Decorum is SO overrated.

So, right there with everyone on the discombobulation. And the craving of mass quantities of comfort food. Like kylielee1000, I too wrote really bad fan fiction to deal with the stupid. Unlike her, I don't have the good taste not to post it. Heh.

McKay/Sheppard, pointless, silly, saccharine. Literally. *g* Go elsewhere for redeeming social value.


Candied Apples

"You've never had a candied apple?" John poked at the small bundle he'd just set down on the lab table. He'd brought it back from the mainland for Rodney, though Rodney had scarcely looked at it before turning back to his laptop.

"No." Rodney tapped a few keys, intent on the screen.

"Never?"

"Was I somehow not clear with 'no'?" Rodney's voice was distractedly flat.

John gave him a lazy shrug and settled his elbows on the counter behind him. "I'm just surprised, is all."

Frowning slightly, Rodney looked over at him. "Good? I'm sorry? I don't know how I'm supposed to react to that."

"You're not supposed to do anything. I just ..." John sighed and dropped his head back to look up at the ceiling. No help there. Though the Ancients had certainly had a way with incidental patterns in their decorating.

"What?"

"Never mind." Some of the sticky glaze had gotten smeared on the outside of the wrapping. John stuck his finger in his mouth to clean it off.

Rodney watched him for a long moment, then turned back to his--whatever he was doing. "Those aren't apples, anyway."

"Close enough."

Rodney shook his head at John without looking up from the screen. John was kind of proud that he could tell that the head-shaking was directed at him. "Well, no--if your argument is that my never having had a candied apple makes me some sort of freak, having one of those shouldn't make me any less freakish, because--still won't have had a candied apple."

"It's not the specifics--it's the principle involved."

Rodney paused--decisively, with his hands poised above the keyboard. He paused more effectively than anyone John had ever met. "The candied apple principle."

Crap. When he put it that way, it did sound less than impressive. "... Yeah."

Well, he'd wanted Rodney's full attention, and now he had it. Rodney swiveled in his chair and gave him the "Did you get high when my back was turned?" look. "And--what principle is that, again?"

John raised his eyebrows and tried to look convincing. "Everyone should have one?"

"Why?"

"Because! It's a ... thing. Like a rite of passage." He waved a hand vaguely.

Rodney tilted his head as if he hoped John would look less cracked from a different angle. "Having a candied apple."

"Yes."

"Passage to what, exactly?"

"To ..." Lost, lost, he'd had a point and now he couldn't articulate it. "... having had a candied apple."

"Okay, not only are you not making sense, your argument is circular."

John was going to stand his ground even if it crumbled under his feet. "It's just something everyone should do at some point."

"Is this related to your strange obsession with Ferris wheels?"

"It's not an obsession. I just like them."

"So I've heard. Repeatedly."

John folded his arms and raised his chin. "And it's not strange. Anyway, the Athosians don't have a Ferris wheel at their fair-festival-thing. But they do have candied apples."

"Not apples."

"Candied non-apples, then." John rolled his eyes and blew out a defeated breath. "Look, never mind--I was just trying to get you to loosen up a little, have some fun."

"I'm plenty loose, thank you. I just happen to be in the middle of something."

"Something that can't wait ten minutes."

Rodney gave him a long-suffering look, then pointedly closed the laptop screen. "Fine. Give me the apple, already."

"Non-apple."

"Whatever." Rodney beckoned with his fingertips. "Hand it over."

John picked up the package and looked down at it, as if he were studying it. "No, not if you're going to be like that."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't think you're prepared to take this apple--sorry, non-apple--in the spirit in which it was intended."

"In the ...?" Rodney opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "What spirit might that be?"

"The spirit of having a good time. Like when you were a kid."

Rodney sat back in his chair, eyeing John distantly. "Clearly our childhoods were very different."

Clearly, if Rodney'd never had a candied apple. John found that a little sad. He gave Rodney a gentle smile and passed him the package.

Rodney peeled away the wrapping as if he expected the non-apple to explode, or leap out at him. The glaze clung to the paper in thin, shining strings. "It's sticky."

"It's candied."

Rodney picked carefully at the non-apple. It was cut into pieces and coated in a sugary substance, instead of being whole and on a stick, but the end result really was strikingly similar to a candied apple. "Yes, thank you. I got that when you said it the first twelve times. Anyway, I wasn't expressing surprise. I was just wishing for a napkin."

"There's nothing wrong with being sticky occasionally."

Rodney went still and stared up at him. "Oh. Oh my god, that was lame."

Okay, that stare was making John self-conscious. "What?"

Rodney narrowed his eyes. "Is that the best pick-up line you could come up with?"

"It wasn't a line!"

"Because it was really, really lame."

John held out his hands and shook his head. "Look, if I was trying to pick you up, I would have offered to lick you clean."

Rodney blinked. "... Huh. You're right, that is better."

"Thank you."

"A little on point, though. Not much room for interpretation." Rodney started to smile as he dipped a piece of the non-apple in a little pool of glaze.

"I find clarity in these situations to be ... very helpful." John stepped over to lean against the lab table in front of Rodney.

"Really." Rodney bit into the non-apple piece, chewing it slowly. "Find yourself in these situations often, do you?"

"Rodney?"

"Yes?" Rodney blinked innocently up at him as he lapped at some excess glaze that had run down his thumb.

John shifted his stance and drew in a deep breath. "Stop teasing me with the damn apple."

"Non-apple. And you gave it to me." Rodney started licking his fingertips, watching John fidget while he did.

"And now, I'm taking it back."

Rodney held out a hand to keep John away from the non-apple, but John wrapped his hand around Rodney's wrist, directing him. Rodney picked up a non-apple piece, and John nibbled at it from between his fingers, turning Rodney's hand this way and that to nip lightly at his skin, licking away the glaze and sucking on Rodney's fingertips.

By the time he was done, Rodney was breathing harder. He gave John a look that was a little bit affectionate, a little bit exasperated, and a lot hungry. "You can't just say, 'Rodney, let's have sex now,' can you? It's like a mental block."

"Well, that's not very romantic, is it?" John licked his lips, and grinned as Rodney did the same.

"So, instead, you offer me apples. How Biblical of you."

John started tugging Rodney towards the door. "Non-apples. And I've got an extra jar of the candy coating."

Rodney dropped his pretense of resistance. "You do? Why didn't you say so? Lead on, Major."

He smirked at Rodney's change in attitude. "I thought you were in the middle of something."

Rodney made a dismissive gesture. "Oh, it can wait."

John was about to follow Rodney out the door when a thought occurred to him, and he doubled back for the rest of the non-apple.

He did want Rodney to have lots of energy, after all.

***

::is easily amused, because thinking too hard will lead to severe depression::