"No, seriously," Rodney said, "Even at four in the morning, Radek thought this was a good idea? He sat down and opened his update client and typed this up, then still thought this was an idea which even slightly backwards rhesus monkeys would not have disowned on sight, and actually posted it?" His voice was rapidly approaching the level of shrill it achieved on those horrible Monday mornings when Elizabeth flatly forbade him from going down the street to Starbucks for any more triple espressos.
"I thought you said you didn't read your friends page, McKay," John said from the other side of the office. "Sorry, 'glorified RSS feed with a name designed to pander to every deeply ingrained social insecurity known to man.'"
Rodney knew that John was supposed to be working on mock-ups for the new GUI—they were weeks behind Elizabeth's carefully planned schedule, far enough behind to require some of the staff to put in extra hours at the weekend, but really, it wasn't like Rodney could have planned for someone deliberately setting fire to the servers—but John was leaning back in his chair, scrolling slowly through a lengthy page of comments. Rodney could only see the back of his head, but he would have paid good money that John was smirking at the screen of his iMac.
Rodney narrowed his eyes.
"I was just checking to make sure that Kavanagh's latest batch of code didn't break the page," Rodney said, "because last time all he was supposed to do was add some new styles and the entire site was in Hungarian for two days—of course, yes, I designed S2 to be so vastly complicated—so any discovery by me of Zelenka's latest brain aberration is entirely coincidental and not because I had any sudden desire to look at Elizabeth's recipes for left-over tofu, or to stare at Miko being emo in Japanese."
"Oh, I don't know," John said, swivelling around in his chair to face Rodney. He scratched lazily at his stomach with one hand, making his faded t-shirt ride up a little, exposing a strip of pale belly and the curve and flare of a hipbone. "I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. And you've been complaining about the level of communication between us and the user base for ages now."
"Yes," Rodney said, "and I still think it's entirely too easy for them to contact us. Why do they have to have any contact information for us at all?"
John rolled his eyes. "You're just bitter because of that one time Teyla made you work the Support Boards."
"Two days," Rodney hissed, "two very long and miserable days that I will never get back, and really, it is a typical example of your country's backwards legal system that someone is able to get a restraining order issued against me just because I explained to them how to post a poll over the internet!"
"McKay, you used a very large font size to tell her she was—"
"That is entirely beside the point!" Rodney said quickly, "The point is, is this so-called 'anonymous meme', as if I wouldn't be thoroughly capable of tracking anyone down using their IP addresses, not to mention the completely inaccurate use of the word meme. 'Here is your chance to tell us anonymously what you really think of the LiveJournal staffers and the service we provide to you'," he read from the screen, mimicking Radek's accent with what John felt was an alarming degree of accuracy, "'The good, the bad, the ugly—and Rodney McKay.'" Rodney sneered at the screen. "I don't care how pissed off he is about it, I was right about that server migration, he was wrong, and I am so telling Elizabeth what he got up to last October—he deserves to have his ass dumped, that little—"
"Hey, hey," John said placatingly as he got up and went over to the coffee machine that sat on a table in the corner. "It's all been very polite so far. Fifteen different people commented with 'first reply!', then there were some suggestions for improvements to the site, a couple comments in Russian that I don't think any of us can understand, requests for hi-res copies of Ronon's staff photo"—Rodney gave a mental shrug; understandable—"and one very brave yet ultimately misguided attempt at getting Teyla's phone number."
Rodney huffed, glaring over at where John leaned against one of the brightly painted walls—Elizabeth felt that primary colours were conducive to an energetic and creative working environment—sipping at his cup of coffee.
"Give it time," he said, "I've seen the versions those fannish people produce, and even I think they're vicious. I guarantee you that in mere hours, the great unwashed who populate the site will all have felt the need to spam the comments with inane questions that could be answered if they ever took two minutes to look at the FAQ, links to a certain video on YouTube"—John stiffened and fiddled with his glasses so that the heavy black frames were centred on his nose; he really hadn't known that camera had been there—"comments about the sexual prowess or lack thereof of various staff members. Not mention requests for my resignation, because far be it from them to realise the benefits they are getting from having the server side infrastructure maintained by someone like me, me, when I could be back on campus coming up with theories so far beyond the level of their comprehension that it would take them weeks, weeks—"
John suppressed a wince. There were already hints of spittle and Rodney looked like he was just getting into the beginning of round five hundred and ninety-eight as to why some funding bodies were absolute, certified and certifiable morons for not recognising the importance of giving enough money to grad students so that they didn't have to do anything so mundane as work part-time in order to afford their organic Kenyan coffee beans.
"McKay," he said; then, when Rodney showed no sign of pausing, "McKay. McKay. McKay. McKay." When Rodney finally halted in mid tirade, tilting his chin up expectantly, John sighed and said "No one is commenting to complain about you, okay, Rodney? There isn't some great user campaign to send you back to Berkeley with your tail between your legs. Everyone knows you're doing a good job."
Rodney reddened a little and looked away from John, back towards his computer screen, muttering something about how a diploma in motor mechanics from Palo Alto Community College didn't really go very far towards validating John's opinion.
John patted the framed picture of a cherry-red Ferrari 360 Modena that sat on his desk. "I'm licensed to fix auto-moh-beels in forty-eight states," he said brightly, drawling out his words, loving the way that made Rodney choke and splutter.
He was building up to telling Rodney about his Master's from MIT one day, but he didn't want there to be liquids or thousands of dollars of computing equipment in the room on the day that occurred—plus, he was kind of enjoying letting Rodney think that the occasional bug fixes he came up with, the ones that were simple and elegant, the ones that made Rodney splutter before growing silent and studying them, were the result of some bizarre idiot savant coding ability (emphasis on the idiot, Sheppard) and nothing more.
John swivelled back around in his chair and was just about to call Photoshop up from the dock when he shrugged and decided to refresh Radek's page one more time. He read through the latest batch of comments before suppressing a grin and raising an eyebrow. "McKay?" he said.
"Yes?" Rodney muttered, "What, what, what? Busy?"
"You do know that the whole point of an anonymous meme is that you're, you know, anonymous?"
"Since when have I ever been reticent about pointing out aggravating stupidity?" Rodney said. "That is Radek's probable IQ, that is what I think about your hair, and yes, your boxers are showing, does the function and purpose of a belt escape you entirely?"
"Okay," John said, and there was silence in the room for a few minutes. Then John heard Rodney's e-mail client chime softly; he made it to a count of five before Rodney snorted and said "Yes, Sheppard, fine, right, that is so very, very mature."
"I have no idea what you're talking about, McKay," John said, pretending to be very, very interested in his graphics tablet suddenly. "I am a very model of maturity."
"Please," Rodney said, "Even without that idiotic Johnny Cash icon, I would know it was you thanks to the egregious and completely unnecessary use of smilies—not to mention that you are just obnoxious enough to use the one with the noses."
"What can I say, Rodney," John said, "I'm old school AOL." He made a mental note to sprinkle his next general staff memo with a generous helping of :-) and :o), just to see what Rodney's reaction would be.
"I should send you over to work with Jeannie on Vox," Rodney said, "and let you waste your potential on blogging for the Fisher Price generation together, because working with you is too much like having to deal with one of those fourteen year old yaoi fangirls on a daily basis."
"Kawaii," John said, then ducked, laughing, when Rodney flung a pen at him.
