Aha! I'm back once again! Sorry about the delay in posting – work's been mental and I've been short of time to write. Before I forget, thanks and possible co-author credits to:
mindless-junk-247 who inspired Rules 474 to 478.
Saphreanna Grea for giving me the prompts for Rule 470 to 473.
Buckwild12 who gave me the idea for Rule 469.
LetyBaroque who provided me with the basis for Rules 450 and 463.
Jen-NCIS-Lover who gave me loads of prompts! The ones I used made up Rules 451 to 461 and also Rule 464.
cookie-moimoi who's suggestions led to the creation of Rules 445 to 447, Rule 449 and Rule 468.
And to T-man626, whose comments gave me the idea for Rule 444.
The badgers have gone into complete squee overload. (On the bright side, it means that they've stopped picking on my stuffed toy lizard, Benji...)
Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing – I GOT ANOTHER FANFIC CENTURY!!! BWAHAHAHAHAAA!!! Onwards!
"How are you feeling today, lads?"
Rodney and John groaned in unison and sank down further in their cots. During the 'Great Hair Incident of Atlantis', they'd been unlucky enough to have their comments on Caldwell's new hair-do overheard by the man in question... who had ordered Hermiod to give them 'the Daedalus Special'. After being repeatedly beamed to and from the city and the spaceship, they'd developed beaming bends and had required specialist medical care for almost a week.
Thankfully, the worst of the symptoms had passed, but they now felt like they'd been on the mother of all benders. Carson had assured them that the feeling would fade quickly, but as he'd been grinning at the time, the boys were dubious.
"G'way, C'rs'n," Rodney moaned, burying his head under his pillow. "You're talkin' too loud an' my brain hurts."
"I'm with the genius, doc," John agreed, looking decidedly green around the edges. "You're very incon... inscons... unkind, y'know."
Carson gave him a bewildered look. "What the devil are you talking about, son?" he asked.
The pilot cocooned himself in his bedding and buried his head under his blanket. "Y'shouldn't make the 'firm'ry spin round like tha'," he answered, his words both slurred and muffled. "'S downright rude."
The Scotsman bit back a chuckle and patted his friend on the leg, provoking a deep groan. "You'll feel better soon, Colonel," he replied, sneaking a glance over to Rodney's bed. The Canadian had curled up in a tight ball in the middle of the mattress and had pulled all of his bedding and pillows into a structure that vaguely resembled a fort. "Once this last bout of giddiness and nausea passes, you'll be right as rain."
The boys both made a feeble, negative sound.
"Now, come on with the pair of you!" Beckett scolded mildly. "You're both grown men, not wee bairns." He sighed when there was no response, before a wicked thought popped into his head. "And besides," he continued, his voice dripping with honey, "it's almost lunchtime. I hear that the cooks have made mystery meatloaf..."
His laughter drowned out the sound of retching as he wandered back into his office to update his rulebook.
Rule 440: Dr Beckett is not allowed to call Dr Kavanaugh 'Pumpkin Positive'.
Carson had gotten so fed up with the whiny, pony-tailed man that when Kavanaugh appeared in the Infirmary with a paper cut and loudly demanded immediate treatment, Beckett made this 'diagnosis'. The Scotsman was convinced that if he was to shove his penlight in Kavanaugh's mouth, the Chemist's head (being almost totally devoid of a brain) would light up and gleam like a Halloween pumpkin.
Although Kavanaugh wasn't amused, everyone else thought it was hysterical and were now taking it in turns to leave carved Jack-o'-lanterns outside the Chemist's quarters.
Rule 441: The Psychiatry Department are not to be referred to as 'The Freud Squad'.
Rodney was up to his usual tricks.
Rule 442: Do not throw Jack-o'-Lanterns around.
Kavanaugh had taken revenge on Carson by throwing his now rather large collection of carved pumpkins around. After five people were effectively hospitalized, Carson quietly plotted his revenge.
Rule 443: Dr Beckett is not allowed to force-feed Dr Kavanaugh pumpkin soup.
A. Or Pumpkin pie.
B. Or any other meals containing pumpkin.
C. We think he's got the point, Carson.
The rest of the Medical Department were not amused with their boss when Kavanaugh reported to the Infirmary looking decidedly ill. And they were even less impressed with having to clean up all the bright orange vomit.
