Challenge response - Project: Colonel Cuddle
Title: Project: Colonel Cuddle
Words: 1500
Spoilers: Chunks of Season 2, and all the way up to and including season three 'Phantoms'.
For
an_kayoh's request -- McKay/Sheppard, Rodney wants to cuddle all the time, John will only do it after sex
A/N: So here’s the thing, here’s my confession.
I. Don’t. Write. Slash. Never have, never will.
I am a confirmed McShep FRIENDshipper, although I do read and thoroughly enjoy McShep slash, because a) most of it is based on a close McShep friendship, b) I have an internal romance quota that must be satiated and the het-ships don’t do anything for me, and c) if I didn’t read it I’d be missing out on some damn fine writing. It’s a case of ‘I read the text, but don’t subscribe to the belief’.
So what was I supposed to do when faced with this challenge, ( a 'blame it on...' challenge) which was so obviously slash? I wasn’t about to renege or start whinging about assignments (because I knew I might get a blatant slash challenge and yet I still signed up), so I’ve skewed it slightly, and made it gen. And crackfic/badfic, in which Rodney channels a 14-year-old girl without the intervention of alien devices.
My apologies to
an_kayoh
for not really getting what she asked for, but the ending is deliberately ambiguous, so think of it as you will.
‘Tis a thin and blurred line I walk, my friends!
*Edit* Being somewhat anal, and having developed a rather keener canonometer since posting this, I offer here a revised version (the original can be found on Wraithbait for posterity's sake. I had Sheppard being the fanon 'preferred son' of Atlantis, able to get laboratory doors to lock with a level of security that Rodney would be unable to crack - by using his mind. There is nothing in canon to suggest that this is true - the strength of his ATA gene only has canon impact with regard to the control chair. Also removed the reference to Rodney and John being best friends
It was 3 am Atlantis Standard Time and Rodney couldn’t sleep.
He was also so bored you could have stuck notices on him.
An hour ago he had suffered the double indignity of being kicked out of the labs and having his number one laptop confiscated before he could transfer the data to the one in his quarters. This had been engineered by a disgruntled Lt Colonel Sheppard, who had then commanded a Marine to guard the door, and not let McKay back in until morning, authorizing him to shot to kill if McKay even tried. The Lt Colonel had definitely been riled at yet again having to play the part of no-nonsense-baby-sitter for the scientist.
Back in his quarters, Rodney idly flipped through his collection of DVDs but nothing grabbed his interest. He opened his laptop and glanced through the files, but found he wasn’t in the mood to work on his Grand Unified Theory or even on his on-going project of squeezing extra juice out of the ZPM. Suddenly his eyes lit upon the link to the closed circuit security feeds, both current and historical. He’d been meaning to delve into the records to satisfy his curiosity about certain events, beyond the cursory accounts given the reports they all sent to the SGC for some time, but had never got around to doing anything about it.
Well, he thought, no time like the present.
He chose a few dates, times and locations at random, and after coming up with nothing interesting decided to try a date, time and location he knew had seen a lot of action whilst he had been elsewhere.
He watched Elizabeth in the control room during the siege as she endured cycles of bad news followed by good, only to be over-taken by the bad again. He watched as once again relief washed over Elizabeth and after half a minute of silent thanks she disappeared out of shot. Maintaining the same timeframe, Rodney changed cameras and watched as she made her way purposefully onto the floor of the Gateroom. There was a brief flash of light in front of her and suddenly Sheppard and three Marines had materialised in the centre of the room. The Marines marched out of view and Elizabeth strode purposefully over to Sheppard before flinging her arms around his shoulders and enveloping him in a fierce hug.
Whoa! Hug? That certainly hadn’t been in any of the reports. Not that it was exactly report material, but still…
Rodney rewound it and watched again.
Wait. Not a hug.
A hug usually entailed participation by both parties, but Sheppard’s body had frozen, only his expression (neatly aimed at the camera) changing.
Rodney couldn’t believe it. Here was Major Matey, the Captain Kirk of the Pegasus Galaxy, getting all startled and confused because Elizabeth had hugged him, and only managing to respond with a stiff tap on the back.
Not a hug. Not a mutual one anyway.
Rodney boggled. What was wrong with the man? What was so difficult about hugging Elizabeth - a beautiful and sexy woman, not to mention one of Sheppard’s closest friends? Sure Rodney had felt awkward when Ford had hugged him after Sheppard had saved their asses by killing off the nanoviruses with a well-timed nuclear explosion, but Ford was a guy, and had been doing an uncanny impression of Tigger at the time.
Elizabeth was most definitely not a guy.
Or Tigger.
Definitely not.
Then something else occurred to him. When had he ever seen Sheppard hug anyone? He’d certainly never been embraced by the man, and the few times Sheppard had voluntarily touched Rodney, it was in the shape of a clap on the shoulder or a cuff on the side of the head. But then of course Rodney was a man too…
But not Tigger.
