.ficturespam: Not a night goes by
Hokay! I'm still really annoyed with myself at forgetting to upload my Doppelganger stuff before I left, but I am so dedicated that I watched the episode again and pulled more caps and wrote up ficturespam for it. Yesh, such hardship I endure... But seriously, HOW AWESOME was this episode?
*sacrifices firstborn to Robert Cooper*
On the images: Some of these are experiments in color and lighting correction, so they may not match the color/lighting you remember from the episode. (I love my show, I really, really do, but the color filters drive me a bit nuts.) As is the case with all of my ficturespams, any/all graphics are free for the taking, and for whatever nefarious purpose you can devise.
Also, there are a few icons at the end.
I saw "Doppelganger" the first time when I found out that it had been accidentally uploaded to iTunes, and had a very productive afternoon with dogeared squeeing about it. I watched it again on Sheppard the iPod on my Friday evening flight home, and it's kind of amazing I wasn't subdued by flight marshals with the way I was leering and bouncing around in my seat.
So anyway, we get the spectrum of John Sheppard in this one: cranky John, evil John, woobie John, worried-for-his-boyfriend John, sad John, I'm-going-to-pretend-to-cooperate John... I will be pointing these various Johns out to you as they appear, and there will be some completely random commentary too.
John Sheppard is having a very bad day, but really, bad days in the Pegasus Galaxy tend to be the days that end in 'y.' Granted, they aren't being held prisoner on a Wraith ship, and there isn't an alien priestess trying to tie him up (yet), but still... The guy in a warm room at his computer is really a sadistic, Rodney-like bastard. The uh, the bastard.
The only high point for him so far is that Rodney's so distracted by winning his bet with Zelenka that he missed John's Douglas Adams reference. Even then, that really isn't a high point because John had imagined that Rodney, hearing "42," would be overcome with lust and then drag John off into the bushes.
Dammit.
And then... squelch.
Goddammit.
Commodore 64? Triple-barrelled shotgun?
Kaleidoscope.
When he was a kid, John had been convinced that, if Most Boring Man was an Olympic event, his dad would have won the gold medal. His dad's idea of a really exciting summer vacation was piling his wife and children into his Chevrolet (no air conditioning, no suspension, but with suspiciously sticky seats) and dragging them off on a tour of Civil War battlefields of the South or to Amish country in Pennsylvania (they hadn't seen a single Amish person), and once, to the Everglades. John's father wouldn't spend a dollar so John could hold a baby alligator, and had refused to let them go on a hydrofoil ride no matter that John wore his knees bloody with heartfelt pleading.
The one time they'd done something fun had been the summer of John's tenth year. He and Jane (that was how boring his dad was, John and Jane, for God's sake) had been dying of boredom in the backseat, Jane's sweaty forehead against the window, John listlessly peeling the paper covering off the kaleidoscope that his dad had given him for his birthday, and somewhere in the wastes of Missouri they'd seen a sign for a state fair. Somehow, somehow, John's mother convinced her husband that parting with money was not like amputating a leg, and they'd spent all afternoon and part of the evening going on rides, playing games, eating normal things like hot dogs and cotton candy and fried dough.
He still remembers riding the Ferris wheel until the carnie told him to get the hell off, then sneaking back on it for a last ride at night, and though it's probably a sad commentary that a Ferris wheel had been the highlight of his first ten years of existence, he still loves it.*
ZAP!
Getting back to real life...
He really, really should know better than to touch shiny things by now. That's what got him in this mess to start with, only these days nothing so innocent as a map of the galaxy pops up. Mostly, "did I do that?" is followed by running, blood, and Rodney yelling at him.
It's dark in the forest, even though bright lights strobe around the edge of John's vision, but he can still see Rodney's face somewhere in the spotlights. He looks worried, really worried, which makes John kind of warm and tingly.
Or that could be the mysterious energy crystal thingy whatever.
Either way, maybe Rodney won't yell at him this time.
Or maybe he will.
