Multimedia Fic: Board Wars (by jadesfire2808 and greyias) Team Challenge
Title: Board Wars
Authors: greyias and jadesfire2808
Characters: Team Dork Sheppard.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Crackiness, image heavy
Notes: This was very much a joint effort. jadesfire2808 brought some plot and structure, greyias brought the snark, along with awesome graphics skills. We both wrote the words, with help from our betas donutsweeper, wildcat88 and mad_jaks. Remaining mistakes are all our own work. With a special thanks to friendshipper and mumumugen for the Photoshopping advice.
Spoilers: S3 "The Game" through to S4 "Lifeline"
Summary: "Earth seems to have a lot of games." "We get bored easily."
Board Wars
Trying to explain the concept to Ronon was even worse than explaining about video games. And they never would have had to if they'd set up the board in John's quarters like he'd wanted to. But apparently Rodney needed coffee to strategize, so they ended up in the Mess Hall, a bowl of chips and a half-drunk pot of coffee on the table when Ronon walked in and found them.
"What you doing?" he asked, reaching out to pick up one of the pieces.
Rodney smacked his hand away, only cowering a little when Ronon glared at him. "Playing a strategy game."
"Rodney, it's Clue," John said, rolling his eyes. "And it sucks with two players, anyway."
"It's a classic!" Rodney had been scribbling on his notepad since they'd started, and while John had been following reasonably closely, he was fairly sure he didn't have nearly that much to write down.
He frowned. "You already know who did it, don't you?"
"Hmm?"
Honestly. They should have been playing poker. "Rodney, how can you possibly know already?"
"It's just a simple matter of..." Rodney trailed off under the twin glares from John and Ronon. "Oh, alright." He spread his cards on the table in front of him, knocking the tiny candlestick over. "I was dealt all the room cards, so all I had to work out was the other two. But when you think about the chances of getting all those cards..."
"Do not start on probabilities," John said quickly, scowling and lifting his counter off the board. "You know what happened last time."
"What happened last time?" Snagging a chair, Ronon sat down and looked at them expectantly.
"We don't talk about what happened last time." There was a definite stiffness in Rodney's voice. John didn't blame him.
Ronon wasn't so easily put off. "Yeah, you do. What happened?" He switched his attention to John, who knew that look. Normally he saw it when they were about to engage in armed conflict.
He sighed. "There's another Earth game called Yahtzee..."
"You swore we'd never talk about it again." Rodney sounded both betrayed and furious, but John was still, in general, more scared of Ronon.
"Look, he'll only go and ask someone else otherwise. Do you want Lorne telling this story? Or Zelenka?"
Rodney flushed, looked down determinedly at the board, then started gathering up the tiny weapons. "Fine," he bit off. "Just don't expect me to contribute."
"I don't." John turned back to Ronon. "You play Yahtzee with dice, like this." He held up the small white dice for Ronon to see. "You throw them in different combinations, score them, that kind of thing. It's mostly luck, really, although there's some basic strategy involved." He ignored Rodney's pointed snort. "Anyway, Rodney got it into his head that you could calculate all the probabilities of the dice and work out the perfect strategy for play."
"How?"
"That was the hard bit. Apparently it takes quite a lot of computer power. More or less as much computer power as Atlantis had at the time, actually."
Ronon raised a single eyebrow in question, clearly asking, "And then?"
"Well..." John said, trailing off and trying to think how best to put words around his memories of the scene.
"You are such a liar!" Rodney glared daggers.
John simply shrugged. "All right, so Zelenka didn't have a hump, but the rest was pretty accurate."
Rodney just huffed and looked away, causing Ronon's lips to twitch into a small smile. "Sounds like a fun game."
"It was a fun game," John said, "until combinatorics ruined it."
"Not. My. Fault."
"Just like Monopoly."
"Exactly! All you have to do is understand the proper mechanics."
"You were counting Chance Cards."
"Is it my fault I can track large numbers in my head? I think not."
"Scrabble ring a bell?"
"Your lack of vocabulary still stuns me."
"What about Jenga?"
"What about Jenga? That was a bad idea from the start-"
Ronon cleared his throat. "Are these all dice games?"
"No," they both answered flatly.
"Huh," Ronon said thoughtfully. He snagged a stray die before John could scoop it up with the rest of the game contents, and began to absently roll it around in the palm of his hand. "Earth seems to have a lot of games."
John snagged the location cards from Rodney. "We get bored easily."
"I noticed."
Rodney gave Ronon a sour look. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Ronon stared back, nonplussed. "Just means I noticed."
"Repeating what you just said does not-"
"Children," John cut in before the hair-pulling and name calling started, "how about we play another game?"
"This one looks boring," Ronon stated simply.
"As much as I hate to admit it, he's right," Rodney added, sighing and folding his cards up again. "It's less fun when I can beat you this quickly."
"Sorry to spoil it for you." Dropping his cards as well, John turned to Ronon. "What about something Satedan? Which," he said quickly, "doesn't involve sticks. Or any kind of violence."
For a worryingly long moment, Ronon just stroked his beard and looked thoughtful. Then he said, "You got those card things still? Might be able to adapt them."
It would have been more encouraging if he hadn't been smirking as he said it.
P3E-9T4 was a nice planet, Rodney decided. After their recent near-disaster, he was fairly sure he never wanted to see another asteroid as long as he lived, and although Sheppard kept trotting out the 'any landing you can walk away from' line, Rodney knew he'd been spooked as well. Which probably explained why he was standing at Teyla's elbow, nodding as the village elder talked about corn crops, which normally would have bored Sheppard to tears. They'd all gotten a little protective of Teyla around strangers, however pleasant-seeming, and at least she was amused rather than annoyed by their over-attention. So far, at least.
Rubbing his hands together in the chill, fresh air, Rodney turned his attention back to the huge tables that were being laid on the other side of the village square. So far he'd seen eight types of fruit, a pile of bread three feet high and a couple of squashes bigger than his head, not to mention the enormous beast roasting on the open fire at one end of the table. This was definitely his kind of planet.
He carried on turning, nodding to the friendly but shy locals, and looking for Ronon. Because Ronon definitely had the best nose for-
"Aha." Clapping his hands together, Rodney set off for the quiet corner where Ronon was sitting at a table with four of the villagers, each with a huge tankard in front of them. "I knew you'd find the good stuff," Rodney said as he got closer, and Ronon grinned.
"It's really good stuff," he said, gesturing to the barrel behind him.
In response to his hopeful look, someone passed Rodney a tankard and he happily helped himself. It was very good stuff. "Great," he said, wiping the foam from his mouth. In three years of off-world missions, Teyla had drummed it into him that he should at least try to play nice with the locals. "What do you guys do for fun around here?"
"Actually, Grell was just saying that they play Lintels here too." Ronon gestured with his tankard to a red-haired man across the table. "Thought we might have a game."
"Lintels?" The beer was very foamy and pretty strong, but Rodney was fairly sure his confusion was just because he'd never heard of the game. "What's Lintels?"
"You don't play Lintels where you're from?" Grell looked almost shocked. "I thought everyone in the galaxy played Lintels."
"Well, we don't," Rodney said, only a little sulkily. The beer was definitely taking the edge off his annoyance.
"You ever play the Satedan variant?" Ronon asked, draining his tankard and dropping it on the table with a bang.
When everyone else shook their heads, Ronon grinned again, and Rodney took a long gulp of beer. That was usually the grin Ronon gave the Wraith right before he blew their heads off, all teeth and feral humor. This could not end well.
Some Hours Later
From the way Elizabeth was looking at them, her head tilted to one side and amusement fighting with annoyance for control of her expression, Rodney guessed that they all looked as bad as they felt. Well, all except Teyla who was wearing her habitual 'what am I going to do with you' face, and kept glaring at Ronon.
