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chasingkerouacSo, the deadline for this is today and I'm just not done *lol* But! Since I totally am working on it and it will be written and posted post haste, I figured I'd post a teaser for it just to prove it's on it's way and yes, I have a direction.
Title: Road to Atlantis
Challenge:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
reel_sga
Prompt: Road To Morocco (1941): Jeff (Bing Crosby) and Turkey (Bob Hope), two wild and crazy guys adrift on a raft in the Mediterranean, are cast away on a desert shore and hop a convenient camel to an Arabian Nights city where Turkey soon finds himself sold as a slave...to luscious Princess Shalmar of Karameesh (Dorothy Lamour). Naturally, Jeff would like to rescue Turkey from this "dire" fate, even if it means taking his place! But they haven't figured on virile desert chieftain Mullay Kassim (Anthony Quinn), who has designs on the princess himself...
Summary: “Well, you can stay here and wait to fry in the sun while no one considers the fact that we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere on a backwater planet we weren’t even supposed to be investigating today, thank you Cadman,” Rodney hissed as he glared at John, “but I’m headed back to our jumper to try and figure out a way to fly the damn thing back.”
A/N: The first scene of the fic for a little taste. Promise the whole thing is coming soon as I finish the last few scenes and edit. Much thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spazzula who allowed me to theif the planet of Elusia and the previous 'mission o' doom' from her fic Murphy's Law.
Oh, and for those who haven't seen the movie, there is a song in there that Jeff and Turkey sing called 'Road to Morocco'. While I don't have that song, I do have the Stewie and Brian version from Family Guy called Road to Rhode Island [Buy]. Spoof of an ep, but it's the same tune that John's whistling :)
“This is entirely your fault.”
John Sheppard rolled his eyes as the pair trudged through the sand on their way back to the gate. “These things happen, Rodney,” he groaned, wishing that that would be the end of the conversation, but knowing all to well that it wouldn’t be.
“No, colonel, these things do NOT just happen,” Rodney griped. “You’re supposed to be this hot shot flyboy. Never been a machine you couldn’t fly, and here we are stuck back on the ground and having to walk I don’t even know how many miles back to the Gate because you couldn’t tell the difference between open space perfect for flying a jumper through and the one tree in the entire desert that makes the aforementioned jumper go smash.”
“So I was flying low,” John replied with a shrug. “There was a short circuit and-“
“Oh, you are not going to blame this somehow on me!”
“I’m just saying that maybe someone should’ve been watching the propulsion systems instead of complaining about the lack of properly flavored Powerbars in his pack.”
“Good taste is a significant part of good nutrition.”
John tried his radio once again, audibly cursing the static that crackled through again. Of all the places in all the worlds to get stranded on, the damn desert side of an already established crazy planet was not topping his list. MX0-981, lovingly referred to as Elusia by the natives they’d met previously. They’d gotten as far as exploring one settlement before all hell broke loose, as was ridiculously predictable when his team was involved.
He wasn’t ignorant of the rumors that floated around the city. Sheppard’s team was cursed. It was bullshit if you asked him, but he couldn’t fault their reasoning. Lorne’s team routinely came back with dull stories of investigation and trade, Cadman’s team rarely had to visit the infirmary afterwards for anything more serious than an antiseptic rub or an aspirin, both Miller’s and Corgan’s teams had stories of loving but simple Pegasus women and Vickers’ team more often than not stumbled onto uninhabited planets. What happened when Sheppard and his team stepped onto a planet? Suddenly there were harvest festivals, hidden nuclear weapons, plots to overthrow the government and semi-domesticated Wraith that were going to try and kill them anyway.
Elizabeth had originally planned to send Cadman’s team through to explore Elusia further after Teyla commented that she remembered more than one society on the planet. However, after the lieutenant and her team listened to the previous debriefing in preparation, they all suspiciously came down with food poisoning and were conveniently deemed unfit for duty for the day. Cadman seemed far too happy while Carson was informing him of the situation to actually be poisoned, but John couldn’t prove the doctor was lying for her. The benefits dating the chief medical officer, he thought ruefully. So instead, his team was back on Elusia and searching for the aforementioned second society.
They’d left Teyla and Ronon back at the gate to pay their respects to the Elusians they met previously. Rodney refused to go back into the city, so John decided to get a head start and do a preliminary survey of the planet. They’d gotten through a savannah-type area and into the desert when the puddlejumper malfunctioned and they were forced to make an emergency landing.
