When Rodney was seven, he turned to his mother and asked, "Are you stupid, or what?"
She smacked him upside the head and sent him to bed without supper, which, as it turns out, is how they discovered that he was hypoglycemic. And allergic to citrus. It was also how they found out that he was a bona-fide genius-- stamped, sealed, and delivered, as it were-- so things really could've turned out a whole hell of a lot worse. Like with him dying. Or brain-damaged. Or dying. Or normal.
This has pretty much been the chorus to the crappy pop song of his life ever since.
Hypothesis: Life is a crappy pop song. Life is a crappy Swedish pop song sung by a blond guy named Sven which features a catchy dance craze that makes Rodney look like even more of a geeky white guy than he actually is.
Rodney hates crappy pop songs. Life, apparently, hates Rodney right back.
*
So:
"Aliens made us do it," Rodney says (and maybe he yelps, a little, and screams). "Aliens! C! C! C! C!"
John mumbles. Strokes Rodney's stomach, mouths his neck, and begins reaching down Rodney's shorts and toward his cock.
"Stop!" Rodney cries, "No, stop, stop, no no no. Bad Colonel!"
John sits up. Makes his ("not at all cute, not at all cute, not at all cute," Rodney tells himself) confused face. "Explain," he says, and it's very obviously the Air Force Colonel talking, rather than the naked guy sprawled out across more than his fair share of Rodney's bed.
Which somehow makes it easier for Rodney to blurt, "Aliensmadeusdoit."
"Aliens? What?"
"Well, without precisely calibrated scientific equipment, the likes of which not even the Ancients ever developed, I won't be able to prove anything conclusively, but I've got a pretty decent grip on the theoretical principles involved and I'm 99.865% sure that aliens, or, rather, Atlantis itself, made us-"
"-do it?"
"Right. So you should go now."
"I should-?"
"I am not a whore," Rodney declares, "Atlantis is not my pimp, and you will be out of my quarters by the time I get out of the shower." He climbs out of bed and walks (slowly, carefully, calmly) toward the bathroom. He does not turn back. He's way too smart for that particular cliché.
*
Rodney wakes up, scratches his stomach, and rolls back over. It is the third day after the twenty-seventh time he's almost died this year. His room smells sort of like sour milk and burnt coffee after the antiseptic of the infirmary, and he probably shouldn't be sniffing his pillow like it's a snort of really good cocaine, but he is.
"Fuck," Rodney mumbles. His pillow tastes funny, like that weird cheese his sister was always raving about, and he spits and scrapes the cotton and lint from his tongue. He half-rolls, half-falls, onto the floor. "Fuck," he says, on automatic repeat. "Stupid cold Ancient stupid morning fuck" all the way to the shower and under the spray and halfway through his morning wank. He opens his eyes only after orgasm; he's washing his hair, and shampoo burns through the retina and onto the cornea and he's blind, he must be blind, which is when he remembers to think the lights on. Everything's blurry, and it hurts, it really does, but he can see so it's definitely not a worst case scenario here. He rushes through the rest of his shower, dresses, and heads for the mess before anything else can go wrong.
His brain finally catches up to the rest of him halfway through the bi-weekly early morning science meeting. Zelenka thinks they can manufacture some sort of water-powered ZPM charger ("Really?" Kavanaugh asks, the brainless idiot). He's wrong, of course, and his calculations are laughable; this doesn't seem to be stopping him from nattering on and on about his so-called brilliant plan.
Rodney, who has been to Novosibirsk but never Prague, simply says, "da, da" and waves his hands around because, really, did no one ever explain the meaning of important to Zelenka?
"- then we need only to-"
"Important," Rodney interrupts, "noun meaning important. Meaning the opposite of this. Do you want a dictionary? I'm sure I-- meaning someone else, someone far less important than I-- could track one down for you." Which leads to thoughts of translators and translator microbes and then Uhuru's there in his head, all sleek and saying "Oh, Captain," which is when Rodney whips around to face the whiteboard, wiping any hint of drool from his chin, and manages to knock not only the dry-erase markers but the board itself to the floor with a mighty crash. Kavanaugh is laughing.
*
When Rodney was thirty-something, he was exiled to Siberia. Literally. When he was thirteen, he'd read about the black mariahs and Akhmatova and Solzhenitsyn, and said to himself, "Well, at least that'll never happen to me."
