FIC: 844,739 Ways to Eat a Hamburger [SG:A, team gen, R]
This is, for all intents and purposes, a sequel to the cigarette girl in the sizzle hot pants.
Title: 844,739 Ways to Eat a Hamburger
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Pairing: Team gen fic
Rating: R for rude language, innuendo, porn watching, dirty dancing in Memphis bars, aspersions cast on the talent of minor league baseball teams, and abuse of Dodge Caravans.
Spoilers: Through 3x10, "The Return (Part 1)". Set sometime in a nebulous future.
Disclaimer: Brad Wright & Rob Cooper own these characters. I'm just having fun, not making money.
Summary: In which John drives a minivan, Teyla communes with an iPod, Rodney is forced to pee on bushes, Ronon falls in love, and waffles are consumed by the dozen. 13,200 words.
"What do you mean, all you have left is a minivan?"
The only thing that kept them from a holding cell in Denver International Airport was John's security clearance. It took five TSA agents at Security to convince Ronon to hand over all 16 of his hair knives, and even after he'd been completely disarmed, they still wouldn't let him on the plane. The mousiest of the TSA agents wanted to toss them into a holding cell, and John pulled rank - slapped a hand over Rodney's mouth to cut off the stream of angry ranting coming out of it, pulled out his cell phone, and called General O'Neill.
O'Neill kept them from getting arrested and never seeing the light of day again, but US Air wouldn't let them get on the plane even if Ronon gave up all the knives, and by the time John thought to try any of the other airlines, TSA had passed the message along and nobody would sell them one ticket, let alone four.
"All right," John said. "I guess we're driving."
The minivan was a blue Dodge Caravan, and it offended all of John's aesthetic and moral sensibilities, but they had to be in DC in 9 days - the plan had been to fly out and take Ronon and Teyla sight-seeing - and the longer he stood at the counter arguing with the woman behind it, the more wrinkled his dress uniform was getting, his garment bag clutched in Ronon's huge hands while the rest of their luggage hung off his shoulders. And the faster he would have to drive a vehicle that wasn't intended to go more than 50 miles an hour at the hands of somebody's mother.
"Fine, I'll take it, but this is a travesty," John said.
"Yes, sir," the woman behind the counter said, the corner of her mouth twitching with a smile, until Ronon growled at her, at which point she started looking a little scared. John hoped - fruitlessly, it turned out - that she might be scared into finding them something cooler, anything cooler than a Dodge Caravan, but she wasn't. She handed the keys to John, listed Rodney as a secondary driver at John's insistence and Rodney's protests that this was John's insane idea, he was having nothing to do with it, he was going to sit in the passenger's seat and work while John was being a crazy person, and then the Dodge Caravan was theirs, all theirs, until they hit DC.
"All right, let's hit the road," John said.
Rodney said, "This is the worst idea you've ever had," but he struggled to his feet from where he'd been sitting on Teyla's new suitcase and slung his laptops over his shoulders.
Teyla said, "Why would we want to hit the road?"
Ronon said, "Can I drive?"
"Oh, God," Rodney said.
"No," John said to Ronon, and then, "It's an expression, Teyla. A metaphor. We're just going to drive on the road. Rodney, shut the hell up."
Later he would think that he should have just recorded those sentences and saved them on tape for future use - would have saved a lot of time.
Hindsight, of course, is always 20/20.
Day 2: Salina, Kansas
They had two adjoining rooms at a Best Western in Salina, Kansas, halfway across the state - John thought, what could go wrong? (John wouldn't think, what could go wrong, for the rest of the trip after that; he would think, oh, God, please let this go partially right, and please let us not get arrested. His optimism on Day 2 couldn't be faulted, could it?)
They hadn't actually gotten a start on the first day of their trip - arguing with TSA and then with Hertz had taken up all of John's energy and most of his patience, and they'd stayed in an airport motel, all four of them crowded into one room, and started out from Denver the morning of the second day. "We were already supposed to be in DC," Rodney had mourned over his third cup of coffee (ten minutes before the first but not the last time he'd ask John to stop because he had to take a piss; Rodney had a bladder like a peanut, apparently). "All those museums. All that food. Instead we're on Route 40, not even a real highway, heading east, and you drive almost as dangerously as you fly."
Just for that, John had spent 50 miles doing 95 in the fast lane, while Ronon whooped in the backseat and Rodney clutched the door with one hand and his coffee with the other. "Why are you so mean to me," he had asked John sadly, over lunch at a truck stop in Quinter, Kansas. Ronon was eating chipped beef on toasted with his fingers, and Teyla was poking a meatball sub suspiciously with Ronon's fork. "You've got it backwards," Rodney told them. "Ronon needs a fork, you're supposed to pick that up with your hands."
"Shut up, Rodney," John said, and shoved a French fry into Rodney's open mouth. Rodney bleated in alarm and then chewed, and it was the only 15 seconds of the day that Rodney stopped talking. Every time they stopped, Rodney got more coffee, and the more coffee he drank, the more he talked.
He talked while John got the rooms in Salina and argued with the desk clerk about whether or not the adjoining feature was necessary. (It was. John wasn't going to leave Ronon and Teyla in a hotel room where he couldn't easily keep an eye on them.) He complained about hotel security and how easy it was to hack into those electronic key cards while John tried to explain to Ronon and Teyla how the little pieces of plastic locked the doors.
He talked straight through dinner. (John ordered bacon cheeseburgers and fries for the three of them, and left Rodney to order his own steak and baked potato, and then had to explain to Ronon that despite Rodney's lectures, hamburgers were not meant to eaten with knife and fork.) In between shoveling the steak into his mouth, Rodney had John nearly crying with laughter over a story about the last McKay family vacation, a car trip from Toronto to the Grand Canyon that nearly ended with a 12 year old Jeannie shoving a 14 year old Rodney straight over the edge.
Rodney lay on his back on the bed when they got back to the room and talked while John took the longest, hottest shower he could stand, the cadence of Rodney's voice rising and falling over the beating water. When Rodney's running monologue - not that John had understood any of it over the noise of the shower - trailed off, John turned the shower off and wandered, dripping, out into the room.
Rodney had fallen asleep, mouth open, in the middle of the king size bed. John rolled his eyes, wrapped the towel more firmly around his waist, and wrestled Rodney out of his pants. Rodney didn't even stir, except to flop over onto his stomach and start snoring.
John rolled his eyes again, put some pants on, and knocked on the adjoining door. "You guys okay?"
"Yeah," Ronon's voice growled. "Come in."
Teyla was meditating in the center of the floor. Ronon was sprawled on the bed, shirt stripped off, with the remote control to the TV in his hand and SportsCenter going full blast on the screen. "TV, huh," John said.
"You can change it when you get bored," Ronon said. "It's better than those movies you guys have."
"It's pretty cool," John said. "Don't watch it all night, okay?"
"Okay," Ronon said, and John shut the door and lay down on the bed beside Rodney. He was asleep within minutes.
Which was a problem in the morning. Trying to check out, John discovered that Ronon had discovered the Pay-Per-View options on the television, and was trying to explain to the indignant clerk (without saying anything that was classified) about why he couldn't actually be held responsible for what Ronon had done, and he wasn't going to pay them for 7 hours of Pay-Per-View porn. While John was arguing, Rodney made a beeline for the complimentary buffet breakfast, followed closely by Ronon, and while Ronon was eating all the pastries that were available, Rodney was practically flat on his back under the coffee drip.
Teyla was chewing calmly on an apple when John gave up and paid the whole bill - all $349.78 of it. What the hell, it was going on the Air Force's tab, anyway.
He collected an over-caffeinated Rodney, and Ronon, who was still trying to eat cheese Danish, and Teyla, who was smiling faintly at the whole spectacle, and John got the hell out of the Salina Best Western before they got thrown out.
Day 3: Kansas City, Missouri
"Okay, that's it," John said.
"What's it?" Ronon said from his sprawl in the backseat.
"We're taking the scenic route," John said. He shoved the atlas at Rodney and said, "Figure out where we can pick up 40 further east of here." Then he yanked the car off of the Kansas City beltway and onto the off-ramp for I-35, heading south towards Dallas.
