fic: A Boy and His Car - [3/?], PG-13

[greenconverses]

TITLE: A Boy and His Car, Part Three
SUMMARY: At seventeen, John Sheppard has led a pretty ordinary life. His 'new' car, a beat-up 1976 Chevy Camaro with a mind of it's own, is about to change all that.
RATING: PG-13 for language.
CATEGORY: crackfic, crossover, general, a slight hint of romance
DISCLAIMER: Guess what? I don't own a car that can transform into a giant robot or a giant spinning circle thing that can transport me to another galaxy! Also, the song lyrics used do not belong to me.
NOTES: A Stargate Atlantis/Transformers 2007 crossover set in the Shermer High universe. I am so sorry this chapter took such a long time! I had the majority written before I left for college in September and then I had never had chance to finish it! Hopefully I'll be able to have another chapter up before break is finished. Meanwhile, my laptop is having issues with the Internet and my sister's glaring at me to get off the family computer...

Part One
Part Two

Part Three

 

“Morning John.”

 

John yawned and nodded at his father as he shuffled toward the refrigerator. At the kitchen counter, Colonel Sheppard was meticulously organizing papers in his briefcase, his uniform crisply pressed and birds glinting on both shoulders, ready for another day at the Academy.

 

“Weight lifting this morning?”

 

“Y – Yeah,” John said mid-yawn, pulling out the milk jug and not bothering with a glass. His father made a disapproving sound, but it was 5 AM on Monday and John’s sleep-muddled mind didn’t much care about rest of the family’s feelings on backwash.

 

“Practice is this afternoon. Caldwell was pissed with the offense on Friday and he probably made up some heinous drills over the weekend to torture us with.”

 

John still had to practice just as hard (if not harder) than the other guys, even though he hardly played in games. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a good player or athlete – the class above him had a lot of athletic talent and the seniors players usually held starting positions. Seniors Marshall Sumner and Dillon Everett, who were the starter and second-string quarterbacks respectively, also had the advantage of being Coach Caldwell’s favorite players. Caldwell wasn’t a fan of John Sheppard.

 

“Are you even going to play this year?” Ed asked, snapping his briefcase closed. 

 

“Not unless Sumner and Everett both happen to suffer season crippling injuries,” John replied, having imagined such a possible scenario himself a dozen times before, “But I’ll be starting quarterback next year so as long as I don’t mouth off to Caldwell much…”

 

He didn’t want to mention that there might be a strong possibility that he might not even get that – his father didn’t need that much disappointment to start the day off. Evan Lorne, a fellow junior who mostly played on the JV team, had been looking good in practice lately and Caldwell had been making not-so-subtle hints about replacing John.

 

“Why don’t you just switch positions? You’d make a great running back, just like your old man.”

 

John busied himself with an unopened box of donuts. They’d had this argument all last summer and again when practice had started a few weeks ago. Nothing had changed since then and he really didn’t feel like getting into another argument, especially with his mother sleeping upstairs.

 

“When’s school start again, Wednesday? Maybe we can get out and throw the pigskin around tomorrow.”

 

“Maybe,” John said.

 

Ed’s watch beeped and he heaved a melodramatic sigh.

 

“I’d better get going. Going to be home for supper tonight?”

 

John nodded, though he was burning to ask his father the same question. It was a rare occurrence for Colonel Sheppard to be home for supper on time – or at all.

 

“All right. I’ll see you tonight – oh, hey!” Ed snapped his briefcase back open and pulled out something gray and square. “Found this for you in the basement. Catch!”

 

Ed tossed it to John, who promptly fumbled it and dropped it to the kitchen floor with a clatter. As he bent down to pick it up, his father muttered, “No wonder you never get to play.”

 

Ears burning, John straightened and glanced at the thing his father had launched at him. It was an 8-track tape, an honest-to-God 8-track, with a scratched picture of Johnny Cash on the front.

 

“I have a bunch more in the basement, in case you’re interested,” Ed said. “Try not to damage the speakers too badly today, Johnny. See you tonight!”

 

*

 

John waited until he had parked to give the glass panel a good smack, hoping to set the gas gauge right again. It had been bothering him all the way to Shermer High. His tank couldn’t be that low, but the needle indicated it was, staying right in place above the three-fourth empty mark.

 

That couldn’t be right.

 

He’d had half a tank yesterday when he had parked for the night, unless the gauge had been acting up then too. It was certainly possible in a car as old as the Camaro, but John didn’t think it was likely.

 

Shutting the car off, he turned his attention to the odometer and was startled to discover nearly fifty miles he hadn’t driven had been recorded since last night. John was willing to bet that the additional miles hadn’t come from a system glitch.

 

Someone had been driving his car…

 

“Shit, Sheppard. What is this hunk of junk you’re driving?”