Hubris. Pride. Whatever you want to call it, Rodney's always had it in spades.
When Rodney's fifty-three, he'll be passed over for the Nobel Prize. He'll get drunk, pass out in his hotel room; he'll continue to not win the Nobel for the rest of his life, and he will never manage to not care. When Rodney is twenty-seven years in the grave, And It Rose from the Sea: A Story of the Atlantis Expedition will make him a star. They will print tee-shirts with his face on them, though the Sheppard ones will out-sell them five-to-one. At least they'll never get around to marketing the oft-mentioned action figures.
At thirty-eight, Rodney McKay saves Atlantis (again). And then he passes out. He wakes up three days later, and demands to know who the hell fucked things up this time.
*
He wakes up, naked and warm, and burrows under the covers. He decides to sleep in until at least seven. Possibly even eight. His resolution lasts until the caffeine withdrawal begins, his hands twitchy and shaky, and why won't Carson just listen to him and implant that automatic caffeine dispenser under his skin already?
He showers quickly, dresses. Trips over his shoes during his hunt for clean socks. John laughs. He's lounging on Rodney's bed, wearing nothing but a pair of black socks, and laughing like he's watching Monty Python.
"Always look on the bright side of life," Rodney hums. "I hate you, you know," he says. He's not sure whether he's talking to himself or to John.
"No you don't."
"I really, really-" And then John's right there, in Rodney's personal space, tongue in Rodney's mouth, and Rodney tries to, but can't, continue his diatribe (because, apparently, "ufh, lu, hay, fu" is just far too complicated for certain idiotic muscleheads to understand).
When he's finally out the door, dressed and wearing his shoes without socks, he decides that, if he's going to lose his mind (an option that's looking exponentially more likely for every second he spends in the Pegasus Galaxy), at least he's getting laid. He waits for ten minutes, until his breathing's evened out and his cheeks are cool to the touch, but John never leaves his quarters. Rodney heads for breakfast. The not-eggs are simultaneously rubbery and too dry, and John never even bothers to show up.
*
A confession: Rodney doesn't actually remember the first time he fucked John (or maybe John fucked him, whatever, the details aren't important). This, Rodney has concluded, means that one of the following five things must be true:
a) It was really very bad. Painful bad. So bad, in fact, that Rodney's subconscious was forced to block the memory entirely. Rodney discounts this theory pretty quickly, as he does remember their later, uh, assignations, and the sex is definitely way up there on his list of best sex ever in the history of the life of Rodney McKay. Plus, you know, hello? Not really so much with sex ever being truly horrible.
b) They were drunk. Very drunk. Possibly up there in alcohol poisoning territory, so maybe they've actually died and this is some version of that 40 virgins heaven thing (not that Rodney believes in God, or heaven, or any of that mystical mumbo-jumbo, but still).
c) Aliens made them do it, and then proceeded to wipe Rodney's mind (and possibly John's, of course, though Rodney has never built up the nerve to ask whether or not John remembers what happened). Somehow their subconscious minds did some sort of psychological sense-memory thing, thus driving them to try things on their own. (Note: ask Heightmeyer for possible voodoo explanation. Note 2: make it hypothetical. Note 3: use Zelenka and Beckett as examples. Note 4: ignore notes 1-3 and look it up on the city-wide intranet.)
d) Inept coworkers and crazy Marilyn Manson wannabe aliens have finally driven Rodney insane. He doesn't think he's actually losing his mind, but as a scientist he can't ignore the possibility. (And, its like they say, a true madman never realizes he's actually batshit insane, right?)
e) There is no E. He really needs to think up an E; Rodney's pretty sure it's the key to cracking this thing wide open.
*
John is in Rodney's bed, hair peeking out from the covers, and Rodney sits on the edge and watches. John snores when he's sleeping on his back; Rodney pushes and pokes him until the noise stops. John tastes like salt and skin and sweat. John makes funny chipmunk noises during sex, ones Rodney could never have imagined, even in his most explicit fantasies, which is how Rodney knows this isn't some whacked-out Ancient tech-induced hallucination (or, you know, the totally circumstantial evidence he points to when trying to convince himself thereof).
Rodney takes off his shoes, his pants, his shirt. He crawls into bed and curls into John's warmth.
Falls asleep almost instantaneously.