Rodney's decided he can't deal with idiots who touch things they shouldn't and has gone off to his lab to crow and shove the energy crystal thingy whatever up Zelenka's nose. John goes to the infirmary with Teyla, only it's not "going" so much as it is "forced to go."
He smiles and is cooperative for Keller, though he's pretty sure neither she nor Teyla are fooled. He keeps smiling while Teyla tells him how concerned she is, his "I'm humoring you and being cooperative" expression, which Rodney usually describes as "vacant, kind of like a really dumb Labrador."
John hates Rodney, but still... he wishes Rodney had picked up on the Doug Adams reference. 42. Seriously.
Interruption
I would like to point out that it would be a very nice thing if John were eating grapes in my dreams on a regular basis.
Likewise, I wouldn't mind it if he looked kind of scary, so long as he didn't bring up trust issues. Also, JFlan's mouth is exceptionally pretty in this episode.
That night John sleeps like death, but at breakfast the next morning, Teyla looks like she's just risen from it.
Before the day is out, Rodney might also be dead too, the gossiping, I-completely-missed-your-awesome-Doug-Adams-reference bastard. It would serve him right, John thinks, and bites his muffin in half.
John's dad had never read him bedtime stories--that was for his mom to do, and it was a good thing. She read him books about planes and birds and space ships, and once even a Superman comic book. John thinks that if his dad had ever read him a story, it would have been about... John struggles to think of something boring. Carpet cleaning, or an instruction manual.
Still, though... Moby Dick is pretty harsh. John wonders if Rodney identifies with Ahab or what, or if just the thought of his planet-sized genius being snapped up by a giant sea mammal had been enough to make Rodney hide under the covers.
It had been the whale-dismantling that had freaked John out, though he remembers sitting in the back of his high-school English class snickering about sperm.
And speaking of which, Rodney is very pretty when he's lecturing. John pretends to pay attention.
Interruption
Evil!John totally pwns this episode, among other things.
He's really scary when he's enthralled, isn't he?
John works out some of his frustration with Ronon. It's a good way to turn down Teyla's offer of a beat-down for egging Rodney on about her creepy dream from last night, and it also has the completely unexpected, one-time bonus of him actually drawing blood and making it out of the gym alive.
He feels kind of evil, and tries to cackle to himself when he hears Ronon ruefully telling Keller that maybe he's taught John a bit too much.
Interruption
Out of everyone's dream, with the possible exception of Rodney's, Ronon's was just... wow. I mean, seriously, it has to suck beyond all belief to dream that 1) all your friends have vanished 2) you're back in the woods, running for your life, and 3) the person who helped rescue you and gave you a home and all your other friends knocks you unconscious and very happily buries you alive.
Seriously. Think about it for a second, and tell me if that doesn't suck.
Also, I would like to point out in the picture above this one that when John's trying to look evil, he just looks comical. I kept expecting him to tap his fingers together and cackle "Exxxcellent."
How scary is he? Really, that's how scary.
John doesn't find out until much, much later, but apparently when they'd all been talking about their worst nightmares and swapping Alien stories, Rodney had performed what Keller referred to as "Jocelyn Rutgers's breasts in sign language."
Clearly, Douglas Adams isn't going to be enough.
He decides their next movie night is going to be Alien, and maybe, if he plays his cards right and forgets the popcorn, Rodney will end up on his lap.
Interruption
Awwwww Rodney.
Alien, at least the kind with big teeth and slavering jaws, slips John's mind pretty quickly. Heightmeyer's dead, and Rodney's in mourning for her. Teyla is, too, and he figures they were kind of kindred spirits, both steady, willing to talk, and generally much better-adjusted than the rest of them.
He knows they've been talking about the possibility of someone impersonating him in everyone's dreams--replicator!John in Lorne's, Wraith!John in Teyla's, freakish betraying-of-best-friends and sociopath!John in Ronon's. And now, yay, murdering!John in Kate's.
