The Best Things in Life are Freeby Smitty
HS AU
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Eventually McKay/Sheppard
Part 7b "I should have brought Ford," Rodney said when he saw the binoculars in Radek's hand. "Ford's stealthy."
"Ah, but you did not want Ford to know you have never bought a condom before," Radek said helpfully.
"Ford's a freshman," Rodney groaned. "Ford has never bought a condom before."
"Maybe no, but you are a senior," Radek said, peering around the corner, "and this entire operation is a testament to our sad lack of social achievement."
"But we are going to excellent colleges," Rodney reminded him. "And studies show that over time, women's desire to marry good-looking men falls in inverse proportions to their desire to marry rich men. And we are going to be rich men."
"You must hope that it is to include marrying bald men," Radek said placidly. "Or that the slope of this supposed learning curve is steeper than the entropic loss of your hair."
"Hey," Rodney protested, lifting a protective hand to his artfully mussed hair. "Just because my father's almost completely -- how do you know he doesn't just shave it? Besides, male pattern baldness is passed down through the mother's side."
"And you have sealed your destiny," Radek declared with great finality. "Or do you mean to tell me that Uncle Martin does not attach his hair by glue every morning?"
"Okay, fine," Rodney huffed. "I'm doomed to be bald by the time I'm fifty. I'll have won at least my first Nobel prize by then. Also, I think it's worth noting that we're here because I am going to get laid tonight by a very beautiful woman."
"You are getting lucky with the school slut," Radek corrected. "And you do not want to catch anything unpleasant."
"Can we just go in?" Rodney said.
Radek made an elaborate gesture inviting Rodney to lead the way. Rodney drew himself up, rounded the corner, and jerked open the door to the drugstore just in time to save a small, gray-haired woman the trouble of doing it herself.
"Oh, Rodney! Thank you!" Rodney stopped short and Radek bounced off his back. Mrs. Beckett smiled beatifically and exited the drugstore through the door Rodney was holding open. "And Radek, too! How nice to see you both. Are you running errands for your mothers, dear?"
"I -- er -- um -- yes -- thank you. I mean -- " Rodney stuttered helplessly. He sucked at lying and he was pretty sure his face was broadcasting, I'm going to have sex tonight! loud and clear to Carson Beckett's mother. She used to serve them shortbread cookies and milky tea when Rodney and Radek had played poker with Carson in her basement. But some time in their junior year, Carson had dropped physics and denounced the hard -- really hard, anyway -- sciences, and somehow achieved an artificial level of cool that set him strata above Rodney and Radek, though still significantly lower than the jocks.
"It is a fine morning to be out and productive," Radek said in yet another display of saving Rodney's ass. Rodney sagged against the edge of the door. All mothers loved Radek. He was home free, as long as he kept his mouth shut and smiled a lot.
"Early to bed and early to rise," Mrs. Beckett added. "Carson's father loved that saying. A harder-working man there never was." She misted up and Rodney and Radek shifted nervously. Carson's father had died years ago, long before either of them had met the family and Mrs. Beckett's continued devotion to the man made them both feel a little weird. "Well. Are you both going to this dance tonight?"
"Er," Radek said.
"Yes!" Rodney cut in. "Yes, we are. Both of us."
Mrs. Beckett ignored Radek's sulky glare and beamed at both of them. "That's wonderful! Carson will be there, too, of course." She paused meaningfully. "Maybe I'll see you both over again sometime soon?"
"Ah," Rodney said.
"Well," she said. "Here I am holding you up. Do have fun tonight and tell your mothers I said hello!"
"Of course," Radek said as Rodney said, "All right," and they both waved until Mrs. Beckett had turned the corner and then they rushed inside the store, nearly getting stuck as they both tried to fit through the doorway at once.
"Oh, my God," Rodney said once the door had closed behind them. "I don't think I want to have sex anymore."