Rule 444: The Juggling Club are not allowed to juggle with any of the following:
A. P-90s.
B. Wraith stunners.
C. The Science Department's tools.
D. Grenades or Flash bangs.
E. Bill and Ben.
The worst out of this list was actually the last option – it turned out that although they were very playful alien raccoons, Bill and Ben did not like being thrown around in the air and manhandled by people other than their respective owners. And when SGA-4 and 5 found out what had been done to their mascots, they took revenge.
Carson now had a very full ward and was running out of bandages.
Rule 445: SGA-15 are not allowed to sing extracts from 'My Fair Lady' in the Infirmary.
SGA-15 decided to sing songs from 'My Fair Lady' while they were waiting for their booster shots, and everyone was incredibly scared at how good Captain Brightman was as Eliza.
SGA-15 was an all-male team.
Rule 446: The bedpans are not to be used as emergency flowerpots.
A. Stop whining, Parrish, I know it was you.
Dr Parrish had run out of flowerpots, so Lorne had snarkily suggested that he use a couple of Carson's bedpans. He then had to explain to Elizabeth and John the reason why his team was now on medical stand down while waiting for the Botanist to recover from a cracked cheek bone.
Beckett wasn't saying anything.
Rule 447: If you want to remain amongst the living, do not tamper with the air-venting systems.
Nobody would admit to this, and for good reason – when Carson caught the culprit they were going to end up on a slab. Someone had messed around with the environmental controls and now the air-conditioned air smelt of nothing but bad body odour, cheesy socks and garlic. Rodney and Radek had tried valiantly to fix it, but the smell had overcome them and they were now under the Scotsman's care until the nausea passed.
To prevent a riot, John suggested that they turned the air conditioning off and opened all the windows, which led to the next rule...
Rule 448: Be careful when playing next to open windows on the balconies.
A. It's a bloody long way down, children.
Sgt Domino had been jogging along the pier when he ended up being flattened by Corporal Bobson, who had fallen from one of the open windows a couple of floors above. Luckily, both men got away with relatively straight-forward broken bones, but Carson was furious. His temper wasn't helped when he discovered that Corporal Bobson had been playing Blind Man's bluff with SGA-6.
Rule 449: Drs Kavanaugh and Simpson are to be supervised at all times.
A. We told you about this already!
The stench pervading the city was starting to send even the more rational, well-behaved people a little bit nutty. Dr Simpson was a shining example of this – normally, the red-head was cool, calm and collected... unless she was in close proximity to Kavanaugh. When the Chemist walked into her lab demanding the use of her spanner set, she saw red. Now Kavanaugh was once again under Carson's care and the Scotsman was ready to throttle the man.
Rule 450: Do not insult Colonel Sheppard in front of Dr McKay and vice versa.
A. They're the only people who are allowed to tease each other.
B. It gets messy otherwise.
It was a well known fact that John and Rodney had a somewhat... unusual relationship. They would drive each other nuts one minute and be plotting mayhem the next as if there'd been no fighting. Most of the personnel on base were secretly convinced that they were brothers who'd been separated at birth.
The newer recruits, however, had failed to learn one of the more important survival tips for life in the Pegasus Galaxy – you didn't make fun of John in front of Rodney or vice versa. Not unless you had a serious death wish and a pressing need to meet your maker.
One morning, Corporal Allen decided to take the piss out of Rodney, not realising that John was standing right behind him. Needless to say, the young man learnt his lesson very quickly and it was only an intervention from Elizabeth that prevented him from sustaining serious injuries. Unfortunately, some of his colleagues paid no attention...
Now Carson had three patients with severe bruising and muscle damage from an overly physical 'sparring' session with John, and four more who had a nasty skin rash, courtesy of a 'malfunction' with their showers. When Beckett confronted the boys, John feigned innocence while Rodney just smiled savagely...
Rule 451: Do not play dead.
SGA-13 had decided to play dead to avoid a weekly briefing. To be fair, they did really well at maintaining their act – it wasn't until Dr Biro started to sharpen her bone saws that they had a spontaneous (and miraculous) recovery. Carson was hopping mad – Biro had almost died of fright when they all jumped to their feet.