Rodney shrieked, "What do I know about the interstate system here?"
"You can read a map, right?" John snapped. "Read the map. Figure out where I can cut over to 40, and stop shouting."
"What's wrong with the directions we already had?"
"Two days in Kansas, Rodney," John said. "Two days. I'm not driving all the way across Missouri, too. This way, we can go through Memphis. Spend a night there."
"Because exactly what I wanted to do with my life was let Ronon loose on Memphis, Tennessee," Rodney said. "I think one near-arrest would have been enough for you, but no. You want to take that barbarian to Memphis. And I think we're heading west, which is not the way we are supposed to be going, in case you've forgotten."
"We can stop at all the Waffle Houses that you see, Rodney," John said.
"Well," Rodney said.
"Double chocolate chip waffles," John said. "Hash browns, scattered, smothered, covered, topped, diced, and capped."
"Aww," Rodney said. "You remembered how I like my hash browns. How sweet. We are not taking Ronon to Memphis."
"How about Nashville?" John asked.
"What is a Waffle House?" Teyla said.
Rodney made a choking sort of noise and when John turned to see if he was accidentally inhaling his coffee again, Rodney was clutching the map to his chest and looking stricken. "They don't have Waffle Houses in the Pegasus Galaxy," John said. "And I guess the Marines didn't see the need to explain about them."
"Oh, but they could explain all about lesbian porn," Rodney said. "Their ideas about what constitutes essential Earth culture are completely inexplicable."
"Marines are inexplicable," John said. "It's one of the known facts about them."
"What's a waffle?" Ronon asked.
"This one's all you," John said. "Go for it, Rodney, explain the cultural significance of Waffle House."
"You know," Rodney said thoughtfully, "I'm not the one who was feeling someone up the last time we were in a Waffle House. That would be you, Colonel Sheppard, and you were the one who claimed that all red-blooded American men got hard when faced with six pounds of greasy food. I think this one's all you."
John glanced in the rear view mirror; Teyla had covered her mouth with one hand, and John was pretty sure that she was smiling. He knew Ronon was smiling, because Ronon was hanging over the back of Teyla's seat, grinning like a monkey. "I thought we were never going to speak of that in public," John said.
"Well, I'm bored," Rodney said. "Missouri sucks. And Teyla won't play car games with me."
"You were going to work," John said. "You were going to be quiet and work."
"My laptop's out of batteries," Rodney said. "All three of them are out of batteries. And I have to go to the bathroom, and not one of those gross truck stop bathrooms like the last one we stopped at, all right? I have standards."
"You have standards about where you piss?" John said. "You pissed on a ceremonial artifact on MR5-67A!"
"Which one was that?"
"The planet were the natives chased us with flamethrowers," Teyla said. "I believe that is the term Colonel Sheppard used at the time? He said, 'Flamethrowers are proof that someone somewhere said, I need to set that on fire, and I am too far away. I just wish it hadn't been said here.' And then we ran."
"Oh, that one," Rodney said, sounding far less concerned than he had at the time, when he was running for the 'gate with one hand still holding up his pants, since he hadn't had time to button them back up after his social blunder. "Well, their ceremonial artifacts shouldn't look like urinals, that's all I'm saying. I can't help that I got the wrong idea. I don't see you stopping, Sheppard. I really have to go."
"I'm hungry," Ronon said.
"Have we reached our destination yet?" Teyla asked.
"I hate all three of you," John said, and then he almost drove off the road into the ditch beyond the shoulder, because Rodney had grabbed his arm and was shrieking frantically into John's ear. John yanked the steering wheel straight and said, "What, Rodney?"
"Waffle House," Rodney said, pointing at the sign for the upcoming exit.
"Okay, here's the deal I'm making," John said.
"Why do you get to make a deal?" Rodney said.
"Because I'm driving," John said. "We're going to pull into the Waffle House parking lot. You're going to help me figure out the quickest way to get to I-40 heading east from here. Then we're going to go to Waffle House. And all three of you can order anything you want."
"Anything?" Rodney said.
"They have food there?" Ronon said.
"Yeah," John said, thinking sadly that maybe they should just get Ronon his own table, because he had a pretty good idea how Ronon's introduction to Waffle House was going to go. At least the Air Force was paying for it. "I think you'll like the place."
"Anything?" Rodney said again, sounding hopeful, and, thankfully, when John looked over, flipping through the atlas toward Missouri.
"Anything, Rodney," John said. "Even take-out."
"Deal," Rodney said, and his head was already bent over the atlas, and he was humming.
Sitting in the parking lot of the Waffle House, John wished fervently for child locks on the sliding doors at the back of the minivan. Ronon had crawled out of the backseat as soon as John had stopped the car - before the motor had even growled to a halt - and was prowling the edges of the parking lot like it was a hostile planet. The handful of old people who'd pulled into the lot after John and his unfortunate minivanned entourage peered at Ronon with looks of unbridled terror on their faces, and John didn't want to think about how they were going to look when he finally took Ronon inside.
At that point, Ronon snapped a small sapling in half in the parking lot, Rodney smacked John in the arm, and Teyla said, "Colonel Sheppard, may I borrow your ... iPod?"
"What?" John said snappishly in the direction of the passenger seat, as Rodney's hand pulled back to smack him again. "What?"
"The small, white box that contains the music," Teyla said.
"You're not paying attention to me," Rodney said. "I said, if we take 40 to Raleigh, we can pick up 85 and then - "
"Rodney, shut up," John said. His head was starting to hurt. "Teyla. I'm sorry. I'm not - I'm having - I'm sorry. What?"
"With the headphones?" Teyla said, and John could hear the rare edge of impatience starting to creep into her voice.
"My iPod," John said. "Yes, sure, of course. Rodney, give Teyla my iPod."
"What do I look like," Rodney said, "your secretary?" But he fished through John's laptop case until he came up with the iPod and the tangled headphones. "Here you go," Rodney said. "I envy you. Being able to block out the Colonel is a gift."
"I'm not the one talking nonstop, Rodney," John said. "You know where we're going?"
"Yes," Rodney said, "not that you were interested in hearing about it."
"I'm working on a need to know basis here," John said. "I need to know about a mile before the exit."
"God, I don't know why I'm sleeping with you," Rodney said.
"Because I've got the credit cards," John said. "And the keys to the car."
"Neither of those things inspire great confidence," Rodney said, but he was sliding out of the car and heading toward the Waffle House's door, so that was progress. John's head almost stopped hurting, and he locked up the car before following Teyla and Ronon, who was hot on Rodney's heels through the door, into the restaurant.
He was hungry. John was thinking about overcooked bacon, and waffles, when the waitress showed them to an empty booth, and it was Missouri but maybe the grits wouldn't be too bad, and then Ronon looked down at the pictures on the menu and said, "Can I have it?"
"Have what?" John said distractedly, desperately wishing for some coffee.
"All of it," Ronon said.
"No," John said, and turned away to help Teyla decipher the menu ("What is the difference between toast in Texas and toast on the rest of the planet?"). Rodney was mumbling happily to himself, slurping away at John's cup of coffee because he'd already downed his own, and Ronon was staring at the pictures on the menu, frown between his eyes.
When the waitress came back, John tapped Ronon's menu and said, "You ready?"
Ronon grunted, and then looked up at the waitress, waiting with pen in hand, and back at John. "What'm I supposed to do?"
"He doesn't get out very often," John said to the waitress, who was looking a little concerned, and then to Ronon, "Tell her what you want."
"Oh," Ronon said. "I want ten waffles."
"And some orange juice," John added. "Ten waffles, and some orange juice."
"Oh, no," Rodney said, surfacing from the bottom of Teyla's coffee mug. "There will be no orange juice at this table, what do you want, Sheppard, me to spend the rest of the trip dead in the trunk?"
"No orange juice," John told the waitress, who had taken over Rodney's mumbling gig and was looking vaguely in shock. "But I'll have two eggs, over easy, and a side of bacon and a side of grits, and she'll have the bacon, egg and cheese on Texas toast. And make that three Cokes, instead of the juice. Rodney?"