"So," Elizabeth said, raising an eyebrow a little. "Did you have fun?"
"The feast went very well, thank you," Teyla said, her voice calm and steady. "I believe our trading agreement will prove most fruitful for both sides."
"Excellent." There was the briefest of pauses, and Rodney didn't dare look up. When he glanced over, Sheppard was making an even closer examination of the floor than he was, while Ronon seemed to find something on the ceiling absolutely fascinating. "I take it you also enjoyed yourselves, gentlemen?"
Rodney cleared his throat, trying not to flush as he felt Ronon and Sheppard's eyes snap towards him. "It was ... er ... really good, thanks. Really ... good ... food ..." He trailed off as Elizabeth's steady gaze bored into him.
"That's good to hear, Rodney," she said. "So would you care to explain to me what happened to Colonel Sheppard's shirt, your boots, and why Ronon has acquired that fetching hat?"
"Er..."
Not the for the first time, Rodney was hugely, hugely grateful for the fact that they were a team, and that whatever she might say to them in private, Teyla always, always stepped up to the plate in public.
"It was part of the festivities," she said smoothly, not looking at any of them, and giving Elizabeth her most winning smile. "And their willingness to participate was received most warmly by the villagers."
"Right." With a look that said she didn't believe a word of it, but didn't really want to know the real story, Elizabeth nodded. "Good work, gentlemen. I'll see you at eight-thirty tomorrow morning for senior staff." She turned to go, adding almost absently, "Just make sure you're fully clothed, won't you?"
Rodney could feel his ears burning, and there was no way that Sheppard could hide the embarrassed flush that had taken up residence in his cheeks as they stiffly made their way out of the Gateroom. There was relative silence as the four of them headed down to the ready room, just the sound of three pairs of boots and the soft moccasins Rodney had been forced to accept after he'd lost his own shoes. He waited until they were well out of hearing range before he turned and poked Ronon in the arm.
"The next time you have a good idea about games, keep it to yourself, okay?"
"What's your problem, McKay?" Ronon asked, tipping the pointed hat back to a more jaunty angle.
"Ronon," Teyla said warningly. "I believe Rodney has a good point. Perhaps you should have chosen a less ... competitive version of Lintels to teach them."
"No fun if there are no losers." The hat was starting to slip from Ronon's head, and he grabbed for it.
Sheppard shook his head. "You know, of all the things I thought I'd learn in the Pegasus Galaxy, a new version of strip poker was not at the top of my list."
McKay wasn't in any of his usual haunts; not the lab, not the Mess, not the Gateroom, not Sheppard's office and not in his quarters. Despite his annoyance in having to traipse halfway round the city, Ronon was kind of impressed. When McKay went to ground he really went to ground, and no one had seen him for more than two seconds since they'd arrived back from Earth. Everything had seemed to go as well as could be expected, but Rodney had barely stopped to retrieve a few laptops from the main lab before retreating to- well, wherever he had gone.
Finally giving in, Ronon went and loomed over Zelenka until he got the answer he wanted. There was a single lifesign in one of the unused labs out on the northeast pier. No one even lived out there, and Zelenka was reluctant to say whether it was Rodney or not.
"It's him," Ronon said, pulling his coat on and heading for the door. "It's near a transporter, right?"
"Yes, but..." Whatever else Zelenka added was lost as Ronon strode down the corridor. Enough was enough.
As expected, McKay was sitting at one of the long tables in the empty lab, hunched over his laptop with two more on either side of him, scrolling through line after line of impenetrable code. McKay was sitting with the awkward stiffness of someone who'd been sitting still too long, and was sure that moving was going to be even more painful than his current, hunched posture.
Ronon stopped in the doorway, considering for a moment, then said, "Hey."
McKay jumped almost off his stool. "Oh, yes, thank you. Ow."
"Sounded like you needed that." Although even Ronon had fought the urge to wince as McKay's back clicked. The man really needed to move about more. "What are you doing?"
"Work." Scowling, McKay turned back to the computers, adjusting the one on his right and typing quickly onto the one in front of him. "Go away."
"How long you been up here?" Ronon asked, wandering into the room and noting the pile of MREs in various stages of consumption. "Weir know you're doing this?"
"Elizabeth gave me some personal time, yes."
"So you're working."
McKay glared as Ronon came up beside him. "Do you have a point?"
"I've got some games." The tangent obviously threw McKay, because he turned to face Ronon fully, tilting his head. He looked tired.
"What games?" Then he shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Go away."
"I've got a couple of packs of cards." Ronon dropped them onto the bench, fishing in another pocket as he went on, "And the Uno deck."
"That's on the banned list," McKay said, but he hadn't started typing again, so Ronon kept going.
"Whatever. I got those jacks and dice that Sheppard was talking about the other night. I think you throw them or something." That didn't get him much of a reaction, so he tried the other pocket. "There's some straws in a pot. Not really sure what you do with them. I got a weird thing with pigs off one of the marines, and something called battleships?" He dropped all the games onto the table, catching the tube of straws before it could roll away.
McKay raised an eyebrow at the heap then glanced at Ronon. "Is that a coat or a bag of holding? Where did you get all this stuff?"
"People gave it to me." Frowning, Ronon asked, "What's a bag of holding?"
McKay was trying to pile all the little jacks up, and it took him a moment to register the question. "Hmmm? Oh, Dungeons and Dragons thing." When Ronon continued to look at him blankly, he sighed and pulled the laptop over. "Never mind, someone's bound to be... Aha." He hit a few keys then turned the computer for Ronon to see. "It's not Dungeons and Dragons, but someone's set up World of Warcraft on the server. I think Elizabeth's letting it go because it keeps the nerds happy."
"Aren't you a nerd?" Ronon had heard the word thrown about, usually referring to the scientists.
"I'm a geek," Rodney said, waving a hand. "It's a whole other thing. And I don't play World of Warcraft."
"What is it?"
Which set McKay off on a complicated speech about things that sounded more like collections of letters than games. Ronon just about picked up RPGs, MMORPGs, and LARPS (seriously, what was it with these people and stupid names for things?) before he tuned him out, looking at the pictures on the screen.
"...started out with a MUD but it's not like we don't have the computer power. Most people prefer stuff like this anyway," he waved his hand at the laptop, "because of the swords and stuff."
That sounded more interesting. "Swords?"
McKay rolled his eyes, the first sign of the usual McKay that Ronon had seen. He even had some color in his cheeks at last, and some of the dark, haunted expression was gone from his eyes. "It'd take too long to explain. I could just start us off playing, if you want. You of all people should pick it up quickly."
"Sure." Hooking over another stool, Ronon pulled his coat off, retrieving one last thing from the pockets as he did so. As he sat down, he threw his coat onto the bench and dropped the huge candy bar in front of the laptop. "Snack," he said, keeping his eyes on the screen.
In the reflection on the shiny surface, Ronon saw McKay's lips twitch in the barest hint of a smile for just a moment. Then he scooped up the chocolate with one hand and began typing with the other.
"Right. First of all, you have to pick your race."
Teyla was used to hearing shouting coming from the labs. If Rodney was not yelling at Radek, then Radek was yelling at him, or they were both yelling at someone else; Atlantis personnel had learned to fear a silent lab more than a noisy one.
However, on this occasion she did not think that the noise was the result of a scientific disagreement. For one thing, she could hear Ronon's voice raised against Rodney's, and that was unusual. Frowning, she swiped her hand over the door release and stepped inside.
Five minutes later, when she could breathe again, she looked up into three concerned and slightly chagrined faces. And promptly collapsed in another fit of giggles that left her gasping for air.
"Teyla?" John glanced at the others then back at her. "You okay?"
