Sheppard, but Rod suspected that it had long become following a friend and leader instead of having been ordered to do so by Colonel O'Neill.
And these people had loved their Rodney like a brother, in Sheppard's case maybe even a little more, and Rod's initial feeling of smug superiority over being the better McKay had quickly given way to envy. Honest to god envy, because Rodney could be petty, could be an egoist, and he still had friends, and it was probably a truer friendship than anything Rod had ever had.
He'd wanted that. He still did.
Rodney had probably even gotten away with draining a ZPM the other Atlantis couldn't afford to lose, just to get Rod back home. And what a homecoming that had been; they'd even thrown him a party, after they'd been fully prepared to blow him to kingdom come with the other universe to save their own. Oh, they would have regretted it, of course, but Rod had a niggling suspicion that hell had to open an ice-skating rink before the other John Sheppard would ever allow anything to happen to his scientist.
He wanted that, too.
Straight into his brooding had marched Dr. Sheppard, wunderkind of Earth's mathematic community, with his arrogant little smile and his damn MENSA meetings, and for once in his life, Rod had said exactly what he'd wanted to say. Screw being accommodating and friendly, Rod McKay was pissed and prepared to show it. Sheppard's surprised face had been a sight to see, all that smugness wiped away to leave confusion and incredulity.
Rod had been so high on adrenaline he'd made his way to one of the more secluded balconies, where he stood looking over the ocean and wondered how the same people could be so different. How Rod himself could have been reacting instead of acting for years without even noticing.
Sheppard found him half an hour later, strolling awkwardly over to the railing and leaning against it next to Rod with forced casualness.
"So here you are."
Rod gave him a short nod.
"Here I am."
He could tell that Sheppard was trying to find a way to breach the subject, and failing. Eventually, Rod took pity on the man.
It was a habit.
"You know," he started, "your other self was pretty cool. Shooting golf balls from a balcony at six in the morning. Terrible backswing, though."
He chuckled. Sheppard said nothing, concentrated on scraping his thumbnail across the ancient railing.
"The other me was an ass, and yet they adored him. I wonder what I do wrong." Rod sighed. "He said whatever was on his mind, no censorship at all. If I had known I could pull that off, my life would have been a lot different."
Sheppard spoke up, his voice rough.
"I thought we were friends."
"Yeah, so did I." Rod shrugged. "Guess we were both wrong."
"Imagine that, hmm?" Sheppard tried a smile, but it didn't truly resemble the real thing.
Although, come to think of it, Rod had no idea what the real thing even looked like. He'd bet the other Rodney did.
God, he despised that guy. Pitied him for his insecurities, but really despised him for having something Rod hadn't even known he wanted.
"Look, I… I have to get my head around a few things, perhaps re-evaluate certain priorities in my life. Doesn't mean we're not cool."
Rod gave Sheppard a short reassuring smile, damn his people skills, and left him alone on the balcony.
When the doors closed behind him, he thought he heard Sheppard mutter, "no, you're cool, I'm fine."
~~~
Team McKay. Two scientists and two aliens, the ones who got sent on the easy missions, never into any danger. Up until then, Rod hadn't wanted it to be any different, but saving one's universe probably screwed with one's head, because now he wanted what the other team had had, where sparring wasn't just a way to stay in touch and bond with your team-mates, where you didn't feel daring for flying a puddle jumper from a Gate in orbit in a steep angle through the atmosphere.
It was insane, wanting to be shot at, but he couldn't help it.
He was a good shot, though, best marks on the shooting range, which was probably the only reason they made it out of the Wraith ambush, for Sheppard sure was useless with a gun. They stumbled through the Gate and into Atlantis' gateroom: Ronon limping from a stunner blast that had grazed him, Teyla probably trying to come up with the way to get out of the life debt she now owed Rod. Sheppard was pale, his body shaking almost imperceptibly, and any other time, Rod would have tried his best to cheer him up, calm him down.
