No. 27

Prompt: Stargate Atlantis, Rod McKay + (canon) John Sheppard, This Sheppard has an air of danger that his geeky, too-thin Sheppard never has.
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/702314.html?thread=92722282#t92722282

It's a subtle difference, but this John Sheppard is dangerous. It's the way he carries himself – just like the John he knows, he sees every day – that deliberately insouciant stroll, his tendency to lean instead of stand. But even when he's kicked back in his chair in the mess hall, fingers laced behind his head, he's alert. He notices everything around him, tracking who comes in and out of the room, who's moving around him (and he never, ever, ever sits so anyone can have his back).

And when he smiles, it's just as charming as Rod knows, just as charming as to make Rod wary when introductions John to any single female friends, but there's an edge to it. A restraint. There's something going on under that smile, and Rod thinks if he really knew it, he wouldn't like it.

This John is stronger. Physically. Rod would expect emotionally, too, shouldering the burden of military command of Atlantis, but the play of muscles in his forearms when he fidgets with a pen on his desk, the way his t-shirt stretches taut across his chest when he sheds his jacket is new and unsettling. Rod's John is lean, whipcord thing, strong in a hungry, aescetic way, from too many late nights staring at a whiteboard and making calculations, too much coffee and not enough sleep.

Rod is a little afraid of this John Sheppard, of the easy way he wears a gun on his thigh, the way he comes to full alertness when there's a loud sound or something out of the ordinary, but Rod likes him a little more than his own John Sheppard, and when he goes home, he will forever compare the two.