Radek looked a little queasy. "Perhaps it is not good to think on right now," he agreed. "But you are telling fibs, saying I will go to this dance."
"Oh, please," Rodney said, picking up one of the baskets stacked inside the door. "You have to come along, for moral support if nothing else. Besides, Elizabeth Weir will be there."
"With her new boyfriend," Radek sulked.
"But she'll look hot," Rodney said. "And you can sit on the bleachers and ogle her."
"Yes, because that is so much fun," Radek said, trailing Rodney to the medicine aisle.
"We've been doing it for two and a half years," Rodney said, throwing cotton balls and band-aids into the basket. "Why break a tradition like that?"
"It is a sucky tradition," Radek said. "Why are you buying foot cream? Since when do you suffer from athlete's foot?"
"Because if I buy enough stuff, and just happen to have a box of condoms in there with everything else," Rodney explained, "it's not like I'm walking up to the register and saying, 'Hi, I'm having sex tonight. Can you ring these up for me?'"
Radek snorted but conceded to Rodney's obvious brilliance. Rodney added a few other choice items and then took a deep breath and marched up to the condom display.
"Okay, I didn't think there'd be so many," he admitted.
"Perhaps you should begin with basic model," Radek suggested, his eyes round behind his glasses as he gazed as the choices.
"Yeah, if I knew -- hey! You're supposed to be keeping lookout!"
Radek jumped and dragged his eyes away from the shelf. "I am looking out!" he protested, spinning around, his neck craned to see over the top shelves. "What am I looking for?"
"Oh, I don't know," Rodney said, now fully distracted from the condoms. "Maybe people we know? Any of my mother's friends would be a good start and maybe also our teachers and right, can you imagine if Katie Brown walked in on this?"
"I see your point," Radek said, peering around the corner and jumping back from the stack of feminine products. "There is no need to shout."
"There's a need to shout when people don't listen," Rodney said, choosing a box at random and throwing it into his basket, then arranging the bag of cotton balls to cover it. "Okay, let's go."
"This is all very James Bond," Radek remarked as they made their way circuitously to the front of the store, avoiding any aisle with actual people in it and pausing to feign interest in various products along the way. "Except that you are stealthy like a rhinoceros."
"Shut up," Rodney said. He surveyed the open registers and chose one with a middle-aged male cashier. He leaned against the counter and threw a pack of mint-flavored gum in with the rest of his purchases as the man started to run the items across the price scanner. Rodney lowered his voice and grinned smugly at Radek. "My great plan worked, didn't it?"
Radek lifted his eyebrows and shrugged in concession.
"Huh," the cashier said and lifted his intercom speaker. "I need a price check for a three-pack of Trojan condoms on register seven," he said, the words echoing through the entire store.
Rodney covered his face. "I hate my life," he said, but his words were muffled by his hands and Radek's peals of laughter.
"Thanks, Mr. Bayard," John said to the elderly man, "but I told you I can't accept tips."
"Keep it, sonny," old Mr. Bayard said. "Use it to save up for college!"
"Uh, thanks," John said, looking at the quarter in his palm. "But really, it's all right."
He felt like death warmed over but he was done for the morning. He could take his cottony mouth and pounding head home for some orange juice -- he actually kind of wished he knew how to make the stuff Rodney had given him; it was vile but it had worked -- and a run. Mr. Bayard had closed the door firmly so John put the quarter in the pocket his other tips -- tips were certainly permitted but John always tried to refuse Mr. Bayard, who was on Social Security -- and headed back to the drugstore.
He went around to the loading dock, taking the stairs two at a time into the warehouse. There was a back door that went straight to the inventory room, so he shrugged off the insulated bag with the drugstore name on the front that kept any medication cool until he got it where it was going, and found the manager. John picked up his paycheck for the past fortnight from the manager's office and went back out the back, tossing off a casual salute to the men unloading the huge delivery trucks. He slipped on his sunglasses against the painful glare of the midday sun and retrieved his skateboard from the wall just inside the rolling garage doors, and then he was on his way.
