They were hanging banners everywhere.
It wasn't like there wasn't anyone who didn't know, John Sheppard mused, the point the garish blue-with-yellow-lettered banners were trying to get across. Considering the size of Atlantis High, the Christmas dance wasn't something people were likely to just miss in the blinding lights of Atlantis' one bar, where you couldn't even get a drink without an id because Jimmy knew every kid in town.
Of course, the other side effect of such a tiny place was that the jockeying for dates and the backbiting had already sent five guys to the nurse's office. Two girls, too: Laura Cadman had taken them both, at once, and Carson had agreed, John was fairly sure, out of a sense of self-preservation if nothing else. Not that John could blame him; he still remembered when Laura Cadman's petition to reopen the girl's wrestling team had been rejected; she'd given Bates a swirly for suggesting he'd pay her and Kate Heightmeyer to do it in bikinis in a vat of jelly.
Kind of a pity, really. John would have thrown money in.
Despite that though, John hadn't said yes when Kate Heightmeyer asked him, or Andrea Dumais or any of the others. Not that they weren't pretty (this was high school, they were cheerleaders. It was kind of a given) he just had his eyes on…other things. Mysterious hot foreign other things, like the new exchange student, Teyla Emmmagan. She'd shown up two weeks before, all heavy accent he couldn't quite place and "My English, it is not of the so good, yes?" and he'd done way too much nodding and a little too much fantasizing.
He and the rest of the team were walking down the hall on the way to the locker room before practice when Ford nudged him, nodding towards further down the corridor.
"Check it out man," he muttered, and John grinned as Teyla and Simpson, who he just happened to know had been assigned as her guide (despite the overwhelming objections that had only begun with the football team), stepped out into the hall.
"Man, you should totally ask her." Lorne was saying, nudging him from behind, and John looked around, arching an eyebrow. "To the dance, you dick." Nick muttered, rolling his eyes.
Ford snickered as John smiled, eyes darting back to Teyla and Simpson, and he strode forward, slipping through the crowd and leaving Ford and Lorne blinking behind him and scrabbling to catch up. He stopped, a few feet behind the girls, eyes narrowing for a moment in thought. Yeah, that'd work.
Grabbing a still-blinking Ford from the crush behind him, he whispered the plan quickly, talking fast just to get Ford to agree, let alone get him to agree in time, eyes always fixed on the prize. The part of it he could see from behind, anyway.
Ford caved, rolling his eyes completely unconvinced and agreeing anyway. Catching sight of a mirror, he ran a hand through his hair and stepped up closer behind the girls as Ford hammed up his meant-to-be-subtle nudge to the ladder of the kid hanging the banner. It collapsed in a clatter, tipping Peter Grodin from his precarious perch onto the top of the lockers and draping itself in front of Simpson and Teyla like a curtain.
Teyla jumped backwards, right into his arms and John grinned. This was almost too easy.
"This must be a sign," he said quickly, helping her stand up straight, and ignoring Simpson who was shooting him dirty looks from next to Teyla. Nodding to the banner, he said "It is a sign. I presume you are going to the dance?"
Teyla Emmagan laughed her rich, deep, European laugh, and John arched a cocky eyebrow, smiling his ass off.
Simpson snorted beside Teyla, opening her mouth and giving John a dirty look, but Ford slid relatively smoothly into place beside her. John decided vaguely, in the back of his head, that Ford would be receiving some kind of official commendation as a wingman. Not only had he got Simpson away, but they seemed to be having some kind of animated conversation about pompoms.
Teyla was smiling and cocked her head at him. John turned his full attention on her and cranked the smile up a couple more watts.
"I would be liking that John," she said softly, twirling a curl of hair around her finger and looking up at him – not that she had far up to look, he was tall but so was she – through her eyelashes in a way that made his smile brighten even more.
"Gr-" he stared to say but she cut him off, with a shake of her head that shut his mouth with a snap.
"I would be liking that, very lot, but the family who I live with here, in America, they will not be letting me go out unless the boy I be living with go also." She explained, straightening her neck and John blinked slowly, sorting that out in his head.
