9

Title: Like Taking Candy...
Word count: 435
Characters: Sheppard, McKay
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Spoilers: None
Summary: Sheppard discovers the truth in a cliche. Rodney "suffers".

Author's Note: I hold bibliotech responsible for this. I'm really new to SGA fandom, and yet I managed to get smacked by a bunny. I think if you look at the majority of my fiction (fan or otherwise) you'll probably start to see a trend....

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The bright red bag on the corner of the desk drew his attention immediately. Sheppard grinned and exclaimed "Ooh, hey! Skittles!" and reached for the bag.

He withdrew his hand quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid McKay's stinging slap.

"Those are mine," he said.

"I only want a couple. Can't you share?"

"No. Go get your own. Oh, wait. You can't. This was the last pack." Rodney smirked and tore open the bag.

Sheppard watched as McKay poured the contents of the bag onto his desk and sorted the candies into groups. By colour. Then he arranged the segregated candies into rows, adjusting and shifting the pieces until they were in perfect rectangles and squares.

Except for one purple one. There was no way Rodney could adjust the shape to accommodate the one odd one. He handed it to Sheppard.

John gave an exaggerated bow. "Thank you, oh gracious lord."

"Ha. Ha." Rodney picked up one red candy and put it on his tongue.

"Don't you have some sort of an allergy?"

"Please. As if there were anything natural or even remotely non-synthetic in these things." Rodney picked up another red one.

John reached for another Skittle and was slapped away again. "You're really going to sit there and eat them one at a time?"

"Yes, and I'm going to eat them by colour. Red first. Then purple. Then the orange ones. Then the yellow ones. Then the green ones."

"Not doing it in rainbow order?"

"I eat them in order of preference. I don't like the red ones, so I eat them first. I like the green ones, so I save them for last."

"If you don't like them why don't you just give them to me?"

"Because they're mine." Rodney raised his hand, ready to strike if Sheppard made a move toward the organized rows.

"Wow. You have serious issues, Rodney. Hey, how's the research going? That's what I came in for before I got distracted by your display of OCD."

Rodney turned back to the computer and called up a document. "Actually, it's really interesting. Do you see this line right here?" He pointed. There was no reply from Sheppard. McKay glanced back over his shoulder.

No Sheppard.

No Skittles, either.

Well. There was one. Sitting in the middle of a sheet of white paper, like a tiny red stoplight.

Somewhere down the hall, John Sheppard poured a handful of Skittles into his mouth and chewed vigorously, mixing the flavours together. What do you know? he thought. It really is easy.