"All-Star breakfast, bacon and sausage, white toast, hash browns. Scattered, smothered, covered, topped, diced, and capped. And if you bring a glass of orange juice anywhere within ten feet of my food, I'll sue you after I recover. I'm deathly allergic. And more coffee. For everyone."
"Right, hon," the waitress said, backing away slowly. "Whatever you say."
"God, don't get us banned from Waffle House," John said. Rodney glared at him, and grabbed Ronon's coffee mug.
"What's a waffle?" Ronon asked.
"Uh," John said.
When the food arrived, the waitress had stacked Ronon's waffles one on top of each other, a teetering stack with a handful of butter packets wobbling on the top. Ronon peered at them, poked them with a fork, and then knocked all the butter packets off the top with the back of his hand, several of them splashing into Rodney's refilled coffee mug. "Hey," Rodney said feelingly, grabbing his mug and fishing the packets out of it before clutching it protectively to his chest.
Ronon picked up the top waffle, folded it in half, and ate it in two huge bites. Then he picked up the second waffle in the stack, folded it in half, and ate that one in two huge bites. The waitress, bringing John's bowl of grits, stared. Rodney stared, his coffee mug forgotten halfway to his mouth.
And John stared, idly stirring butter into his grits. "Huh," John said. "That's one way to do it."
"This drink has bubbles in it," Teyla said.
John tried to find a place on the table to bang his head, but it was entirely covered in food, and all he ended up doing was getting grits in his hair.
Day 4: Conway, Arkanas
"You know, I think it's bad form to tailgate a backhoe."
Traffic outside of Little Rock during morning rush hour was brutal, and to make matters worse, John was pinned in on both sides by tractor trailers and in front by a back hoe, which was doing 40 miles an hour in the center lane on I-40. He gritted his teeth and said, "Says the man who missed backing into a lamppost by six inches this morning."
"If you hadn't been sitting in the passenger seat clutching the door like I was trying to arm a nuclear device instead of back out of the parking lot, maybe I wouldn't have been so nervous," Rodney snapped. Teyla had fastened John's headphones over her ears the minute she sat down in the car, and Ronon was snoring in the backseat - he'd spent the entire night watching a Cosby Show marathon on Nick at Night, and every time John rolled over in his sleep, Bill Cosby's voice had woken him up, blue light of the TV flickering in the hotel room. After the $374 porn bill in Salina, John had stopped getting two rooms and settled on not getting laid until they were in DC, where he couldn't be held responsible for what Ronon did on the Air Force's dime.
"There's a Waffle House at the next exit," Ronon said. John glanced in the rear view mirror; all he could see of Ronon in the back seat was his knees, sticking up over the middle seat.
"We stopped at a Waffle House ten miles ago," John said. "We're not stopping again until we clear Little Rock, all right?"
"But I'm hungry," Ronon rumbled. "I want a waffle."
"And I want a million bucks and a pony," Rodney snapped, "but it's getting embarrassing to eat places with you, caveman, and that's saying something."
"Yeah, that's really saying something, coming from you, McKay," John said.
"Oh, shut up," Rodney snapped, and turned his head back to the road, where the backhoe was trying to change lanes at 20 miles an hour, and the trucks flying past at 85 miles an hour weren't letting it. "God, do you even know where we're going?"
"Sure," John said. "We're on 40. 40 runs into Memphis. Easy as pie."
"Easy as you," Rodney mumbled. John leaned over and smacked Rodney in the arm, the sound of flesh on flesh making Ronon sit up and peer over the seats.
"Hey, are we hitting McKay?" he asked. "I want a turn."
"Fuck off," Rodney said. "God, I have to take a piss, Sheppard."
"I thought you didn't want to stop," John said.
"I didn't want to stop and watch Mr. Table Manners back there fold waffles in half and shove them in his mouth. I do want to stop and piss," Rodney said.
"You have a bladder the size of a peanut," John said, flicking a glance into the side mirror and yanking the van into the next lane over, cutting off the backhoe and barely missing getting creamed by a Mayflower moving van. He pulled them off onto a tiny state route, which advertised a gas station 5 miles down the road. "And you are a royal fucking pain in the ass."
Rodney smirked, and then crossed his legs and looked a little pained.
The gas station was more like 10 miles down a completely empty two lane highway, and by the time they got to Tim and Tom's Roadside Gas and Guzzle, Rodney was squirming like a 2 year old. When John pulled into the parking lot, Rodney had the door open and was fleeing into the store before the car had even stopped. John stopped the engine and twisted around. "Go get anything you want," he said, and handed Ronon $40 and hoped that he'd get some change back. Ronon grinned and nodded and banged out of the car in a flash; Teyla followed more sedately, still wearing John's headphones and nodding her head rhythmically to whatever she had found to drown out the Rodney and Ronon show.
Rodney came back with Tim and Tom's version of a Big Gulp, while John was looking at the map. John rolled his eyes. "You're just going to have to piss again in ten miles, and I'm not stopping," he said. "You can piss in the cup for all I care."
"Fine, I will," Rodney said. "What are you looking at?"
"Map," John said. "I think I found a shortcut, get us around the rest of the Little Rock traffic."
"Thank God," Rodney said. "If I had to watch you tailgate that backhoe for another mile, I was going to cry."
"Shut up, Rodney," John said.
Ronon and Teyla emerged with 40 bucks worth of beef jerky, Cheetos, and Gatorade (Ronon liked the blue kind) and no change for John. John took a left out of the parking lot, heading away from 40, and hoped he was right. Rodney fell asleep with the Big Gulp perched precariously between his knees. Teyla put John's headphones back on and closed her eyes. Ronon lay in the backseat and tossed Cheetos into the air, trying, John assumed, to catch them in his mouth. He could see the Cheetos rising and falling in the mirror.
45 miles later, he was completely lost, but at least Ronon had stopped tossing Cheetos in the air. "Rodney," John said. Rodney mumbled, and twitched, threatening to spill his soda all over the floor. "Rodney," he said more loudly, and poked Rodney's shoulder.
"Wha," Rodney said, startling awake and reaching out to grab the Big Gulp before it tipped onto the floor. "Shit, what, what?"
"We're lost," John said.
"God," Rodney said. "Of course we are. You couldn't find your dick with both hands and a map, how can I expect you to find the damn highway?"
"That's what you're for," John snapped.
"What, finding the highway?" Rodney said, trying to juggle the soda and the atlas without losing either.
"No, finding my dick, asshole," John said.
"Ew," Ronon said.
"Nobody asked your opinion," Rodney snapped. He rolled down the window and tossed the soda out of it, and John winced when the cup exploded in a spray of Diet Coke and ice on the road behind him. "And you, you've never needed any help finding your own dick, God knows I've come home and found you with your hand down your pants often enough. God damn it, where the fuck are we?"
John punched Rodney in the arm and swerved the car suddenly, throwing Rodney against the door, to miss a turtle walking in the middle of the road.
Ronon, unpertubed, said, "Arkansas."
"This was the worst idea ever," Rodney said, and flattened the atlas out on his lap. "Okay, seriously, where the fuck are we?"
Day 4, Evening: Memphis, Tennessee
Rodney was balancing his chair on two legs and leaning backwards, staring at the waitress's chest from upside down. "You," he slurred, "are the prettiest waitress in Memphis."
John said, "Rodney, hey," while the waitress smirked at Rodney and patted his cheek before walking away.
"It's okay," Rodney said, chair crashing to ground while he tried to focus his eyes on John's face; he couldn't manage it, and ended up staring at a spot somewhere six inches to the left of John's left ear. "You're not a waitress in Memphis. You're still the prettiest in the whole galaxy, I promise."
"Yeah, that's not what I was worried about," John said, fending off Rodney's attempts to steal John's beer. "I was thinking more along the lines of you getting punched in the face by that waitress."
"She wouldn't punch me," Rodney said. He slumped forward onto the table and stared balefully at Teyla, who had slid down in her chair and was slurping up a daiquiri with a straw and no visible use of her hands. "She wouldn't have punched me, because I am charming and brilliant and have a very, very hot boyfriend."
"Your boyfriend is indeed very hot," Teyla agreed.
"God," John said, dropping his head into his hands. "This was such a bad idea."