Elizabeth's house looked the same as always, bright and neat and white. The Nova sat in the driveway and Simon sat on the front porch swing. John flipped his skateboard into his hand and walked slowly up the driveway.
"Feeling better?" Simon asked when he was in earshot.
John shrugged. "It was no big thing," he lied.
"That's a hell of bruise," Simon said, standing up. "Make sure you get some ice on it. I'm sure you're looking for Elizabeth." He turned to go inside.
"Yeah," John said. "But hey, wait."
Simon paused. "What?"
"Okay, look," John said, hating himself a little. "I don't know why, but Elizabeth seems to like you. So I think we should agree to disagree on, well, everything. Except one thing."
Simon stood between the porch swing and the front door and waited.
"Elizabeth," John said. "Treat her right. Because if you hurt her, I'll have to come kick your ass. Okay?"
Simon nodded. "Fair enough," he said. "I don't want to see Elizabeth hurt any more than you do." The challenge in his voice was implicit.
John nodded. "Send her on out, then," he said resignedly. "I've got some 'splainin' to do."
"Don't be stupid," Rodney said, struggling with his necktie. "You have to go."
"No, no, I do not," Radek said decidedly.
"Oh, come on," Rodney insisted. "Moral support at the very least!"
"There is no hope for your morals," Radek said. "I am not going to the dance without a date and look foolish merely for the sake of your insecurity."
"Hey! There's no merely about it. This is a very big deal," Rodney said. "I am crossing the threshold of manhood, here. I'd like to think that as my best friend, you'll be standing by."
"In case of emergency?" Radek asked.
"As my second, if you will," Rodney said breezily.
"Your second?" Radek asked in disgust. "To sleep with your date should you pass out from sheer terror? No, thank you. She is not my type."
"I wasn't inviting you to sleep with her," Rodney said, frowning as the skinny end of his tie ended up longer than the wide end again. "And there will be no passing out. Besides, Vala is everyone's type -- hot, and willing. I mean, we're talking about the threshold of manhood, not fulfilling the American aspiration of buying a quaint little house and procreating rapidly."
Radek held up his hands in defeat and sat heavily on the edge of Rodney's bed. "It is just odd," he said finally. "That you seem to like John so much better, yet you dump him to sleep with Vala."
"See, why are you saying that?" Rodney asked, giving up on his tie. "There's no causality there. I didn't -- I just -- look, okay, I thought you didn't even like John. You were the one who was all bent out of shape when I made that bet."
"Since when do you care what I think?" Radek asked.
Rodney rolled his eyes and made a sound of disbelief. "Since you go on about it until you're blue in the face," he said. "Look. Vala's maybe not the kind of girl you want to spend the rest of your life bound to by some stupid piece of jewelry, but it's not like I have to wait for true love or anything. I mean, not to be crass, but she's uh, pretty much a sure thing."
"That is just it," Radek said. "Yes, you can sleep with Vala and it does not have to be true love. But John is just as willing and maybe love, maybe not, but you have liked him for as long as I have known you and if it does not matter who you have the sex with, why do you not do it with the person you actually like?"
"Okay, let me put this in terms even you can understand," Rodney said. "If Elizabeth came up to you at the dance and said let's have hot sex, but then Ally Sheedy comes up and says the same thing, who would you go for? You'd go for Ally Sheedy because you know Elizabeth has a boyfriend across the room and you know she's going back to him. Right?"
"I would choose Elizabeth," Radek said quietly. "Because she asked and because there is nothing I would be able to deny her."
Rodney frowned at the tie in his hands and thought of John's stricken expression, of the shock on his face and how he had sounded so angry and confused. "Look," he said carefully. "If I -- if I maybe didn't sleep with Vala tonight. And if, maybe tomorrow or -- or later this week, I went to talk to John." He looked at Radek quickly. Radek's features were softening, his eyes not so squinty and accusing anymore. He looked like the guy who had said, so long ago, So you like boys as well as girls? Why should I care? "Okay, I'm not promising anything, but -- It would really mean a lot to me if you were at the dance tonight." He hooked the tie around his neck and held out his hand. "What do you say?"