More like Owl if he thought about it.
He caught himself and made a very deliberate choice not to think about it.
Instead he opened a spreadsheet and began making columns: ‘incident’; ‘why hug?’; ‘potential hugee’; ‘result’; ‘conclusion’ and ‘additional comments’.
Soon the spreadsheet was filling up….
INCIDENT
POTENTIAL HUGEE
WHY HUG?
RESULT
CONCLUSION
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Superwraith
Me
Relief at not dying & thanks for saving his life
No hug
Huh!
At least he let me fly the Puddle Jumper.
Not dying in siege
Elizabeth
Relief at not dying
Pathetic non-hug
None
I would have.
Not dying on Daedalus
Me, Elizabeth
See above
No hug
On Air Force ship -awkward?
Air Force buddies hug. Right?
Not being killed by druggie or caveman
Me
I could have DIED!
No hug
Wants to impress new buddy
But I’m his buddy, already!
Stranded in
hippie land
Glowy woman
Farewell to definitely more-than-just-a-friend
No hug
Embarrassed?
Hard to hug a will-o-the-wisp?
See above
Adopted family
Not seen for 6 months
No hugs
De-ranged
Why would a sane man not want to get up close and semi-personal with Teyla?
Not dying in Trust plot
Adopted family
Congratulations for once again not dying
No hugs
Familiarity breeding contempt?
HUH!
Not dying in sunken puddle jumper
Me
Share body heat with hypothermic team mate who NEARLY DIED
No hug
Too busy flying P J
A ‘glad you didn’t die’ hug too much to ask when back home?
….at which point Rodney realised that the whole issue of Sheppard hugging (and judging by the ‘Potential Hugee’ column, which heavily featured himself, whether singly or collectively) was bringing out his inner 14-year-old-girl a bit too much for his liking. He used the time it took to close his laptop and walk over to his bed to wonder why Sheppard hugging him was so important to him, before he laid down on his stomach and fell into a deep and satisfying sleep.
Over the next few months Rodney mostly forgot about his cuddle fixation, as he was more occupied with dealing with humanised Wraith and trying to stay alive.
However, when the immediate Wraith threat was over (again) Rodney stumbled over the spreadsheet (which in a rare absence of wit he had named ‘Project: Colonel Cuddle’) and his desire to know why Sheppard never hugged anyone flared back into life. This time, Rodney found his curiosity over Sheppard’s behaviour coupled with the strong desire to win a hug from the man. And so Rodney embarked upon his Mission: Impossible.
Rodney used some of Lucius ‘influence potion’ in the hope that he could persuade Sheppard to hug him, but he was thwarted. He was only able to use the liquid to get Sheppard to clean (most of) his room - by which time Sheppard had been given the inoculation - so no hugging potential there, only irritation.
He also felt somewhat peeved that after saving him from the Wraith on Sateda, Ronon had hugged Carson. Mr Testosterone himself had deigned to do it, so what was Sheppard’s problem?
He looked for one after the angst of seeing Sheppard fed upon by a Wraith, and his own heroic efforts to get Sheppard back, but once again, no cigar, no matter how much he hung around Sheppard looking traumatised and needy.
Hugging his sister had been nice (when he’d eventually got round to it) but all Rodney really wanted was the elusive hug from Sheppard, and he was beginning to get somewhat desperate.
So after Sheppard had shot him, and Rodney lay on the hard dirty ground bleeding, he really thought that Sheppard owed him a hug. Frankly, the apology wasn’t cutting it as far as Rodney was concerned and *hello* Sheppard shot him!
After about five minutes of A-grade McKay complaining, Sheppard hissed a demand to know what the hell Rodney’s problem was (other than being shot by his friend).
“Why won’t you hug anyone?” Rodney replied.
“What?”
“You never hug anyone. I want to know why.”
“Rodney...”
“Or I won’t stop talking.”
Sheppard took a few seconds to think the situation through and decided that the prospect of Rodney not shutting up greatly out-weighed revealing the truth.
“Because I only cuddle after sex.” Sheppard explained quietly.
“What?”
“You heard!”
“But a hug and a cuddle…” Rodney trailed off.
“Are close enough. Hugging comes after sex - that’s just how I see it.”
Rodney started to laugh but quickly sobered up when he remembered that he’d promised himself that he would get a hug from Sheppard.
“So, there’s no chance of a…?’ Rodney held his arms out toward Sheppard.
“No!” Sheppard replied vehemently.
“Even though I’m cold, and losing blood because you shot me?!”
“I’m not hugging you McKay!”
“Really only after sex?” Rodney checked again.
“Yeah. Pretty much.” Sheppard replied with a shrug.
Rodney gulped.
THE END