What a fucking great day, and he can't even get close enough to Rodney now to drop in a whispered Original Series reference. It's probably incredibly petty for him to feel worse about that than about an innocent woman dying, but he can't help it.
When his door chirps at him he's already half-made the decision to go see Teyla, if Rodney's avoiding him and Ronon doesn't quite know what to make of him.
And like he's summoned her, Teyla's there, even though he scared the living daylights out of her in her dream and then killed her friend, and she's... oh God, this is serious, she's hugging him, and John can deal with the hands-to-the-sides Athosian head-touching, but not Teyla hugging him.
He touches her shoulder hesitantly, not really wanting to, but she shudders underneath his hand, so he has to keep touching, fingers glancing on and off her skin.
Interruption
asdlkjf oh, Rodney... *whimpers unhappily*
Improbably, the past few days reach a new low when Carter tells John it's Rodney this time around. And the murdering imposter John has already decided he likes killing innocent psychologists, so he's definitely not going to hesitate at killing innocent, hostile astrophysicists.
John can hear Rodney's foosteps, muted on the rubber floor, as he paces, and he wishes he could make that Original Series reference, or tell him, Hey, I kind of like you and I wish you knew that sooner but Carter isn't Elizabeth, and Carter's also right here, and heartfelt declarations of... of whatever aren't going to save Rodney's life.
He wants coffee. When they're out of this, John's going to send back to earth for the good stuff--Kona, a hundred percent, with the most expensive chocolate he can find and a box of No-Doz.
Like he tells Teyla, it's his stupid plan.
Rodney fidgets in his bed, a few feet away but too far to touch, for John to do anything but watch as he asks Keller if she's sure she knows what she's doing, Carson never did even though he pretended otherwise, bunch of voodoo practitioners.
The contact pads itch, and the dabs of gel Keller had applied to keep them stuck on are drying into a thin skim of misery. He fastens on to that, tries not to think about Rodney's unconscious and about how they're almost, kind of, sleeping together, and if maybe that isn't just a bit weird.
"I'm pretty screwed up," Rodney says apologetically.
We both are, John thinks.
He doesn't know how long it is, if it's a second or an hour or what, but at first he floats above everything, a huge sweep of water he recognizes as Lantea's ocean--and he doesn't even need to see the city, a terrifyingly long distance away, dull behind a curtain of rain.
Rodney's shirt sticks to him, his hair plastered down, fingers shaking and pale on the oars while he whispers and pleads and gasps for breath.
And there he is, and oh fuck, Rodney thinks it's him, that it's John, real-life John who's saying these things, give up, you're weak, you're pathetic, you'll never make it. And Rodney stares at him, eyes wide and glassy with disbelief, and when not-John asks him why Rodney thinks he wants to help, John's disembodied heart breaks a little at the look on Rodney's face.
I thought you were-- Rodney says, and later John will wonder what Rodney had been about to say.
For now, though, he has to get them home, back to the city, back to wakefulness, so he can save Rodney's life again, and gloat over it, again, and make fun of his rowboat.
Don't be afraid, he tells Rodney, and he's never meant anything more in his life.
He's read a bit about dream theory and virtual realities, and the ways people can manipulate their dream environments. He's pretty good at it himself, and he wonders what that says about him.
But one minute he's behind Rodney and the next he's next to him, Rodney soaked but his body alive with desperate heat. And John really really wants to punch the bastard wearing his face, wants to grab him and make him take him and Rodney back to the city, to quit with the clowns and people running through forests and rowing over stormy oceans and falling off towers.
He can't really hurt you, he tells Rodney, who looks momentarily willing to believe it.
A moment, long enough for John to feel the ocean surge under him, to think what the fucking fuck?
To wake up to the terminal beep of a monitor that says someone's dead, the harsh slap of paddles discharging, Keller's face, her despair clear behind a mask that reflects cruel flourescent lights.
The corridor stretches out forever, the city vast and silent around him.
His footsteps hover in his ears, a heavy and unforgiving sound.
