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John followed Rodney into his room when it seemed like Rodney wasn't ready to let the conversation end. Well, if you could call it a conversation when one participant simply had to nod and occasionally grunt, anyway. Rodney was on a tear about how Kavanaugh had screwed up, again, and Rodney was livid.
It was the threat to have him take Rodney's place on his team in the hopes that he'd get killed that finally got John's attention, though. "Whoa, no way am I having that idiot on my team. He'd just manage to get someone else killed instead of himself, and then I'd still be stuck with him."
"But... but... I need to find something he can't break or he's going to bring Atlantis down over our heads, and I don't have the time to follow around behind him cleaning up... Colonel, are you listening to me?"
"Uh, huh," John nodded, but truthfully his attention had gotten distracted to the small figure standing on Rodney's nightstand. "Hey, what's this?" he asked, picking it up and playing with its arms.
"Be careful with that," Rodney said, practically snatching the toy out of John's hands. "And what do you mean, what is it? This is a Dalek - you have to know what this is!"
"Uh, no. What's a Dalek?" John was fascinated by the way that Rodney's hands moved over the toy. It was almost like a soothing ritual, and John would have smiled, except that he knew Rodney would be offended. Oh, what the hell - offending Rodney was half the fun of it. "The way you're acting you'd think I just picked up a priceless artifact to play football."
Still cradling the toy, Rodney glared. "You would play football with a priceless artifact - I've seen you do it! Just leave my Dalek alone and no one has to get hurt."
"But I'm still waiting to find out what a Dalek is?" John put on his confused face. Wait for it... three, two, one...
"How you've never seen Dr. Who, I have no idea. Just more American ignorance of the great classics, I suppose." There was the insult, right on schedule. "Daleks were the aliens out to destroy the human race in the show - always marching around going 'Ex-ter-min- Oh." Rodney sat down hard on the side of the bed, carefully setting the toy back down on the night stand.
The look on his face was one that John hadn't seen before and didn't particularly like. "Rodney?"
"I just forgot for a moment that there really is a race that's out to kill us. It's somehow less funny now."
John crouched down in front of Rodney so he could meet his eyes squarely. "Yeah, there is, and they keep failing. These Dalek things ever succeed on Dr. Who?"
"Of course not! He always foiled their fiendish plots in the end."
John didn't say anything. He just smiled until Rodney's face broke and a crooked grin came out. "Okay, I get it."
Standing up, John ignored the way that his knees creaked. "So, do you have any Dr. Who on your laptop?"
Rodney snorted. "Of course I do." There was a moment of silence, and then the penny apparently dropped. "Oh! You want to watch some with me?"
John pulled over the desk chair and settled in. "Don't mind if I do."