John didn’t crash, he made “emergency landings”.
“Teyla, Ronon, can you read me?” he tried again, vaguely aware that Rodney had continued to speak although he’d long since stopped paying attention to the scientist’s ramblings.
“Unless they’ve decided that they’re going to speak in static instead of in English, no, I don’t think they can read you,” Rodney snapped.
John scowled at Rodney as they trudged up a dune. “I got that. Thanks. Don’t you have a Powerbar to eat or an insect to get attacked by again?”
Rodney quickly pulled a trio of epi pens from his flak vest with a smug little grin and flashed them in front of John’s face. “I’ll have you know, I’m quite prepared this time just incase the entire planet worships bees instead of just the Elusians by the gate, thank you very much.”
“You know, I’m sure they’d love to see you again. You made such an impression on them last time.”
“Yes, one seems to make an impression when they think you’ve been possessed and are going to kill them all.”
“It turned out alright in the end.”
“No it didn’t.”
“That’s why Teyla’s back there making a good impression this time around.”
“As long as she keeps Conan on a leash and away from the livestock, we should be fine.” Rodney wiped the sweat from his forehead and grasped at the sand as they reached the top of the dune. “Are we almost back? This is ridiculous. I didn’t know we were trekking out to the land of the sand people and my sunblock is back in the city. You do not want to get burned by a sun like this because the permanent ramifications of any sort of craniofacial problems, including severe sunburn up here,” he said, motioning to his face, “could permanently alter my ability to save your ass when you need for me to.”
“Aw, you’d never let that happen, Rodney,” John replied lightly.
“And why not?”
John grinned at him as they topped the dune. “Because you like showing off too much to intentionally screw up. Might even give Zelenka your title and your position on the team if that happened.”
“Blasphemer,” Rodney wheezed, again wiping the sweat from his forehead and finally crossing his arms across his chest. “Alright, that’s it. I’m done. I’m hot, I’m sweaty, we have no idea where the gate is and if we wait right here, a jumper should come for us any moment and whisk us back to the pleasant, and let me remind you air-conditioned, city. This is ridiculous.”
“Another team won’t come for us for hours,” John sighed. “We’ve been gone longer than this without checking in.”
“Well, you can stay here and wait to fry in the sun while no one considers the fact that we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere on a backwater planet we weren’t even supposed to be investigating today, thank you Cadman,” Rodney hissed, “but I’m headed back to our jumper to try and figure out a way to fly the damn thing back.”
“You said she was dead.”
“Well maybe she’s not as dead as we thought.”
“She was on fire.”
“Only on the outside.” Rodney turned and started back down the dune.
John grabbed the back of Rodney’s vest and pulled him back. “Don’t wimp out now,” he said, giving him another insistent pull back. Usually this wouldn’t have resulted in anything more than a snide reply from McKay and the pair of them setting back on their course.
Usually they weren’t standing on loose sand.
The footing slipped from underneath the pair and they both unceremoniously rolled down the dune. Sand kicked up every which way and a string of obscenities slipped out until their movement was stopped desert brush. Rodney blinked, wiping sand from his face and glaring at John once again.
John smiled through the sand and chuckled. “I hear sand is a good sunblock.”
“Of course, make jokes while we almost fall to our death!” Rodney wailed. “You pushed me down a sand dune!”
“Technically… I pulled you.”
“That isn’t the point! The point is that the galaxy almost lost its most brilliant mind… is there something wrong, colonel?” Rodney snapped when he noticed John wasn’t looking at him, but right above his head. “What? Is there something on my head?”
John wasn’t going to laugh. He really wasn’t going to laugh. “Rodney…” he started.
“There’s something on my head, isn’t there?” Rodney replied, reaching up and paling as his hand landed on something fuzzy. And with nostrils. And… chewing. “Oh my god! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!” he shrieked, his voice jumping an octave as he tried desperately not to move. “He’s chewing on my hair!”
“It’s just a camel,” John shrugged, trying to be calm. “Or Pegasus brand camel type… thing.” He stood up and gave the beast a quick pat on the nose as it continued to happily chew on Rodney’s hair. “Hey girl, you wanna stop that, right?” he said. The camel obviously agreed. She moved from Rodney’s hair to lick John’s face, leaving a spit trail from his shoulder to his hairline. “Yeah, that’s better,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a friend out there, would ya?”