"I am fine, John." Her voice was slightly strangled with the effort of getting the words out. "I am...fine."
Ronon was wearing the hat he had won some weeks ago, its point drooping down almost to his ear. "You sure?" he asked, and Teyla forced herself not to look at him, for fear of losing her composure again.
"Quite sure." Two long, calming breaths helped, as did looking John in the eye. It kept her gaze away from what he was wearing. "Can I ask ... ?" She waved a hand vaguely, not quite sure how to phrase the question.
John looked at Rodney, face reddening, then rubbed the back of his neck. Slowly, he said, "It's a bit complicated ..."
"You ever heard of World of Warcraft?" Ronon asked, and Teyla made the mistake of looking at him just as he adjusted his hat. She looked away quickly and shook her head.
"I do not believe so. It is a game of some sort?"
"Yeah, sort of." Shrugging a little, which made his chainmail rattle, John went on, "You play it on the computer, only we got banned from playing it because-"
"Ronon got banned from playing," Rodney put in, and Teyla turned to him properly for the first time. Green was definitely not his color, although the cape was rather fetching. "So he made us find something else."
"Which involves...costumes?" Teyla said carefully, trying not to look down. If she had been forced to name people on Atlantis she hoped never to see in leggings, Rodney would probably have been fairly near the top of the list.
"No, these are our new uniforms," he snapped, glaring when John slapped the back of his head.
"It's called role play," Ronon told her, sitting on the edge of the nearest table. "You dress up, chase stuff, have fights, that kind of thing."
Teyla tilted her head. "This is what you are doing for fun?"
"Yup."
"Which is different to what we usually do on missions ... how exactly?"
There was a moment of silence, during which Rodney looked at John, who looked at Ronon, who looked at Rodney, who eventually cleared his throat and said, "Well, er, I think... There's magic involved?"
"Magic." Teyla raised an eyebrow. "This is what you spend your time doing when you are not working?"
"We would, if someone would just agree the rules," John said, rolling his eyes and tipping his head towards Rodney.
"Oh, do not start that one again. I explained the spell casting, like, three times already."
"You explained it different every time!"
"It's complicated!"
"Rodney, John!" Teyla said, raising her voice over them. "Children." They both turned to her, still red-faced, although it was now hard to tell whether that was from anger or embarrassment. "If you are seeking new games with a suitable level of," she bit her lip, trying to find a suitable word, "interest, I may be able to help. No special equipment is required," she added, feeling a touch of pride at managing to get the words out with a straight face.
"What exactly-" Rodney began, hands fiddling awkwardly with his belt.
"An Athosian game," she said quickly, trying to distract him before he accidentally undid the knot. "One that all children learn to play. We call it 'Nardils'."
"Nardils?" Despite John's skeptical look, Teyla noticed that he too was making himself comfortable.
She smiled. "They are small animals, living mostly underground. Athosian children learn to play at a young age, as part of their training."
"Training?"
This time, it was Ronon who echoed her words, and Teyla smiled. "Yes. I believe you will find it most interesting." She got to her feet and looked them over. "And you will not even need costumes in order to play."
The three of them looked at each other, and John shrugged. "We can always come back to this another time," he said, putting one hand on a sword that he had to have borrowed from Ronon. "Besides, it'll be more fun if we can get the guys from Anthropology to play."
"No, it won't," Rodney said flatly, sweeping his cape from his shoulder. "They get all hung up on the details."
"Nardils?" Ronon was giving both of them a steady look from under the floppy brim of his hat.
"Yeah." Turning to Teyla, John grinned. "Why not?"
It was nearing midnight, Atlantis Standard Time, when Rodney finally shut the lid to his laptop. He could finish the analysis in the morning. With great effort, he dragged himself off his stool and to the door. Exhaustion tugged at him, but he paused before the door, watching it swish open to reveal an empty hallway. He eyed the doorway with trepidation before slowly peeking around the corner.
Only a hallway cast in half-shadows greeted him. He shuffled out, nerves on edge, tensing as he rounded every corner in the hallway that led from his lab to the transporter. He quickly ducked inside, punching the location for his residential area on the map. He tapped his feet nervously, trying to stretch his hearing past the closed transporter door, but the only noise was the distant sound of waves crashing and the barely audible hum of Atlantis's systems. Satisfied, he cautiously crept out of the transporter and swiftly began to finish his long journey to his door just down the hall.
The hall was silent, empty, but he did not trust it. Only once he'd made it into his quarters would he be safe. He was almost there, when he spied a small post-it note taped to his door. The air practically tingled around him as he tore it off the wall.
Rodney spun around to find Sheppard standing only six inches from him, hands posed in the air in the imitation of a bear raising its claws for a strike. "NARDILS!"
The very manly, bloodcurdling shriek that left his lips probably woke half the city block. By the time that Rodney's heart stopped trying to leap out of his chest, Sheppard had collapsed into a fit of unmanly giggles. Rodney felt the heat rush to his cheeks, and he pointed an angry, shaking finger at his team leader. "You - you -"
"Really, Rodney," in between his honking laughter, Sheppard managed to get out, "you really," snort, "suck at Nardils!"
"You keep cheating!" Rodney snarled, backing up until he had his personal space again.
"Hey, I didn't go into your quarters," John said, tapping the note that was now crumpled in Rodney's hand. "This is like, the fifth night in a row. I thought you would have figured out a defense strategy by now."
"I would have, but it's hard to think when I keep getting ambushed by certain people screaming 'nardils' at the top of their lungs!" Rodney crossed his arms, continuing to level a heated glare at his ambusher. "Which is not part of the game. Teyla said so!"
"I'm ad-libbing."
"You're changing the game."
"I'm adapting it. Atlantis isn't exactly the wooded forest that this game was invented in. I can't very well leave trip wires strung up all over the hall - although that hasn't stopped Ronon from trying to set up snares." Sheppard's mirth evaporated a little as he rubbed his shoulder. "Those things certainly have a kick to them."
"I could have told you that."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because you had it coming!"
"Hey, I've gone easy on you."
"I nearly burnt myself pouring coffee this morning because of your stupid little surprise-"
"Constant vigilance, Rodney," Sheppard mocked in a deep baritone voice, "constant vigilance."
"I'll give you 'constant vigilance'-"
"What does that even mean?"
"One more time, Sheppard, one more time and I'll-"
"You'll what?" he challenged. "Take away my WiFi?"
Rodney sputtered, uncrossing his arms as he clenched his fists. "Oh, just try it and you'll see!"
"I'm shaking!"
Rodney lifted his lip into a snarl and spun on his heel to stride into his room, done with this conversation. It didn't matter if Sheppard wasn't intimidated by threats, Rodney was clever, damn it, and if that stupid flyboy thought for one minute that -
"Hey, Rodney."
Angrily, he swiveled back around, only to face empty space. "What the-"
Just a hairsbreadth away from his ear, he could feel Sheppard's breath as the pilot leaned in and whispered, "Nardils."
"That does it!"
It turned out, Sheppard should have been intimidated. Because it was always a bad idea to underestimate Rodney's imagination when under pressure, and the last few days definitely counted as extreme pressure. And because, when necessary, he could be an extremely patient man. With his tendency to get caught up in emergencies and disasters, Sheppard would have to visit the infirmary eventually.
And when he did...
It was so quiet in the Mess Hall that Rodney thought it was empty. He'd just loaded his tray - defeating evil half-Wraith masterminds with a cellar full of horrors always gave him an appetite - and looked round for somewhere to sit when he spotted the others, right in the far corner. Sheppard and Ronon were leaning over the table, heads so close together that they were almost touching. Teyla was watching them, one knee drawn up and her arms wrapped around it. For all that they weren't talking to each other, Rodney could feel the tension in the air, all the things that the silence was saying. Gripping his tray more tightly, he slowly crossed the room towards them.
