"Roster, roster...Zelenka, where's the lightswitch roster?"

Zelenka pointed to a short list on the whiteboard. "Rodney, they do not like it when you call them lightswitches."

"Oh, wow, I care so much. Who's up?" Rodney stared at the list, trying to figure out the arcane system of checkmarks and x's and squiggly lines that were supposed to designate which natural gene bearer was next to come to the lab and spend an afternoon initializing the Ancient artifacts that wouldn't respond to Rodney's artificial gene. It still pissed him off that there were stubborn devices that didn't love him on sight.

"Radek!" Rodney'd had enough. "Just tell me who's next before I make hydrochloric acid specifically for the pleasure of chasing you around the lab with it."

"I'm up," came a voice from the door. The door that was holding up a slender, stupid-haired guy wearing black cargo pants, a black tee shirt and black hiking boots. "Sheppard," he said.

"Good. Great." Rodney waved Sheppard into the lab. "McKay, Zelenka," he said, encompassing them both with a wave of his hand. When Sheppard stepped in, Rodney picked up one of the very stubborn lumps of pale gray stone and tossed it at him. Sheppard fielded it deftly, then closed his eyes and tilted his head down.

"God, that's hot," Rodney said, gaping. "You won the genetics sweepstakes, didn't you? Gorgeous and a natural gene carrier. They probably broke the damn mold."

Sheppard fumbled the artifact, then recovered it. When he looked up at Rodney, his cheeks and the tips of his ears were flushed. "It's...uh..." he held out the now-glowing piece of crystal. "It says it's a power crystal for a...something in Ancient." Sheppard walked over to the whiteboard and wrote a word. It was in Ancient, and they all stared at it.

"What does it mean?" Rodney asked, looking on in awe.

Sheppard shrugged, then looked down at the crystal to turn it off. "I dunno. I don't speak Ancient." He handed the again-gray lump to Zelenka.

"We will get Elizabeth down to translate when she has time. Just keep writing notes here if you need to." Radek placed the stone onto an empty lab table, wrote "power?" on it and stuck it in front of the artifact.

"Next," Rodney said, picking up a spherical object with one flat side and handing it to Sheppard, making sure their fingers brushed. Sheppard's blush flared a little, and Rodney smiled. This was really fun. Besides, this was the hottest guy he'd seen yet in Atlantis.

Sheppard's long fingers traced the shape, then he looked at it, tilting his head. He looked back up, grinning widely. "Kid's toy. It's like every crayon in the box - you just think a color at it."

Rodney looked at the sphere and thought "rainbow." The flat side glowed, and he took it from Sheppard, swiping it across a piece of paper to make a rainbow shape in rainbow colors.

"Cool," Sheppard said, still grinning at Rodney.

"Yeah," Rodney said. "Pretty cool. You should keep it - you're like a kid anyway."

"Am not," Sheppard said.

"Are, too," Rodney answered.

"Am not," Sheppard said, sticking his tongue out at Rodney, whose own smile got wider.

"What else can you do with that tongue?" Rodney said, smirking.

Radek coughed behind them. "I will take that," he said, stepping between them and taking the crayon-toy, giving Sheppard a moment to get the flustered look off his face.

Sheppard stayed for three hours, and Rodney flirted shamelessly with him almost the entire time. He managed to comment on Sheppard's pointed ears and nose; his crazy hair; the cleft in his lower lip; his eyes; the bagginess of his pants (and to ask if there actually was an ass in there); the tight fit of his tee shirt, and the way Sheppard licked his lips and ducked his head every time Rodney nearly propositioned him.

By the time Sheppard left, jumping a little when Rodney patted him on the ass (crowing, "there is one in there!"), Radek was near hysterics behind a bank of computer equipment and Rodney was about as sexually frustrated as he'd ever been.

Rodney poked his head around to give Radek a slow blink. "Storeroom's empty," he said. "Wanna go for a ride?"

Radek wiped his streaming eyes. "No, Rodney," he said. "I am straight and I certainly would not cross the street for you. Besides, I may never recover from three hours of listening to you sexually harass Colonel Sumner's military second-in-command."

Rodney looked at him blankly, then grinned. "Whoops," he said, totally unrepentant.

The next time Rodney saw Sheppard, he had become the military commander of Atlantis, killed his commanding officer, and awakened the Pegasus Galaxy's ancient enemy. It probably wasn't the best time to pick up the outrageous flirting.

"Major Sheppard," Rodney said, putting his dinner tray down at the remote table for two Sheppard had staked out in the mess. "May I join you?" He slid into the chair.

Sheppard looked up from his tray, his eyes dull. He waved his fork. "Yeah."

Rodney began eating in his usual focused manner while Sheppard picked at his food. "Okay," Rodney said, pausing between his Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes. "You've had a shitty week."

To his surprise, Sheppard looked up and laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "You have a knack for understatement, McKay."

Rodney shrugged, swirling his fork in his gravy. "It's...uh...come to my attention," Rodney said, "that I may have been..." He shrugged, then glanced up. "Radek said I might have been sexually harassing you in the lab the other day."

Sheppard frowned at him, and Rodney continued in a rush, "So I wanted to say that I'm sorry and it won't happen again and please don't have any of your goons come kill me."

Sheppard grinned again, wider. "It's okay," he said.

Rodney watched as Sheppard finally took a bite of his food. He tried to stay quiet - really he did - but he just couldn't help himself. "So it's okay if I do it again?"

Sheppard swallowed his food and looked down at his tray, mumbling something.

"What was that?" Rodney said.

Sheppard looked up through his lashes, a smile lifting one side of his mouth. "I said, 'just don't do it in front of the goons.'"