"It really was," Rodney said. He burped daintily and then said, sounding vaguely scandalized, "Oh, God."
"What?" John said.
"You are not God, Colonel Sheppard," Teyla slurred. "You are not even a minor deity."
"I meant," John said, and stopped mid-sentence to throw the rest of his drink back. "What, Rodney?"
Rodney pointed, his mouth hanging open. John followed his finger to the tiny dance floor, which was taken up entirely by Ronon ... and a big-haired Southern belle wearing a tiny skirt and a tube top. She had a thigh wedged between Ronon's legs, and they were writhing together in a way that made John sincerely uncomfortable to watch. "Oh, God," John said.
"Yeah," Rodney said, and burped again. Then he slid slowly off his chair onto the floor, where he rested his head against John's thigh and sighed hugely. Teyla was diligently trying to suck out non-existent daiquiri from the bottom of her glass with a straw, Rodney had started to snore, and John was captivated by Ronon's sex show on the dance floor.
"We've got to get out of here," he said, to no one in particular, and Teyla looked up from her glass and frowned.
"I would like another one of these," she said. She tried to stand up, but her legs buckled underneath her.
"Yeah, I think not," John said, standing up to catch her and wincing when Rodney hit the floor with a thump. "You just ... sit on the floor with Rodney, okay, and I'm going to go get Ronon and then we're going to go back to the hotel. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."
"I will not," Teyla said. John lowered her to the floor and watched while she curled around Rodney and closed her eyes.
"Okay, two down," John muttered to himself, and strode out onto the dance floor to wrest Ronon away from the woman who was now trying to shove her hands down Ronon's pants, not that Ronon was trying to stop her. Ronon had introduced himself to the first woman who'd approached him by saying, "I'm Dex. Ronon Dex," and hadn't understood why John and Rodney had collapsed into laughter, but had definitely understood when the woman had looked him up and down, and when she'd purred, "Oh, honey, you'll do."
John had still been laughing twenty minutes later, snickering against Rodney's neck where they were collapsed against each other, before his brain kicked back in and he realized that Ronon had maybe very much been getting into trouble. John had spent the rest of the night keeping an eye on Ronon and his big-haired belles, which was why Rodney had drunk four margaritas and fallen asleep on the floor, and it was like having children, unruly, alcoholic children, and John had never wanted to reproduce less than he did at this exact moment.
John edged onto the dance floor, fended off the advances of two other big-haired Memphis belles who wanted to dance with him, and said, "Hey, Ronon, time to go."
Ronon said, "No."
"Oh, no, buddy, sorry, we're not playing that way tonight," John said. "Sorry, ma'am, I'm sorry to take you away from your ... recreation, but he's coming with me. Right now, Dex."
Ronon's belle said, "Oh, baby, you're a shirtlifter? You should have said earlier." But she didn't move away from Ronon like John was hoping she might.
"I'm not," Ronon said.
"I can't throw you over my shoulder," John said, through gritted teeth, "but - hey, cut that out, get your hands out of my pants, would you?" He glared at the woman who'd wriggled up behind him and she smiled up at him, showing more teeth than John liked to see in a woman who was trying to pick him up. "Sorry, I'm taken, and you really don't want to get on the bad side of my significant other."
"Yeah," Ronon growled, still rubbing up against the belle. "He can build bombs."
"Okay, that's totally classified," John said. "Seriously, please, please, get your hands out of my pants, I can't deal with this tonight."
"You never see it coming, Sheppard," Ronon said, and John reached out and grabbed Ronon's belle's wrists with one hand, reached around behind him and grabbed his belle's wrists with the other hand.
"All right, everybody, hands out of all pants," John said. "Dex, go help Teyla stand on her own two feet. We are going back to the hotel, and no one is going to sleep with anyone tonight."
"You can't say no to McKay," Ronon said.
"I am so not talking about that here, now, or with you, ever," John said. "Ladies? If you'll come over to the bar, I'll buy you both drinks."
"I don't want a drink," Ronon's belle pouted. "I want him."
"He's off-limits, sorry," John said. "He's actually a top-secret military weapon, and if you were to sleep with him, I'd have to kill you afterwards."
"Really?" the belle said. She seemed far too interested in that news for John's comfort.
"Yeah, really," John said. "Dex, go. Teyla. Feet. Outside on the sidewalk, and don't buy anything, sell anything, or look at anyone funny until I get out there."
"Whatever," Ronon said, and he stalked off toward their table, but not before bending his dance partner back over his arm and kissing her thoroughly. She swooned. John rolled his eyes, and hated the Marines for teaching Ronon to say whatever and to kiss women like that.
"Come on, ladies," John said, slinging an arm around both their shoulders and trying not to shudder, "I'm buying, whatever you want."
Half an hour later, John extracted himself from the attention of the two women at the bar and wove his way back to their table. Rodney was still asleep underneath it, and someone had spilled tequila in his hair. "Come on, sleeping beauty," John said, prodding Rodney with the toe of his boot. "Up and at 'em."
Rodney grumbled, and tried to roll over, butting up against the pole in the center of the table and flopping back down onto his back. "What?" he said, eyes still closed. "I'm sleeping."
"You're sleeping under a table in a Beale Street blues bar," John said. He neglected to mention the tequila in Rodney's hair. "Get up, we're going home. Or to the police station, if Ronon and Teyla managed to get arrested while I was buying off the crazy women who wanted my body."
Rodney sat straight up at that, blinking at John and running his hands over his head. "Someone was trying to steal your virtue? And what the hell is in my hair?"
"You don't want to know," John said, and then, "actually, you don't want the answers to either of those questions."
"I hate you," Rodney slurred. "This was the worst idea ever."
"You thought it was a great idea an hour ago when you were ogling the waitress," John said, sticking a hand out for Rodney to grab. When Rodney struggled to his feet and leaned heavily against John, John stared at his sticky, tequila-covered hand and wiped it on the back of Rodney's shirt.
"That was the rum talking," Rodney said. "Oh, God, my head."
"Yeah, you and Teyla are going to be hurting tomorrow," John said, dragging Rodney away from the table and out the door. "But don't say I didn't warn you, because I did."
"Nooo," Rodney said, right up against John's ear, and then he leaned over, heavy against John's chest, and bit John's earlobe. "You didn't warn me about anything. You never warn me about anything. You never see it coming, you can't warn anyone about anything!"
"I warn you about all kinds of things, McKay," John said, and yanked Rodney's hand out of his pants. "Jesus Christ, stop molesting me in public, you know Ronon hates it when he has to acknowledge the fact that we're having sex."
"Ronon is," Rodney said, and then slumped placidly against John's side.
"Ronon is what?" John asked, shoving Rodney through the door in front of him.
"Yeah, McKay," Ronon said. He had Teyla slung over his shoulder, where she was giggling happily upside down, humming something that sounded like Britney Spears (not that John would ever admit that he knew what Britney Spears sounded like). "Ronon is what?"
"A very good looking man," Rodney said, and hiccupped, and then burped. "A very good looking mountain man," and he tried to lean over and pat Ronon's chest, but he misjudged the distance, stumbled away from John's supporting arm, and landed face-first against Teyla's ass. Teyla shrieked, flailed, elbowing Ronon in the side of the head and barely missing John's face with a well-placed kick, and John ducked, yanking Rodney back against his chest. Ronon wrapped his arms more tightly around Teyla's thighs.
"Jesus Christ," John said. "Okay, let's go, march, soldiers, march."
He'd splurged for adjoining rooms at the Peabody, in hopes that the Peabody was classy enough that Ronon couldn't find the Pay-Per-View porn and John could have the privacy to fuck his boyfriend in peace, so it was only three blocks around two corners before he and Ronon walked (and Rodney stumbled, burped, and lurched) through the front doors of the hotel. They rode up to the 5h floor in the elevator together, Teyla snoring gently against Ronon's back, Rodney mumbling happily about ducks and waitresses and trying to shove his hands down John's pants (futilely, because John had some standards), and John said, "No porn."
"Whatever," Ronon said.
"I wanted to have sex tonight," Rodney slurred. "What do you mean, no porn?"
