Archive of Our Own ^beta

Rodney's hands were bigger than Ronon's. John wouldn't have believed it, but there it was: Rodney and Ronon, arm wrestling for the last box of Graham crackers, hand to hand, square palm to square palm, Ronon's sleeveless shoulder, smooth and solid, Rodney's black tee-shirt sleeve tight around his tensing biceps.

Rodney lost pretty much instantly, but there had been some truly impressive trash talking before Ronon had knocked the back of Rodney's hand against the cafeteria table an eyeblink later.

Ronon flashed a grin with too many teeth, but clapped the shoulder that Rodney wasn't rubbing at ruefully and handed him a waxed envelope full of crackers from the open box. 

Rodney cradled the crackers and John noticed that his hands pretty much eclipsed the packaging entirely. 

Rodney's hands were huge, John realized. It unsettled him a little.

Rodney wasn't exactly a leprechaun, but it was kind of odd to think that he was bigger than Ronon in some way, endless brain capacity aside. It was… illogical. That was term John was going with.

Like finding out that Lorne painted in his free time, or that Cadman could play slide guitar with a beer bottle. 

He flashed on what other portions of Rodney's anatomy might be disproportionately outsized and then squinched his eyes shut in horrified reaction. 

"John? Did you get something in your eye?" Teyla's hand on his arm was warm and mercifully distracting.

"Something like that," he admitted.

And for over a month, that was pretty much the last he thought of it. 

*

Then they find the Vault.

It's a crisp day in June (the seasons on the Lantean ocean came in two flavors: cool and sunny, or warm and sunny) and Lorne's team is handling a tricky land negotiation for the people from Geldar.

Lorne's team was accompanying Elizabeth on a negotiation, so the A Team stayed home.

"The A Team?" Tesla asked. 

"Team Atlantis," John explained earnestly.

Rodney snorted and Teyla narrowed her eyes at him; she knew there was a joke in there somewhere, but she was apparently not in the mood to ask about it.

But just because they were home didn't mean they couldn’t poke around a little, and Rodney had been whining about poking around in this one particular section for months. Rodney held out the PDA and pointed to a room in the layout at the center of a block of other rooms. 

"Do you know what might be in there?" John asked.

"No. That's why you're all here. To protect me from whatever horrible monstrosity is unveiled, or in absence of that, to do the heavy lifting." 

"Protecting you pretty much always involves heavy lifting," Ronon rumbled. 

"Oh ha, very ha. Say goodbye to my stash of circus peanuts, Gigantor."

"Give it a rest, will ya? Just tell me, McKay, what do you think's behind Door Number Two? You wouldn't have dragged us here specifically if you didn't have some idea."

"Well, I think it might be a storage room. Raw materials, that sort of thing."

"Okay then. Let's see what our lucky contestants will win..."

The door opened on a room that absolutely glowed with treasure. 

The four of them just stood there a while, Rodney openly gaping.

"Oh my god. It's like Aladdin’s cave in here!"

"Feldin's Closet," Ronon said, sounding impressed.

The walls shone with gold, and almost every item in the room was studded with fat, gleaming jewels. 

But they weren't cups or necklaces. 

They were mostly ordinary everyday items, versions of things they'd already found in most places in the city. 

"What is it?" Ronon asked Rodney, pointing at a low square thing that looked like the gold was so pure it would dent if you touched it. 

"Unless I'm hallucinating, it's a minifridge.”

John nodded at Rodney’s assessment.

“Who wouldn’t enjoy having an ice cold six-pack on hand?"

Rodney opened the door, and it swung out easily on its hinges, letting out a blast of cool air. "It works!"

Rodney looked unaccountably pleased about this, and John grinned back at him as he closed the door. 

For all the ritzy gleam, there were three mirrors hanging on the wall. Two were rectangular and the one in the middle was round. They were noticeably, even suspiciously, plain in a room where everything else was made of fancier stuff. 

"Ronon," Teyla said, soft and breathless.

Reaching out, Ronon paused just before he touched the surface of the middle mirror. 

