The first time Elizabeth Weir called him asking if he wanted to run her restaurant, John laughed at her and then hung up.



Note: This a fusion with the awesome show Kitchen Confidential.



The first time Elizabeth Weir called him asking if he wanted to run her restaurant, John laughed at her and then hung up. The second time Elizabeth Weir called him asking if he wanted to run her restaurant, she wasn't quite as cheerful, and all John could say was "What, you're serious?"

John had pretty much been persona non grata in the world of fine cuisine since that one time he got a little too high and thought it might be funny to burn the kitchen down. It wasn't the actual event that got him kicked out of the limelight, if anything, he became even more sought after--but it was rock bottom, so John went cold stone sober overnight.

And sober John knew better than to tempt himself.

But that was then, and now, he just says, "You're not going to regret this," even though he's pretty sure the both of them will.

-----

The first thing John does when he realizes he needs to put together a crew is call up Carlitos, and affect a Southern accent. "Are you Rodney McKay's boss?" he asks.

"I am," the owner of Carlitos, Mitch Michaels says. "And who are you?"

"I'm his parole officer," John says. "I just want to check in and make sure he's been showing up to work every day."

"Excuse me?" Michaels says. "He never said anything about--what on Earth was he convicted of?"

"You work with him and you can't guess?" John asked. "Although in his defense, that murder charge never did stick."

Two hours later Rodney storms into his apartment and points at him. "You know what a self fulfilling prophecy is?" he asks.

John frowns. "Yeah, but I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"I'm going to kill you," Rodney shouts. "Let's see how funny your little prank is then. I just got fired."

John grins widely and bounces back on the heels of his feet. "Would you forgive me if I offered you a job?"

"For the last time, John," Rodney snaps, "I'm not going to Antarctica with you to buy a plane. We're chefs for god's sake, get some perspective."

John pouts a little, before brightening again. "I'm running the kitchen at the hottest new restaurant in New York," he tells him. "Elizabeth Weir just offered me Atlantis."

"Atlantis?" Rodney asks disbelievingly. Then he smirks. "Okay. This time, you get to live."


-----

John knows that Rodney was the tricky one. Rodney gets set in his ways, and he would never have left his job willingly. He gets a little stuck and obsessive about things, and he'd been determined to turn that joke into an actual restaurant.

John has to admit Rodney had nearly done it, but he was a genius, not a magician, and it was back to a buffet the week after he left. Rodney still can't hear the name Carlitas without whimpering a little.

Ronon, in contrast, is easy. John is sharing a couple beers with him at the bar and he says, "hey you want a job?"

Ronon grunts non-committedly, which means yes, so John nods. "Good. You start tomorrow."

"I'm not wearing a hair net," Ronon tells him.

"I'm not crazy enough to come at you with a hair net," John says. "But you better stay away from Rodney, because he just might be."

-----

Though John doesn't often like to admit it, dessert is often a person's favorite part of the meal--and there's only one pastry guy that John would trust to work for him.

"No, no, no, no--absolutely not," Carson tells him. "I'm happy. Do you know how long it's been since I was happy? Do you? It was before I met you and that crazy boyfriend of yours."

"Okay, first off, Rodney is not my boyfriend," John says. "We're roommates. Why does everyone think he's my boyfriend?"

Carson crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. "I can't imagine," he says.

John points at him. "Second, you can't blame everything on me. You're the one that said you wondered if it was possible to cook a kitchen."

"Yes, but I'm not crazy," Carson snaps. "I was joking! I'm not working with you. I'm not working anywhere near you."

John smirks. "Cadman's going to be there," he says.

Carson's expression goes blank, and then resigned. "When do I start?"

-----


John didn't actually have Cadman. Cadman kind of scared him. He thought that might have a little to do with the fact that she was Rodney with a ponytail and an unhealthy fondness for knives of any kind.

Cadman watches him with narrowed eyes when he enters her kitchen. "Sheppard," she says. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I'm here to steal you away," John tells her, and flashes his most charming grin.

Only thing was, Cadman was impervious to his charm. It was probably the other reason he didn't usually like having her around, but she could do things with fish that he couldn't believe.

Her eyes haven't narrowed anymore, but she's not relaxing either. "No," she says. "I've got a good deal here."

"Rodney will be there," John says. "I'll let you torture him all you want."

Cadman runs a finger along the edge of the knife in her hand and then grins. "Deal," she says.