"Hey." Only Teyla looked up at his greeting, frowning at the bandage that was stuck over the graze on his cheek.
"Rodney. Are you-"
"I'm fine," he said, going to wave a hand and realizing just in time that he was still holding the tray. Neither Sheppard nor Ronon looked up as he set it down on the table. "You?"
She tipped her head to one side. "I have no bruises that will not heal." Which Rodney knew wasn't close to a real answer, but then if he'd spent that long locked in a room with Michael, he didn't suppose he'd want to talk about it either. Giving her a weak smile, he glanced over at the others.
"What's going on?"
"It is a new game," Teyla told him, releasing her knee and pulling her chair closer. "I did not catch its name."
"Huh." Absently digging into his food, Rodney leaned over for a closer look. And almost choked on the fluffy not-potatoes. "Oh, you're kidding me."
"You're not playing," Sheppard said flatly, without looking up. Spread across the table between him and Ronon were dozens of pieces of paper, all with extremely familiar symbols on them.
"What? You afraid I'm going to embarrass you?" As well as the game board, each piece of paper also had an initial letter on it, J or R. Rodney did a quick count up. "Sheppard, how can you be losing at tic tac toe?"
"He's a quick learner," Sheppard said, not looking up. With a decisive flourish, he put a large cross on the game board between them.
Ronon shrugged. "That's fifteen-eight. You want to try to catch up?"
"I've got you right where I want you." Scribbling his initial over the middle of the game, Sheppard pulled another piece of paper towards him. "You're on."
With an effort, Rodney managed not to roll his eyes and turned back to his dinner/supper/snack/whatever. "Can you believe these guys?" he asked, only realizing as he brought his forkful of almost-potatoes to his mouth that Teyla hadn't replied. He looked up. "Teyla?"
She blinked, eyes focusing on him from wherever she had been. "Sorry, Rodney. I was-"
"-miles away." It was always hard for him to tell if he was supposed to say something or not, but for a moment, she looked so lost that he reached out impulsively, covering her hand with his. "Are you alright?"
"I will be fine, Rodney, thank you." Giving his hand a little squeeze, she pulled away, drawing both knees up this time and wrapping her arms around them. "I am quite tired."
"Tell me about it," he said, scooping up another forkful of probably-supper. "I'm going to be having nightmares about those things for weeks, not to mention the smell of that place."
"We were all there, McKay." Sheppard looked up at last, glancing towards Teyla then giving Rodney a warning glare. "We remember."
The glare notwithstanding, Rodney wasn't so easily put off. And not saying anything at all didn't seem to be working so well for Teyla right at that moment, judging by the deep shadows under her eyes and the hunched line of her shoulders. "I'm just saying, what with that Wraith queen a couple weeks ago and now Michael, I think we've had our Wraith dosage for a while. When do you think the other shoe drops?"
Ronon blinked. "What shoe?"
"The other shoe." Rodney waved his fork vaguely. "The one that drops on you. After the first one."
Teyla looked up, frowning. "Did someone drop a shoe on you, Rodney?"
"No, I-"
"Did you drop a shoe on yourself?"
Ronon was half-grinning, but Teyla still looked concerned. "People are not always careful about their balconies. I understand that Sergeant Krane had something fall on him the other day."
"Yeah, but that was on purpose." Giving up on the game, Sheppard leaned back in his seat. "He upset Doctor Ralson from Biochem."
Rodney shook his head. "That's never a good idea. They know where all the slime is kept."
"I hear it took Krane three showers before anyone would even come near him." Ronon was grinning, obviously impressed.
Teyla, on the other hand, didn't seem to be able to let the shoe thing go. "Rodney, did someone drop something on you?"
"No! Look, it's an expression, okay? If one shoe falls on you, the other must be up there somewhere...or something..." As always, when he tried to explain Earth sayings, he found they didn't make quite as much sense out loud as they did in his head. "It's about waiting for bad things to happen," he said helplessly, waving his fork again.
"I see." Nodding seriously, Teyla added, "Do your people believe this to be true? That if something bad has happened, more will follow?"
"Er..." Rodney looked helplessly at Sheppard, who gave him a 'you got yourself into this' shrug and folded his arms. Returning the shrug with a 'thank you so much' glare, Rodney prodded his food and tried to think. "Yeah, a bit. I guess. There's the saying, you know? My middle name is luck; the only problem is my first name is 'bad.'"
"I thought your name was Meredith." It was Ronon's turn to look confused, and Rodney thought it was genuine this time.
"What I'm trying to say is," he said emphatically, trying to use his best 'this conversation is over' voice, "I think we should be ready for anything."
"We're always ready for anything," Sheppard said, and Rodney was about to bite off a sarcastic reply when he saw the faint smile on Teyla's face, the way Ronon was nodding. And, yes, alright, that was probably a fair point.
Ronon shifted impatiently. "Is this really the best game you know?" he asked, poking at the pile of completed tic tac toe sheets.
"The best one that doesn't involve running round the corridors jumping out at each other," Sheppard said, lifting an eyebrow. "Thought we'd all had enough of that for now."
"Oh please, you're not even trying." Swallowing down the last of his dinner as quickly as he could, Rodney bussed his tray on the next table over and waved for Ronon to pass him some blank sheets of paper and a pen. "Tic tac toe's no fun unless you're playing it at the quantum level."
"Quantum?" Sheppard asked skeptically, but he leaned forwards anyway.
Rodney was suddenly aware that, in fact, all three of them were leaning forwards, Teyla's brow furrowing with concentration and Ronon giving him that bored look which meant he was interested but didn't want to admit it. Glancing up, Rodney caught Sheppard's eye, acknowledging the look - half-relief, half-gratitude - that he saw there, then cleared his throat again.
"It's quantum without the math, okay? X always goes first..."
An assortment of plastic, glass and cardboard crunched under Teyla's boots as she surveyed what was left of the game library. Most of the rubble had been shoved aside when the structural engineers had checked out the integrity of the room, but stray game pieces and cards still littered the floor, tossed around by the sea breeze blowing through the blown out windows. The room had been deemed safe and now stood forgotten as the city tried to rebuild itself.
Atlantis' mad flight to its new home planet had left many casualties, the destruction of the game library far from the worst. It seemed almost foolish to worry about this, against all the other losses they had suffered. And yet she had hoped it might have been intact, that something of their former life would have survived into this one. The whole city was still reeling, her team was still reeling, and she had thought that somehow, this might have helped set them back on their feet. Everything was different, now. They needed for some things to stay the same.
She continued to pick her way through the room, able to pick out tokens or pieces from the games her team had gone through. At the far end of the room, under the broken and toppled bookcase that had once been stuffed full of games, lay the remaining pieces of the bulletin board. She carefully picked through the schedules and notes that had been tacked to the board until she finally found two particular abused pieces of paper.
The top page had been torn almost in two, and both were almost crumpled beyond recognition. She unfolded each page, smoothing the edges with utmost care, until she could make out the scratched marks, blocked letters, and sloppy handwriting of her teammates. Slowly, she let the smile creep across her face, warming her as she rose and picked her way back through the rubble and the exit, battered papers in hand.