“I almost got eaten by a camel…” Rodney whined, finally pulling himself to his feet. “I can’t believe ahh!” His thoughts were interrupted by another nose poking out from behind the brush, this one looking angrier than the first. “Nice camel! Easy camel! Brilliant and intergalactically respected astrophysicists do not taste good! Coffee’s good, McKays are not!” He jumped back when the second camel snorted at him.
John grinned at Rodney. “You said you were tired of walking? Here’s our answer.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“They’re obviously domesticated,” John explained, motioning to the harnesses they camels were fitted with. “And besides, the girl likes me.”
Rodney snorted in amusement. “The girl always likes you. There’s no accounting for taste. Oh come on, you can’t be serious,” he tried again as John swung his legs up over the female with ease. “That one’s going to eat me!”
“It’s either this or walking,” John answered with a shrug. He gave his camel a light kick and she stepped over the brush with ease.
Rodney groaned but grabbed the reins and glared seriously at his camel. “Alright, you and I are going to have an agreement. You’re going to behave or I’m going to find a way to re-power a ZPM with a camel carcass.”
The camel grunted in reply and answered with a spit to Rodney’s face.
“Fine… we’re in agreement,” Rodney grumbled as he wiped his face and swung up onto the beast.
***
“Could you stop that?” Rodney hissed as the camels meandered through the sand.
John smiled and continued whistling, swaying with the camel easily as she trudged through the dunes and sparse desert grasses. “C’mon McKay, gotta pass the time some how. Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy a quality musical interlude?”
“Quality is the key word,” Rodney snorted.
“I could sing.”
“You can sing?”
“Nope.”
“If you want to be responsible for the most important man in the city keeling over and allowing himself to be trampled by a sort of camel out in the middle of God only knows where, sure. Go ahead and thrill me with a tune.”
“That’s a little melodramatic.”
“Don’t try me.”
John grinned. “See, and here I thought you were planning to die from the heat. Or from the sun. Or from the-”
“I get the point!” Rodney snapped. “Are you so bored that you have to resort to mocking me?”
“Yep.”
“This is hell,” Rodney grumbled. “This is hell and it can’t possibly get worse.”
TBC
Title: Road to Atlantis
Challenge:
reel_sgaPrompt: Road To Morocco (1941): Jeff (Bing Crosby) and Turkey (Bob Hope), two wild and crazy guys adrift on a raft in the Mediterranean, are cast away on a desert shore and hop a convenient camel to an Arabian Nights city where Turkey soon finds himself sold as a slave...to luscious Princess Shalmar of Karameesh (Dorothy Lamour). Naturally, Jeff would like to rescue Turkey from this "dire" fate, even if it means taking his place! But they haven't figured on virile desert chieftain Mullay Kassim (Anthony Quinn), who has designs on the princess himself...
Summary: “Well, you can stay here and wait to fry in the sun while no one considers the fact that we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere on a backwater planet we weren’t even supposed to be investigating today, thank you Cadman,” Rodney hissed as he glared at John, “but I’m headed back to our jumper to try and figure out a way to fly the damn thing back.”
A/N: The first scene of the fic for a little taste. Promise the whole thing is coming soon as I finish the last few scenes and edit. Much thanks to
spazzula who allowed me to theif the planet of Elusia and the previous 'mission o' doom' from her fic Murphy's Law.Oh, and for those who haven't seen the movie, there is a song in there that Jeff and Turkey sing called 'Road to Morocco'. While I don't have that song, I do have the Stewie and Brian version from Family Guy called Road to Rhode Island [Buy]. Spoof of an ep, but it's the same tune that John's whistling :)
“This is entirely your fault.”
John Sheppard rolled his eyes as the pair trudged through the sand on their way back to the gate. “These things happen, Rodney,” he groaned, wishing that that would be the end of the conversation, but knowing all to well that it wouldn’t be.
“No, colonel, these things do NOT just happen,” Rodney griped. “You’re supposed to be this hot shot flyboy. Never been a machine you couldn’t fly, and here we are stuck back on the ground and having to walk I don’t even know how many miles back to the Gate because you couldn’t tell the difference between open space perfect for flying a jumper through and the one tree in the entire desert that makes the aforementioned jumper go smash.”
“So I was flying low,” John replied with a shrug. “There was a short circuit and-“
“Oh, you are not going to blame this somehow on me!”