"God, I hate everyone," John said, which was when Teyla threw up on his shoes.
*
Part Two
Title: 844,739 Ways to Eat a Hamburger
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Pairing: Team gen fic
Rating: R for rude language, innuendo, porn watching, dirty dancing in Memphis bars, aspersions cast on the talent of minor league baseball teams, and abuse of Dodge Caravans.
Spoilers: Through 3x10, "The Return (Part 1)". Set sometime in a nebulous future.
Disclaimer: Brad Wright & Rob Cooper own these characters. I'm just having fun, not making money.
Summary: In which John drives a minivan, Teyla communes with an iPod, Rodney is forced to pee on bushes, Ronon falls in love, and waffles are consumed by the dozen. 13,200 words.
"What do you mean, all you have left is a minivan?"
The only thing that kept them from a holding cell in Denver International Airport was John's security clearance. It took five TSA agents at Security to convince Ronon to hand over all 16 of his hair knives, and even after he'd been completely disarmed, they still wouldn't let him on the plane. The mousiest of the TSA agents wanted to toss them into a holding cell, and John pulled rank - slapped a hand over Rodney's mouth to cut off the stream of angry ranting coming out of it, pulled out his cell phone, and called General O'Neill.
O'Neill kept them from getting arrested and never seeing the light of day again, but US Air wouldn't let them get on the plane even if Ronon gave up all the knives, and by the time John thought to try any of the other airlines, TSA had passed the message along and nobody would sell them one ticket, let alone four.
"All right," John said. "I guess we're driving."
The minivan was a blue Dodge Caravan, and it offended all of John's aesthetic and moral sensibilities, but they had to be in DC in 9 days - the plan had been to fly out and take Ronon and Teyla sight-seeing - and the longer he stood at the counter arguing with the woman behind it, the more wrinkled his dress uniform was getting, his garment bag clutched in Ronon's huge hands while the rest of their luggage hung off his shoulders. And the faster he would have to drive a vehicle that wasn't intended to go more than 50 miles an hour at the hands of somebody's mother.
"Fine, I'll take it, but this is a travesty," John said.
"Yes, sir," the woman behind the counter said, the corner of her mouth twitching with a smile, until Ronon growled at her, at which point she started looking a little scared. John hoped - fruitlessly, it turned out - that she might be scared into finding them something cooler, anything cooler than a Dodge Caravan, but she wasn't. She handed the keys to John, listed Rodney as a secondary driver at John's insistence and Rodney's protests that this was John's insane idea, he was having nothing to do with it, he was going to sit in the passenger's seat and work while John was being a crazy person, and then the Dodge Caravan was theirs, all theirs, until they hit DC.
"All right, let's hit the road," John said.
Rodney said, "This is the worst idea you've ever had," but he struggled to his feet from where he'd been sitting on Teyla's new suitcase and slung his laptops over his shoulders.
Teyla said, "Why would we want to hit the road?"
Ronon said, "Can I drive?"
"Oh, God," Rodney said.
"No," John said to Ronon, and then, "It's an expression, Teyla. A metaphor. We're just going to drive on the road. Rodney, shut the hell up."
Later he would think that he should have just recorded those sentences and saved them on tape for future use - would have saved a lot of time.
Hindsight, of course, is always 20/20.
Day 2: Salina, Kansas
They had two adjoining rooms at a Best Western in Salina, Kansas, halfway across the state - John thought, what could go wrong? (John wouldn't think, what could go wrong, for the rest of the trip after that; he would think, oh, God, please let this go partially right, and please let us not get arrested. His optimism on Day 2 couldn't be faulted, could it?)
They hadn't actually gotten a start on the first day of their trip - arguing with TSA and then with Hertz had taken up all of John's energy and most of his patience, and they'd stayed in an airport motel, all four of them crowded into one room, and started out from Denver the morning of the second day. "We were already supposed to be in DC," Rodney had mourned over his third cup of coffee (ten minutes before the first but not the last time he'd ask John to stop because he had to take a piss; Rodney had a bladder like a peanut, apparently). "All those museums. All that food. Instead we're on Route 40, not even a real highway, heading east, and you drive almost as dangerously as you fly."
Just for that, John had spent 50 miles doing 95 in the fast lane, while Ronon whooped in the backseat and Rodney clutched the door with one hand and his coffee with the other. "Why are you so mean to me," he had asked John sadly, over lunch at a truck stop in Quinter, Kansas. Ronon was eating chipped beef on toasted with his fingers, and Teyla was poking a meatball sub suspiciously with Ronon's fork. "You've got it backwards," Rodney told them. "Ronon needs a fork, you're supposed to pick that up with your hands."
"Shut up, Rodney," John said, and shoved a French fry into Rodney's open mouth. Rodney bleated in alarm and then chewed, and it was the only 15 seconds of the day that Rodney stopped talking. Every time they stopped, Rodney got more coffee, and the more coffee he drank, the more he talked.
He talked while John got the rooms in Salina and argued with the desk clerk about whether or not the adjoining feature was necessary. (It was. John wasn't going to leave Ronon and Teyla in a hotel room where he couldn't easily keep an eye on them.) He complained about hotel security and how easy it was to hack into those electronic key cards while John tried to explain to Ronon and Teyla how the little pieces of plastic locked the doors.
He talked straight through dinner. (John ordered bacon cheeseburgers and fries for the three of them, and left Rodney to order his own steak and baked potato, and then had to explain to Ronon that despite Rodney's lectures, hamburgers were not meant to eaten with knife and fork.) In between shoveling the steak into his mouth, Rodney had John nearly crying with laughter over a story about the last McKay family vacation, a car trip from Toronto to the Grand Canyon that nearly ended with a 12 year old Jeannie shoving a 14 year old Rodney straight over the edge.
Rodney lay on his back on the bed when they got back to the room and talked while John took the longest, hottest shower he could stand, the cadence of Rodney's voice rising and falling over the beating water. When Rodney's running monologue - not that John had understood any of it over the noise of the shower - trailed off, John turned the shower off and wandered, dripping, out into the room.
Rodney had fallen asleep, mouth open, in the middle of the king size bed. John rolled his eyes, wrapped the towel more firmly around his waist, and wrestled Rodney out of his pants. Rodney didn't even stir, except to flop over onto his stomach and start snoring.
John rolled his eyes again, put some pants on, and knocked on the adjoining door. "You guys okay?"
"Yeah," Ronon's voice growled. "Come in."
Teyla was meditating in the center of the floor. Ronon was sprawled on the bed, shirt stripped off, with the remote control to the TV in his hand and SportsCenter going full blast on the screen. "TV, huh," John said.
"You can change it when you get bored," Ronon said. "It's better than those movies you guys have."
"It's pretty cool," John said. "Don't watch it all night, okay?"
"Okay," Ronon said, and John shut the door and lay down on the bed beside Rodney. He was asleep within minutes.
Which was a problem in the morning. Trying to check out, John discovered that Ronon had discovered the Pay-Per-View options on the television, and was trying to explain to the indignant clerk (without saying anything that was classified) about why he couldn't actually be held responsible for what Ronon had done, and he wasn't going to pay them for 7 hours of Pay-Per-View porn. While John was arguing, Rodney made a beeline for the complimentary buffet breakfast, followed closely by Ronon, and while Ronon was eating all the pastries that were available, Rodney was practically flat on his back under the coffee drip.
Teyla was chewing calmly on an apple when John gave up and paid the whole bill - all $349.78 of it. What the hell, it was going on the Air Force's tab, anyway.
He collected an over-caffeinated Rodney, and Ronon, who was still trying to eat cheese Danish, and Teyla, who was smiling faintly at the whole spectacle, and John got the hell out of the Salina Best Western before they got thrown out.
Day 3: Kansas City, Missouri
"Okay, that's it," John said.
"What's it?" Ronon said from his sprawl in the backseat.
"We're taking the scenic route," John said. He shoved the atlas at Rodney and said, "Figure out where we can pick up 40 further east of here." Then he yanked the car off of the Kansas City beltway and onto the off-ramp for I-35, heading south towards Dallas.
Rodney shrieked, "What do I know about the interstate system here?"