-----

"You sold me out?" Rodney asks, looking so hurt and vulnerable John regrets it instantly.

"You can handle Cadman," John tells him. "I mean, you're not afraid of her, are you?"

Rodney bristles. "Of course I'm not afraid of her, she just...creeps me out. And Carson will be drooling all over her and no one wants salvia in their Crème Brule."

"She's the best," John tells him. "And we're going to need all the best if this is going to work."

Rodney sighs, just slightly overdramatically. "Fine. But if she starts that thing up again where she gives me bedroom eyes and licks her knives, I'm quitting."

"You're such a wimp," John says.

"At least I didn't faint like Carson," Rodney says.

John rolls his eyes, and then rubs his hands together. "That only leaves one," he says.

Rodney snorted. "Yeah, good luck."

-----

The problem with Teyla was that she was a professional.

Bribes or threats just wouldn't work on her, and it wasn't like she needed work. She had her own line of cookbooks of old traditional recipes, including tuttle root soup. John still didn't know what the hell a tuttle root was, but the books sold in the hundreds of thousands.

The only thing going for him was the fact that Teyla actually liked him, for reasons neither himself nor his friends could really understand apart from the fact that she kind of liked everyone.

"Teyla," John says, grinning brightly.

Teyla gives him the look his mother always used too and then flashes a crooked little grin. "What do you want, John?"

"Why do you assume I want something?" he asks.

"Because you always do," Teyla says.

"Are you saying I'm predictable?" John asks.

"If you were predictable, I'd know what you were going to ask," Teyla says. "Unfortunately, that tends to come as a surprise every time."

"I want you to come work for me," John says.

Teyla raises an eyebrow. "Alright," she says.

Teyla, John thinks smugly, was always anything but predictable.

-----


"This is going to work," John says brightly. "This is actually going to work."

Carson, the absolute picture of utter desolation, leans against the counter and glares up at him. "We're all going to fail miserably."

John nods, not one to be brought down, and says, "That's the spirit."

Elizabeth Weir strides into the room, smoothing down her blue blazer as she does. She looks at John's crew a little nervously, and then glances over at him. "Are you up for this?" she asks.

"We're fine," John says, nodding. "We're all fine."

"Stop touching me," Rodney shouts from the other side of the room. "John, she's touching me."

John grins a little wider and moves to hide Rodney and his molester from view. "You go on out onto the floor, we've got it covered."

Weir sighs but turns on her heel and leaves. John turns around and points at Cadman and Rodney. "Behave," he says.

"But you promised you'd let me torture him," Cadman says. She spins a knife in her hand and blows Rodney a kiss.

"You can torture him on the slow nights, this is our opening people, look alive!"

"Someday, I'm going to snap," Rodney says. "You know what they say about the line between genius and madness and some day I'm going to snap and kill you all."

John pats him on the back. "As long as you have something to look forward to, buddy."


-----

John lays down on the kitchen floor and his arms and legs splay in every direction. They actually pulled it off. "We did it," he says. "We actually did it."

Rodney leans into his view. "You're not going to start shouting 'they like me, they really like me' again, are you?"

"It was only that once," John says. "And I was drunk."

"Right. I forgot things don't count if you're drunk," Rodney says. "We need to go home, John, before you pass out. Everyone else has already left."

"But it went well," John says, disbelievingly. "Can you believe it?"

"Of course," Rodney says. "I'm a genius." At John's look he sighs. "Yeah, okay, you're not so bad yourself, but everyone knows I'm the talent, and you're the one that looks good on the cover of Food and Wine."

"I'd waste time being insulted, but I think in some roundabout way you just called me hot, so I choose to take it as a compliment," John says.

"You would," Rodney says, and reaches down to pull him to his feet. "Come on. Let's get you home before you pass out. I'll even make you dinner."

John snorts and looses his balance a bit. Rodney steadies him and glares. "What? What now?"

"Nothing," he says. "It's just that I think I get why everyone thinks you're my boyfriend."

"They're idiots," Rodney says. "We don't have to listen to them."

John nods. "They're absolutely idiots," he says, before sliding his hand's into Rodney's chef's uniform and kissing him gently. "But I think maybe we've been a little stupid ourselves."

Rodney shudders a little when John pulls back and then tugs him closer again. "We'll definitely have to fix that then," Rodney says breathlessly. "Because I don't do stupid."