Fic: Take a Chance on Me (Sheppard/McKay, NC-17, 2/3)
Teyla had been correct - the people on Hedmita were not hostile. What she had neglected to mention however, was the requirement that all new trading partners take place in a ritual involving being tied together with rope in what appeared to be the universe’s largest game of cat’s cradle. Sometimes, Rodney had a sneaking suspicion at the end of the day, Teyla went back to her room and laughed at all of them.
“I have done this before, Colonel,” Teyla said over everybody else’s muffled cursing. “It is not complicated if we simply work together as a team.”
“Oh,” Rodney said as the light dawned. “I did something like this once at my summer camp! It was supposed to teach us all how to work together to unravel the rope into a straight line.
Sheppard blew his hair out of his eyes. “Okay then, how do we do it?”
Rodney blinked. “How should I know?” When everybody else twisted to stare at him, he shrugged as much as the ropes would allow him. “It was science camp. None of us wanted to learn to work together. Everybody thought they could find the secret solution individually.
“So did you find a solution?” asked Sheppard, right before his eyes widened and he turned to glare at Dex. “Ronon, that better have been an accident!”
“Of course it was an accident,” Rodney said, giving Dex the benefit of a doubt. “Do you really think he’s been waiting for his chance to get you trapped in bondage so he can grope you publicly?”
Dex didn’t seem to be listening to either one of them. He was too busy trying to snap the ropes.
“Oh for God’s -” Rodney snapped, as Dex jerked them all around in his quest to free himself. “Hey! You’re not the Incredible Hulk, so give it a break!”
Teyla sighed, and Rodney could hear the fraying threads of patience in her voice. “I am beginning to see why the Hedmita persist in this ritual. I would be unwilling to trade with those so undisciplined as well.”
“Hey, Teyla, did they miss any of your knives?” Sheppard asked. “A nail file, maybe?” He sounded pathetically hopeful, and Rodney sternly reminded himself it was not cute.
“I am sorry, Colonel. They were quite thorough in their search.”
“And from your silence, Rodney, I’m assuming you didn’t come up with a miracle solution back at nerd camp.”
“Two words for you, Colonel.” And oh, how they stung, all of these years later. “Kobayashi Maru.”
Sheppard nodded with resignation. “Okay, we’re just going to have to do this the old fashioned way. Everybody stay still, and I’m going to try shifting into a position that’ll give us more room. If that doesn’t work, Teyla will try, and then Ronon, and then Rodney.”
“Hey,” Rodney protested. “Why am I last?”
“You lack a little something I call grace.” Rodney rolled his eyes, but Sheppard ignored him as usual. “I’d prefer to have you move as little as possible. Now get thinking on some way to get us the hell out of this, while we try to move.”
Everybody held obediently still while Sheppard maneuvered his way around the web. He was unsuccessful, and they began taking turns, finally gaining some extra room when they got to Ronon.
“There.” Satisfaction rang in Sheppard’s voice. “Now we have a little bit of breathing room. You come up with a solution yet, McKay?”
Rodney smiled. “As a matter of fact, I have. Teyla, you need to straddle the rope between Dex and the Colonel. Use Dex’s shoulders for balance. Dex, after she finishes, turn yourself so your back is to Teyla and your front is facing me. I will then move sixty-two degrees northwest, and Colonel, you will crawl under the ropes into the space I have left behind. Everybody ready?”
“Dr. McKay.” Teyla sounded unusually hesitant. Behind her, Sheppard cleared his throat. “Such maneuvering will lead to us being placed in somewhat intimate positions.”
“Yes, yes, we’ll all get to know each other a little better than I’d ever wished to. Suck it up and deal, and Dex, if you do to me whatever it was you did to the Colonel, I’ll make sure you never take a hot shower again.”
“I am sick of wasting time talking,” Dex said. “Teyla, do as McKay says.”
Teyla gave him a look, but obeyed, and everybody attempted to follow Rodney’s simple instructions.
“No, no! I said turn so your back is facing Teyla, and your front is facing the Colonel! And Colonel, don’t move a muscle until I’ve created space for you!” Rodney wished he could throw up his hands in disgust. “I can’t believe either of you are career military. Aren’t you supposed to live for following orders?”
Dex scowled. “Perhaps Sheppard will order me to shoot you. That’s an order I would be happy to follow.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Sheppard said, as he finished wiggling into the space Rodney had created for him. With that finished, he waited on Rodney, who was calculating the next set of moves. “What next, McKay?”