Below is a list of all the games mentioned, just in case you want to check they exist…
Ancient Sims, Chess, Monopoly, Scrabble, Jenga, Yahtzee, Bop It, Clue/Cluedo, Lintels, Scattegories, Charades, Uno, Twister, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Escape from Atlantis, World of Warcraft, LARP, Pictionary, Boggle, Dream Phone, Nardils, Ta-Ka-Radi, Apples to Apples, Toe Wrestling, Quantum Tic Tac Toe, Cranium, Tiddlywinks
Authors: greyias and jadesfire2808
Characters: Team Dork Sheppard.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Crackiness, image heavy
Notes: This was very much a joint effort. jadesfire2808 brought some plot and structure, greyias brought the snark, along with awesome graphics skills. We both wrote the words, with help from our betas donutsweeper, wildcat88 and mad_jaks. Remaining mistakes are all our own work. With a special thanks to friendshipper and mumumugen for the Photoshopping advice.
Spoilers: S3 "The Game" through to S4 "Lifeline"
Summary: "Earth seems to have a lot of games." "We get bored easily."
Board Wars
Trying to explain the concept to Ronon was even worse than explaining about video games. And they never would have had to if they'd set up the board in John's quarters like he'd wanted to. But apparently Rodney needed coffee to strategize, so they ended up in the Mess Hall, a bowl of chips and a half-drunk pot of coffee on the table when Ronon walked in and found them.
"What you doing?" he asked, reaching out to pick up one of the pieces.
Rodney smacked his hand away, only cowering a little when Ronon glared at him. "Playing a strategy game."
"Rodney, it's Clue," John said, rolling his eyes. "And it sucks with two players, anyway."
"It's a classic!" Rodney had been scribbling on his notepad since they'd started, and while John had been following reasonably closely, he was fairly sure he didn't have nearly that much to write down.
He frowned. "You already know who did it, don't you?"
"Hmm?"
Honestly. They should have been playing poker. "Rodney, how can you possibly know already?"
"It's just a simple matter of..." Rodney trailed off under the twin glares from John and Ronon. "Oh, alright." He spread his cards on the table in front of him, knocking the tiny candlestick over. "I was dealt all the room cards, so all I had to work out was the other two. But when you think about the chances of getting all those cards..."
"Do not start on probabilities," John said quickly, scowling and lifting his counter off the board. "You know what happened last time."
"What happened last time?" Snagging a chair, Ronon sat down and looked at them expectantly.
"We don't talk about what happened last time." There was a definite stiffness in Rodney's voice. John didn't blame him.
Ronon wasn't so easily put off. "Yeah, you do. What happened?" He switched his attention to John, who knew that look. Normally he saw it when they were about to engage in armed conflict.
He sighed. "There's another Earth game called Yahtzee..."
"You swore we'd never talk about it again." Rodney sounded both betrayed and furious, but John was still, in general, more scared of Ronon.
"Look, he'll only go and ask someone else otherwise. Do you want Lorne telling this story? Or Zelenka?"
Rodney flushed, looked down determinedly at the board, then started gathering up the tiny weapons. "Fine," he bit off. "Just don't expect me to contribute."
"I don't." John turned back to Ronon. "You play Yahtzee with dice, like this." He held up the small white dice for Ronon to see. "You throw them in different combinations, score them, that kind of thing. It's mostly luck, really, although there's some basic strategy involved." He ignored Rodney's pointed snort. "Anyway, Rodney got it into his head that you could calculate all the probabilities of the dice and work out the perfect strategy for play."
"How?"
"That was the hard bit. Apparently it takes quite a lot of computer power. More or less as much computer power as Atlantis had at the time, actually."
Ronon raised a single eyebrow in question, clearly asking, "And then?"
"Well..." John said, trailing off and trying to think how best to put words around his memories of the scene.
"You are such a liar!" Rodney glared daggers.
John simply shrugged. "All right, so Zelenka didn't have a hump, but the rest was pretty accurate."
Rodney just huffed and looked away, causing Ronon's lips to twitch into a small smile. "Sounds like a fun game."
"It was a fun game," John said, "until combinatorics ruined it."
"Not. My. Fault."
"Just like Monopoly."
"Exactly! All you have to do is understand the proper mechanics."
"You were counting Chance Cards."
"Is it my fault I can track large numbers in my head? I think not."
"Scrabble ring a bell?"
"Your lack of vocabulary still stuns me."
"What about Jenga?"
"What about Jenga? That was a bad idea from the start-"
Ronon cleared his throat. "Are these all dice games?"
"No," they both answered flatly.
"Huh," Ronon said thoughtfully. He snagged a stray die before John could scoop it up with the rest of the game contents, and began to absently roll it around in the palm of his hand. "Earth seems to have a lot of games."
John snagged the location cards from Rodney. "We get bored easily."
"I noticed."
Rodney gave Ronon a sour look. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Ronon stared back, nonplussed. "Just means I noticed."
"Repeating what you just said does not-"
"Children," John cut in before the hair-pulling and name calling started, "how about we play another game?"
"This one looks boring," Ronon stated simply.
"As much as I hate to admit it, he's right," Rodney added, sighing and folding his cards up again. "It's less fun when I can beat you this quickly."
"Sorry to spoil it for you." Dropping his cards as well, John turned to Ronon. "What about something Satedan? Which," he said quickly, "doesn't involve sticks. Or any kind of violence."
For a worryingly long moment, Ronon just stroked his beard and looked thoughtful. Then he said, "You got those card things still? Might be able to adapt them."
It would have been more encouraging if he hadn't been smirking as he said it.
P3E-9T4 was a nice planet, Rodney decided. After their recent near-disaster, he was fairly sure he never wanted to see another asteroid as long as he lived, and although Sheppard kept trotting out the 'any landing you can walk away from' line, Rodney knew he'd been spooked as well. Which probably explained why he was standing at Teyla's elbow, nodding as the village elder talked about corn crops, which normally would have bored Sheppard to tears. They'd all gotten a little protective of Teyla around strangers, however pleasant-seeming, and at least she was amused rather than annoyed by their over-attention. So far, at least.
Rubbing his hands together in the chill, fresh air, Rodney turned his attention back to the huge tables that were being laid on the other side of the village square. So far he'd seen eight types of fruit, a pile of bread three feet high and a couple of squashes bigger than his head, not to mention the enormous beast roasting on the open fire at one end of the table. This was definitely his kind of planet.
He carried on turning, nodding to the friendly but shy locals, and looking for Ronon. Because Ronon definitely had the best nose for-
"Aha." Clapping his hands together, Rodney set off for the quiet corner where Ronon was sitting at a table with four of the villagers, each with a huge tankard in front of them. "I knew you'd find the good stuff," Rodney said as he got closer, and Ronon grinned.
"It's really good stuff," he said, gesturing to the barrel behind him.
In response to his hopeful look, someone passed Rodney a tankard and he happily helped himself. It was very good stuff. "Great," he said, wiping the foam from his mouth. In three years of off-world missions, Teyla had drummed it into him that he should at least try to play nice with the locals. "What do you guys do for fun around here?"
"Actually, Grell was just saying that they play Lintels here too." Ronon gestured with his tankard to a red-haired man across the table. "Thought we might have a game."
"Lintels?" The beer was very foamy and pretty strong, but Rodney was fairly sure his confusion was just because he'd never heard of the game. "What's Lintels?"
"You don't play Lintels where you're from?" Grell looked almost shocked. "I thought everyone in the galaxy played Lintels."
"Well, we don't," Rodney said, only a little sulkily. The beer was definitely taking the edge off his annoyance.
"You ever play the Satedan variant?" Ronon asked, draining his tankard and dropping it on the table with a bang.
When everyone else shook their heads, Ronon grinned again, and Rodney took a long gulp of beer. That was usually the grin Ronon gave the Wraith right before he blew their heads off, all teeth and feral humor. This could not end well.
Some Hours Later
From the way Elizabeth was looking at them, her head tilted to one side and amusement fighting with annoyance for control of her expression, Rodney guessed that they all looked as bad as they felt. Well, all except Teyla who was wearing her habitual 'what am I going to do with you' face, and kept glaring at Ronon.