 

Mitch Clark, a hulking defensive end, appeared in the passenger’s side window, drawing John’s attention away from his gas gauge. His fellow DE, Dex Jensen, peered over his shoulder and snickered.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.” John grumbled, reaching around back to grab his equipment bag. He hauled it up front and scrambled out of the car. It took him two tries to slam the door shut, which only increased Mitch and Dex’s amusement. “What we have is a vintage 1976 Chevy Camaro with all the original features. We’re talking classic pony here, gentlemen.”

 

Whenever John got sick of being a geek with Rodney, he hung out with Mitch and Dex, who were “normal” teenagers that played/watched sports and read Car and Driver religiously. They were the type of guys that would appreciate John’s car simply because of its classic nature.

 

They would also make fun of it, but John had been expecting that reaction from everyone. Looks were everything in high school and if something wasn’t shiny and expensive, it wasn’t cool.

 

Dex picked off a piece of loose paint and flicked it across the parking lot.

 

“Yeah, it’s vintage all right. You gonna fix it up or just let it rust a bit more?”

 

His father had mentioned getting a new paintjob, but John wasn’t expecting that to come to fruition any time soon. Ed Sheppard had a notorious track record of starting projects that were never finished.

 

“We’ve talked about it,” John said, tucking his keys into his jeans pocket. He started toward the door, equipment bag slung over shoulder and let the other two continue carry the conversation as his mind wandered back to the mysterious additional mileage.

 

If he wasn’t driving his car, who else was?

 

*

 

The door to the boys’ locker room banged open and Laura Cadman announced in a loud voice, “Cover up the important bits, boys, I’m coming in!”

 

“God, Cadman!” Stackhouse shouted, flattening himself against the lockers with a dramatic bang as Cadman strode past. “Get out of here!”

 

“Like you have anything I wanna look at, Stackhouse,” Cadman snapped, rolling her eyes.

 

The few boys left in the locker room, mostly underclassmen now, made themselves scarce as Cadman made her way to John’s corner. She leaned up against the locker next to his, oozing sex appeal in a black sports bra and ridiculously short gym shorts.

 

Sometimes John wished he hadn’t already become desensitized to Cadman’s looks, just so he could properly appreciate moments like this. Scantily clad girls didn’t throw themselves at him often – or ever.

 

Mitch and Dex didn’t mind though, and sauntered over.

 

“Lookin’ good, Laura,” Dex said, grinning.

 

“Bite me, Jensen,” Cadman said, flipping her blonde braid over her shoulder.

 

“With pleasure,” he cackled, making a grab for her butt as he passed. A moment later, Dex’s stomach became acquainted with Cadman’s elbow and Mitch had to drag him, wheezing, out of the aisle.

 

“Morning, Cadman. Had your fill of emotionally and physically scarring everyone on the team today or am I next on the list?” John asked, slipping on his black wristbands, “I thought you agreed not to invade the locker room this year.”

 

“Sorry, but I can only take so much girl-on-girl molestation in the locker room at six in the morning,” Laura said blithely, examining her nails, “You would not believe how much Chaya Sar’s boobs jiggle when she runs around without a bra.”

 

John allowed this image to play happily in his brain for a full five seconds before coming back down to Earth.

 

“Your locker room sounds so much more interesting than ours,” he said sadly, slamming his locker door shut, “Are you sure I can’t visit sometime?”

 

“Not in this lifetime,” she responded, falling into step beside him as they headed toward the door.

 

“What’s the dance team doing here so early anyway? Aren’t their practices usually later in the day?”

 

“Oh, that’s a toughie. Why would teenage girls want to practice scintillating dance moves in front of sweaty, horny teenage boys?” Cadman rolled her eyes. “They have their first yoga practice this morning – some bull about needing to increase their flexibility so they can get better marks at state this year. And guess where they want to practice…”

 

John pushed open the locker room door as a gaggle of dancers in various combinations of leotards, tank tops and short shorts passed by. A few glanced in his direction and did something unexpected – they flushed and giggled. Not an annoying giggle, but one of those flirty kind of giggles that were usually never directed at him.

 

He stared after them and then turned to Cadman.

 

“What was that all about?”

 

Cadman’s eyes followed the dancers down the hall and then she glanced at John, a Cheshire grin on her face.

 

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. You will never guess who was just voted Shermer High’s Most Eligible Bachelor this year.”

 

“Do I want to know?” he asked as they followed the dancers down the hall, toward the stairs that lead to the weight room. Like he really cared what the dance teamers gossiped about in their spare time.

 

“I would hope so, considering it concerns your social life and romantic future.”

 

John stopped at her words and Laura breezed past him. It took a moment for his brain to catch up and then he was hurrying after her, dogging her steps.

 

“What’d you – were they talking about me, Cadman?”