"Fine," Radek capitulated, ignoring Rodney's hand and snatching the tie away. He slung it around his own neck and started tying the knot. "I will go. I will stand on the wall and look like loser, but I will go."
"I knew you'd see it my way, once you started thinking," Rodney said, feeling oddly thick in the throat. He took the tie back from Radek and tightened it under his collar.
Radek snorted. "At least," he said, with an air of mean satisfaction, "since I have no date, I will not have to make fool of myself trying to dance."
"Yeah, small blessings, huh?" Rodney said and then froze. Terrifying images of himself in the middle of a crowded gymnasium, trying to Walk Like an Egyptian flashed in his mind. "Oh, my God," Rodney said, dread taking root in his stomach. "I don't know how to dance."
John frowned at his reflection as he knotted his tie in a half-Windsor and smoothed it down the front of his shirt. His face was still swollen and discolored and the side of his mouth was puffy. The cut inside stung whenever he tried to eat but he couldn't keep his tongue away from it.
He shrugged on the suit jacket and straightened the lapels before buttoning it up. There was nothing he could do about his face but otherwise he looked nice enough. Katie and her mom were undoubtedly going to make a fuss but it was one night and he could endure for one night. He walked into the living room where his dad was reading the paper and spread both arms.
"So?" he asked. "How do I look?"
Colonel Sheppard peered over the top of the sports page. "Like you got sacked and then put on a suit," he said. He set the newspaper aside and stood up. "C'mere." He reached for John's tie, tugging the careful knot apart and turning John around. "Like this," he said, retying it into a less twisted knot.
"Thanks," John said, touching the tie with one hand. His father had coached him endlessly on tying a bow tie the previous spring because he had been sent to Europe for prom weekend and couldn't be there to backseat drive the process himself.
"So who's the lucky girl?" the Colonel asked, sitting back down on the couch.
John turned around. "Her name's Katie Brown," he said. "She's -- " He shrugged.
"Not Elizabeth?"
"Elizabeth is in town," John said, jealousy stabbing at him. "With her boyfriend."
Colonel Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "I hear he's a real putz," he said. "Maybe he won't last?"
John shrugged. "It doesn't matter," he said. "I told you, she and I broke up a couple months ago. I'm just taking this girl because she doesn't have a date."
"That's it?" the Colonel asked. "That's the only reason?"
Because I know how it feels to be dumped by Rodney, John didn't say. "Pretty much," he said instead.
"That's a pretty shitty reason," Colonel Sheppard said. "If you don't find a reason to enjoy her company, it's going to be one very long night and she's going to notice." He was about to say something else when the doorbell rang and then rang again only seconds later. "I'll get it," the Colonel said, standing up and crossing the room. He jerked the door open to reveal Rodney McKay standing on the front step, hand raised and poised to knock on the door.
"Okay, look," he started before realizing that it was the Colonel and not John at the door. "Oh. Colonel Sheppard. Um. Good to see you here."
"C'mon in, Rodney," the Colonel said, opening the door and stepping aside. "John's in the living room."
John made a solid effort to drop through the floor but it was a no go.
"Okay, good, thanks," Rodney said in a hurry. He poked his head through the doorway and John felt his chest tighten up. Rodney's hair was impossibly tousled and his eyes were wide and panicked in his face. "Um. Hi," he said when he saw John. "Okay, look," he said quickly before John had a chance to answer. "I know you're still mad at me but I'm having an emergency and I need your help."
John didn't trust himself to speak so he just raised both eyebrows instead. Rodney visibly braced for impact.
"I don't know how to dance," he said quickly, "and you're the only one I know who can teach me."