He wakes up the next morning, and it's suddenly all far too clear: the Conehead Aliens on that orange dustbowl planet were nice, friendly, and didn't try to kill anyone. Of course they had some sort of nefarious purpose. They're intergalactic porn dealers! Or at least intragalactic ones, or porn directors or just porn connoisseurs. Rodney has to force himself not to (cry) throw up. Instead, he possibly freaks out a little bit and breaks up with John. A little bit.
*
Rodney's first real girlfriend broke up with him over pizza and beer and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He missed the end of the game, threw up on his favorite pillow, and broke the mix tape she made him (which was actually pretty good, full of things like Lou Reed and the Flying Burrito Brothers and Elvis Costello, but who needs that kind of constant reminder of what a horrible boyfriend you apparently are?). He vowed never to love again.
(Rodney realizes, now, years later, that he may have acted a bit like a teenage girl then. Not that he actually cares about stupid things like arbitrarily designated gender roles or anything.)
Of course, it actually turned out for the best: without Susan around to distract him from his ("very important, in the, oh, grand scheme of the entire fucking cosmos!") work, he finished his degree approximately 3.2 times faster than he would have had she properly appreciated him. He slept with at least ten more people, ate twice the fried chicken, and drank far superior beer without her there to insist on Coors Lite.
Hypothesis: When life hands you lemons, Rodney McKay goes into anaphylactic shock while everyone else sits around drinking lemonade. Life is one big lemonade stand. Rodney is always nanoseconds away from an excruciatingly painful death.
*
His office is suddenly the set of a particularly bad after-school special: The Intervention of Rodney McKay, PhD. Zelenka, Elizabeth, and that charlatan Beckett are waiting for him. The door snicks closed behind him, Rodney's brain is repeating unlock open unlock open open, and it feels like prison. Like being locked up underground for days, for weeks, and no cavalry on its way.
"Rodney," Zelenka says. "We are worried. You have been, been distracted, yes? And-"
Rodney, who has been to Siberia but never Czech Republic (or whatever the hell they're calling it these days), simply nods and gestures distractedly because, really, did no one ever explain the meaning of mind your own fucking business to Zelenka?
"Dr. McKay?" Elizabeth asks, and he thinks this might not be her first attempt. "Are you alright?"
"Of course I'm not," he says, "because this is a complete and utter waste of, actually, not only my time but of the very oxygen we're all breathing because, oh yes, not your business. Whether or not I'm distracted. Because I've saved this place fifteen times so far today, and, oh, yes, you haven't. So if that's all, I think we should just declare this meeting over so I can get on with making sure we don't all die due to Kavanaugh's gross ineptitude."
Which is when Sheppard slinks in, all just rolled out of bed mussed and armed to the teeth. He smiles, and Rodney growls. Zelenka seems to think he'll find something of actual scientific interest by studying whatever mutant subspecies of streptococcus bacteria are living under his fingernails, and Carson looks everywhere but at Rodney.
Rodney thinks, "You can't always get what you want." "Fuck," he says. "How dare you?"
*
Colonel Sheppard is humming (and Rodney really wishes he didn't know this, but he does, because the man has the worst taste in music and Rodney has been subjected to all of it during the time they've known each other) Lynard Skynard. Rodney, who has been to Antarctica but never Alabama, rolls his eyes. He has one hour to save the city from certain annihilation, and "That is so not helping, Colonel."
"Bah, bah, Balabama," John sings. Then, hands up, I surrender, "Sorry, sorry. It's just, you do know what you're doing here, right? I mean, no offense, but."
But: offense certainly taken. "Child's play," Rodney says, "if you're not, oh, a mentally deficient child incapable of, say, a simple 15 piece jigsaw puzzle." (What he is thinking is completely different, made up primarily of panicked noises and screaming and "oh no oh no oh no" and even more panicked noises, but it is also "oh, like this, and then this, and, oh, yes, like this," so:)
"Right," Zelenka says. "If we-"
"-and my calculations show that-"
"Yes. Good."
"Right."
"So, I'll just go tell Elizabeth you've got this all under control then?" Sheppard asks, of all things, as he practically runs out of the labs. Soldiers. All talk and, okay, some pretty decent amount of action too. Rodney turns around, pokes at the nearest console. His tongue is bleeding.