After all, she wasn't used to corpses being so spry.
Rule 452: Do not pretend to faint.
The newbies were in trouble again. After hearing John teasing Rodney about fainting, they started to 'faint' in front of the Canadian to wind him up. Unfortunately for them, John got wind of it and soon they all ended up passing out for real – the pilot booked them in for extended 'training' sessions with Ronon.
Rule 453: Do not play your national anthem at 5am.
A. Especially not if it's over the PA system.
B. I'll send Bella to hunt you down and kill you.
Carson was convinced that the entire expedition had been secretly replaced with pod people, whose sole point of existence was to drive him completely insane. The Americans and the Germans got into a fight over whose national anthem was better, and pretty soon the whole base was dragged into it. The American personnel had sided with the Canadians, English, Russians and Spanish, while the German contingent had the French, Irish, Swedish and pretty much everyone else on their team.
When things eventually came to a head with both sides playing their national anthems at various volumes over the PA in the early hours of the morning, Carson went apocalyptic... and proved that the Scottish national anthem was the best.
Rule 454: Do not play with matches.
A. You'll give SGA-12 ideas.
B. You KNOW how they get when there's fire around...
SGA-9, who really should have known better, had been playing with a box of matches. Somehow, said matched ended up in SGA-12's hands...
Luckily, there were no major injuries and the Command Staff managed to get the worst of the fires put out without too much structural damage. Unfortunately, SGA-12 now had to deal with not only a very angry Scotsman, but Rodney as well. The Canadian was feeling decidedly murderous after discovering what they'd done to his city.
Rule 455: Murder Mystery parties are banned until further notice.
Carson didn't want to know. He reasoned that some things were better left as unknown – like the reasons why twelve people were now in the Infirmary with injuries that looked suspiciously like the ones from Cluedo...
Rule 456: Do not have lemon juice drinking competitions.
The newbies plus lemon juice shots in the vicinity of Rodney equalled a very angry John and an equally pissed Carson. Now none of the guilty party could sit properly, and they were all limping to varying degrees.
Rule 457: 'Spin the Bottle' is only to be played when there is a sensible adult in the room.
A. Dr McKay and Colonel Sheppard do not count.
SGA-1, 3 and 7 had had a game of Spin the Bottle, which ended up with most of them in the Infirmary. From what Carson could gather, the worst of their combined injuries had happened when SGA-3 had dared Dr Parrish to kiss Teyla...
Rule 458: All Truth or Dare games are now suspended.
The Marines, who had been suspiciously quiet for a while, now had yet another recreational activity added to their ever growing banned sports/games list. According to his various sources, Carson had found out that they had dared each other to hop around the edge of the west pier, which had been coated in motor oil. Needless to say, he wasn't amused and the Marines were in deep trouble.
Rule 459: No more water balloon wars!
SGA-5 and 9 had a water balloon fight that escalated into a base-wide war. After the Medical Department's resources were stretched to their limits, Carson got out his shinty stick and went on the rampage.
Rule 460: Under no circumstances should personnel call Dr Zelenka 'Sparky, King of Electricity'.
A. He WILL hurt you.
There had been an accident in Lab One that ended up with Radek getting a hefty jolt from a supposedly dead circuit board. Upon examination, Carson found that the Czech hadn't been too badly injured – other than some mild burns. The problems came when some of the other personnel christened him Sparky and even made up a theme song for the newly crowned 'King of Electricity'.
The accident book had never had such a massive entry for one day before.
Rule 461: Personnel are reminded that they are not allowed to tamper with the IT equipment.
A. If I find the person responsible for programming my computer to bleat like a sheep every time I press a bloody key, I'll send you into a whole new world of hurt.
Rodney was bored, Carson wasn't impressed and John was trying to keep his geek in one piece.
Rule 462: Skipping is not allowed.
A. AT ALL.
The female personnel dared the male members of the expedition to skip for a whole day rather than walking. After treating his seventeenth patient with a sprained ankle, Carson went and had quiet words with the ladies...
Rule 463: Do not tease Ronon or Teyla in front of Colonel Sheppard or Dr McKay.