“I’m just saying that maybe someone should’ve been watching the propulsion systems instead of complaining about the lack of properly flavored Powerbars in his pack.”
“Good taste is a significant part of good nutrition.”
John tried his radio once again, audibly cursing the static that crackled through again. Of all the places in all the worlds to get stranded on, the damn desert side of an already established crazy planet was not topping his list. MX0-981, lovingly referred to as Elusia by the natives they’d met previously. They’d gotten as far as exploring one settlement before all hell broke loose, as was ridiculously predictable when his team was involved.
He wasn’t ignorant of the rumors that floated around the city. Sheppard’s team was cursed. It was bullshit if you asked him, but he couldn’t fault their reasoning. Lorne’s team routinely came back with dull stories of investigation and trade, Cadman’s team rarely had to visit the infirmary afterwards for anything more serious than an antiseptic rub or an aspirin, both Miller’s and Corgan’s teams had stories of loving but simple Pegasus women and Vickers’ team more often than not stumbled onto uninhabited planets. What happened when Sheppard and his team stepped onto a planet? Suddenly there were harvest festivals, hidden nuclear weapons, plots to overthrow the government and semi-domesticated Wraith that were going to try and kill them anyway.
Elizabeth had originally planned to send Cadman’s team through to explore Elusia further after Teyla commented that she remembered more than one society on the planet. However, after the lieutenant and her team listened to the previous debriefing in preparation, they all suspiciously came down with food poisoning and were conveniently deemed unfit for duty for the day. Cadman seemed far too happy while Carson was informing him of the situation to actually be poisoned, but John couldn’t prove the doctor was lying for her. The benefits dating the chief medical officer, he thought ruefully. So instead, his team was back on Elusia and searching for the aforementioned second society.
They’d left Teyla and Ronon back at the gate to pay their respects to the Elusians they met previously. Rodney refused to go back into the city, so John decided to get a head start and do a preliminary survey of the planet. They’d gotten through a savannah-type area and into the desert when the puddlejumper malfunctioned and they were forced to make an emergency landing.
John didn’t crash, he made “emergency landings”.
“Teyla, Ronon, can you read me?” he tried again, vaguely aware that Rodney had continued to speak although he’d long since stopped paying attention to the scientist’s ramblings.
“Unless they’ve decided that they’re going to speak in static instead of in English, no, I don’t think they can read you,” Rodney snapped.
John scowled at Rodney as they trudged up a dune. “I got that. Thanks. Don’t you have a Powerbar to eat or an insect to get attacked by again?”
Rodney quickly pulled a trio of epi pens from his flak vest with a smug little grin and flashed them in front of John’s face. “I’ll have you know, I’m quite prepared this time just incase the entire planet worships bees instead of just the Elusians by the gate, thank you very much.”
“You know, I’m sure they’d love to see you again. You made such an impression on them last time.”
“Yes, one seems to make an impression when they think you’ve been possessed and are going to kill them all.”
“It turned out alright in the end.”
“No it didn’t.”
“That’s why Teyla’s back there making a good impression this time around.”
“As long as she keeps Conan on a leash and away from the livestock, we should be fine.” Rodney wiped the sweat from his forehead and grasped at the sand as they reached the top of the dune. “Are we almost back? This is ridiculous. I didn’t know we were trekking out to the land of the sand people and my sunblock is back in the city. You do not want to get burned by a sun like this because the permanent ramifications of any sort of craniofacial problems, including severe sunburn up here,” he said, motioning to his face, “could permanently alter my ability to save your ass when you need for me to.”
“Aw, you’d never let that happen, Rodney,” John replied lightly.
“And why not?”
John grinned at him as they topped the dune. “Because you like showing off too much to intentionally screw up. Might even give Zelenka your title and your position on the team if that happened.”
“Blasphemer,” Rodney wheezed, again wiping the sweat from his forehead and finally crossing his arms across his chest. “Alright, that’s it. I’m done. I’m hot, I’m sweaty, we have no idea where the gate is and if we wait right here, a jumper should come for us any moment and whisk us back to the pleasant, and let me remind you air-conditioned, city. This is ridiculous.”
“Another team won’t come for us for hours,” John sighed. “We’ve been gone longer than this without checking in.”
“Well, you can stay here and wait to fry in the sun while no one considers the fact that we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere on a backwater planet we weren’t even supposed to be investigating today, thank you Cadman,” Rodney hissed, “but I’m headed back to our jumper to try and figure out a way to fly the damn thing back.”