"You mean you aren't going?" he said, lip jutting out slightly in disappointment that was completely real. "How could he not be going? Everyone's going. You have to come! To…experience… American culture." Forgetting the smile, he switched tactics to the puppy-dog look. "I want you to come."
She smiled at the finger and murmured "I am wanting to come also, but the boy, he is…how you say? Difficult. Are you knowing him? He is called Rodney." She pronounced it Rawd-Nee, dragging out the last syllable in a way that made John's mouth quirk in amusement, before he remembered he was supposed to be looking lost and appealing.
Then things shifted into place with a click, or perhaps a crunch.
"You're living with Rodney McKay?" he hooted incredulously, boggling at the bizarre series of mental images this produced, before his brain offered the more pertinent point that if there was anyone not going, not interested in going and not likely to go to the dance, it was Rodney McKay. Over Teyla's shoulder, he could see Ford starting to struggle, and Simpson was shooting them death-glares, so he focused in on Teyla again, catching one of his lips between his teeth.
Mind working frantically, he suggested "How about…if I get Rodney to go to the dance? Then you'll come with me?" ignoring Ford's increasingly more panicked wavings. As soon as she nodded, he stepped back and Ford was there, letting out a sigh of relief, Simpson a step behind him. "It's a date then." He said, winking at her.
Teyla smiled at before he realized what she was doing, and slid up onto her toes and ghosted her lips over his cheek. "I will be seeing you, John." She said, throwing smiles back over his shoulder as Simpson lead her off down the corridor.
John looked over at Ford, who was fixing him with an even evil-er eye than was customary and grinned. "We're set." He drawled broadly. "There's just one little problem.
"You're shitting me," Ford says flatly as they walk onto the field. "Rodney McKay? Isn't he that crazy nerd who made Parrish cry the other week?"
John nodded grimly.
"You're shitting me." Ford repeated. "Do I even want to ask what your plan is, man? Because unless it's a lot better than the last nine times you came up with brilliant plans, you're fucked."
John opened his mouth to protest- maybe the one with Sumner and the pig had been a bit smacked out, but the rest of them hadn't been too bad- but the coach was yelling and his temple vein was throbbing.
"Relax, man," he said, speeding up to a trot to cross the field. "You worry too much. It'll all be fine."
John Sheppard was quite willing to admit some of the things he'd done to impress girls hadn't been high best and brightest moments. To the right person, he might even admit that some of the things he'd done to impress girls were actually even more pathetic because a lot of them hadn't even worked.
He didn't really regret the ones that did though.
There'd been that time he'd been convinced it was a really good idea to talk the football team into helping him pull the cheerleader's giant pink floral float in the parade, in those Tarzan outfits. He'd escaped being beaten up by the football team solely because Christie Harrison had hidden him in the girl's locker room, which had paid off in it's own way.
Then there'd been that time when Tracy Thomas had started that PETA campaign and he'd broken out the biology-lab's stock of frogs, and she'd made him keep them in his bath-tub until his mother had found them and freaked out. How was he supposed to know there wasn't anywhere for them to live for miles? They hadn't started studying them.
Then there was Sophie D'Aguilar who insisted on everyone calling her Selena Ravenswing Bloodlet Alpinelesca, but was still hot in a weird Goth way, and how she'd "tricked" him and Markham into being the "instruments of her final vengeance" by turning the sprinklers on the cheerleading team. Admittedly, it had been quite a bad plan, and the soaking wet cheerleaders had gotten even more attention than they normally did, but she'd let John comfort her in one of her many moments of eternal despair.
Even with all that, there were some things he hadn't been stupid enough to do. The biggest of those, probably, was not tangling with the Queen Bee. Messing with that sort of thing could get you in serious trouble.
That said, getting Rodney McKay to the dance would require something verging on politics, and in Atlantis High, Liz Weir was as close as it got.
It really was sort of innocuous that she'd holed herself up in the library; John hadn't been in here since he found out that football got you more attention than long division, and that he didn't need to waste time catching up, but Liz Weir wasn't exactly a normal teenage girl and her minions weren't either.