This wasn't any other time, though, and he opened his mouth almost before he knew he would.
"Well. That sucked."
It was harmless; the other Rodney would have been throwing a fit right about now, but Sheppard stared at Rod like he'd been betrayed. Still, Rod couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing out on something, something important, and if Sheppard couldn't handle Rod being a little more himself, well, that was his problem, not Rod's.
It was Teyla, of all people, who pointed out the error in that reasoning when she visited his quarters for the first time in… ever, actually.
"Teyla." Rod smiled at her automatically, if a little puzzled. "What can I do for you at, ah," he checked his watch, raised his eyebrows at the time, "thirteen in the evening?"
She regarded him with those eternally unsmiling eyes.
"I am here to talk to you."
Rod frowned, but stepped aside to let her in.
"Is this about earlier?" he asked after they'd both sat down. "I wouldn't call you on your debt in front of the Council, you know that."
"No." Teyla seemed to search for words. "You have not met us for the breakfast hour the last four days," she said finally. "Is something the matter?"
Rod blinked. It wasn't that he was surprised they'd noticed, of course they had. Rod McKay attracted people like flies wherever he went. He was just… surprised they cared.
"No. Everything's fine."
"Dr. Sheppard thinks that you are homesick." She paused, then added, "for the other Atlantis."
What?
"What?"
"Is it true?"
"No!" And it wasn't, Rod realised. This Atlantis might be imperfect from a certain point of view, but so was he, and, as he'd told his other self, "this is home. You are my team."
"Then why do you distance yourself from us? Are we not your friends as well?"
He blinked. That was… more or less what Sheppard had said, wasn't it?
"Well, to be honest, I'm not sure," he said, shrugging a little in apology. "I… the other team, they seemed to know each other. Not so much each other's past; it was the little things. I hate to say it, but they had something we don't."
Teyla looked at him, her face completely unreadable.
"I see. Then perhaps now you will give us a chance to get to know you as well, Dr. McKay."
He gaped at her, completely floored, as she rose and nodded at him.
"Good night, Dr. McKay. I hope we will meet tomorrow for breakfast."
Rod stared at the closed door for a long time after she had left.
He was an idiot.
~~~
Sheppard was already there when Rod arrived at the mess hall the next morning, looking tired. His face lit up when he spotted Rod, though he quickly tried to school his expression into his familiar scowl.
"You missed quite the uproar in lab four last night," he said as soon as Rod sat down at the table. "Zelenka and Kavanagh got into a fight over how that other Jean Miller's calculations impacted on tensor calculus as we know it. I had to tell them they were both wrong, of course."
"Of course," Rod echoed. His slight smile made the other man falter, and Sheppard visibly struggled to find another subject to talk about. But before Rod could puzzle over that, Teyla and Ronon arrived, and Teyla greeted him with a slow, serious nod.
He wondered if it was simply her equivalent of the other Teyla's sunny smile.
"McKay," Ronon grumbled, "you up for a little sparring later?"
"What, the marines being too easy for you?"
They both laughed, and Sheppard ducked his head, concentrating on his scrambled eggs.
"I don't see how beating the hell out of each other can be considered fun by anybody," he mumbled.
"Well, Ronon here doesn't see how trying to disprove general relativity in your spare time can be fun, either, so I guess that makes you even."
Ronon grinned at that, while Sheppard frowned. Rod took pity on him.
"Speaking of relativity, I hear you've been trying to find the Ancients' counterpart to quantum field physics?"
It was a peace offering, and Sheppard gladly accepted.
"Yeah, but the database is a complete mess. You'd think that a race as advanced as they're supposed to have been would have their own version of F3, but sadly, not so much."
"Hmm."
Rod dug into his breakfast without real enthusiasm while Sheppard tried to explain to the Pegasus locals what, exactly, was the meaning of F3. Sgt. Arlin had given him an extra-large portion this morning, a well-meant mountain of pancakes and real maple syrup. He tried to show some enthusiasm, and then remembered what Teyla had said about getting to know each other.