"You can read a map, right?" John snapped. "Read the map. Figure out where I can cut over to 40, and stop shouting."
"What's wrong with the directions we already had?"
"Two days in Kansas, Rodney," John said. "Two days. I'm not driving all the way across Missouri, too. This way, we can go through Memphis. Spend a night there."
"Because exactly what I wanted to do with my life was let Ronon loose on Memphis, Tennessee," Rodney said. "I think one near-arrest would have been enough for you, but no. You want to take that barbarian to Memphis. And I think we're heading west, which is not the way we are supposed to be going, in case you've forgotten."
"We can stop at all the Waffle Houses that you see, Rodney," John said.
"Well," Rodney said.
"Double chocolate chip waffles," John said. "Hash browns, scattered, smothered, covered, topped, diced, and capped."
"Aww," Rodney said. "You remembered how I like my hash browns. How sweet. We are not taking Ronon to Memphis."
"How about Nashville?" John asked.
"What is a Waffle House?" Teyla said.
Rodney made a choking sort of noise and when John turned to see if he was accidentally inhaling his coffee again, Rodney was clutching the map to his chest and looking stricken. "They don't have Waffle Houses in the Pegasus Galaxy," John said. "And I guess the Marines didn't see the need to explain about them."
"Oh, but they could explain all about lesbian porn," Rodney said. "Their ideas about what constitutes essential Earth culture are completely inexplicable."
"Marines are inexplicable," John said. "It's one of the known facts about them."
"What's a waffle?" Ronon asked.
"This one's all you," John said. "Go for it, Rodney, explain the cultural significance of Waffle House."
"You know," Rodney said thoughtfully, "I'm not the one who was feeling someone up the last time we were in a Waffle House. That would be you, Colonel Sheppard, and you were the one who claimed that all red-blooded American men got hard when faced with six pounds of greasy food. I think this one's all you."
John glanced in the rear view mirror; Teyla had covered her mouth with one hand, and John was pretty sure that she was smiling. He knew Ronon was smiling, because Ronon was hanging over the back of Teyla's seat, grinning like a monkey. "I thought we were never going to speak of that in public," John said.
"Well, I'm bored," Rodney said. "Missouri sucks. And Teyla won't play car games with me."
"You were going to work," John said. "You were going to be quiet and work."
"My laptop's out of batteries," Rodney said. "All three of them are out of batteries. And I have to go to the bathroom, and not one of those gross truck stop bathrooms like the last one we stopped at, all right? I have standards."
"You have standards about where you piss?" John said. "You pissed on a ceremonial artifact on MR5-67A!"
"Which one was that?"
"The planet were the natives chased us with flamethrowers," Teyla said. "I believe that is the term Colonel Sheppard used at the time? He said, 'Flamethrowers are proof that someone somewhere said, I need to set that on fire, and I am too far away. I just wish it hadn't been said here.' And then we ran."
"Oh, that one," Rodney said, sounding far less concerned than he had at the time, when he was running for the 'gate with one hand still holding up his pants, since he hadn't had time to button them back up after his social blunder. "Well, their ceremonial artifacts shouldn't look like urinals, that's all I'm saying. I can't help that I got the wrong idea. I don't see you stopping, Sheppard. I really have to go."
"I'm hungry," Ronon said.
"Have we reached our destination yet?" Teyla asked.
"I hate all three of you," John said, and then he almost drove off the road into the ditch beyond the shoulder, because Rodney had grabbed his arm and was shrieking frantically into John's ear. John yanked the steering wheel straight and said, "What, Rodney?"
"Waffle House," Rodney said, pointing at the sign for the upcoming exit.
"Okay, here's the deal I'm making," John said.
"Why do you get to make a deal?" Rodney said.
"Because I'm driving," John said. "We're going to pull into the Waffle House parking lot. You're going to help me figure out the quickest way to get to I-40 heading east from here. Then we're going to go to Waffle House. And all three of you can order anything you want."
"Anything?" Rodney said.
"They have food there?" Ronon said.
"Yeah," John said, thinking sadly that maybe they should just get Ronon his own table, because he had a pretty good idea how Ronon's introduction to Waffle House was going to go. At least the Air Force was paying for it. "I think you'll like the place."
"Anything?" Rodney said again, sounding hopeful, and, thankfully, when John looked over, flipping through the atlas toward Missouri.
"Anything, Rodney," John said. "Even take-out."
"Deal," Rodney said, and his head was already bent over the atlas, and he was humming.
Sitting in the parking lot of the Waffle House, John wished fervently for child locks on the sliding doors at the back of the minivan. Ronon had crawled out of the backseat as soon as John had stopped the car - before the motor had even growled to a halt - and was prowling the edges of the parking lot like it was a hostile planet. The handful of old people who'd pulled into the lot after John and his unfortunate minivanned entourage peered at Ronon with looks of unbridled terror on their faces, and John didn't want to think about how they were going to look when he finally took Ronon inside.
At that point, Ronon snapped a small sapling in half in the parking lot, Rodney smacked John in the arm, and Teyla said, "Colonel Sheppard, may I borrow your ... iPod?"
"What?" John said snappishly in the direction of the passenger seat, as Rodney's hand pulled back to smack him again. "What?"
"The small, white box that contains the music," Teyla said.
"You're not paying attention to me," Rodney said. "I said, if we take 40 to Raleigh, we can pick up 85 and then - "
"Rodney, shut up," John said. His head was starting to hurt. "Teyla. I'm sorry. I'm not - I'm having - I'm sorry. What?"
"With the headphones?" Teyla said, and John could hear the rare edge of impatience starting to creep into her voice.
"My iPod," John said. "Yes, sure, of course. Rodney, give Teyla my iPod."
"What do I look like," Rodney said, "your secretary?" But he fished through John's laptop case until he came up with the iPod and the tangled headphones. "Here you go," Rodney said. "I envy you. Being able to block out the Colonel is a gift."
"I'm not the one talking nonstop, Rodney," John said. "You know where we're going?"
"Yes," Rodney said, "not that you were interested in hearing about it."
"I'm working on a need to know basis here," John said. "I need to know about a mile before the exit."
"God, I don't know why I'm sleeping with you," Rodney said.
"Because I've got the credit cards," John said. "And the keys to the car."
"Neither of those things inspire great confidence," Rodney said, but he was sliding out of the car and heading toward the Waffle House's door, so that was progress. John's head almost stopped hurting, and he locked up the car before following Teyla and Ronon, who was hot on Rodney's heels through the door, into the restaurant.
He was hungry. John was thinking about overcooked bacon, and waffles, when the waitress showed them to an empty booth, and it was Missouri but maybe the grits wouldn't be too bad, and then Ronon looked down at the pictures on the menu and said, "Can I have it?"
"Have what?" John said distractedly, desperately wishing for some coffee.
"All of it," Ronon said.
"No," John said, and turned away to help Teyla decipher the menu ("What is the difference between toast in Texas and toast on the rest of the planet?"). Rodney was mumbling happily to himself, slurping away at John's cup of coffee because he'd already downed his own, and Ronon was staring at the pictures on the menu, frown between his eyes.
When the waitress came back, John tapped Ronon's menu and said, "You ready?"
Ronon grunted, and then looked up at the waitress, waiting with pen in hand, and back at John. "What'm I supposed to do?"
"He doesn't get out very often," John said to the waitress, who was looking a little concerned, and then to Ronon, "Tell her what you want."
"Oh," Ronon said. "I want ten waffles."
"And some orange juice," John added. "Ten waffles, and some orange juice."
"Oh, no," Rodney said, surfacing from the bottom of Teyla's coffee mug. "There will be no orange juice at this table, what do you want, Sheppard, me to spend the rest of the trip dead in the trunk?"
"No orange juice," John told the waitress, who had taken over Rodney's mumbling gig and was looking vaguely in shock. "But I'll have two eggs, over easy, and a side of bacon and a side of grits, and she'll have the bacon, egg and cheese on Texas toast. And make that three Cokes, instead of the juice. Rodney?"
"All-Star breakfast, bacon and sausage, white toast, hash browns. Scattered, smothered, covered, topped, diced, and capped. And if you bring a glass of orange juice anywhere within ten feet of my food, I'll sue you after I recover. I'm deathly allergic. And more coffee. For everyone."