Liz- Stalin and the Stalinettes, he'd heard some guys calling her and her friends after one History class, but so had she, and she'd narrowed her eyes, had a quiet talk with them and now they wouldn't go near the library and opened the door for girls every time- had pulled out almost every non-cheerleader (with the notable exceptions of Agatha Maledicta or Letice Crowsblood or whatever she was calling herself now, and a couple of others) and forged them into what could be described as an army. Or a corps. They were strong, they were invincible, they were woman. Most of them already had college offers, and they ran everything from yearbook to chess club, and Elizabeth ran them like the unholy bastard child of the mafia and the U.N. At least, if a don would chase down a frumpy girl, give her a crash course in self confidence, carefully teach a fly how to dress appropriately for interviews and settle her into more appropriate classes, headed nicely for a career as a super-efficient high powered attorney by age 24.
Liz Weir, school captain, captain of the debate team, head of the yearbook committee and a whole bunch of other shit he couldn't remember, was probably the only one with the kind of pull that he needed. Even better, like most businesspeople (irrespective of the fact she wasn't actually I in /I a business yet), she was open to negotiation.
They watched him as he walked through the bookshelves, heading for the study rooms he knew in a vague kind of way were out the back. He didn't exactly spend a lot of time in the library but he had been here once or twice before.
He smiled his way past the old ladies at the reception desk who glared at him suspiciously with beady eyes, and worked his way through to where he thought she normally held court. The creepily intense kids at some of the study desks glared furiously at him when hen stepped on a discarded ball of paper and disrupted their carefully maintained silence.
Shrugging his shoulders under their stares, he stepped into the first room. More stares. He backed out quickly, and as quietly as possibly, avoiding making any sudden movements. The second door yielded better results.
''John,'' she says pleasantly, and why does he always forget she's kinda pretty? ''How nice to see you.''
''Uhh…yeah. Nice to see you.'' He said, awkwardly. "How've you been?"
"Oh, you know how it is," she said airily. "This time of year's always busy."
"Uh…yeah," he muttered. "Sure. So I kinda wanted to ask a favor."
She cocked an eyebrow, smile stealing it's way across her face and John became very firmly convinced that this was a bad idea. Except, he noted, directing another nervous glance behind him, and the furious glares that were quite easily penetrating the feeble barriers of mere walls between the creepy intense kids and the source of the noise, that he quite literally couldn't back out now.
''Whatever can I do for the captain of the football team, John?'' she said, dragging his attention back on topic. "You know I'm always happy to network, but I don't want to make any promises before I know what you need."
It occurred to him, in the moment before he tried to explain it, that the entire situation was beyond absurd. But he had his plan, which didn't sound nearly so pathetic (he hoped) even if it was pretty obviously a lie, and he was going to stick with it. To the death.
"I need you to get Rodney McKay a date to the dance." He blurted, catching a lip behind his teeth as she blinked in surprise. She opened her mouth to ask something, but he just kept talking. This pretty much depended on her not having time to think it through too thoroughly.
"It's just…me and the guys were kind of feeling sorry for him. He's kind of…maladjusted." He said, picking deliberately at Liz's well-established hard-case heartstrings. "He…uh…helped us with some…homework and we just thought, maybe, he might like to…get out, and he kinda won't do that on his own." She nodded, and he took that as a sign of agreement, barreling on.
"Well the dance is a good opportunity, right, but he needs a date. We just thought you might know who was still looking, and who might consider it." Padrone, he added mentally.
Arching her eyebrows at him in surprise, she said slowly "I…see. This doesn't have anything to do with the McKay's new houseguest, does it?"
John kept his face smooth. He hadn't gotten to where he was by letting something as simple as getting busted stop him. "Well, yeah, that's part of it." He admitted, a little sheepishly. "I don't know if you know, but they've told Teyla she can't come to the dance. She was telling me before that she really wanted to go, but the McKay's have said that unless Rodney goes, she can't either."
"That's terrible!" she exclaimed. "How can that be allowed? Don't they understand that this is a post-modern gender-role-disassociated society? Imposing conditions like that is an outrage!" John blinked slightly; as far as he could tell that meant he was in with a chance. "What kind of impression will Teyla have of American culture if this is what she's exposed to?" Liz demanded him and he nodded firmly in agreement, although he was still definitely vague on what he was agreeing too.