"Oh, this is going to be good," the Colonel said, sitting down on the couch and shook out his newspaper.
"You want me to teach you how to dance?" John echoed, painfully aware of the Colonel's presence. "Right now?"
"I know, it sounds crazy but I just realized. I'm going to a dance and I don't know how to dance. I am going to make a fool of myself and the entire gym is going to laugh at me."
John sighed. Rodney's bouts of social anxiety had somehow gone from annoying to a little heart-rending and John couldn't seem to deny him anything. "Okay," he said. "But I don't have a lot of time so pay attention."
Rodney's face lit up and John forced down the urge to shake him. Why couldn't he have looked that happy when John had kissed him? Why couldn't John make him look like that for something other than dancing?
"You don't have to teach me to breakdance or anything," Rodney said hastily. "I'm not sure there's quite enough time for me to pick up the thing where I spin on my head."
There was a choking sound and a rustle of newsprint. John glared murderously at the headline of his father's newspaper before turning back to Rodney.
"Okay, no," he said. "No breakdancing. Look, for the fast dances, just look at what the people around you are doing. Take your cues off -- " Off Vala, he didn't say because that was just asking for it. "-- off the girls and try to stay with the music. You know how to count beats, right?"
"Of course," Rodney said. "Any idiot -- "
"Right," John said loudly because his father was both tone-deaf and had no natural rhythm. John's mother had taught them both to dance and John was the only one still benefiting from her lessons. "So what you really want to know is what to do on the slower songs and -- okay, so traditionally the guy leads and the girl follows. So -- put out your arms."
Rodney thrust both arms straight outward.
"Okay," John said, imagining Rodney dancing with Vala and Vala pressing herself up against him. "You want to put a hand on her waist like this -- " He grabbed Rodney's wrist and pushed his hand against John's side. "And hold her other hand."
Rodney hesitated and flushed a little and then took John's hand carefully, as if John might snatch it away and punch him. John felt Rodney's thumb on his palm and bit his lip.
"You want to keep at least six inches between you," he said, because he wasn't above a little vindictiveness and heard his father swallow a laugh behind the paper. "Now, you move forward, and the girl moves back with the opposite foot."
Rodney stepped forward too fast and John, unused to following, didn't move in time.
"Sorry," Rodney said, dropping John's hand and wiping his own on the seam of his pants. "You were in the way."
"I know, I know, c'mon," John said, holding up his hand for Rodney to take again.
"Maybe you need some music," the Colonel suggested, standing up. "I'll put on a record."
"Oh, great," John muttered, not loudly enough to be heard. The expression on Rodney's face was pretty comical but he wasn't in the mood to laugh. They shifted awkwardly, not touching and not looking at each other, as the Colonel shuffled through his record collection and made various noises of rejection and approval.
"Here we go," he decided, sliding the vinyl from its sleeve and setting it carefully on the turntable. He adjusted the needle arm and dropped it onto the record.
John let Rodney take his hand as the opening strains of the song filled the room.
"Dad," he groaned as Rodney took a deep breath and stepped forward, stomping on his foot for the second time. "Ow! Wait 'til I tell you to go," he snapped irritably.
"The music started!" Rodney protested.
"This isn't music," John argued.
"The Commodores were a very popular band," the Colonel told them archly, returning to his place on the couch. "And better than that noise you listen to all day. This song was a number one hit in 1978."
"Oh, well that should tell you something," John grumbled as Lionel Ritchie sang Once...twice...three times a lady... from the turntable.
"You were nine years old," the Colonel said nostalgically. "And you liked to dance to Foreigner's Hot-Blooded."
"OKAY!" John said as loudly as possible. "Let's try this again. And try not to step on my foot this time. Kind of angle yourself to the side."
"Right, right," Rodney muttered and stepped forward before John was ready. John stepped back anyway and found Rodney much closer to him than he'd expected and stepped back. Rodney didn't follow. "Can I step with the other foot now?" Rodney asked.