"I think it's made of selion," Ronon said over his shoulder. "I've never seen this much in one place."

"Selion?"

"It is a rare metal, thought to be the gift of the Ancients. It is used to make small charms to keep children safe from the Wraith."

"Wait," John said. The metal was a dull, smooth silver color -- nothing like actual silver, or platinum or even steel.

"Wasn't your necklace made out of this stuff?"

There was something like reproach on Teyla's face.

John figured it had to get old to have all your childhood beliefs get punctured one by one.

"Selion. I think the star drive is made out of this stuff. This could be good... Very, very good.”

Rodney reached for the middle mirror, and snatched his hands away, hissing.

"Son of a bitch!”

"What? What happened? Did you cut yourself?" John demanded.

"No, it was more like an electric shock. God dammit," he crammed four fingers of his left hand into his mouth and sucked on them, glaring at the mirror.

John closed his eyes calmly and then said, "Think you'll live, Rodney?" 

"Probably." He waved at Ronon, "You, pick that up. We should take it back with us."

"The refrigerator? Rodney, it probably weighs a ton!"

"What? He works out!"

"We can come back for it later," John sighed. "With a motor cart and a mini-crane."

Rodney sighed and gave the fridge a wistful little pat. Everyone froze.

"What just happened?" John asked slowly.

The mellow gold luster of the minifridge was now the heavy dull silver of the selion mirror.

 *

"But Rodney--"

Elizabeth was on her feet looking concerned. 

Rodney waved at her dismissively.

"Not to worry, not to worry-- they actually left an instruction book for this one. A manual, if you will. And really, it's quite an elegant arrangement. For example," and he rubbed the broad leaf of one of Elizabeth's office plants between his fingers. Nothing happened.

"Nothing happened," Elizabeth observed. She looked to Zelenka standing beside her and he shrugged in reply.

"Because it doesn't work on organic matter. Nothing that is currently alive or was once alive. Which means I can eat." Rodney took an enthusiastic bite of the powerbar he'd produced as a demonstration. 

"But--"

"Also, you need the Ancient gene, of course, and there's a mental component. Oh, also, it's a temporary ability that can only be used once per person, and then for just a two week term-- one DNA signature per customer." 

"Why?" John asked.

"Well, it's highly addictive, apparently, and also they didn't want anyone to be stuck in a dead end job producing building materials for the rest of their natural lifespans." 

"No," John clarified, "Why would they want to do this in the first place? Make somebody be able to turn gold into selion? Or selion into gold, I guess,” he said, thinking back to the dragon’s hoard back at the storage room.

"It solves the mining problem, for one. No cyanide leach process -- gold mines on Earth use ten tons of crushed rock, 30 pounds of cyanide and 2000 gallons of water to produce an ounce of gold... This way they can just convert lesser metals into adian or selion or ooooooh, naquadah. It also means that every government on the face of the Earth could go back on the gold standard."

"How are you even able to..." began Elizabeth. Rodney interrupted to singsong something about covalent bonds and adding electrons and when they just stared at him, gave them a flat look in return.

"In layman's terms, it turns stuff into other stuff."

"But would that make it... you—dangerously unstable and also radioactive?" John asked, taking a step away.

Rodney sighed, clearly exasperated. 

"We are talking about the Ancients, here, Colonel. They haven't merely harnessed the power of the atom, they've made the atom their bitch. Zed PM? Vacuum energy? Alternate universes? Ringing any bells?"

John crossed his arms and said, "Fine. If they don't mine it and they can't grow it because it can't be used on anything organic, where do they get the building materials to start with? Even the Ancients can't make something out of nothing."

Rodney hemmed and hawed, rubbing his chin theatrically.

"Gee, I don't know, maybe the waste product from desalinating a city's worth of water every 28 hours? Hmm?" Rodney blinked. "Actually, what have we been doing with all that salt?"

"We turn it into blocks and the training pilots chuck 'em into the sun," John said absently.

"We send some back with the Daedalus for the scientists at home. Is full of trace minerals we have never seen," said Zelenka. 

“Huh,” said Rodney.