“You said she was dead.”
“Well maybe she’s not as dead as we thought.”
“She was on fire.”
“Only on the outside.” Rodney turned and started back down the dune.
John grabbed the back of Rodney’s vest and pulled him back. “Don’t wimp out now,” he said, giving him another insistent pull back. Usually this wouldn’t have resulted in anything more than a snide reply from McKay and the pair of them setting back on their course.
Usually they weren’t standing on loose sand.
The footing slipped from underneath the pair and they both unceremoniously rolled down the dune. Sand kicked up every which way and a string of obscenities slipped out until their movement was stopped desert brush. Rodney blinked, wiping sand from his face and glaring at John once again.
John smiled through the sand and chuckled. “I hear sand is a good sunblock.”
“Of course, make jokes while we almost fall to our death!” Rodney wailed. “You pushed me down a sand dune!”
“Technically… I pulled you.”
“That isn’t the point! The point is that the galaxy almost lost its most brilliant mind… is there something wrong, colonel?” Rodney snapped when he noticed John wasn’t looking at him, but right above his head. “What? Is there something on my head?”
John wasn’t going to laugh. He really wasn’t going to laugh. “Rodney…” he started.
“There’s something on my head, isn’t there?” Rodney replied, reaching up and paling as his hand landed on something fuzzy. And with nostrils. And… chewing. “Oh my god! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!” he shrieked, his voice jumping an octave as he tried desperately not to move. “He’s chewing on my hair!”
“It’s just a camel,” John shrugged, trying to be calm. “Or Pegasus brand camel type… thing.” He stood up and gave the beast a quick pat on the nose as it continued to happily chew on Rodney’s hair. “Hey girl, you wanna stop that, right?” he said. The camel obviously agreed. She moved from Rodney’s hair to lick John’s face, leaving a spit trail from his shoulder to his hairline. “Yeah, that’s better,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a friend out there, would ya?”
“I almost got eaten by a camel…” Rodney whined, finally pulling himself to his feet. “I can’t believe ahh!” His thoughts were interrupted by another nose poking out from behind the brush, this one looking angrier than the first. “Nice camel! Easy camel! Brilliant and intergalactically respected astrophysicists do not taste good! Coffee’s good, McKays are not!” He jumped back when the second camel snorted at him.
John grinned at Rodney. “You said you were tired of walking? Here’s our answer.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“They’re obviously domesticated,” John explained, motioning to the harnesses they camels were fitted with. “And besides, the girl likes me.”
Rodney snorted in amusement. “The girl always likes you. There’s no accounting for taste. Oh come on, you can’t be serious,” he tried again as John swung his legs up over the female with ease. “That one’s going to eat me!”
“It’s either this or walking,” John answered with a shrug. He gave his camel a light kick and she stepped over the brush with ease.
Rodney groaned but grabbed the reins and glared seriously at his camel. “Alright, you and I are going to have an agreement. You’re going to behave or I’m going to find a way to re-power a ZPM with a camel carcass.”
The camel grunted in reply and answered with a spit to Rodney’s face.
“Fine… we’re in agreement,” Rodney grumbled as he wiped his face and swung up onto the beast.
***
“Could you stop that?” Rodney hissed as the camels meandered through the sand.
John smiled and continued whistling, swaying with the camel easily as she trudged through the dunes and sparse desert grasses. “C’mon McKay, gotta pass the time some how. Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy a quality musical interlude?”
“Quality is the key word,” Rodney snorted.
“I could sing.”
“You can sing?”
“Nope.”
“If you want to be responsible for the most important man in the city keeling over and allowing himself to be trampled by a sort of camel out in the middle of God only knows where, sure. Go ahead and thrill me with a tune.”
“That’s a little melodramatic.”
“Don’t try me.”
John grinned. “See, and here I thought you were planning to die from the heat. Or from the sun. Or from the-”
“I get the point!” Rodney snapped. “Are you so bored that you have to resort to mocking me?”
“Yep.”
“This is hell,” Rodney grumbled. “This is hell and it can’t possibly get worse.”
TBC
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 11:58 pm (UTC)No, Rodney, no! You've just cursed yourself! *g*
The Road to Morocco is my very favorite Hope/Crosby road picture, and perfect for the boys. Love Rodney constant griping and John's laid back attitude. This is going to be fun!
no subject
Date: 2006-07-08 12:06 am (UTC)