"Knock yourself out," John said tiredly. He shifted his foot back slightly as Rodney stepped, just to keep things even, and said, "Try stepping in time with the music."
Rodney did have a good sense of rhythm and could follow the music well but he was stiff and awkward. John wanted to stop him and squeeze his shoulders and tell him to slow down and relax and to pull him into the music and demonstrate what he needed to do, but his dad was sitting right there, right behind them, and John was suddenly very aware of the lines he could never cross and all the things he could never say to his father, out loud or otherwise.
"Okay, look," he said quickly, pulling away from Rodney. "I have to go pick up Katie soon and -- " He cut himself off when Rodney's mouth fell open.
"You're taking Katie to Homecoming?" he asked, stricken.
"Yeah," John said, mystified and a little angry. Rodney obviously hadn't wanted to take Katie, judging from the state he'd found Katie in at the library. In fact, John's only reason (and a shitty one at that, as his father had pointed out) for taking Katie was because she was so upset that Rodney wouldn't go with her.
"But I dated Katie!" Rodney protested and John's temper flared.
"Yeah, well, I slept with Vala!" he shot back.
Rodney's face somehow managed to look even more stricken than before. "You -- you did?" he faltered.
"All right," the Colonel declared, standing up and folding his paper. "I'll be in the garage composing my resignation from fatherhood speech if anyone needs me."
"Fuck," John spat before the Colonel was all the way out of earshot. "Dammit, Rodney!"
"What? I mean, I knew Vala was, um, well, I've heard, I mean. I just didn't realize you...."
"Just -- " John rubbed his hand over his forehead. "Vala's given more rides than a Greyhound bus," he said. "It wasn't like it was anything special. Look, just get out of here, okay? I've got to go get Katie."
"Yeah, okay, fine," Rodney said, edging out of the living room. "I'll, um, see you at the dance?"
John didn't answer. Instead, he turned and went into the kitchen to retrieve the corsage he'd gotten Katie from the refrigerator. He heard the front door open and close and leaned against the kitchen counter, wondering how he'd gotten to this point. He should be getting ready to pick up Teyla, or maybe, if she hadn't been carting that creep around, Elizabeth, and spending the night hanging out with Ronon and Mitch and Ford, spiking the punch and sneaking drinks in their cars and going to Carlson Point to make out.
The garage door opened and closed and John's father stepped into the kitchen. "I don't want to know," he said, holding up both hands. "I just came in to wish you good luck tonight." The you're going to need it remained unspoken.
"Thanks," John said. He turned the plastic flower box in his hands. "I, uh, I didn't ask Katie to make Rodney mad. She was upset that he was going with someone else and -- " He shrugged. "It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time."
The Colonel nodded and pulled something out of his pocket. "Here," he said, tossing it to John.
It clinked as John caught it and he opened his hand to find the keys to the De Lorean. "Really?" he asked, stroking his thumb over the curve of the ignition key.
"Really," his father said. "Just...don't hit anything, okay? And here." He held out a five.
"What's this for?"
"If you're going to be sleeping with girls -- " the Colonel started, flushing a little.
John groaned, flushing a little himself. "Dad! I'm -- don't worry about it, okay?"
"Hey!" The Colonel held up his hands again. "I'm too young and handsome for grandkids just yet, okay?"
"Okay," John said, pocketing the money. He had no intention of sleeping with Katie and Rodney had been just a complete jackass and he wasn't even sure -- but he wasn't about to tell his father any of that either. "Er. Thanks. I think."
"Yeah. No problem." They stood together in the kitchen, not looking at each other, not talking. "Right. So. You'd better get out of here. You don't want to hold that girl up."
"No," John agreed. "I mean, right. Um. Bye."
"Bye."
John walked into the garage and touched the hood of the De Lorean.
Here we go, he thought. All over again.
Part Eight-A