“This set is going to be a little bit more complicated,” Rodney said, giving Teyla an apologetic smile when she frowned. He wondered if her hesitancy sprang from a desire to be seen as a soldier rather than a woman, or if she just had issues rubbing up against Dex. Sometimes he was tempted to ask her the questions swirling around in his brain, but the reminder she could kick his ass six ways from Sunday tempered his curiosity. “Teyla and Dex, it’s your turn again. I’m not sure how to describe what you should be doing, but when you’re finished, Dex, you should be kneeling at Teyla’s left, and Teyla, you should have three ropes in front of you, and none immediately behind.”
Teyla contemplated the ropes and nodded. “I believe I see how we can achieve those positions.”
“I have never been on a mission like this,” Dex announced, as Teyla begin winding around him. He sounded as if he regretted missing out.
Sheppard sighed. “Yes, well this is what happens when you’re not allowed to shoot first, and make demands later. That may not have been how they did it in your military, but it’s sure as hell how they do it in mine.”
“Please be quiet,” Teyla said, as she crawled through a tiny hole in the ropes. “I am trying to concentrate.”
In order to give Teyla and Dex the room for their complicated twisting, Sheppard and Rodney ended up with the ropes twined around them tightly, and pressed against each other chest to chest.
“This is just as unfun as Twister,” Sheppard groused, apparently doing his best to face anywhere besides Rodney.
“You didn’t think Twister was fun?”
Sheppard seemed surprised. “You did?”
Rodney shrugged. “What’s not to like about pretty girls crawling all over you for the sake of a game? Whoever invented Twister was a genius.”
“Yeah, a genius who never got laid.”
“Well, Colonel,” Rodney bit out. “We couldn’t all be the world champions of Seven Minutes in Heaven growing up.
Sheppard met his eyes for a brief second. “I think you have the wrong impression of my childhood, McKay.”
“Yes, well, fascinating as this discovery is, it’s time for you to move. You need to slide around me so we’re back to back, with your left hand above the top two ropes, and your right hand below them.”
Sheppard began moving, and Rodney bit his lower lip at the feel of Sheppard’s legs rubbing against his own. It wouldn’t do at all to get hard on a mission - at least not right where the team leader could feel it. If he had inappropriate reactions to a well-laid out buffet, only he was the wiser, but this was different.
His attempt to distract himself by thinking about the energy readings from the desalinization tanks was interrupted when Sheppard attempted to work his way past him, and only succeeded in sliding a thigh between Rodney’s legs, inadvertently pressing for one burning second.
Rodney captured Sheppard’s gaze with his own, refusing to let him turn away. They said the eyes were the windows to the soul, but whoever had said that had clearly never met Sheppard, who tended to show nothing in his eyes he didn’t want anybody else to see. Only by knowing Sheppard as well as he did could Rodney see the almost invisible hints of confusion, need, and regret.
“Rodney,” Sheppard said quietly.
“Colonel,” Rodney said back, just as quietly. He let Sheppard press against him once more, brushed their little fingers up against each other, and then moved back an infinitesimal bit, setting Sheppard free.
Sheppard’s eyes unclouded immediately, and he snapped back to attention. His chest was heaving just the tiniest bit, but Rodney decided that prudence and freedom from Shelob’s web were more important than pushing Sheppard at the current moment, so he let it go without a remark.
“McKay,” Dex rumbled, looking conflicted about being on his knees before Teyla. “If you have more for us to do, now would be the time to tell us.”
Rodney surveyed their current positions. “We’re almost done, actually.”
“Really?” Sheppard drawled, sounding skeptical. “Because it seems like we’re in even more of a tangle now than we were when we started.”
Rodney narrowed his eyes. “Anybody trying to make order out of chaos knows you have to make a bigger mess first, before you can set it to rights. It’s the only way to understand the underlying patterns.” Sheppard didn’t seem to have an answer to that, and Rodney moved on. “Teyla, this is mostly going to be about you now. What I need for you to do is to spin three-quarters of a circle, and jump over the remaining ropes. Can you do that?”
Teyla didn’t bother answering, but twirled and jumped gracefully, landing on the other side of the ropes with room to spare.
“All right,” Rodney continued, wiping his brain of the sight of Teyla’s thigh muscles bunching as she leapt. “Dex, crawl under the ropes in between you and Teyla, and stand up when you reach her side. Once you finish, untangling the rest of the web should be a snap.”