 

“Yes, they were talking about you, numb skull,” Cadman replied, taking the stairs two at a time. “Don’t ask me how, but Chaya saw you shirtless sometime this weekend and she hasn’t been able to shut up about it since. She spent ten minutes describing your highly defined stomach and sculpted back in excruciating detail to the withering masses of girls gathered at her feet. Then the John Sheppard Worship Hour lead into a teasing session for poor Teyla Emmagan, who as you should know - ”

 

Teyla Emmagan was the co-captain of the dance team this year and had been the object of John’s daydreams since…well, probably since he had moved to Colorado Springs in seventh grade. She was, in his opinion, one of the prettiest girls at Shermer High with her long dark hair and dusky skin, and she was kind and smart to boot. John had had several classes with her over the years, including history last semester where he was able to sit right behind her, but had never mustered up the courage to talk to her, a clear example of his lack of social confidence.

 

Like he had a serious chance with her anyway – Teyla was never short on boyfriends when she wanted one. Last he heard, she had been dating a senior at Genii High who owned a Beemer. She wouldn’t be interested in the boy who had talked to her twice in her entire school career.

 

“Mornin’ Tee,” John sighed, signing in on the practice clipboard on Tee’s desk in front of the weight room. Mr. Tee, bright and early as usual, was Shermer High’s physical education teacher and supervised all morning weight room activities.

 

“Good morning Mr. Sheppard, Miss Cadman,” Tee responded in his gravelly voice. “Cutting it close today, are we not?”

 

“A bit of locker room drama, Tee, you know how it goes,” Cadman said, signing her name with flourish. “Those boys are so sensitive when you barge in on them.”

 

“Indeed,” Tee said dryly, initialing by their names and rising to follow them into the weight room. “Coach Caldwell also asked me to remind you not to drop the hand weights on Mr. Bates’s extremities today, no matter how much he frustrates you, Miss Cadman.”

 

“That was an accident and Bates knows it!”

 

The weight room was business and noise as usual. The clinks and clacks of weights being released rang off the high brick walls and the stereo was pumping out Van Halen at a teeth chattering level. Tee frowned and walked over to the stereo cabinet to turn the volume down and yell at whoever had turned it up so high.

 

“So what else were the girls saying about me?” John asked as they started on a warm-up lamp around the two-lane track winding around the weight room.

 

Cadman snorted, her long braid swinging behind her back hypnotically as she ran.

 

“You’re a gossip whore already, aren’t you?” she said. “Well, Teyla’s only had a crush on you since last spring. The entire team knew about it and they were teasing her because now she has competition or whatever. I swear to god, those girls are all Pod Peo – oh my God, are you all right?”

 

John had tripped over his feet and went sprawling on the track floor, scraping his hand on the surface. He hissed in pain, pushing himself to his knees. He heard the giggling then.

 

Of course he had to trip right by the gap in the wrestling area curtains. His day wouldn’t be complete without embarrassing himself in front of a group of attractive girls.

 

He glanced over at the dance team with a grimace and waved at them with his non-bloody hand. They laughed again as he hauled himself to his feet, his ears burning for the hundredth time today. He watched Chaya nudge Teyla in the side and the two of them erupted into giggles.

 

Cadman had to have been kidding about the dance team girls actually liking him. Her next statement almost proved it.

 

“That was way attractive, Casanova,” Cadman said, hands on her hips and grin on her lips. “No wonder the ladies are falling all over you this year.”

 

*

 

Ronon Dex was leaning against John’s Camaro when he and the other guys came out from practice an hour and a half later. Even with his dreads pulled back and devoid of his usual leather attire, Ronon was still an intimidating sight early in the morning.

 

“Uh-oh. Forget to pay your protection fees for the month, Sheppard?” Mitch joked, nudging John in the side.

 

“Funny,” John replied, even though it wasn’t.

 

It was a common misconception among the masses on Shermer High that Ronon belonged to an area gang, was failing out of school and couldn’t string together a coherent sentence without grunting. John only knew better than the rest because Ronon had been his English tutor last year – the kid could recite Shakespeare’s sonnets from memory perfectly.

Ronon didn’t like to broadcast what he was good at (unlike Rodney) and let people draw their own conclusions about him. He said it was easier to surprise them that way.

 

“Hi Ronon. How’ve you been?” John said, dropping his bag on the curb. He waved goodbye to Mitch and Dex who were making frightened faces behind Ronon’s back.

 

“Good enough,” Ronon responded. “Your car?”

 

John nodded. “Just got it on Saturday. Whaddya think?”

 

Ronon was a teenager of few words, to be sure, but like a true poet, each of his words had significance and a deeper meaning.

 

“It has character,” he said after much deliberation.

 

Which, translated into Ronon speak, meant, Wow, what a piece of junk. You’re never going to get laid driving this thing.