*

Rodney focused his Midas touch on the raw materials for building ships like Atlantis and making stardrives and hyperspace windows. On his infrequent appearances in the mess hall, he half-heartedly agreed to touch random items for people, turning plastic plates and spoons and mechanical pencils into solid gold knickknacks.

As a result, even though John hardly saw the guy, he was pretty much always thinking about Rodney’s hands.

*

He woke up from a dream where Rodney had turned his belt buckle gold, and then each individual rivet of his button-fly jeans…

Deciding he was definitely overdue for a day off, he radioed Lorne.

*

“He’s probably in Bay 7,” Zelenka told him, muffled by the crawlspace he was busy tinkering in. “Finishing touches, you know.” A smothered giggle. “Magic fingers!”

”Isn’t his two weeks up yet?” John did not whine.

”Few more minutes, I think,” Zelenka added absently. “By sundown.”

*

The view from the pier by the jumper bay boasted huge, billowing pink clouds with gold-shot bellies and a fresh breeze stiff enough to actually move John’s hair.

His first sight of Rodney in days was actually just the inconveniently appealing curve of his ass as he bent over to peer at a schematic on his tablet.

“Hey,” John said.

Rodney startled a little and swung around to peer at him from where he’d been kneeling by an open console.

“Oh, hey! Good timing. I was just about to come get you.”

”Thought I’d come by and dig you out of your selion bunker for an early dinner. Haven’t seen much of you lately.”

For some reason, Rodney flushed pink to the tips of his ears.

”Well. You know me. Busy, busy. A genius’s work is never done.”

”At least your term in the fabrication industry is pretty much up now.”

Scooping up his tablet, Rodney got to his feet.

”Yeah. Just finishing up. This is just a little vanity project I’ve been working on.” He glanced at John and gestured nervously as the shining hull of some winged, graceful swan-necked ship coalesced in the jumper bay before him. It looked light as a soap bubble, like it could have actually been fashioned from blown glass.

“Around the second week I figured out I could actually manipulate the existing shape of the material itself, not just swap the atoms around changing chemical composition.” He looked up at the ship and rested one large, square hand on the transparent hull, gently, the way you might pat a draft horse. “It means metals won’t need to be heated and cast. Saves on foundry furnace fuel and keeps those pesky deadly toxins to a minimum.” 

“You made this? In a week?”

”Uh. More like three days.” When John just stared at him, Rodney frowned back.

”What?” He said defensively. “I’ve actually had the design in mind for a while now. It was just, you know,” he waved dismissively. “A matter of execution.”

“Jesus, Rodney. It’s incredible.” It was one fluid line, with a slight iridescence that seemed to ripple like silk in the sea breeze.

”You think so?” Rodney looked pleased, or maybe relieved. “Logistically, Wonder Woman’s Invisible Jet is a hot mess, but aesthetically… And, you know, we actually do have cloaking technology. Oh, and it doesn’t need to stay transparent. This is just moonroof mode. You can lower the blinds, so to speak.” He patted it again and the faint rainbow ripple condensed into a deep, inky black. 

“Holy shit,” John said reverently. He reached out to fold a hand against the back of Rodney’s neck. “I’m gonna kiss the hell out of you now. If that’s okay?”

”Oh, thank god,” Rodney muttered, and crashed into John.

* 

Some time later, Rodney came to stand beside John so they could gaze up at the ship together.

”I, uh. I hoped you’d like it. I mean. I built it for you.”

“For me?!”

Rodney nodded, looking flushed and hectic… and beard burned.

“You should name it.”

”Diana,” John blurted. “How about Diana?”

”Really?”

John shrugged, still dazzled. “Goddess of the moon, from the Latin for shining, divine, the open sky. Yeah. Diana.”

“Huh. I was thinking Lynda… but. Yours is better.”

John nodded indulgently and they were quiet a while.

“The first thing I’m gonna do after I touch the selion mirror is build a goddamned fleet of these, Rodney.”

”Of course you will,” Rodney said, sounding miffed that John may have even considered any other plans. “Why do you think I made the prototype in the first place?”

END