What Teyla, Ronon, Carter, Keller, tell him... he knows. It is his fault, all of it; if he hadn't touched that rock McKay would still be alive; he was supposed to help Rodney--
I tried, he tells Carter. I tried.
--and yeah, you are a terrible friend, John Sheppard.
He thinks, distantly, that Carter and the rest of them had been making funeral arrangements. Carter had said something about how Rodney had redone his will, and Carter was in charge of handling his afterlife now... Which relieved him in one way, disappointed him in others.
I tried, he thinks, looking at them all again.
Story of his life.
And then. Then.
Okay, his turn for worst nightmare ever. Rodney dead and he's responsible for it, and he isn't scared so much as pissed off--no, not pissed off, furious. Blindly, blindly furious, and the rush of it is hot and welcome against the cold of loss, and when he throws himself at his otherself, wanting to drive them through the wall, wanting to hit and draw blood and crush and kill, he sees his otherself smile before the wall gives way.
Interruption
Wow. Just... wow. Also, evil!Sheppard totally pwns good!Sheppard.
His head rings and his entire body hurts, which he thinks shouldn't be possible considering it's a dream and anyway weren't you supposed to wake up if you pinched yourself? A boot in the face, fists in a rib... that has to be worth something more than the distant realization that, yeah, he is terrified of himself, that he likes to think of himself as not this cruel or ruthless, and that he's doing more than fighting for a life that doesn't feel like it's worth much now.
Interruption
Oh, Rodney. One of the things that kind of annoyed me (sorry) about this is that people keep thinking Rodney is terrible with scary situations. Um, sorry! But he isn't! Not really. I mean, he's just been brought back from cardiac arrest and he wants to go into John's head to face the thing that wanted to kill him. That is not handling a scary situation badly, people! That's being a very brave astrophysicist.
He's been thrown up the stairs and kicked back down the stairs by way of the balcony railing, which is a nice touch, he thinks, only he wishes he has Rodney's personal shield with him.
Get up his otherself says, Come on, John.
Fight.
Only it's what he wants, and though John actually kind of wants to himself, he really can't. In dreams a broken rib hurts as much as it does waking, and his lungs are threatening to collapse. He wonders what Keller's looking at right now, wonders what it's like to die when asleep, if it's any different than dying awake--if it'll hurt more than this, if Rodney would be there in something like the afterlife, if maybe his father wasn't right and staying on the ground was the sensible thing.
It's your fault, his otherself tells him, Heightmeyer's dead.
It's your fault McKay is dead.
And yeah, yeah it is. He knows this already, enough with the gloating, can we please get to the dying now?
I'm not dead.
Considering John tries not to remember his dreams as a general rule, he isn't surprised the next bit is fuzzy: his otherself turning, going toward Rodney's voice, Rodney standing there and not moving and looking very ready to die again.
Pain paints red and yellow across John's vision as he struggles to sit up. Behind him, the stargate pulses rhythmically, the soft thick wash of its event horizon.
You can't win, his otherself says, and his fists are buried in Rodney's coat now, pushing him back, and John wants to yell for Rodney to fight, do anything except die again, but Rodney lets himself be carried back, is saying something about how the creature thingy is vulnerable to electric shock, which is why I'm still alive, and then -- then --
John's really John, Rodney's really Rodney, they're really themselves.
And John's kind of grateful.
"I'd have thought there'd be more hot girls," Rodney says, looking at him curiously. "Huh."
"Yeah," John says, and thinks about saying thanks for all the fish.
And that was how it was that night, at least until Keller satisfies herself that they're alive and who they say they are: Rodney staring at John, kind of amazed in something more than a I can't believe we're not dead way, and John knowing exactly how he feels.
In the harsh light and shadows of the room, and the refracted glare from the machines, Rodney's eyes are bright even across the space between them, brilliant, kaleidoscopic, alive--a better rush than Ferris wheels.
-end-
want to know what happens next-ish? In media nocte
* = this came up in conversation with mklutz when she posted her picspam and commentary on "Doppelganger" a couple weeks ago. While it doesn't go with fandom's usual conception of John's father, I think the possibility that John comes from a middle-class, middle-America, and kind of boring family is hysterical.