"So," Elizabeth said, raising an eyebrow a little. "Did you have fun?"
"The feast went very well, thank you," Teyla said, her voice calm and steady. "I believe our trading agreement will prove most fruitful for both sides."
"Excellent." There was the briefest of pauses, and Rodney didn't dare look up. When he glanced over, Sheppard was making an even closer examination of the floor than he was, while Ronon seemed to find something on the ceiling absolutely fascinating. "I take it you also enjoyed yourselves, gentlemen?"
Rodney cleared his throat, trying not to flush as he felt Ronon and Sheppard's eyes snap towards him. "It was ... er ... really good, thanks. Really ... good ... food ..." He trailed off as Elizabeth's steady gaze bored into him.
"That's good to hear, Rodney," she said. "So would you care to explain to me what happened to Colonel Sheppard's shirt, your boots, and why Ronon has acquired that fetching hat?"
"Er..."
Not the for the first time, Rodney was hugely, hugely grateful for the fact that they were a team, and that whatever she might say to them in private, Teyla always, always stepped up to the plate in public.
"It was part of the festivities," she said smoothly, not looking at any of them, and giving Elizabeth her most winning smile. "And their willingness to participate was received most warmly by the villagers."
"Right." With a look that said she didn't believe a word of it, but didn't really want to know the real story, Elizabeth nodded. "Good work, gentlemen. I'll see you at eight-thirty tomorrow morning for senior staff." She turned to go, adding almost absently, "Just make sure you're fully clothed, won't you?"
Rodney could feel his ears burning, and there was no way that Sheppard could hide the embarrassed flush that had taken up residence in his cheeks as they stiffly made their way out of the Gateroom. There was relative silence as the four of them headed down to the ready room, just the sound of three pairs of boots and the soft moccasins Rodney had been forced to accept after he'd lost his own shoes. He waited until they were well out of hearing range before he turned and poked Ronon in the arm.
"The next time you have a good idea about games, keep it to yourself, okay?"
"What's your problem, McKay?" Ronon asked, tipping the pointed hat back to a more jaunty angle.
"Ronon," Teyla said warningly. "I believe Rodney has a good point. Perhaps you should have chosen a less ... competitive version of Lintels to teach them."
"No fun if there are no losers." The hat was starting to slip from Ronon's head, and he grabbed for it.
Sheppard shook his head. "You know, of all the things I thought I'd learn in the Pegasus Galaxy, a new version of strip poker was not at the top of my list."
McKay wasn't in any of his usual haunts; not the lab, not the Mess, not the Gateroom, not Sheppard's office and not in his quarters. Despite his annoyance in having to traipse halfway round the city, Ronon was kind of impressed. When McKay went to ground he really went to ground, and no one had seen him for more than two seconds since they'd arrived back from Earth. Everything had seemed to go as well as could be expected, but Rodney had barely stopped to retrieve a few laptops from the main lab before retreating to- well, wherever he had gone.
Finally giving in, Ronon went and loomed over Zelenka until he got the answer he wanted. There was a single lifesign in one of the unused labs out on the northeast pier. No one even lived out there, and Zelenka was reluctant to say whether it was Rodney or not.
"It's him," Ronon said, pulling his coat on and heading for the door. "It's near a transporter, right?"
"Yes, but..." Whatever else Zelenka added was lost as Ronon strode down the corridor. Enough was enough.
As expected, McKay was sitting at one of the long tables in the empty lab, hunched over his laptop with two more on either side of him, scrolling through line after line of impenetrable code. McKay was sitting with the awkward stiffness of someone who'd been sitting still too long, and was sure that moving was going to be even more painful than his current, hunched posture.
Ronon stopped in the doorway, considering for a moment, then said, "Hey."
McKay jumped almost off his stool. "Oh, yes, thank you. Ow."
"Sounded like you needed that." Although even Ronon had fought the urge to wince as McKay's back clicked. The man really needed to move about more. "What are you doing?"
"Work." Scowling, McKay turned back to the computers, adjusting the one on his right and typing quickly onto the one in front of him. "Go away."
"How long you been up here?" Ronon asked, wandering into the room and noting the pile of MREs in various stages of consumption. "Weir know you're doing this?"
"Elizabeth gave me some personal time, yes."
"So you're working."
McKay glared as Ronon came up beside him. "Do you have a point?"
"I've got some games." The tangent obviously threw McKay, because he turned to face Ronon fully, tilting his head. He looked tired.
"What games?" Then he shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Go away."
"I've got a couple of packs of cards." Ronon dropped them onto the bench, fishing in another pocket as he went on, "And the Uno deck."
"That's on the banned list," McKay said, but he hadn't started typing again, so Ronon kept going.
"Whatever. I got those jacks and dice that Sheppard was talking about the other night. I think you throw them or something." That didn't get him much of a reaction, so he tried the other pocket. "There's some straws in a pot. Not really sure what you do with them. I got a weird thing with pigs off one of the marines, and something called battleships?" He dropped all the games onto the table, catching the tube of straws before it could roll away.
McKay raised an eyebrow at the heap then glanced at Ronon. "Is that a coat or a bag of holding? Where did you get all this stuff?"
"People gave it to me." Frowning, Ronon asked, "What's a bag of holding?"
McKay was trying to pile all the little jacks up, and it took him a moment to register the question. "Hmmm? Oh, Dungeons and Dragons thing." When Ronon continued to look at him blankly, he sighed and pulled the laptop over. "Never mind, someone's bound to be... Aha." He hit a few keys then turned the computer for Ronon to see. "It's not Dungeons and Dragons, but someone's set up World of Warcraft on the server. I think Elizabeth's letting it go because it keeps the nerds happy."
"Aren't you a nerd?" Ronon had heard the word thrown about, usually referring to the scientists.
"I'm a geek," Rodney said, waving a hand. "It's a whole other thing. And I don't play World of Warcraft."
"What is it?"
Which set McKay off on a complicated speech about things that sounded more like collections of letters than games. Ronon just about picked up RPGs, MMORPGs, and LARPS (seriously, what was it with these people and stupid names for things?) before he tuned him out, looking at the pictures on the screen.
"...started out with a MUD but it's not like we don't have the computer power. Most people prefer stuff like this anyway," he waved his hand at the laptop, "because of the swords and stuff."
That sounded more interesting. "Swords?"
McKay rolled his eyes, the first sign of the usual McKay that Ronon had seen. He even had some color in his cheeks at last, and some of the dark, haunted expression was gone from his eyes. "It'd take too long to explain. I could just start us off playing, if you want. You of all people should pick it up quickly."
"Sure." Hooking over another stool, Ronon pulled his coat off, retrieving one last thing from the pockets as he did so. As he sat down, he threw his coat onto the bench and dropped the huge candy bar in front of the laptop. "Snack," he said, keeping his eyes on the screen.
In the reflection on the shiny surface, Ronon saw McKay's lips twitch in the barest hint of a smile for just a moment. Then he scooped up the chocolate with one hand and began typing with the other.
"Right. First of all, you have to pick your race."
Teyla was used to hearing shouting coming from the labs. If Rodney was not yelling at Radek, then Radek was yelling at him, or they were both yelling at someone else; Atlantis personnel had learned to fear a silent lab more than a noisy one.
However, on this occasion she did not think that the noise was the result of a scientific disagreement. For one thing, she could hear Ronon's voice raised against Rodney's, and that was unusual. Frowning, she swiped her hand over the door release and stepped inside.
Five minutes later, when she could breathe again, she looked up into three concerned and slightly chagrined faces. And promptly collapsed in another fit of giggles that left her gasping for air.
"Teyla?" John glanced at the others then back at her. "You okay?"