A. It won't end well.
B. If you don't believe me, go and talk to Dr Potts.
C. I THINK he's talking again...
The newbies were going to wind up dead quicker by staying in the city than being eaten by the Wraith if they kept it up. Knowing that they couldn't torment John or Rodney, they had started to pick on Teyla and Ronon... with disastrous results. Dr Potts was so traumatised by what John and Rodney did to him that he lost the ability to speak. They boys were keeping mum, but their team-mates couldn't stop smiling...
Rule 464: I SAID DON'T FIDDLE WITH MY KEYBOARD!!!
Rodney was going to be in a lot of pain if Carson ever found out that he was responsible for making the Scotsman's laptop play the theme tune from 'The Twilight Zone' every time he opened a document.
Rule 465: Do not get drunk and sing '99 Bottles of Beer' at midnight.
The Marines and the Scientists had formed an unholy coalition, which resulted in them drinking most of Radek's supplies of Vodka and singing the ever popular song as loudly as they could. Unfortunately (since the Scientists were involved), their impromptu performance ended up being broadcast over the PA system as well as on all the radio channels.
The next morning, they were all confined to their quarters to prevent Carson from flipping out. Apparently, Scotsmen and sleep deprivation were not a good combination.
Rule 466: Do not call the Surgeons 'slashers'.
A. They're a sensitive bunch.
B. They all have very sharp objects.
This time it was John who been re-naming things – and had been chased down the hall by the offended surgeons, who had been carrying their bone saws at the time.
Rule 467: The terms 'blood suckers', 'leeches' and/or 'vampires' are not to be used when talking about the Phlebotomists.
Rodney and John's tricks had been taken up by the Marines, who thought it'd be funny. After having more blood tests than they thought was humanly possible, they quickly apologised.
Rule 468: Do not attempt to build replicas.
A. And yes, that includes Wall-E.
B. Okay, the ORIGINAL replica of Wall-E can stay – the rest have to go.
John and Rodney were going to end up banned from watching anything if they kept it up. After watching Wall-E, the feral-haired soldier decided that they should have their very own version and convinced Rodney to build one. The problems only started when all the other Scientists decided to go with the flow...
After a mutiny that resulted in several casualties, Elizabeth and Carson dished out some tough love. They originally ordered all of the Wall-E's to be dismantled, but when confronted by John and Rodney (complete with matching puppy dog eyes and pouts), they relented.
Rule 469: Paddleball is not allowed to be played in the Infirmary.
SGA-14 had found some paddleball racquets from somewhere and had a contest. It hadn't ended well, and now all of them were under Carson's care with a variety of amusing and intriguing injuries. The Scotsman shouted at them in Gaelic for a whopping six hours – but they were not to be put off. They simply bribed SGA-4 into sneaking their racquets into the Infirmary and carried on.
After some of the nurses complained, Carson promptly confiscated the whole lot and locked them in his office before threatening to feed the team to the zoo. Oddly enough, when they caught sight of Angus and Fred staring at them in a 'we bet you'd taste good' kind of way, they stopped complaining.
Rule 470: Do not feed the Dolphi-sharks.
The Marine Biologists had done this and were nearly eaten. Rodney was furious, Elizabeth was seriously considering asking for danger money and Carson had started rocking again, muttering under his breath about how and why it was always him who 'ended up with the stupid ones'.
Rule 471: No more cutlery wars!
It was amazing how everyday items could be turned into potentially lethal weapons. After several fork fights, a couple of duels with knives and even a case of a spork attack, Carson's ward was packed out and he was on the verge of taking said cutlery and ramming it down certain people's throats.
John and Rodney protested, claiming that SGA-3 had started it, thank you very much, and that for once, they were just innocent bystanders.
Then they went and hid in the Jumper Bay for three days until the Scotsman had calmed down.
Rule 472: Do not explore the ventilation system unless you have a good reason to be in there.
A. Boredom is NOT a good reason.
SGA-2 had gotten bored and figured that they should try and do something constructive. Usually, that meant that something was bound to explode or catch on fire, or that they'd all end up in either a lot of trouble or seriously injured... It was becoming frighteningly commonplace to them by now.