"Right, hon," the waitress said, backing away slowly. "Whatever you say."
"God, don't get us banned from Waffle House," John said. Rodney glared at him, and grabbed Ronon's coffee mug.
"What's a waffle?" Ronon asked.
"Uh," John said.
When the food arrived, the waitress had stacked Ronon's waffles one on top of each other, a teetering stack with a handful of butter packets wobbling on the top. Ronon peered at them, poked them with a fork, and then knocked all the butter packets off the top with the back of his hand, several of them splashing into Rodney's refilled coffee mug. "Hey," Rodney said feelingly, grabbing his mug and fishing the packets out of it before clutching it protectively to his chest.
Ronon picked up the top waffle, folded it in half, and ate it in two huge bites. Then he picked up the second waffle in the stack, folded it in half, and ate that one in two huge bites. The waitress, bringing John's bowl of grits, stared. Rodney stared, his coffee mug forgotten halfway to his mouth.
And John stared, idly stirring butter into his grits. "Huh," John said. "That's one way to do it."
"This drink has bubbles in it," Teyla said.
John tried to find a place on the table to bang his head, but it was entirely covered in food, and all he ended up doing was getting grits in his hair.
Day 4: Conway, Arkanas
"You know, I think it's bad form to tailgate a backhoe."
Traffic outside of Little Rock during morning rush hour was brutal, and to make matters worse, John was pinned in on both sides by tractor trailers and in front by a back hoe, which was doing 40 miles an hour in the center lane on I-40. He gritted his teeth and said, "Says the man who missed backing into a lamppost by six inches this morning."
"If you hadn't been sitting in the passenger seat clutching the door like I was trying to arm a nuclear device instead of back out of the parking lot, maybe I wouldn't have been so nervous," Rodney snapped. Teyla had fastened John's headphones over her ears the minute she sat down in the car, and Ronon was snoring in the backseat - he'd spent the entire night watching a Cosby Show marathon on Nick at Night, and every time John rolled over in his sleep, Bill Cosby's voice had woken him up, blue light of the TV flickering in the hotel room. After the $374 porn bill in Salina, John had stopped getting two rooms and settled on not getting laid until they were in DC, where he couldn't be held responsible for what Ronon did on the Air Force's dime.
"There's a Waffle House at the next exit," Ronon said. John glanced in the rear view mirror; all he could see of Ronon in the back seat was his knees, sticking up over the middle seat.
"We stopped at a Waffle House ten miles ago," John said. "We're not stopping again until we clear Little Rock, all right?"
"But I'm hungry," Ronon rumbled. "I want a waffle."
"And I want a million bucks and a pony," Rodney snapped, "but it's getting embarrassing to eat places with you, caveman, and that's saying something."
"Yeah, that's really saying something, coming from you, McKay," John said.
"Oh, shut up," Rodney snapped, and turned his head back to the road, where the backhoe was trying to change lanes at 20 miles an hour, and the trucks flying past at 85 miles an hour weren't letting it. "God, do you even know where we're going?"
"Sure," John said. "We're on 40. 40 runs into Memphis. Easy as pie."
"Easy as you," Rodney mumbled. John leaned over and smacked Rodney in the arm, the sound of flesh on flesh making Ronon sit up and peer over the seats.
"Hey, are we hitting McKay?" he asked. "I want a turn."
"Fuck off," Rodney said. "God, I have to take a piss, Sheppard."
"I thought you didn't want to stop," John said.
"I didn't want to stop and watch Mr. Table Manners back there fold waffles in half and shove them in his mouth. I do want to stop and piss," Rodney said.
"You have a bladder the size of a peanut," John said, flicking a glance into the side mirror and yanking the van into the next lane over, cutting off the backhoe and barely missing getting creamed by a Mayflower moving van. He pulled them off onto a tiny state route, which advertised a gas station 5 miles down the road. "And you are a royal fucking pain in the ass."
Rodney smirked, and then crossed his legs and looked a little pained.
The gas station was more like 10 miles down a completely empty two lane highway, and by the time they got to Tim and Tom's Roadside Gas and Guzzle, Rodney was squirming like a 2 year old. When John pulled into the parking lot, Rodney had the door open and was fleeing into the store before the car had even stopped. John stopped the engine and twisted around. "Go get anything you want," he said, and handed Ronon $40 and hoped that he'd get some change back. Ronon grinned and nodded and banged out of the car in a flash; Teyla followed more sedately, still wearing John's headphones and nodding her head rhythmically to whatever she had found to drown out the Rodney and Ronon show.
Rodney came back with Tim and Tom's version of a Big Gulp, while John was looking at the map. John rolled his eyes. "You're just going to have to piss again in ten miles, and I'm not stopping," he said. "You can piss in the cup for all I care."
"Fine, I will," Rodney said. "What are you looking at?"
"Map," John said. "I think I found a shortcut, get us around the rest of the Little Rock traffic."
"Thank God," Rodney said. "If I had to watch you tailgate that backhoe for another mile, I was going to cry."
"Shut up, Rodney," John said.
Ronon and Teyla emerged with 40 bucks worth of beef jerky, Cheetos, and Gatorade (Ronon liked the blue kind) and no change for John. John took a left out of the parking lot, heading away from 40, and hoped he was right. Rodney fell asleep with the Big Gulp perched precariously between his knees. Teyla put John's headphones back on and closed her eyes. Ronon lay in the backseat and tossed Cheetos into the air, trying, John assumed, to catch them in his mouth. He could see the Cheetos rising and falling in the mirror.
45 miles later, he was completely lost, but at least Ronon had stopped tossing Cheetos in the air. "Rodney," John said. Rodney mumbled, and twitched, threatening to spill his soda all over the floor. "Rodney," he said more loudly, and poked Rodney's shoulder.
"Wha," Rodney said, startling awake and reaching out to grab the Big Gulp before it tipped onto the floor. "Shit, what, what?"
"We're lost," John said.
"God," Rodney said. "Of course we are. You couldn't find your dick with both hands and a map, how can I expect you to find the damn highway?"
"That's what you're for," John snapped.
"What, finding the highway?" Rodney said, trying to juggle the soda and the atlas without losing either.
"No, finding my dick, asshole," John said.
"Ew," Ronon said.
"Nobody asked your opinion," Rodney snapped. He rolled down the window and tossed the soda out of it, and John winced when the cup exploded in a spray of Diet Coke and ice on the road behind him. "And you, you've never needed any help finding your own dick, God knows I've come home and found you with your hand down your pants often enough. God damn it, where the fuck are we?"
John punched Rodney in the arm and swerved the car suddenly, throwing Rodney against the door, to miss a turtle walking in the middle of the road.
Ronon, unpertubed, said, "Arkansas."
"This was the worst idea ever," Rodney said, and flattened the atlas out on his lap. "Okay, seriously, where the fuck are we?"
Day 4, Evening: Memphis, Tennessee
Rodney was balancing his chair on two legs and leaning backwards, staring at the waitress's chest from upside down. "You," he slurred, "are the prettiest waitress in Memphis."
John said, "Rodney, hey," while the waitress smirked at Rodney and patted his cheek before walking away.
"It's okay," Rodney said, chair crashing to ground while he tried to focus his eyes on John's face; he couldn't manage it, and ended up staring at a spot somewhere six inches to the left of John's left ear. "You're not a waitress in Memphis. You're still the prettiest in the whole galaxy, I promise."
"Yeah, that's not what I was worried about," John said, fending off Rodney's attempts to steal John's beer. "I was thinking more along the lines of you getting punched in the face by that waitress."
"She wouldn't punch me," Rodney said. He slumped forward onto the table and stared balefully at Teyla, who had slid down in her chair and was slurping up a daiquiri with a straw and no visible use of her hands. "She wouldn't have punched me, because I am charming and brilliant and have a very, very hot boyfriend."
"Your boyfriend is indeed very hot," Teyla agreed.
"God," John said, dropping his head into his hands. "This was such a bad idea."
"It really was," Rodney said. He burped daintily and then said, sounding vaguely scandalized, "Oh, God."