"I am fine, John." Her voice was slightly strangled with the effort of getting the words out. "I am...fine."
Ronon was wearing the hat he had won some weeks ago, its point drooping down almost to his ear. "You sure?" he asked, and Teyla forced herself not to look at him, for fear of losing her composure again.
"Quite sure." Two long, calming breaths helped, as did looking John in the eye. It kept her gaze away from what he was wearing. "Can I ask ... ?" She waved a hand vaguely, not quite sure how to phrase the question.
John looked at Rodney, face reddening, then rubbed the back of his neck. Slowly, he said, "It's a bit complicated ..."
"You ever heard of World of Warcraft?" Ronon asked, and Teyla made the mistake of looking at him just as he adjusted his hat. She looked away quickly and shook her head.
"I do not believe so. It is a game of some sort?"
"Yeah, sort of." Shrugging a little, which made his chainmail rattle, John went on, "You play it on the computer, only we got banned from playing it because-"
"Ronon got banned from playing," Rodney put in, and Teyla turned to him properly for the first time. Green was definitely not his color, although the cape was rather fetching. "So he made us find something else."
"Which involves...costumes?" Teyla said carefully, trying not to look down. If she had been forced to name people on Atlantis she hoped never to see in leggings, Rodney would probably have been fairly near the top of the list.
"No, these are our new uniforms," he snapped, glaring when John slapped the back of his head.
"It's called role play," Ronon told her, sitting on the edge of the nearest table. "You dress up, chase stuff, have fights, that kind of thing."
Teyla tilted her head. "This is what you are doing for fun?"
"Yup."
"Which is different to what we usually do on missions ... how exactly?"
There was a moment of silence, during which Rodney looked at John, who looked at Ronon, who looked at Rodney, who eventually cleared his throat and said, "Well, er, I think... There's magic involved?"
"Magic." Teyla raised an eyebrow. "This is what you spend your time doing when you are not working?"
"We would, if someone would just agree the rules," John said, rolling his eyes and tipping his head towards Rodney.
"Oh, do not start that one again. I explained the spell casting, like, three times already."
"You explained it different every time!"
"It's complicated!"
"Rodney, John!" Teyla said, raising her voice over them. "Children." They both turned to her, still red-faced, although it was now hard to tell whether that was from anger or embarrassment. "If you are seeking new games with a suitable level of," she bit her lip, trying to find a suitable word, "interest, I may be able to help. No special equipment is required," she added, feeling a touch of pride at managing to get the words out with a straight face.
"What exactly-" Rodney began, hands fiddling awkwardly with his belt.
"An Athosian game," she said quickly, trying to distract him before he accidentally undid the knot. "One that all children learn to play. We call it 'Nardils'."
"Nardils?" Despite John's skeptical look, Teyla noticed that he too was making himself comfortable.
She smiled. "They are small animals, living mostly underground. Athosian children learn to play at a young age, as part of their training."
"Training?"
This time, it was Ronon who echoed her words, and Teyla smiled. "Yes. I believe you will find it most interesting." She got to her feet and looked them over. "And you will not even need costumes in order to play."
The three of them looked at each other, and John shrugged. "We can always come back to this another time," he said, putting one hand on a sword that he had to have borrowed from Ronon. "Besides, it'll be more fun if we can get the guys from Anthropology to play."
"No, it won't," Rodney said flatly, sweeping his cape from his shoulder. "They get all hung up on the details."
"Nardils?" Ronon was giving both of them a steady look from under the floppy brim of his hat.
"Yeah." Turning to Teyla, John grinned. "Why not?"
It was nearing midnight, Atlantis Standard Time, when Rodney finally shut the lid to his laptop. He could finish the analysis in the morning. With great effort, he dragged himself off his stool and to the door. Exhaustion tugged at him, but he paused before the door, watching it swish open to reveal an empty hallway. He eyed the doorway with trepidation before slowly peeking around the corner.
Only a hallway cast in half-shadows greeted him. He shuffled out, nerves on edge, tensing as he rounded every corner in the hallway that led from his lab to the transporter. He quickly ducked inside, punching the location for his residential area on the map. He tapped his feet nervously, trying to stretch his hearing past the closed transporter door, but the only noise was the distant sound of waves crashing and the barely audible hum of Atlantis's systems. Satisfied, he cautiously crept out of the transporter and swiftly began to finish his long journey to his door just down the hall.
The hall was silent, empty, but he did not trust it. Only once he'd made it into his quarters would he be safe. He was almost there, when he spied a small post-it note taped to his door. The air practically tingled around him as he tore it off the wall.
Rodney spun around to find Sheppard standing only six inches from him, hands posed in the air in the imitation of a bear raising its claws for a strike. "NARDILS!"
The very manly, bloodcurdling shriek that left his lips probably woke half the city block. By the time that Rodney's heart stopped trying to leap out of his chest, Sheppard had collapsed into a fit of unmanly giggles. Rodney felt the heat rush to his cheeks, and he pointed an angry, shaking finger at his team leader. "You - you -"
"Really, Rodney," in between his honking laughter, Sheppard managed to get out, "you really," snort, "suck at Nardils!"
"You keep cheating!" Rodney snarled, backing up until he had his personal space again.
"Hey, I didn't go into your quarters," John said, tapping the note that was now crumpled in Rodney's hand. "This is like, the fifth night in a row. I thought you would have figured out a defense strategy by now."
"I would have, but it's hard to think when I keep getting ambushed by certain people screaming 'nardils' at the top of their lungs!" Rodney crossed his arms, continuing to level a heated glare at his ambusher. "Which is not part of the game. Teyla said so!"
"I'm ad-libbing."
"You're changing the game."
"I'm adapting it. Atlantis isn't exactly the wooded forest that this game was invented in. I can't very well leave trip wires strung up all over the hall - although that hasn't stopped Ronon from trying to set up snares." Sheppard's mirth evaporated a little as he rubbed his shoulder. "Those things certainly have a kick to them."
"I could have told you that."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because you had it coming!"
"Hey, I've gone easy on you."
"I nearly burnt myself pouring coffee this morning because of your stupid little surprise-"
"Constant vigilance, Rodney," Sheppard mocked in a deep baritone voice, "constant vigilance."
"I'll give you 'constant vigilance'-"
"What does that even mean?"
"One more time, Sheppard, one more time and I'll-"
"You'll what?" he challenged. "Take away my WiFi?"
Rodney sputtered, uncrossing his arms as he clenched his fists. "Oh, just try it and you'll see!"
"I'm shaking!"
Rodney lifted his lip into a snarl and spun on his heel to stride into his room, done with this conversation. It didn't matter if Sheppard wasn't intimidated by threats, Rodney was clever, damn it, and if that stupid flyboy thought for one minute that -
"Hey, Rodney."
Angrily, he swiveled back around, only to face empty space. "What the-"
Just a hairsbreadth away from his ear, he could feel Sheppard's breath as the pilot leaned in and whispered, "Nardils."
"That does it!"
It turned out, Sheppard should have been intimidated. Because it was always a bad idea to underestimate Rodney's imagination when under pressure, and the last few days definitely counted as extreme pressure. And because, when necessary, he could be an extremely patient man. With his tendency to get caught up in emergencies and disasters, Sheppard would have to visit the infirmary eventually.
And when he did...
It was so quiet in the Mess Hall that Rodney thought it was empty. He'd just loaded his tray - defeating evil half-Wraith masterminds with a cellar full of horrors always gave him an appetite - and looked round for somewhere to sit when he spotted the others, right in the far corner. Sheppard and Ronon were leaning over the table, heads so close together that they were almost touching. Teyla was watching them, one knee drawn up and her arms wrapped around it. For all that they weren't talking to each other, Rodney could feel the tension in the air, all the things that the silence was saying. Gripping his tray more tightly, he slowly crossed the room towards them.
