Chapter Three
John and Rodney had made it halfway to the lab when the hope of making it there quietly was brutally crushed. Kavanagh made his way over to Rodney's body, not knowing that Rodney's consciousness wasn't actually residing there at the moment, and proceeded to yell.
"Why'd you go back to the west pier after I left?" Kavanagh glared down at Rodney, trying to use his height to intimidate.
John looked at him in confusion. "West pier?" After Rodney glared at him John continued, "Because you did it completely wrong. Are you trying to blow us all up?"
Kavanagh looked as miffed as when Rodney spoke to him, so John assumed that was a good sign. "It was perfectly fine! You just can't stand to see someone else get credit for something. That's why you always redo things, claiming they're wrong."
Rodney, getting fed up with Kavanagh, broke in here. Though gritted teeth he said, "Go back to your work Dr. Kavanagh."
"You're not the b…" Kavanagh trailed off when John's face took on an absolutely murderous look.
John, not really wanting his body to end up in the brig or full of bruises, jumped in here, "But I am. Now get back to work and do try not to cause an irreparable damage to my city."
Watching as Kavanagh walked away muttering extremely rude things under his breath John snickered. As soon as Kavanagh disappeared from view John turned back to look at Rodney, who was all but tapping his foot.
"What?"
"I do not sound like that Major!" Rodney hissed, wary of the others in the hall.
John snorted, "Yes you do."
Rodney resumed walking the short distance left to his lab. "Do not."
"Do too."
"Do n…" Rodney trailed off as he entered his lab. "Crap."
John muttered, "Understatement."
The lab was full of scientists. Scientists that had power bar wrappers, papers and numerous coffee cups strewn all over every possible surface; or at least scientists that had added to the piles Rodney already had there. John could already see his face turning a shade of crimson when it suddenly got deeper than he could ever have imagined. John didn't even know that vein in his forehead could bulge out that much.
"Rodney?" John whispered wanting to know what was so upsetting about scientists being in a lab.
Rodney never answered and John had only the briefest of seconds to contemplate on getting the switch fixed without anyone knowing…or not. It was at that moment Rodney blew.
"What are all you imbeciles doing in my lab?" Rodney yelled out causing the entire group except Zelenka to jump a foot in the air.
One of the new scientists looked over and raised an eyebrow. "This ain't your lab Major Sheppard," they said after reading the name tag adorning his coat.
"I. AM. NOT. MAJOR. SHEPPARD," Rodney growled out, punctuating each word with brisk hand movements.
John felt like hitting Rodney's head off the closest wall.
Zelenka rescued the scientist from replying and hence cementing his doom, "You find devices use, yes?"
"Ya think? Where's the tablet that came with this piece of ancient space crap?"
Zelenka went silent and every other scientist in the room went pale.
John was getting a sinking feeling, "What happened to it?"
A brave or perhaps incredibly stupid newbie scientist blabbered out the whole thing and John was once again left wondering why he didn't know the veins in his face could do that.
"You what? Do you idiots have any idea what you've done?" John grabbed a hold of Rodney's jacket when he saw him start to advance on the group.
John heard a snort coming from behind him. Before he could turn around to see who it was Kavanagh came sauntering by. "What's wrong Dr. McKay," he all but sneered. "Can't figure out one little thing like body switching without the instruction book?"
Rodney blinked. "I couldn't give a flying monkey's butt about the tablet. I can fix this problem in my sleep."
"Then why'd we have to come all the way down here?" John yelled.
"The tablet would have speeded up the process of fixing this issue. Now, as I was saying, what I care about is the fact that these incompetent morons just disintegrated months of extremely important research."
John shook his head, "You had it on the dry-erase board only?"
Rodney looked horrified, "Of course not! But I hadn't yet had a chance to update my laptop in-between cleaning up after these people!" Rodney jabbed a finger at the group in front of him, many of whom were looking close to tears.
Zelenka opened his mouth to tell Rodney that he had backed up what was on the boards before starting the research on the disintegrator but he never got the chance.
Rodney boomed, "Get out!" and soon the only people left in the room were John, Radek and himself. The papers floating to the ground were a testament to how fast everyone had high-tailed it out of there.
Perhaps Radek should have picked a different lab to give the newbies a crash course in ancient technology in. Oh well, hindsight's 20/20 after all and he wasn't afraid of Rodney…..much.
TBC