"You were right to come to me John," she said and he blinked in surprise again before remembering to nod. "Obviously I can't change the McKay's parenting structure, but I may be able to do something about getting Rodney there anyway. With your cooperation."
"Of course," John said, eyeing the door.
"That's all I needed to hear,'' she said, suddenly all business again. ''Get me a list of what Rodney likes in a partner and I'll see who I can convince.'' At his startled look, she added ''I'm not a pimp John. I'm only really doing this because the McKay's are adopting a policy of sexually-based injustice and Teyla's a nice girl who doesn't speak English well enough to talk them out of it. Normally I would never interfere, but…one time can't hurt. It's not as though I'll be around for it to become a precedent.''
Liz Weir tentatively on his side, to Ford's loud and audible disbelief, John Sheppard was just getting his groove up. Everything was flowing smoothly, until Ford smugly pointed out that to find out what Rodney liked (beyond, presumably, breasts), John would actually have to I talk /I to Rodney.
John's groove ground to a shuddering halt.
With almost anyone else, this wouldn't have been a problem, but then any other guy would already have been going to the dance. John would go up to him, say he was going to take Teyla to the dance and that Liz Weir had told him some girl wanted to go with him, was that all cool? The guy would have said something like ''Yeah, sure, go for it man,'' because people liked John and most people wouldn't turn down a free date.
This, however, was not most guys. This was Rodney McKay.
Rodney was something of a legend around the school, straddling the line between fear and contempt. He was a disturbing combination of the weird kid with all the allergies, the weird kid who 'accidentally' blew up the chemistry lab and the weird kid who threw tempter tantrums and occasionally, desks.
He also, for no reason John or anyone else on the football team knew, hated everyone involved in the Atlantis Marines football team with a burning, fiery and highly audible passion. Stackhouse had asked him about it, once, jokingly. McKay had begun a long lengthy rant about neanderthalic mating rituals and when Stackhouse had given up and turned to walk away, McKay had clocked him with his AP Physics textbook.
This had been in eighth grade. Evidence suggested he'd only gotten I worse /I .
Since then, there had been an easy truce. McKay had been ceded the territory around the science lab and nobody else went near it, and in return, the football team never quite got started on the swirlies and wedgies they'd felt vaguely obliged to give McKay. Not that the lack of any socially-demanded tormenting had actually mellowed him or anything.
The dance was getting closer and Liz was still insisting that she'd only set Rodney up with someone he'd like. Which meant that John would have to find what he'd like, and since Rodney didn't have any …friends, as such, that meant talking to him. Which was how John Sheppard found himself outside the school labs waiting with no small amount of awe for the yelling to finish.
'' – incompetent incomparable undereducated pretentious hack!''
That, as far as John was concerned, proved that Rodney hadn't gotten any better in the last couple of days. Not that he'd really expected it, but he'd hoped. Peering through the partially open door, he saw the slightly rounded pink-faced figure of Rodney McKay. He was standing over the desk, hands planted firmly in front of the teacher, Mr. Mitchell, who was one of those hip young teachers and asked them all to call him Brad. Mr. Mitchell was quite firmly ignoring Rodney, flicking through a magazine; his only concession to the aggravated ranting was to occasionally mutter ''Yes, Rodney. A travesty, Rodney.''
''You're repressing the greatest mind in this poverty-ridden underfunded cesspit of an institution!'' McKay let loose with something midway between a bellow and a shriek, hands flying above his head then down to hammer the desk. John snickered a little too loudly – something that was most definitely a mistake - and McKay rounded on him, mouth still open. ''Will you wait your turn?'' he yelled and John carefully smoothed his face to an expression of bland innocence. Mr. Mitchell snickered behind Rodney, but when he spun around the teacher was completely absorbed in his magazine. ''Humph.'' Rodney said, conveying an ocean of contempt in that one, drawn out syllable and shooting vicious looks at both of them.
Sighing and putting down his magazine, Mr. Mitchell said ''Look Rodney. Nobody is going to give a school a supercollider, no matter how many years you claim it would advance the world of science. You may be the greatest genius of our age, but until you suck up to someone rich enough to buy you some shiny new toys and prove it, nobody will care. It's out of my control.'' Giving Rodney a big smile he added ''But hey, have a nice day! If you're having problems at home or being bullied, my door is always open!'' and went back to his magazine.
