The Best Things in Life Are Free

Fanfiction
Title:	The Best Things in Life Are Free
Author(s):	Smitty/smittywing
Date(s):	2005
Length:	102,439 words
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Stargate Atlantis
External Links:	online here, it also WAS online here
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The Best Things in Life Are Free is a Stargate Atlantis AU story by Smitty.

Summary

"Hopeless geek Rodney McKay offers high school quarterback John Sheppard $1000 to make him cool. A story about growing up, finding out who you are, and deciding what you’re going to do about it."

Reactions and Reviews

It's a high school AU. Rodney wants to be cool, so he pays the popular football player John to be his friend for a month, to hang out with him, and teach him how to be more popular. The story is very funny and sweet, and though of course there's some teenage angst it's not overdone, but very believable.

2016

Sometimes I’m sick of highschool AUs because a lot of them tend to be the same and it’s difficult to find something unique. Well, this story definitely was one of those unique jewels who use common tropes and make them work. The story was full of those high school tropes but it was also so much more than that. While John is a jock and Rodney is a nerd everyone who knows those character also knows that they are so much more than that. Yes, there were high school dances and football games, but they often weren’t what you would expect. Yes, John had his football team friends, but they weren’t dumb jerks. Yes, John’s father was in the military and often absent, but he was a damn good father to his son and not in the least homophobic. What I loved most was that this clearly takes place in the 80s and there are so many nods towards it. And for a story set in that timeframe, there was a great lack of homophobic antics except for the issue with the military. So if you want to read a high school story set in the 80s that isn’t full of bullying or two-dimensional clichés? Read this. A+ for plot, great pace and storytelling, characterisation, a slow-build romance and an amazing ending.