.icons
*sacrifices firstborn to Robert Cooper*
On the images: Some of these are experiments in color and lighting correction, so they may not match the color/lighting you remember from the episode. (I love my show, I really, really do, but the color filters drive me a bit nuts.) As is the case with all of my ficturespams, any/all graphics are free for the taking, and for whatever nefarious purpose you can devise.
Also, there are a few icons at the end.
I saw "Doppelganger" the first time when I found out that it had been accidentally uploaded to iTunes, and had a very productive afternoon with dogeared squeeing about it. I watched it again on Sheppard the iPod on my Friday evening flight home, and it's kind of amazing I wasn't subdued by flight marshals with the way I was leering and bouncing around in my seat.
So anyway, we get the spectrum of John Sheppard in this one: cranky John, evil John, woobie John, worried-for-his-boyfriend John, sad John, I'm-going-to-pretend-to-cooperate John... I will be pointing these various Johns out to you as they appear, and there will be some completely random commentary too.
John Sheppard is having a very bad day, but really, bad days in the Pegasus Galaxy tend to be the days that end in 'y.' Granted, they aren't being held prisoner on a Wraith ship, and there isn't an alien priestess trying to tie him up (yet), but still... The guy in a warm room at his computer is really a sadistic, Rodney-like bastard. The uh, the bastard.
The only high point for him so far is that Rodney's so distracted by winning his bet with Zelenka that he missed John's Douglas Adams reference. Even then, that really isn't a high point because John had imagined that Rodney, hearing "42," would be overcome with lust and then drag John off into the bushes.
Dammit.
And then... squelch.
Goddammit.
Commodore 64? Triple-barrelled shotgun?
Kaleidoscope.
When he was a kid, John had been convinced that, if Most Boring Man was an Olympic event, his dad would have won the gold medal. His dad's idea of a really exciting summer vacation was piling his wife and children into his Chevrolet (no air conditioning, no suspension, but with suspiciously sticky seats) and dragging them off on a tour of Civil War battlefields of the South or to Amish country in Pennsylvania (they hadn't seen a single Amish person), and once, to the Everglades. John's father wouldn't spend a dollar so John could hold a baby alligator, and had refused to let them go on a hydrofoil ride no matter that John wore his knees bloody with heartfelt pleading.
The one time they'd done something fun had been the summer of John's tenth year. He and Jane (that was how boring his dad was, John and Jane, for God's sake) had been dying of boredom in the backseat, Jane's sweaty forehead against the window, John listlessly peeling the paper covering off the kaleidoscope that his dad had given him for his birthday, and somewhere in the wastes of Missouri they'd seen a sign for a state fair. Somehow, somehow, John's mother convinced her husband that parting with money was not like amputating a leg, and they'd spent all afternoon and part of the evening going on rides, playing games, eating normal things like hot dogs and cotton candy and fried dough.
He still remembers riding the Ferris wheel until the carnie told him to get the hell off, then sneaking back on it for a last ride at night, and though it's probably a sad commentary that a Ferris wheel had been the highlight of his first ten years of existence, he still loves it.*
ZAP!
Getting back to real life...
He really, really should know better than to touch shiny things by now. That's what got him in this mess to start with, only these days nothing so innocent as a map of the galaxy pops up. Mostly, "did I do that?" is followed by running, blood, and Rodney yelling at him.
It's dark in the forest, even though bright lights strobe around the edge of John's vision, but he can still see Rodney's face somewhere in the spotlights. He looks worried, really worried, which makes John kind of warm and tingly.
Or that could be the mysterious energy crystal thingy whatever.
Either way, maybe Rodney won't yell at him this time.
Or maybe he will.
Rodney's decided he can't deal with idiots who touch things they shouldn't and has gone off to his lab to crow and shove the energy crystal thingy whatever up Zelenka's nose. John goes to the infirmary with Teyla, only it's not "going" so much as it is "forced to go."