Nevertheless, Lt Stackhouse persuaded his team that checking out the miles of ventilation shafts would not only be a cool way to spend an afternoon, but would also earn them some much needed brownie points. After all, he reasoned, no one had really had time to properly map the system, and they still didn't know where half the shafts led to.
After wheedling, begging, bribing and eventually threatening the rest of his team, they agreed and set off...
Twelve hours later, Rodney, John, Carson and SGA-3 were still trying to get them out of section 11C. It turned out that some of the vents were smaller than they looked, and Corporal Jenkins had gotten himself stuck. When Stackhouse and Dr Singh tried to pull him out, all three of them ended up getting jammed in even tighter. Luckily, Sgt Estevez had the good sense to back up and go for help.
Eventually, after much hard work, several bouts of very bad language and a couple of small fights, their combined efforts paid off and the rest of SGA-2 were freed. Unfortunately, they now had to face their very angry rescuers, all of whom had been called into help on their one and only day off...
Rule 473: Zombie hunts are strictly forbidden.
A. The same goes for sniper wars too.
When the latest madness spread through the city, Carson seriously considered running away to the mainland and becoming a hermit. After some of the 'players' had gotten a little bit too keen, he'd been rushed off his feet trying to patch up some pretty nasty injuries. And when John had been carried in by Rodney, he'd nearly had a heart attack – both of them had been made up to look like incredibly convincing zombies.
Rule 474: Bouncy balls are not to be played with indoors.
Captain Laverne had acquired number a small, rubber balls from his last trip to Earth and now nearly everyone on base had one. It turned out that in this case, size really didn't matter – they caused an almighty amount of damage to equipment and people alike. Carson had been lost for words as the casualties started pouring in – and when he saw that a very sheepish looking Elizabeth was amongst them.
Rule 475: I SAID THAT ELASTIC BAND SLINGSHOTS WERE BANNED!!!
The Marines had gone into hiding, and the Scientists were trying to bribe the Command Staff into keeping Genghis in storage.
Rule 476: If you want a bubble bath, order a recognised brand from Earth.
A. DO NOT make your own versions.
The Scientists were now hiding with the Marines. When they'd run out of bubble bath, they'd decided to invent their own. While it worked, and smelt relatively pleasant, they'd been a bit too enthusiastic with some of their measurements, resulting in three quarters of the city being covered in bubbles. Carson had been swamped with injuries ranging from sprained ligaments from slips and trips, to skin allergies and even a case of near drowning.
Rule 477: Highlighters are to only be used for their intended function.
A. Doodling on the face of your sleeping CO is not what they were invented for.
B. Even if it was funny.
Lorne got bored in a meeting and drew on John's face while the Air Force man was catching a very crafty catnap. When he woke up and saw the resulting mess, he very calmly walked to the Armoury and signed out a bazooka. He then proceeded to chase Evan around the city.
Carson wasn't entirely convinced about John's motivational techniques.
Rule 478: Never mess around with other people's alarm clocks.
Radek and Rodney were having a bit of a rough patch – and the sneaky Czech decided to dish out a bit of 'correctional medicine' to his boss, courtesy of a rigged alarm clock. The Canadian now had a clock that went off on the hour, every hour, and blared out the theme tune from Fraggle Rock.
It wasn't the choice of music that Rodney objected to (he and John were actually closet fans of the puppet show), but rather the volume at which his alarm clock played said theme tune. When he reported to Carson with bleeding ears, unable to hear anything whatsoever, the Scotsman put an end to the bitch fight. After his little 'intervention', Radek couldn't look at a catheter without whimpering.
Rule 479: Tipex is not to be used as face paint.
Lorne really hadn't learnt his lesson, and found himself in the Infirmary after he'd drawn all over Cadman's face with the correctional fluid. Laura was now hiding under a paper bag and Carson was furious – hence why the Major was in the Infirmary. The Scotsman had sent Bella after him...
I LOVE FRAGGLE ROCK!!! Sorry, can't help it. THEY'RE JUST SO CUTE!!!
Ahem.
Right, it's okay, I'm back now. No more talk of Fra... small puppets. I promise. Hope you all enjoyed that latest instalment – and please, please, PLEASE keep the prompts coming. After that many rules, I'm starting to run out of ideas, and I'm really keen to see just how far I can take this. (It's just too much fun to quit!)
