Word Count:
850
Rating:
PG13 (to be safe)
Category:
AU, Dark fic
Story Status:
Complete
Summary:
A look at the characters from Rodney's POV
WARNING:
Dark fic, a not nice Rodney
Author's Notes:
This should be considered AU, as I don’t really believe
Rodney is like this. Set early Season 3.
Written for the SGA_flashfic
Masks and Masquerades challenge - sga_flashfic contains gen, ship and slash fics.
Beta:
Thank you to Jayne Perry for the beta-reading.
The Not So Masked Man
By Leesa Perrie
Everybody here wears masks.
Elizabeth, the cool and caring leader, is really a manipulative woman
who uses her skills to get what she wants. Of course, what
she
wants is generally good for Atlantis and its people, and maybe she does
care in some ways, but in the end, she will use all her diplomatic
skills to get what she wants. I hate being manipulated, but I
allow it. Because she may not be what she seems, but she is
the
leader of this expedition, and if I want to stay here I need to stay in
her good books. So I let her think she is
‘managing’
me, let her take pride in ‘taming’ the beast that
is me,
the arrogant McKay.
Sheppard’s mask covers another one who manipulates what he
wants. Uses friendship as a bait, a reward for falling into
line
with him. He thinks I actually care about him being my
friend,
being part of the team, with all the trust and loyalty that
means. Thinks it’s what I want, and uses it to
control me
in the field. But only because I let him. And only
then
because it is easier than handling the dangerous man I know lurks
beneath. I don’t want or need friendships or
team-mates,
but I do want to be out in the field, first to claim any new technology
we find. To be lauded a hero when I find the ZedPMs we
need. So I let him think his friendship is important to me.
Teyla, her mask is not so obvious. But she is a negotiator
who
has to keep her calm, when all she wants is to strike out in
anger. I know she has dreamed of killing me, maybe
of
killing us all. She wouldn’t though, she needs
us.
Needs Atlantis, if there is to be any hope of freedom for her and her
people. So she is polite and restrained, but inside she
thinks we
are fools, children playing in a galaxy more dangerous than we
realise. Causing more bad than good, but remaining with us,
in
the hope that we can defeat the Wraith, and other assorted bad guys,
despite our fumbling mistakes.
Ronon. He is one that perhaps is most true to himself, and
yet…Sateda was clearly more advanced than most races in this
galaxy. He may not understand our science, our technology,
but
his people weren’t primitives. Seven years will
have
changed him, of course, but he must have been civilised to some degree,
certainly more than he shows now. He plays the hard man, but
beneath I suspect lurks a softer persona. One he hides, for
fear
of ridicule. He is wise to do so.
Carson is a sensitive and caring person. Yet he has caused
more
death and destruction than anyone else here…or at least, he
has
the potential to. He plays at scientist, experimenting with
things better left alone. Worrying about how things turn out,
but
always after the fact, and he doesn’t let it stop him from
the
course he has set. Ethical dilemmas, and yet he keeps on
breaking
his ethical code. Caring? Perhaps.
Sensitive?
Maybe. But there lurks a darker side, a side that scares
me. So I take the time to stay on his good side.
Pretending
a friendship I do not feel.
And me. I wear the most complicated mask. They
think that
my arrogance, my thoughtless words, my abrasive personality hides a
better side. An insecure person, who feels he is lacking and
overcompensates. One who doubts himself, and uses his ego to
cover it. They think I had a bad upbringing, and that my
problems
stem from that. No matter that Jeannie doesn’t show
the
same signs of a dysfunctional family.
They are wrong. I am who I seem to be on the surface, the
rest is
my mask. Those who think I am arrogant and egotistical, who
think
I am petty and bad with people, who think I am loud and obnoxious, and
do not see beneath what the people here believe is my mask, these are
the people who really see me. The rest, they look beneath the
surface image and see another me, but this other me is really my mask.
I let them think what they will. It serves my
purposes.
Makes them believe I am not so self-centred or bad. I created
the
masks beneath my not-mask long ago, so that some would think better of
me, so that then I could exploit them. Use them to get
whatever I
want.
And what I want is to be the best scientist in the universe, and to be
acknowledged as such. Atlantis will provide me with that, and
the
price I pay is to put up with these people with their masks, and let
them use me almost as much as I am using them.
It is a price worth paying for the eternal fame I will have when the
Stargate Programme becomes known to the public.
Something I am working on making happen, as soon as I am ready.
The End