"What?" John said.
"You are not God, Colonel Sheppard," Teyla slurred. "You are not even a minor deity."
"I meant," John said, and stopped mid-sentence to throw the rest of his drink back. "What, Rodney?"
Rodney pointed, his mouth hanging open. John followed his finger to the tiny dance floor, which was taken up entirely by Ronon ... and a big-haired Southern belle wearing a tiny skirt and a tube top. She had a thigh wedged between Ronon's legs, and they were writhing together in a way that made John sincerely uncomfortable to watch. "Oh, God," John said.
"Yeah," Rodney said, and burped again. Then he slid slowly off his chair onto the floor, where he rested his head against John's thigh and sighed hugely. Teyla was diligently trying to suck out non-existent daiquiri from the bottom of her glass with a straw, Rodney had started to snore, and John was captivated by Ronon's sex show on the dance floor.
"We've got to get out of here," he said, to no one in particular, and Teyla looked up from her glass and frowned.
"I would like another one of these," she said. She tried to stand up, but her legs buckled underneath her.
"Yeah, I think not," John said, standing up to catch her and wincing when Rodney hit the floor with a thump. "You just ... sit on the floor with Rodney, okay, and I'm going to go get Ronon and then we're going to go back to the hotel. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."
"I will not," Teyla said. John lowered her to the floor and watched while she curled around Rodney and closed her eyes.
"Okay, two down," John muttered to himself, and strode out onto the dance floor to wrest Ronon away from the woman who was now trying to shove her hands down Ronon's pants, not that Ronon was trying to stop her. Ronon had introduced himself to the first woman who'd approached him by saying, "I'm Dex. Ronon Dex," and hadn't understood why John and Rodney had collapsed into laughter, but had definitely understood when the woman had looked him up and down, and when she'd purred, "Oh, honey, you'll do."
John had still been laughing twenty minutes later, snickering against Rodney's neck where they were collapsed against each other, before his brain kicked back in and he realized that Ronon had maybe very much been getting into trouble. John had spent the rest of the night keeping an eye on Ronon and his big-haired belles, which was why Rodney had drunk four margaritas and fallen asleep on the floor, and it was like having children, unruly, alcoholic children, and John had never wanted to reproduce less than he did at this exact moment.
John edged onto the dance floor, fended off the advances of two other big-haired Memphis belles who wanted to dance with him, and said, "Hey, Ronon, time to go."
Ronon said, "No."
"Oh, no, buddy, sorry, we're not playing that way tonight," John said. "Sorry, ma'am, I'm sorry to take you away from your ... recreation, but he's coming with me. Right now, Dex."
Ronon's belle said, "Oh, baby, you're a shirtlifter? You should have said earlier." But she didn't move away from Ronon like John was hoping she might.
"I'm not," Ronon said.
"I can't throw you over my shoulder," John said, through gritted teeth, "but - hey, cut that out, get your hands out of my pants, would you?" He glared at the woman who'd wriggled up behind him and she smiled up at him, showing more teeth than John liked to see in a woman who was trying to pick him up. "Sorry, I'm taken, and you really don't want to get on the bad side of my significant other."
"Yeah," Ronon growled, still rubbing up against the belle. "He can build bombs."
"Okay, that's totally classified," John said. "Seriously, please, please, get your hands out of my pants, I can't deal with this tonight."
"You never see it coming, Sheppard," Ronon said, and John reached out and grabbed Ronon's belle's wrists with one hand, reached around behind him and grabbed his belle's wrists with the other hand.
"All right, everybody, hands out of all pants," John said. "Dex, go help Teyla stand on her own two feet. We are going back to the hotel, and no one is going to sleep with anyone tonight."
"You can't say no to McKay," Ronon said.
"I am so not talking about that here, now, or with you, ever," John said. "Ladies? If you'll come over to the bar, I'll buy you both drinks."
"I don't want a drink," Ronon's belle pouted. "I want him."
"He's off-limits, sorry," John said. "He's actually a top-secret military weapon, and if you were to sleep with him, I'd have to kill you afterwards."
"Really?" the belle said. She seemed far too interested in that news for John's comfort.
"Yeah, really," John said. "Dex, go. Teyla. Feet. Outside on the sidewalk, and don't buy anything, sell anything, or look at anyone funny until I get out there."
"Whatever," Ronon said, and he stalked off toward their table, but not before bending his dance partner back over his arm and kissing her thoroughly. She swooned. John rolled his eyes, and hated the Marines for teaching Ronon to say whatever and to kiss women like that.
"Come on, ladies," John said, slinging an arm around both their shoulders and trying not to shudder, "I'm buying, whatever you want."
Half an hour later, John extracted himself from the attention of the two women at the bar and wove his way back to their table. Rodney was still asleep underneath it, and someone had spilled tequila in his hair. "Come on, sleeping beauty," John said, prodding Rodney with the toe of his boot. "Up and at 'em."
Rodney grumbled, and tried to roll over, butting up against the pole in the center of the table and flopping back down onto his back. "What?" he said, eyes still closed. "I'm sleeping."
"You're sleeping under a table in a Beale Street blues bar," John said. He neglected to mention the tequila in Rodney's hair. "Get up, we're going home. Or to the police station, if Ronon and Teyla managed to get arrested while I was buying off the crazy women who wanted my body."
Rodney sat straight up at that, blinking at John and running his hands over his head. "Someone was trying to steal your virtue? And what the hell is in my hair?"
"You don't want to know," John said, and then, "actually, you don't want the answers to either of those questions."
"I hate you," Rodney slurred. "This was the worst idea ever."
"You thought it was a great idea an hour ago when you were ogling the waitress," John said, sticking a hand out for Rodney to grab. When Rodney struggled to his feet and leaned heavily against John, John stared at his sticky, tequila-covered hand and wiped it on the back of Rodney's shirt.
"That was the rum talking," Rodney said. "Oh, God, my head."
"Yeah, you and Teyla are going to be hurting tomorrow," John said, dragging Rodney away from the table and out the door. "But don't say I didn't warn you, because I did."
"Nooo," Rodney said, right up against John's ear, and then he leaned over, heavy against John's chest, and bit John's earlobe. "You didn't warn me about anything. You never warn me about anything. You never see it coming, you can't warn anyone about anything!"
"I warn you about all kinds of things, McKay," John said, and yanked Rodney's hand out of his pants. "Jesus Christ, stop molesting me in public, you know Ronon hates it when he has to acknowledge the fact that we're having sex."
"Ronon is," Rodney said, and then slumped placidly against John's side.
"Ronon is what?" John asked, shoving Rodney through the door in front of him.
"Yeah, McKay," Ronon said. He had Teyla slung over his shoulder, where she was giggling happily upside down, humming something that sounded like Britney Spears (not that John would ever admit that he knew what Britney Spears sounded like). "Ronon is what?"
"A very good looking man," Rodney said, and hiccupped, and then burped. "A very good looking mountain man," and he tried to lean over and pat Ronon's chest, but he misjudged the distance, stumbled away from John's supporting arm, and landed face-first against Teyla's ass. Teyla shrieked, flailed, elbowing Ronon in the side of the head and barely missing John's face with a well-placed kick, and John ducked, yanking Rodney back against his chest. Ronon wrapped his arms more tightly around Teyla's thighs.
"Jesus Christ," John said. "Okay, let's go, march, soldiers, march."
He'd splurged for adjoining rooms at the Peabody, in hopes that the Peabody was classy enough that Ronon couldn't find the Pay-Per-View porn and John could have the privacy to fuck his boyfriend in peace, so it was only three blocks around two corners before he and Ronon walked (and Rodney stumbled, burped, and lurched) through the front doors of the hotel. They rode up to the 5h floor in the elevator together, Teyla snoring gently against Ronon's back, Rodney mumbling happily about ducks and waitresses and trying to shove his hands down John's pants (futilely, because John had some standards), and John said, "No porn."
"Whatever," Ronon said.
"I wanted to have sex tonight," Rodney slurred. "What do you mean, no porn?"
"God, I hate everyone," John said, which was when Teyla threw up on his shoes.
*
Part Two