So ciderpress was talking about McKay and Sheppard and how their interaction is reminiscent of the couples in old 30s-40s romantic comedies, especially the Spencer Tracey/Katharine Hepburn, because their speech patterns are similar, with John saying one word to Rodney's three.

Then I started thinking of the movie Deskset. Rodney is the brilliant head of some company's research department, and Sheppard just pops up one day asking bizarre questions and measuring Rodney's office space, and Rodney's left going whahuh when everything comes out, because this--slowtalking prettyboy who keeps snarking at Rodney and getting in his way and charming all of the girls in the office and maybe isn't as annoying as Rodney initially thought he was is the math whiz who built EMERAC?)



Rodney, it's an open secret that he's aggressively bisexual, but he has a patent on something that he allows the company use of, so he's essentially blackmailing them into giving him free reign in his department (a sort of R, R & D: reference, research and development) and in his private life. He spends his meager spare time either sniping at his underlings, or with that fuzzy haired man with the suspicious accent (this is Soviet era, after all) who Rodney supposes is in his department, because he's around all the time, but he's always working on these absurd math puzzles he says he got from some magazine--Rodney takes to working on the puzzles with him when he gets the chance and/or the guy's stuck on something.

He's working out one of Roger's (is that even his name? Rodney isn't sure) puzzles on a chalkboard, and scribbles out some multiplication off to one side, when this voice behind him says, "1,242,131.73 feet," from over his shoulder, and he turns around to this guy. Standing around in a slouchy suit and uneven tie, with really ridiculous hair, and the guy smiles (in what Rodney will admit is a very charming way) while Rodney glares back at him, thinking he's obviously saying some random number just to be a nuisance. He says something suitably cutting about accountants wandering into the wrong department and turns away, and by the time he's finished the calculation and realized the guy was right, he's already left the room. And that's how he meets John Sheppard. Then a few hours later, Elizabeth, who's head of HR--the first female department head, actually--brings him and formally introduces him.

John's completely unintimidated by Rodney, which is annoying yet novel in an intriguing sort of way, especially since he doesn't seem to be doing any actual work, just hanging around and being nosy and getting in Rodney's way. But in a way that Rodney kind of gets to like.

I haven't worked out the whole going to Rodney's place and clothes-in-the-oven part yet, or the concept of Rodney actually having a significant other the way Bunny did (Rodney wouldn't be with someone he couldn't respect, I don't think, and he couldn't respect anyone who behaved at all the way the movie character did. Maybe Grodin, because he's nice, good at what he does, handles Rodney fairly well, but he just doesn't have that spark that Rodney and John do).

But at the Christmas party, Rodney's kind of rambling drunkenly at John, because Rodney's used to people being scared of him or hating him or fucking him or even respecting him, but he's not really used to people liking him, and Sheppard really seems to like him. But he was military, and there's no way, and Rodney's honestly surprised that Sheppard hasn't just punched him by now. And Sheppard's staring at him in that bemused Sheppard kind of way and says, "Rodney, take a wild guess as to why I'm not in the military anymore." And Rodney, because even when he's drunk he's still brilliant, twigs immediately and goes, "oh," and John explains that yeah, he was discharged when his *cough* male-bonding extra-curriculars came to light--very quietly though, because his General Daddy didn't want the family disgraced. John was also promptly disowned, but hey, looks like those degrees he needed for officer-hood came in handy after all. And they're awkward for a minute before they're interrupted by the rest of the drunken people stumbling in singing.

Not long after that Rodney puts two and two together--degrees? math stuff? office gossip, things like that--that this isn't just any John Sheppard, this is Dr. J. Sheppard, who wrote some really insightful article in some math journal the year before, and who helped build the new computer for IBM. Which must be why he's there. And Rodney's just utterly betrayed when he realizes that Sheppard's really there to replace with him some...some overgrown abacus. He corners John about it, and finds out that yes, he is that Sheppard, and yeah, he does the stuff and writes the papers and did the doctorate thing, but he really just likes messing around with the machines.

Oh, and Carson is the EMERAC person after it's installed, all fussy and highstrung about it, and he loses it when everything goes haywire and Rodney's strolling around enjoying the chaos and quoting obscure poetry and John fixes it with a hairpin or something--"Dr. Sheppard, I'm just a technician. How'm I supposed to deal with people who've no respect for EMERAC? And all these books, the dust's just no good for her at all."

Then Rodney flips out near the end, because what the hell! That little man with the accent is actually a brilliant engineer named Radek Zelenka who's defected from the USSR and is now in hiding in some Witness Protection type thing while he works on a secret government project (and working in Rodney's department under an assumed name, so just as Rodney's gotten to the point of remembering Radek's fake name, he has to learn the real one)! Who's been tricking Rodney into helping him with his secret government project by disguising the tough bits as stupid little puzzles! That absurdly earnest little mailboy--Fred, maybe? But that doesn't seem quite right--is actually Zelenka's contact with whatever shadowy government agency Rodney's been inadvertantly working for! That ridiculously annoying and attractive Sheppard who's been running around twinkling at Rodney and insinuating he's remodeling the place is the genius who built the artificial brain that's going to replace him! Except, oh wait, he is not actually about to be fired and replaced by an artifical brain, and wasn't that a whole lot of stress he just didn't need! And if someone doesn't get him some coffee and a Danish from that little bakery across the street right now to make up for the web of deceit they've weaved around him? Heads. Will. Roll.

Of course, Sheppard's been waiting to for him to take a breath, and then says, "So are you finished, or should I eat these chocolate croissants all by myself, because it would be a shame if they got cold considering all the trouble I went through to get ones that were fresh-baked. I mean, it's no Danish," and he shrugs and pulls back just as Rodney goes to snatch the little white sack from his hand. "Ah, ah. What do you say, Rodney?" They banter a bit over the croissant, and that's how it ends, Rodney with one hand on John's leg and the other snatching for the bag as John tries to prompt him through more things to say (ie., "And I'm sorry I was rude and called you a liar." "And I admit that you make better coffee than I do.")


It's not actually a story yet, obviously, just a sketch of things.