He smiles and is cooperative for Keller, though he's pretty sure neither she nor Teyla are fooled. He keeps smiling while Teyla tells him how concerned she is, his "I'm humoring you and being cooperative" expression, which Rodney usually describes as "vacant, kind of like a really dumb Labrador."
John hates Rodney, but still... he wishes Rodney had picked up on the Doug Adams reference. 42. Seriously.
Interruption
I would like to point out that it would be a very nice thing if John were eating grapes in my dreams on a regular basis.
Likewise, I wouldn't mind it if he looked kind of scary, so long as he didn't bring up trust issues. Also, JFlan's mouth is exceptionally pretty in this episode.
That night John sleeps like death, but at breakfast the next morning, Teyla looks like she's just risen from it.
Before the day is out, Rodney might also be dead too, the gossiping, I-completely-missed-your-awesome-Doug-Adams-reference bastard. It would serve him right, John thinks, and bites his muffin in half.
John's dad had never read him bedtime stories--that was for his mom to do, and it was a good thing. She read him books about planes and birds and space ships, and once even a Superman comic book. John thinks that if his dad had ever read him a story, it would have been about... John struggles to think of something boring. Carpet cleaning, or an instruction manual.
Still, though... Moby Dick is pretty harsh. John wonders if Rodney identifies with Ahab or what, or if just the thought of his planet-sized genius being snapped up by a giant sea mammal had been enough to make Rodney hide under the covers.
It had been the whale-dismantling that had freaked John out, though he remembers sitting in the back of his high-school English class snickering about sperm.
And speaking of which, Rodney is very pretty when he's lecturing. John pretends to pay attention.
Interruption
Evil!John totally pwns this episode, among other things.
He's really scary when he's enthralled, isn't he?
John works out some of his frustration with Ronon. It's a good way to turn down Teyla's offer of a beat-down for egging Rodney on about her creepy dream from last night, and it also has the completely unexpected, one-time bonus of him actually drawing blood and making it out of the gym alive.
He feels kind of evil, and tries to cackle to himself when he hears Ronon ruefully telling Keller that maybe he's taught John a bit too much.
Interruption
Out of everyone's dream, with the possible exception of Rodney's, Ronon's was just... wow. I mean, seriously, it has to suck beyond all belief to dream that 1) all your friends have vanished 2) you're back in the woods, running for your life, and 3) the person who helped rescue you and gave you a home and all your other friends knocks you unconscious and very happily buries you alive.
Seriously. Think about it for a second, and tell me if that doesn't suck.
Also, I would like to point out in the picture above this one that when John's trying to look evil, he just looks comical. I kept expecting him to tap his fingers together and cackle "Exxxcellent."
How scary is he? Really, that's how scary.
John doesn't find out until much, much later, but apparently when they'd all been talking about their worst nightmares and swapping Alien stories, Rodney had performed what Keller referred to as "Jocelyn Rutgers's breasts in sign language."
Clearly, Douglas Adams isn't going to be enough.
He decides their next movie night is going to be Alien, and maybe, if he plays his cards right and forgets the popcorn, Rodney will end up on his lap.
Interruption
Awwwww Rodney.
Alien, at least the kind with big teeth and slavering jaws, slips John's mind pretty quickly. Heightmeyer's dead, and Rodney's in mourning for her. Teyla is, too, and he figures they were kind of kindred spirits, both steady, willing to talk, and generally much better-adjusted than the rest of them.
He knows they've been talking about the possibility of someone impersonating him in everyone's dreams--replicator!John in Lorne's, Wraith!John in Teyla's, freakish betraying-of-best-friends and sociopath!John in Ronon's. And now, yay, murdering!John in Kate's.
What a fucking great day, and he can't even get close enough to Rodney now to drop in a whispered Original Series reference. It's probably incredibly petty for him to feel worse about that than about an innocent woman dying, but he can't help it.