Rod's fork hit the table with a clink, interrupting the conversation around him.
"I don't really like pancakes," he muttered, and grimaced at how stupid he sounded. The others blinked at him, then Teyla tilted her head.
"I have never liked tuttleroot soup," she offered. "My tutor had me cook it many times before it met her requirements, and I did not enjoy tasting it."
Ronon grunted something about eating everything; at the same time, Sheppard pushed his plate towards Rod.
"Want to switch?"
Pancakes versus bacon and eggs, a no-brainer.
"Sure," Rod said, handing his too-sweet breakfast over and savouring the first bite of crispy fried bacon, before he joined his team's tales of what whacky stuff they'd had to eat over the years.
Soon, their table was the usual centre of attention, and if Rod tried to get his team members to make a few jokes of their own, nobody seemed to notice.
~~~
Over the next few days, Rod learned that Teyla got kind of pissy whenever someone said her father must be very proud, and that she preferred sparring with men because it was more satisfactory to kick their asses.
He learned that Ronon liked to share the old Satedan folk tales, and was quickly becoming a huge fan of The Box, as he called TV, after Rod traded Radek for his collection of Czech fairy tale movies and Sheppard for his VCR. He also learned that to Ronon, it didn't matter whether or not he understood the language.
He didn't really learn that much new stuff about Sheppard - the man still was an arrogant pain in the ass. But Rod managed to convince him that golf was all about velocity and calculating the right angles, and while they didn't play at six in the morning, they usually managed to find some time around mid-afternoon.
In turn, his team learned about the surprisingly many things Rod McKay didn't really like. Strangely enough, it made them work together better than ever before.
He wondered what else he'd missed without missing it.
~~~
In the end, though, he learned something new about Sheppard after all.
"So. I hear Katie Brown has asked you out," Sheppard said not really nonchalantly, after he'd invited himself into Rod's quarters.
Rod shrugged.
"Yes. I said no."
"She's been taking physics lessons from Zelenka for three weeks. Said she wanted to have something you both could talk about."
"She shouldn't have worried. I always find something to talk about."
He watched Sheppard pace, clearly annoyed about something Rod didn't quite get.
"Don't you feel the least bit guilty?"
"Sheppard, what do you want from me?"
"I want to know what it takes!" Sheppard exploded. "She took physics lessons, a botanist, and now you say she 'shouldn't have worried'! I named a theory on the large-scale structure of the cosmos after you, and all you said was, 'cool'! What does it take to flap the unflappable Rod McKay?"
Rod stared at him with growing realisation.
"You have a crush on me."
"What? No!" Sheppard paled, fists clenching and unclenching as he stood in the middle of Rod's quarters, looking like a deer in headlights. "I just, I mean-"
"You do. That's why you’ve been acting so strange since I came back." It even made sense. Rod's brief personality crisis would have looked to Sheppard like rejection.
Oh dear.
"I've been acting strange?" Sheppard spluttered, "you're the one who-"
Rod interrupted him with a kiss. It was all he could think of at that moment. To be honest, it was all he'd been thinking about ever since he'd seen the other Sheppard watch his Rodney with more than just fondness. Sheppard flailed for a second or two, then his hands slipped hesitantly around Rod's back and clenched into the fabric of his shirt.
Another thing Rod had missed without knowing it: for someone usually so full of himself, Sheppard kissed surprisingly shy.
There was silence when they pulled apart, blinking at each other, then Sheppard cleared his throat.
"Well. I can honestly say that this wasn't what I expected when I came here." It sounded bewildered and a little miffed, like Sheppard not anticipating something was completely unheard of.
"Are you complaining?" Rod wanted to know, already leaning in again.
"Not really, no," Sheppard mumbled against his lips, and then they were kissing again, the feel of Sheppard's warm body melting against Rod's own positively addictive.
For the first time in years, Rod could feel his heart pound.
~~~
End.