Rodney gave an inarticulate hiss of fury, hammering his fists on the desk once more before spinning so sharply that John thought he was going to topple and stalking towards the door. John stepped back hurriedly and the door disgorging an enraged Rodney McKay, still producing a constant low-grade stream of complaints out his mouth at such a rapid volume that John couldn't make out more than one word in ten. Turned out, for all his social isolation, McKay had learnt how to I swear /I .
John stared at the door that was still swinging closed, pushed himself off the side of the lockers and took off down the corridor.
"Hey Rodney, wait up!" he called, extending his stride to catch up. "So they won't get you a supercollider, huh?" he said, deciding he probably needed McKay on his side before he tried to actually extort any favors from him just yet. "That's too bad."
He slid on for three strides after McKay stopped, turning around to find the other boy staring furiously at his hair. "What do you I want /I , Sheppard?"' McKay snapped angrily. Don't you have cheerleaders to molest?" Before John could answer, he rushed on like a landslide. "I know its terribly hard for you to understand, what with all the head trauma and stupidity, but some of us are trying to use this derelict excuse for a school as something other than a meat market!" Then he was gone, stalking down the corridor, leaving John wondering if it wouldn't be easier to just make Ford dress up as a girl and show up at the McKay's house on the night of the dance.
At practice that afternoon, Ford couldn't stop chuckling and John was on the verge of just giving the idea up entirely, but Simpson had brought Teyla along to cheerleading practice and they'd made her put on one of the uniforms.
She'd been I jumping /I .
He'd ducked off the track to visit them when Coach Caldwell snuck off for his smoke while they were meant to be running laps. He winked at Kate Heightmeyer to try and get her to stay quiet while he snuck up behind Teyla.
"He-" was all he got out before something connected painfully with his stomach and there was grass under his head and sky above.
"Oh! John!" Teyla said, crouching down beside him a moment later. "I did not be knowing it was you! I am sorry!" Helping him sit up, and ignoring his mutters about how it was nothing, he got hurt worse all the time, really, she pulled him to his feet- not just sitting, to his I feet /I , and she did it without blinking- patting his shoulders down, and brushing the back of his pads off.
Shaking his head to clear his vision, he said "wstfgl" which was the first thing that popped into his head when he could focus his eyes well enough to see cheerleader-Teyla and then he tried again. "Do you guys have cheerleading where you're from?" he said eyeing her up and down.
"Oh, yes, I am on the…team," she said proudly "They are coming to all my matches!"
"That's cool," John said, a little vague on why precisely, he was still spinning from…whatever had happened. ''Look, I have to get back, but I'm working on Rodney, OK?" he said, throwing a glance towards the field. ''But I think I need your help. Can you…can you sneak me into his room when he's not there?"
She nodded slowly, thinking. ''You can be coming this afternoon?'' she said suddenly. "He is not there often; he likes being at the school much more so."
"Sure," John said. "I'll meet you after practice." Then he leant over and kissed her quickly, on the edge of her lips, and ducked back into the pack for laps.
That afternoon, John had made a point of showering properly, rushing through everything much to Lorne's snide amusement, and he dashed off as soon as he was done.
Teyla was waiting for him just outside school, and teased him about his hair for the entire walk to her – McKay's – house. She let them in quickly, not worrying about the noise, so John assumed the McKays were out. He followed her up the stairs, eagerly, and got nothing more than a glimpse of a pristine white bedspread when she threw her books in. Then they turned a corner and entered what John could only describe as Rodney's I lair /I .
It was like a cavern, covered almost floor-to-ceiling with a weird machine on one wall, weird machines on another, and books on the third. John lifted his eyebrows, hair twitching in amazement.
He could do this. All they had to do was find Rodney's stash of porn and pick the girl who looked the closest, right? Teyla had set to rummaging through the stack of gadgets so John turned, with some trepidation, towards the bedside table. He doubted Rodney kept his porn in the machines, but it was probably better that Teyla didn't find that. He knew she was…European or foreign or something and all, but still.
Half an hour later, they'd come up with nothing.