When his door chirps at him he's already half-made the decision to go see Teyla, if Rodney's avoiding him and Ronon doesn't quite know what to make of him.
And like he's summoned her, Teyla's there, even though he scared the living daylights out of her in her dream and then killed her friend, and she's... oh God, this is serious, she's hugging him, and John can deal with the hands-to-the-sides Athosian head-touching, but not Teyla hugging him.
He touches her shoulder hesitantly, not really wanting to, but she shudders underneath his hand, so he has to keep touching, fingers glancing on and off her skin.
Interruption
asdlkjf oh, Rodney... *whimpers unhappily*
Improbably, the past few days reach a new low when Carter tells John it's Rodney this time around. And the murdering imposter John has already decided he likes killing innocent psychologists, so he's definitely not going to hesitate at killing innocent, hostile astrophysicists.
John can hear Rodney's foosteps, muted on the rubber floor, as he paces, and he wishes he could make that Original Series reference, or tell him, Hey, I kind of like you and I wish you knew that sooner but Carter isn't Elizabeth, and Carter's also right here, and heartfelt declarations of... of whatever aren't going to save Rodney's life.
He wants coffee. When they're out of this, John's going to send back to earth for the good stuff--Kona, a hundred percent, with the most expensive chocolate he can find and a box of No-Doz.
Like he tells Teyla, it's his stupid plan.
Rodney fidgets in his bed, a few feet away but too far to touch, for John to do anything but watch as he asks Keller if she's sure she knows what she's doing, Carson never did even though he pretended otherwise, bunch of voodoo practitioners.
The contact pads itch, and the dabs of gel Keller had applied to keep them stuck on are drying into a thin skim of misery. He fastens on to that, tries not to think about Rodney's unconscious and about how they're almost, kind of, sleeping together, and if maybe that isn't just a bit weird.
"I'm pretty screwed up," Rodney says apologetically.
We both are, John thinks.
He doesn't know how long it is, if it's a second or an hour or what, but at first he floats above everything, a huge sweep of water he recognizes as Lantea's ocean--and he doesn't even need to see the city, a terrifyingly long distance away, dull behind a curtain of rain.
Rodney's shirt sticks to him, his hair plastered down, fingers shaking and pale on the oars while he whispers and pleads and gasps for breath.
And there he is, and oh fuck, Rodney thinks it's him, that it's John, real-life John who's saying these things, give up, you're weak, you're pathetic, you'll never make it. And Rodney stares at him, eyes wide and glassy with disbelief, and when not-John asks him why Rodney thinks he wants to help, John's disembodied heart breaks a little at the look on Rodney's face.
I thought you were-- Rodney says, and later John will wonder what Rodney had been about to say.
For now, though, he has to get them home, back to the city, back to wakefulness, so he can save Rodney's life again, and gloat over it, again, and make fun of his rowboat.
Don't be afraid, he tells Rodney, and he's never meant anything more in his life.
He's read a bit about dream theory and virtual realities, and the ways people can manipulate their dream environments. He's pretty good at it himself, and he wonders what that says about him.
But one minute he's behind Rodney and the next he's next to him, Rodney soaked but his body alive with desperate heat. And John really really wants to punch the bastard wearing his face, wants to grab him and make him take him and Rodney back to the city, to quit with the clowns and people running through forests and rowing over stormy oceans and falling off towers.
He can't really hurt you, he tells Rodney, who looks momentarily willing to believe it.
A moment, long enough for John to feel the ocean surge under him, to think what the fucking fuck?
To wake up to the terminal beep of a monitor that says someone's dead, the harsh slap of paddles discharging, Keller's face, her despair clear behind a mask that reflects cruel flourescent lights.
The corridor stretches out forever, the city vast and silent around him.
His footsteps hover in his ears, a heavy and unforgiving sound.
What Teyla, Ronon, Carter, Keller, tell him... he knows. It is his fault, all of it; if he hadn't touched that rock McKay would still be alive; he was supposed to help Rodney--
I tried, he tells Carter. I tried.
