Part Seven: Shoehorn Kismet
McKay, Lorne and Steward had been stuck in the control room for so long that it had become rank with stress-induced sweat and general unwashedness, mixed with a subtle undercurrent of pheromones. McKay failed to notice any of this.
The console before which he stood sprang to life, throwing bits of information onto the monitor beyond. McKay seated himself and began to mutter hyperactively. The assorted colorful readouts told Steward nothing. She was bored silly and felt no desire whatsoever to assist the nematode-hating McKay.
The Major sat at his console, forlornly tapping the crystals. She never realized it before, but Lorne reminded her a little bit of Geoff Strawbridge, a performance artist she had bedded in the Lower West Side loft she rented while attending graduate school. This resemblance scared and intrigued her. Leslie Steward loved being scared and intrigued.
…..
Lorne was clueless when it came to understanding Dr. McKay. And Lorne considered himself something of a people person. Nice, mannerly, responsible and a good observer. Rodney McKay, absorbed in his task, said nothing to cogent to anyone. He muttered a constant stream of unintelligible half-sentences. Leslie Steward was nearby, set to the task of farting around with some technical…thing. She glanced at the Major.
"So. Lorne."
He approached her, keeping an eye on McKay, who kept calling him over, using him for some small task, then sending him away.
"Steward." He liked calling women by their last names. It was rather buddy-buddy that way.
"Tell me about yourself," she said lightly. "Since you're the last man on the planet and I'm apparently the last woman."
"What about him?" He slid his eyes towards McKay.
"Last purebred geek, totally different species," she responded.
Lorne liked that answer. He pulled up a chair next to Steward's, taking his time noticing her shoulders move beneath her robe's thin fabric and the silky baby hairs on the back of her neck.
…..
McKay thought that he sensed their presence. They were helpful like a shoehorn is helpful, inanimate objects to be used and then put aside. He was not sorry for ignoring them, nor did he cry big, fat tears when he snapped his fingers and, without looking up at either of them, called for "Person. Whoever. Come here."
Yet they were there, flesh and blood, nearby on some level. That was the only way to describe it, because he noticed their closeness only by the creepy sense of not-present that descended the moment they both disappeared.
"Lorne? Steward?" He lifted his hands from the console, momentarily afraid he'd triggered some strange reaction from the panel. "Uh, people?"