John was starting to wonder about Rodney. The nightstand, the computer, at least the parts of it John could recognize as being part of a computer, were all so taken up with science-crap that there wasn't room for anything else. Was Rodney McKay really the only teenage boy without a porn stash?
Teyla was standing back with her hands on her hips, surveying the room (which they'd been keeping exactly the way they found it. Apparently, Rodney- and John had snorted with laughter at this- was a little bit obsessive) with narrowed eyes.
"I am thinking," she said, "that Rod-nee would be very careful that no-one could find his little secrets, yes? But that he is not so smart at some things" Cocking an eyebrow at John, and twisting in a way that drew his attention right back to her other other best features, she said "Have you looked underneath the bed?"
Turning, John studied the bed, which was solid on a scale John hadn't realized beds could be. "I shall help." Teyla announced behind him and picked up one end leaving John blinking. There was nothing under the bed, but stuck to the bottom – a disturbing and kind of gross clue - was what looked suspiciously like a shoebox.
"Bingo." John muttered, pulling it free carefully, freezing for a second as he realized he hadn't considered the possibility of explosives. Too late now. Wincing slightly, he pulled the lid off, whistling in surprise. This was some serious skin.
Trying to pretend that Teyla wasn't there for the first time ever, he flicked through the magazines, searching for the most used one. Hmm. Actually, she kinda looked like Simpson. Could Liz get him Simpson?
He thought she could.
Looking up, he flashed a grin at Teyla, who was watching him with raised eyebrows and a small smile that he'd seen her wear every time she thought an American did something odd. He was about to open his mouth when she asked him "Are you also having a stash, John?"
Sliding the lid back on top of the shoebox, John turned away, carefully fitting it to the underside of the bed and reattaching the loose pieces of tape again. "A man's stash is a private thing," he said with as much dignity as he could muster, given that he was re-hiding Rodney's. "It wouldn't be right."
Teyla laughed and helped him make the bed. He didn't get more than a glimpse of her room.
It was just getting dark when he walked out the front door, and before he'd gotten off the porch, Rodney was walking in the garden gate, completely absorbed in trying to read a book or paper or something in the fading light. "Hey Rodney!" John said brightly, before avalanche McKay got started. "I think Teyla's going to try out for the cheerleading squad. Isn't that cool?" Before Rodney's gape turned into words, he said "See you at school." and shut the gate behind him.
Liz had muttered something surprisingly rude about dorks, cheerleaders and gender-role stereotypes when John had said that Simpson would be perfect if she was still dateless; he knew she was. The team was keeping a very up-to-date tally of who was free and who wasn't. She'd agreed that she could convince Simpson she might actually like McKay, enough to get her to get him to take her to the dance, at least.
Over the weekend, they had a game, and Teyla sat in the front row talking to the cheerleaders and waving. John may have fallen over himself once, distracted, but he'd thrown the winning pass and they'd thrashed the Wraith to make it to the playoffs.
Once more, it was good to be John Sheppard.
The next day, at school, Liz Weir cornered him in the cafeteria and told him it was a good thing that Ronon Dex liked to bonsai in his spare time and she happened to know the current world bonsai champion, because the only way that Simpson would agree to go out with McKay was if Liz set her up with Ronon afterwards.
John peered across the cafeteria to where Ronon Dex was sitting alone at a table, eating with his fingers and, John supposed, doing something that could maybe have been bonsai if you looked at it right, with what was supposed to be mash potatoes.
Huh.
John had thought getting Simpson to agree was going to be the hard part. Turned out, the only thing more obstinate than females (who suffered from an easily exploitable weakness for muscles with a sensitive interior and an appreciation for a good vegetable overhang) was Rodney McKay, who suffered from I chronic female-related blindness /I .
Simpson, it seemed, was not quite as unhappy with this plan as Liz had managed to imply without actually implying; either that or her years as a cheerleader had somehow been a demure cover for the raging geek-sex-fiend that lurked beneath her …well, normal-mannered exterior. She threw herself at Rodney with the subtlety of a freight train.
Somehow, McKay completely and utterly failed to notice.