--and yeah, you are a terrible friend, John Sheppard.
He thinks, distantly, that Carter and the rest of them had been making funeral arrangements. Carter had said something about how Rodney had redone his will, and Carter was in charge of handling his afterlife now... Which relieved him in one way, disappointed him in others.
I tried, he thinks, looking at them all again.
Story of his life.
And then. Then.
Okay, his turn for worst nightmare ever. Rodney dead and he's responsible for it, and he isn't scared so much as pissed off--no, not pissed off, furious. Blindly, blindly furious, and the rush of it is hot and welcome against the cold of loss, and when he throws himself at his otherself, wanting to drive them through the wall, wanting to hit and draw blood and crush and kill, he sees his otherself smile before the wall gives way.
Interruption
Wow. Just... wow. Also, evil!Sheppard totally pwns good!Sheppard.
His head rings and his entire body hurts, which he thinks shouldn't be possible considering it's a dream and anyway weren't you supposed to wake up if you pinched yourself? A boot in the face, fists in a rib... that has to be worth something more than the distant realization that, yeah, he is terrified of himself, that he likes to think of himself as not this cruel or ruthless, and that he's doing more than fighting for a life that doesn't feel like it's worth much now.
Interruption
Oh, Rodney. One of the things that kind of annoyed me (sorry) about this is that people keep thinking Rodney is terrible with scary situations. Um, sorry! But he isn't! Not really. I mean, he's just been brought back from cardiac arrest and he wants to go into John's head to face the thing that wanted to kill him. That is not handling a scary situation badly, people! That's being a very brave astrophysicist.
He's been thrown up the stairs and kicked back down the stairs by way of the balcony railing, which is a nice touch, he thinks, only he wishes he has Rodney's personal shield with him.
Get up his otherself says, Come on, John.
Fight.
Only it's what he wants, and though John actually kind of wants to himself, he really can't. In dreams a broken rib hurts as much as it does waking, and his lungs are threatening to collapse. He wonders what Keller's looking at right now, wonders what it's like to die when asleep, if it's any different than dying awake--if it'll hurt more than this, if Rodney would be there in something like the afterlife, if maybe his father wasn't right and staying on the ground was the sensible thing.
It's your fault, his otherself tells him, Heightmeyer's dead.
It's your fault McKay is dead.
And yeah, yeah it is. He knows this already, enough with the gloating, can we please get to the dying now?
I'm not dead.
Considering John tries not to remember his dreams as a general rule, he isn't surprised the next bit is fuzzy: his otherself turning, going toward Rodney's voice, Rodney standing there and not moving and looking very ready to die again.
Pain paints red and yellow across John's vision as he struggles to sit up. Behind him, the stargate pulses rhythmically, the soft thick wash of its event horizon.
You can't win, his otherself says, and his fists are buried in Rodney's coat now, pushing him back, and John wants to yell for Rodney to fight, do anything except die again, but Rodney lets himself be carried back, is saying something about how the creature thingy is vulnerable to electric shock, which is why I'm still alive, and then -- then --
John's really John, Rodney's really Rodney, they're really themselves.
And John's kind of grateful.
"I'd have thought there'd be more hot girls," Rodney says, looking at him curiously. "Huh."
"Yeah," John says, and thinks about saying thanks for all the fish.
And that was how it was that night, at least until Keller satisfies herself that they're alive and who they say they are: Rodney staring at John, kind of amazed in something more than a I can't believe we're not dead way, and John knowing exactly how he feels.
In the harsh light and shadows of the room, and the refracted glare from the machines, Rodney's eyes are bright even across the space between them, brilliant, kaleidoscopic, alive--a better rush than Ferris wheels.
-end-
want to know what happens next-ish? In media nocte
* = this came up in conversation with mklutz when she posted her picspam and commentary on "Doppelganger" a couple weeks ago. While it doesn't go with fandom's usual conception of John's father, I think the possibility that John comes from a middle-class, middle-America, and kind of boring family is hysterical.
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