stargateficrec | Knowing How to Pick 'Em by reddwarfer (G) (Reply)

Show: Stargate Atlantis
Rec Category: Rodney McKay
Characters: Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, John Sheppard, Ronon Dex
Het/Slash/Gen: Gen
Warning/Spoilers: None
Author on LJ:

reddwarfer
Author's Website: None found
Link: Knowing How to Pick 'Em

Why this must be read:
Summary: When Teyla asks Rodney to participate in a special celebration, he finds himself more nervous than he ought to be. (1.5k words)

Everyone can produce a food that reminds them of happy family celebrations, right? Well ... no, not necessarily. This story gets that, and gets how alienating that expectation can be, especially for someone who doesn't want pity. Rodney is canonically a guy whose favorite foods are MREs and airplane meals; what little he has mentioned of his family hasn't been all that positive. In this story, Rodney is a proud man, and he is awkward but earnest in his attempts to understand his teammates and make Teyla happy ... and his solution makes for my very favorite kind of family story.

Excerpt:
Rodney tries not to think (or talk about) his childhood at all. He's well aware of the knowing looks he gets when a tidbit from his youth comes unbidden into a conversation, usually a slip of the tongue from him. But the oh, well that explains it expressions that they give him (too much like the ones he usually reserves for people he discovers have their doctorates in useless things like Sociology and Political Science) make him cringe. He wants no one's pity.

Rodney prefers to pretend he wasn't born so much as sprung out of the earth, like a geek god, middle aged and grumpy, with two doctorates and honorary degrees in knowing almost everything about almost everything.