*
Rodney likes to think that he's the smartest person anywhere, everywhere, and that not even the Ancients would've been able to keep up with him (granted, okay, they're technologically more advanced, but Rodney's talking pure intellect here, which he has in more than spades). It's his not-so-secret mission to graph the IQs of everyone on Atlantis, thus proving to everyone else that he really is the smartest man on the planet, but even his late-night hobby of hacking into personnel files hasn't provided him with the necessary data. He's suggested to Weir on multiple occasions that routine intelligence testing be a requirement for everyone at the SGC, but she tends to laugh him off with an "oh, Rodney" like he's fucking twelve years old and smearing peanut butter and jam all over the kitchen.
Which never actually happened. Just to be clear. (And, if it did, it was only because he couldn't find a pencil, and he was this close to solving for Q, where Q equals happiness and also world peace and unicorns.)
So, as the smartest person on this world and any other, it's no surprise that Rodney finds himself alone most nights, working or wanking or both at once. But tonight, he and the Colonel ("call me John, or I'll, I'll. I'll make you watch Back to the Future with me!") are drinking a bottle (or maybe it's two, Rodney's vision's a bit blurry and he's not quite sure) of the moonshine ("hee, mooooonshine," they howl) they've been brewing in the botany labs.
John tastes like alcohol and sour apples all over, and Rodney can't quite stop himself from asking, "What, what, what?"
*
When he wakes up in John's quarters, naked and with hair between his teeth, he doesn't freak out, exactly, in precisely the same way he wouldn't freak out were he to wake up in a field of citrus (because he'd be dead) or tied up in an Genii prison cell (because he'd be dead) or in the infirmary (because he'd be too busy yelling at Carson).
What he does is:
a) He screams.
b) He closes his eyes.
c) He opens his eyes, turns to his left, and, yes, that's John's head on his shoulder. John's bizarre hair, John's half-open mouth, John's drool. Rodney panics then, thinking, "oh, no, C!" just as his head begins to pound and he realizes that his mouth is dry and he thinks he's going to be sick. So, it's not Atlantis, then; just your ordinary, run of the mill, hangover of death and dismemberment.
Rodney closes his eyes and ("manfully!") passes out a little bit.
*
When Rodney was an undergrad, he, like every other undergraduate student ever in the history of the universe, experimented with alcohol and the occasional recreational drug (it was only the once, and he didn't really like it all that much because, really, all he remembers is eating too much and waking up with a killer headache and that's basically exactly the same thing that happens when he gets drunk so). So, when Rodney was younger and his hair wasn't thinning, he'd sometimes drink too much. End of amusing anecdote.
*
The next time he wakes up in John's bed is easier, if only because he's already done it once so far today (not to mention the 7.5 times before Rodney freaked out, a little, and dumped John, and isn't it good that John's appallingly bad at following orders for someone in the military?), and things are almost always easier the second time around. Also, he can open his eyes this time, and move his head, and, okay, John is doing this thing with his tongue on Rodney's cock that's like nuclear fission or maybe even gravity itself, and Rodney is coming, he's fucking coming, and this is so completely the best way to start the day ever.
"Good morning," John says, smug as can be, "Coffee?"
"Uh."
"So that's, what, a no? Are you sure? Because I just got this really awesome French Roast, and."
"Shu-" Rodney says. "Fuh-kyou."
"So, yes then?" John has a French Press in his quarters-- which, when did that happen? because it is wrong, wrong, wrong that Rodney wasn't the very first person to know-- and his tongue sticks out of his mouth as he grinds the beans, like it's really important (which it is) and he needs to concentrate (which he does). Rodney snorts. He could get used to this.
"So," John says.
"So."
John makes the coffee, which actually turns out to be pretty good. They don't talk, really, except about science fiction ("Wait, what, you, that was a Doctor Who reference, Colonel!") ("John.") ("But Daleks! You're just a big secret geek in jock's clothing! I can't wait to tell-") ("No one. You can't wait to tell no one at all, or I will kill you so that no one will ever find your body.") ("Huh. So who's your favorite Doctor: Tom Baker, of course, being the correct answer. Oh, don't tell me it's-- of course it is, you pretty boys all stick together, of course McGann's your-- please, oh, just don't say anything, shut up shut up.") and music and video games.
It's nice. Rodney holds his breath, pinches himself, but he's already awake.
*fin.
[once more into the fray]