"Hey." Only Teyla looked up at his greeting, frowning at the bandage that was stuck over the graze on his cheek.
"Rodney. Are you-"
"I'm fine," he said, going to wave a hand and realizing just in time that he was still holding the tray. Neither Sheppard nor Ronon looked up as he set it down on the table. "You?"
She tipped her head to one side. "I have no bruises that will not heal." Which Rodney knew wasn't close to a real answer, but then if he'd spent that long locked in a room with Michael, he didn't suppose he'd want to talk about it either. Giving her a weak smile, he glanced over at the others.
"What's going on?"
"It is a new game," Teyla told him, releasing her knee and pulling her chair closer. "I did not catch its name."
"Huh." Absently digging into his food, Rodney leaned over for a closer look. And almost choked on the fluffy not-potatoes. "Oh, you're kidding me."
"You're not playing," Sheppard said flatly, without looking up. Spread across the table between him and Ronon were dozens of pieces of paper, all with extremely familiar symbols on them.
"What? You afraid I'm going to embarrass you?" As well as the game board, each piece of paper also had an initial letter on it, J or R. Rodney did a quick count up. "Sheppard, how can you be losing at tic tac toe?"
"He's a quick learner," Sheppard said, not looking up. With a decisive flourish, he put a large cross on the game board between them.
Ronon shrugged. "That's fifteen-eight. You want to try to catch up?"
"I've got you right where I want you." Scribbling his initial over the middle of the game, Sheppard pulled another piece of paper towards him. "You're on."
With an effort, Rodney managed not to roll his eyes and turned back to his dinner/supper/snack/whatever. "Can you believe these guys?" he asked, only realizing as he brought his forkful of almost-potatoes to his mouth that Teyla hadn't replied. He looked up. "Teyla?"
She blinked, eyes focusing on him from wherever she had been. "Sorry, Rodney. I was-"
"-miles away." It was always hard for him to tell if he was supposed to say something or not, but for a moment, she looked so lost that he reached out impulsively, covering her hand with his. "Are you alright?"
"I will be fine, Rodney, thank you." Giving his hand a little squeeze, she pulled away, drawing both knees up this time and wrapping her arms around them. "I am quite tired."
"Tell me about it," he said, scooping up another forkful of probably-supper. "I'm going to be having nightmares about those things for weeks, not to mention the smell of that place."
"We were all there, McKay." Sheppard looked up at last, glancing towards Teyla then giving Rodney a warning glare. "We remember."
The glare notwithstanding, Rodney wasn't so easily put off. And not saying anything at all didn't seem to be working so well for Teyla right at that moment, judging by the deep shadows under her eyes and the hunched line of her shoulders. "I'm just saying, what with that Wraith queen a couple weeks ago and now Michael, I think we've had our Wraith dosage for a while. When do you think the other shoe drops?"
Ronon blinked. "What shoe?"
"The other shoe." Rodney waved his fork vaguely. "The one that drops on you. After the first one."
Teyla looked up, frowning. "Did someone drop a shoe on you, Rodney?"
"No, I-"
"Did you drop a shoe on yourself?"
Ronon was half-grinning, but Teyla still looked concerned. "People are not always careful about their balconies. I understand that Sergeant Krane had something fall on him the other day."
"Yeah, but that was on purpose." Giving up on the game, Sheppard leaned back in his seat. "He upset Doctor Ralson from Biochem."
Rodney shook his head. "That's never a good idea. They know where all the slime is kept."
"I hear it took Krane three showers before anyone would even come near him." Ronon was grinning, obviously impressed.
Teyla, on the other hand, didn't seem to be able to let the shoe thing go. "Rodney, did someone drop something on you?"
"No! Look, it's an expression, okay? If one shoe falls on you, the other must be up there somewhere...or something..." As always, when he tried to explain Earth sayings, he found they didn't make quite as much sense out loud as they did in his head. "It's about waiting for bad things to happen," he said helplessly, waving his fork again.
"I see." Nodding seriously, Teyla added, "Do your people believe this to be true? That if something bad has happened, more will follow?"
"Er..." Rodney looked helplessly at Sheppard, who gave him a 'you got yourself into this' shrug and folded his arms. Returning the shrug with a 'thank you so much' glare, Rodney prodded his food and tried to think. "Yeah, a bit. I guess. There's the saying, you know? My middle name is luck; the only problem is my first name is 'bad.'"
"I thought your name was Meredith." It was Ronon's turn to look confused, and Rodney thought it was genuine this time.
"What I'm trying to say is," he said emphatically, trying to use his best 'this conversation is over' voice, "I think we should be ready for anything."
"We're always ready for anything," Sheppard said, and Rodney was about to bite off a sarcastic reply when he saw the faint smile on Teyla's face, the way Ronon was nodding. And, yes, alright, that was probably a fair point.
Ronon shifted impatiently. "Is this really the best game you know?" he asked, poking at the pile of completed tic tac toe sheets.
"The best one that doesn't involve running round the corridors jumping out at each other," Sheppard said, lifting an eyebrow. "Thought we'd all had enough of that for now."
"Oh please, you're not even trying." Swallowing down the last of his dinner as quickly as he could, Rodney bussed his tray on the next table over and waved for Ronon to pass him some blank sheets of paper and a pen. "Tic tac toe's no fun unless you're playing it at the quantum level."
"Quantum?" Sheppard asked skeptically, but he leaned forwards anyway.
Rodney was suddenly aware that, in fact, all three of them were leaning forwards, Teyla's brow furrowing with concentration and Ronon giving him that bored look which meant he was interested but didn't want to admit it. Glancing up, Rodney caught Sheppard's eye, acknowledging the look - half-relief, half-gratitude - that he saw there, then cleared his throat again.
"It's quantum without the math, okay? X always goes first..."
An assortment of plastic, glass and cardboard crunched under Teyla's boots as she surveyed what was left of the game library. Most of the rubble had been shoved aside when the structural engineers had checked out the integrity of the room, but stray game pieces and cards still littered the floor, tossed around by the sea breeze blowing through the blown out windows. The room had been deemed safe and now stood forgotten as the city tried to rebuild itself.
Atlantis' mad flight to its new home planet had left many casualties, the destruction of the game library far from the worst. It seemed almost foolish to worry about this, against all the other losses they had suffered. And yet she had hoped it might have been intact, that something of their former life would have survived into this one. The whole city was still reeling, her team was still reeling, and she had thought that somehow, this might have helped set them back on their feet. Everything was different, now. They needed for some things to stay the same.
She continued to pick her way through the room, able to pick out tokens or pieces from the games her team had gone through. At the far end of the room, under the broken and toppled bookcase that had once been stuffed full of games, lay the remaining pieces of the bulletin board. She carefully picked through the schedules and notes that had been tacked to the board until she finally found two particular abused pieces of paper.
The top page had been torn almost in two, and both were almost crumpled beyond recognition. She unfolded each page, smoothing the edges with utmost care, until she could make out the scratched marks, blocked letters, and sloppy handwriting of her teammates. Slowly, she let the smile creep across her face, warming her as she rose and picked her way back through the rubble and the exit, battered papers in hand.
Below is a list of all the games mentioned, just in case you want to check they exist…
Ancient Sims, Chess, Monopoly, Scrabble, Jenga, Yahtzee, Bop It, Clue/Cluedo, Lintels, Scattegories, Charades, Uno, Twister, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Escape from Atlantis, World of Warcraft, LARP, Pictionary, Boggle, Dream Phone, Nardils, Ta-Ka-Radi, Apples to Apples, Toe Wrestling, Quantum Tic Tac Toe, Cranium, Tiddlywinks