Everyone else noticed- it wasn't like they could avoid seeing her keep bending over in front of Rodney, or leaning to pick up a pencil, or miss the constant references to the dance and how she didn't have a date yet- and by the end of the day, Simpson was beginning to wilt under McKay's bewildered scrutiny. She accosted John in the corridor after sixth period, hissing imprecations that Dex better be worth all this, or I else /I in a voice that sent shivers up his spine, before she I scuttled /I off in the direction of the physics lab, steeling herself like she was going to walk through a fire. On broken glass.
John watched her go with a vague feeling of apprehension. For Rodney's sake, as well as his own, John prayed that he noticed soon. Simpson was a woman on the edge.
Unfortunately, it seemed that such wishes were destined not to come true. The next day passed without any improvement.
On the third day, John decided he didn't have time for this. He'd have to take matters into his own hands. Catching Rodney stalking out of Mr. Mitchell's office- the aggravated shrieking match seemed to be a recurring event- John chased him down in the corridor, punting around a few minutes of snappish conversation to give McKay time to simmer down before he dropped the ''So, you going to the dance?''
Rodney gave him a quizzical look, one eyebrow climbing up his scalp before his mouth opened in a soft 'o' of comprehension. ''I'm afraid I already am, Sheppard. I know your hyper masculine bonding ritual should have clued me in, as well as your ridiculous hair, but it's nothing personal. I've just got outstanding plans and-" he got out before trailing off at John's open-mouthed gaping.
"You're already going," John repeated slowly, taking a deep breath. All that effort. He'd I rummaged /I through Rodney's porn for nothing. "With who?" Who was still dateless- football team count was decreasing rapidly- and, well, quite honestly, the impression he had was that girls would rather mate with a little green man than go to the dance with Rodney McKay.
"Err…I'm not sure I should tell you," McKay said, eyeing John a little nervously. "If you kill her, you don't get to claim me as your prize, you know. I've heard repressing homosexual tendencies can cause severe rage issues."
"McKay." John ground out very slowly. "I. Do. Not. Want. To. Go. To. The. Dance. With. You. Who are you going with?"
''Katie Brown,'' Rodney said, bringing a hazy vision of a quiet girl who played the flute in the school band and sometimes watered the plants in the science lab to the front of John's brain.
"Why didn't you tell anyone?" he demanded angrily, jutting his jaw out. Didn't Rodney understand how much effort he'd put into this?
"Why I would /I I tell anyone?" Rodney snapped. "Other than Katie, I mean. Obviously she knew and the state science fair is coming up soon, all right? I've got more important thi-"
Throwing his hands up in disgust, John stalked down the corridor ignoring the outraged shouts from behind him.
He had asked Teyla to the dance the next day, in the cafeteria. She'd glanced at Heightmeyer, and then glared at Simpson of all people – who weirdly enough, wasn't sitting with her but over with Ronon, having claimed her reward for everything she'd been through early, not that John begrudged her– before saying yes very sharply.
That had been very weird.
The night of the dance itself, all John's apprehension had disappeared because I Teyla /I . That overrode even the possibility that he might be forced to actually dance, on the Good Things scale.
He pulled up outside the McKay's house, running a hand through his hair before climbing out of the car door, striding up to the front of the house. He managed to get as far as raising his hand to knock before the door jerked open, and he blinked at the frazzle-haired woman blinking at him from behind huge glasses.
"Who are you?" she demanded and he twitched, staring back as she waved a hand wildly in his face. "Don't you know what time it is?"
"Err…I'm John, John Sheppard." He said, adding at the continued blank look "I'm supposed to take Teyla to the dance."
Before he could go on, the woman turned back into the house and I shrieked /I at the top of her lungs "Rodney, for the love of all that is holy in this world, come down here right now and explain why we do not embrace the oppressive chains of heteronormative enslavement!" Sniffing in John's direction, Rodney's mother – she had to be, with a shriek like that; John felt like she was about to demand to know where he was hiding the particle accelerator – shot him a look that should have wilted the corsage he had sitting in its plastic box in his hand.
Rodney stamped down the stairs in a thunder, shouting that he'd been doing something "very delicate".
John very deliberately did not imagine what.
His mother rounded on him and without preamble, they launched into the single loudest screaming match John had ever seen. They ranged from the suitability of Rodney's father as a post-feminist male role model to whether or not sunlight was actually good for you before John cleared his throat in embarrassment.
