John Shepherd was a hard man to love, everyone who had ever known the guy could vouch for that. Not hard to fall for,  no that had been absurdly easy, but there was a certain amount of grief associated with caring about John. He was foolhardy, self-sacrificing, and prone to self-isolation. Loving him was just… Challenging. Difficult.

Meredith Rodney McKay had always been good at difficult. Despite all obstacle, in the face of any adversity, Rodney prevailed. Always .  He’d never resented that quality in himself before, in fact it had become something he was proud of. Now, he silently cursed himself and his own uncanny ability to succeed.

To Rodney’s mind, the oddest thing about the Shepherd  Situation was that his… “ feelings” regarding John were not because of the difficulties involved in loving the reckless Colonel. He’d thought, when they’d first reared their horribly mushy heads, that they must be. That his emotions were rising to a challenge in the same way that his intellect usually did… but that didn’t hold up to any kind of scrutiny.

No, if he’d been hungry for challenge he’d have made some kind of serious attempt to keep up the antagonistic relationship he and John had established at the beginning of the Pegasus mission. Trying to come up with sufficiently cutting banter while simultaneously saving however-many-hundred people was always sufficiently intellectually stimulating. There was no need to add any extra complexity for their relationship to be challenging. But, over time, the animosity was largely replaced by camaraderie, friendship even. Surprisingly, the witty rapport had not really decreased significantly. Rodney couldn’t explain how the hostility could be replaced by trust and mutual admiration (at least, he thought mutual), and yet the… tension (for lack of a better word) could remain.

Anyway,  John was a challenge as he was, as they were. There were no additional “feelings” required.

Besides, at this point, Rodney was far beyond fun-challenge-feelings and well into crappy-sucky-awful-angsty-feelings which weren’t so much challenging as they were obnoxious. And uncomfortable. And inefficient. And Rodney did not seek out uncomfortable and was definitely not a fan of inefficiency.

“ Rodney .” Think of the devil. John was giving Rodney those huge eyes he makes when he’s irritated. To be fair, Rodney had zoned out a little, but honestly, disarming something as primitive as an earth-style thermonuclear weapon only takes so much concentration.

“What?”