 

“Tell me something I don’t know,” John sighed, resigned to owning the crappiest car at the high school. “Hey, you work at a garage, don’t you?”

 

“My foster parents own one, yeah,” Ronon corrected. “I work the desk sometimes – I’m no good with engines. Do you need some work done?”

 

“Yeah. Oil change, fix the latch on the hood, check the gauges…”

 

John trailed off as the gym doors popped open and a wave of dance team girls spilled out into the parking lot, Chaya and Teyla at the tail end. John could almost hear his own theme music as Teyla started walking toward him.

 

You can look inside another world

You get to talk to a pretty girl.

She’s everything you dream about,

But don’t fall in love!

She’s a beauty,

One in a million girls,

She’s a beauty…

 

“Better put getting your radio fixed on that list, Sheppard,” Ronon said.

 

“What? Oh,” he said, noticing that his theme music was actually playing out loud from his car radio.

 

He opened the driver’s door, reaching to tug the keys out of the ignition but his hands only grabbed at air. The radio was on and playing without any power from the car. John frowned and snapped the volume off.

 

“That was weird,” he said, standing and leaning against his open car door.

 

“You can come in tomorrow after practice if you want,” Ronon said, taping on the hood of the car. “Athos Garage on West Pegasus Street; just tell the mechanic on duty that I sent you. I gotta go. See you in school Wednesday?”

 

“Yeah. See you around.”

 

John watched as Ronon walked over to Teyla and Chaya, who quickly said her goodbyes and ran off to her other girlfriends. Ronon said something to Teyla, who smacked him in the arm, but then she followed him over to his Harley and clambered on.

 

“Shermer High’s Most Eligible Bachelor my ass,” John muttered as Ronon’s Harley roared to life and sped out of the parking lot.

 

*

 

McKay called him just as he was walking out of his house for afternoon football practice.

“Did you just get up or something, McKay?” he greeted, balancing the phone on his shoulder as he closed his front door behind him. “You know you’re not going to be able to stay up until three in the morning and sleep until three in the afternoon once school starts.”

 

“Shut up, Mom,” McKay replied, yawning over the phone. “But you’re one to talk, cruising in your Camaro until the wee hours of the morning.”

 

“What are you talking about?” John asked, dumping his bag by his car. “I was in bed and asleep by midnight last night.”

 

McKay yawned loudly again.

 

“You know what I’m talking about, Sheppard. You and that demon car went for a joy ride at one in the morning and you didn’t get back until four thirty.”

 

John pulled his cell phone away from his ear and stared at it disbelievingly.

 

“I don’t think so, McKay.”

 

“I saw you leave! Don’t play dumb!”

 

“I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t me, you got that?”

 

“Sheppard – ”

 

“I gotta go to practice. I’ll talk to you later.”

 

John snapped his phone shut and shoved it in his pocket, muffling the ring as Rodney tried to call back a second later. He didn’t have time for McKay’s paranoid theories.

 

He slid into the car and his two messed up gauges caught his eye. Really, that would make sense if someone had been driving his car last night –

 

“I am going crazy for even considering that,” John said, turning the key in the ignition.

 

*

 

At exactly 1:16 AM, Darth Varder’s theme music invaded John’s cliché teenage boy dream about Teyla Emmagan on the beach in a bikini, looking for someone to spread tanning oil on her back. The music died out after a moment and then started up again, louder and more insistent now that John was being drawn back into the waking world. He realized that the music was actually one of his ringtones and scrambled to find it amongst the blankets and pillows of his bed.

 

He glanced groggily at the lit display screen, even though he knew only one person would call his cell phone at one in the morning and risk the wrath of Col. Edward Sheppard.

 

“Whaddya want, McKay?” he asked sleepily.

 

“Where are you going?” McKay hissed, barely audible at John’s end.

 

“I’m not going anywhere – I was sleeping until you called.”

 

“Then who’s driving your car?”

 

John sat up in bed, blinking the remaining sleep out of his eyes.

 

“What are you on?” he asked, scrambling out of bed. “No one’s driving my – ”

 

John trailed off as he reached his window and looked down on the driveway.

 

His car was nowhere to be found.

 

Comments

[tielan]

You'd better write more of this, hon. :)

[greenconverses.livejournal.com]

Oh, I will. Highschool!Team is just so much more fun to write.

And I suppose I'll do it to keep you from going over to the darkside. Just this once. ;)

[renisanz.livejournal.com]

Oh yay! for suspense. :) I really want to know what happens next, and it's been nearly 7 months since you updated this. :( No rush, though. ;)

But about the story...John tripping up when he found out Teyla had a crush on him was hilarious. I really liked Ron's introduction and the bit about him reciting Shakespeare. I can so see that happening. :)

[sara-wolf.livejournal.com]

This is awesome. I love how you've integrated all of the characters. Any chance of an update?