"I don't want to interrupt," he drawled, and Rodney promptly interrupted him. "What are you doing here? In a suit? Oh my God! It's the dance! Why didn't you tell me?" and John was left blinking.
Ignoring him, McKay stormed up the stairs again, freezing at the top, leaving John and his mother peering up after him awkwardly, before shooting each other looks.
Thankfully, Teyla chose that moment to walk down the stairs, and it looked like something out of a movie. She smiled down at him, and he smiled up at her, and Mrs. McKay muttered something in the background about condoms that ruined the moment.
"Hi," he said, and she descended the stairs. "You look…really nice," he added, and she smiled, and what would have been shy on anyone else was demure and beautiful on her.
He held out the corsage and I again /I , the McKay Family Avalanche, this time Rodney, proceeded to storm down the stairs and slap it out of the way.
"I thought you said you weren't…" Rodney snapped angrily before blinking owlishly at Teyla, who smiled at him calmly. "Oh. Right. Well then. Can you take me to Katie's house?"
John stared at him for a moment and this time got as far as opening his mouth, before Mrs. McKay started talking over the top of everything. At the top of her lungs. Again.
"Meredith, you're participating in this farce?" she demanded in dismay. "I will not have it!" John blinked in Teyla's direction, expecting her to be reacting (although why Mrs. McKay would be calling her Meredith he had no clue) but Rodney simply sniffed disdainfully and snapped "Hurry up! We're late! Can't you do anything right Sheppard?" and stalked out the still open front door.
Seizing his change, John grabbed Teyla's arm, yelled something to the effect of "Bye Mrs. McKay! See you later!" and dragged her out the door, making a run for the car.
For no particular reason, McKay was in the front seat, arms crossed across his chest. When he saw them standing there, he yelled "Hurry up Sheppard! We're late."
Grinding his teeth, John shot an apologetic glance at Teyla, who simply smiled again and climbed into the backseat, and said "Where does Katie live?"
This was all, John mused, arms wrapped around Teyla, totally worth it.
Liz was dancing, across the hall, with a guy in her year named Simon, and John shot her a brief nod of thanks, that was graciously acknowledged. Ford was dancing contentedly with Heightmeyer, who looked bored while Simpson was standing next to Ronon, staring up at him enormously, while he stood next to the punch, staring down at it adoringly. John shrugged slightly and turned away: whatever floated his boat.
They were turning gently, Teyla spinning in his arms, and he caught sight of Katie Brown, arching with some awkwardness over Radek, that weird Czech kid who conducted the band with her tongue down his throat. That was…well…yeah. Apparently, Katie was one of I those /I band geeks.
Casting his eyes around, he searched for Rodney in the crowd, found him sitting under his own personal dark cloud, next to Coach Caldwell, who was eyeing the dancing couples morosely and sneaking nips from his hip flask.
Teyla was sparkling, in the dim light, but he felt bad. It was his fault Rodney was here, even though he doubted Rodney needed any help ruining his evening, and when the song finished, he muttered "I'll be right back, I just want to talk to Rodney." kissed her and slid through the crowd.
The coach looked up and grunted acknowledgement before slipping back to his creepy crowd watching, and John dropped into the seat next to Rodney without a word.
"So." He said and Rodney glared at him. "Sucks about Katie."
"No Sheppard," Rodney snapped, straightening "This was exactly what I had in mind for the evening! Getting trapped at school without access to their pathetic excuse for a lab watching my date make out with a rat bastard." Subsiding back into his slouch, he crossed his arms across his chest and glared at the crowd again. Sourly, he added "Not that you did any better."
"What?" John blinked, turning his head to stare out onto the dancefloor…
…where Teyla and Ronon were dancing some kind of incredibly complicated, incredibly fast, incredibly I impressive /I dance. "Huh." He said slowly. Simpson slammed herself into the chair beside him furiously, looking like she was about to burst into tears and he patted her awkwardly on the shoulder before looking back at Rodney. He wasn't good with tears.
"Oh well. You win some, and so on," he said, looking back at Rodney. "You want to go play playstation or something?"
McKay muttered "Playstation is for nerds," and John burst out laughing.