It was. Dex crawled, Sheppard crept, Rodney stood still, and within a few minutes, they were still bound individually in a long line, but mostly free of each other.
“What happens now?” he asked Teyla.
She thought. “From what I remember from my time here as a child, the Hedmita will soon appear with a beverage to cement our new relationship as trading partners.”
Sure enough, the Hedmita appeared, the ropes were sliced, a non-citrus beverage was passed out, and they all toasted their new partners.
The rest of the mission passed normally, and they returned to Atlantis tired but satisfied, towing over 50 different sacks of seeds and grains on a small sled behind them. The post-mission briefing was mercifully brief, and afterwards, Rodney scarfed down his dinner, took a quick shower, and collapsed into bed, too exhausted to wonder where he would end up.
**
Rodney blinks and turns around for a second, because while he’d anticipating ending up in Sheppard’s dream again, he’d thought it would be another version of the one from the night before, and not suddenly appearing in the middle of a very big, very loud party.
He quickly checks down to make sure he’s not naked, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees his pants. The last thing he needs is for Sheppard’s dream to coincide with Rodney’s worst nightmare.
Reassured this is not a clothing optional party, he starts to wander the room. He’s made it three-quarters of the way toward the patio when he realizes he knows some of the people there - and even weirder than that, all of the people there he knows, are dead.
Peter is in the corner talking animatedly with Gall, and from the corner of his eye, Rodney can spot Abrahms and Dumais playing Quarters, with two guys wearing Hawaiian shirts. He sees Colonel Sumner chatting amicably with a lady around his age wearing a cardigan, and the two Marines who had been killed in the Genii invasion are right outside the window shooting hoops.
This is the strangest party he’s ever been to.
Part of him wants to go over and talk to his friends - especially Peter and Dumais - but he knows why he’s there, and it’s not for them. He has no idea what he’d say to them if he went. ‘Sorry I screwed up and got you killed’ doesn’t really seem to cut it, and he decides to leave it alone. Plus, it’s Sheppard’s dream, which means none of them are real anyway. In fact, the only real people at the party are Sheppard and Rodney. Everybody else is dead.
It’s a chilling thought, and Rodney shivers, but before he can process the fact there are enough dead people in Sheppard’s world to populate an entire party, he sees Sheppard refilling ice buckets, and smoothing out the cocktail napkins.
He walks over to Sheppard and stands behind him, waiting to be noticed. Sheppard is preoccupied with arranging the appetizers to his liking, and finally Rodney gives in and clears his throat.
Sheppard whips around, and grins when he sees Rodney. “This is a surprise.”
“A pleasant one, I hope,” Rodney says, hoping Sheppard doesn’t think he’s here because he’s dead. Although, there is at least one dead Rodney in Sheppard’s history, and who’s to say he isn’t that one? Come to think of it, he wonders if 10,000 year old Elizabeth is taking a nap upstairs.
The grin turns into a smile, and Rodney feels warmed by it. “I think you know just what kind of surprise it is.” Sheppard turns back to futzing with the table. “I just need another minute here, and then we can go.”
Go where? He decides to wait and find out, and instead watches with amusement as Sheppard continues to fiddle with the table. “I should’ve known you’d be an excellent host.”
“Make the guests feel at home and part of the family, my mom used to say. She threw a lot of dinner parties.”
It’s the first time Rodney’s ever heard Sheppard mention his family in any way at all, and he reminds himself to do some digging on the subject later. “You done yet?”
“Almost. Just one more sec.” Sheppard adjusts the drape of the tablecloth one final time and straightens up. “Let’s go.”
He heads off for what Rodney assumes is the kitchen, and Rodney follows him, watching with bemusement as Sheppard reaches into the oven and comes out with a giant picnic basket.
“We’re having a picnic?” he asks.
“Well, sure. Who doesn’t enjoy picnics?” Actually, Rodney isn’t very fond of them - sticky grass, shrieking children, and fear of death from either salmonella or bee stings aren’t really his idea of a good time, but he’s pretty sure he’ll be safe here in Sheppard’s dream, so he just nods.
Sheppard opens the door, into what Rodney had assumed would be the backyard, but it isn’t. It’s a meadow, full of shady trees and butterflies, with a checkered blanket already spread out beneath the largest tree. Sheppard closes the door to the house, and then it’s gone, nothing but meadow in all directions, as far as he can see.
“There,” Sheppard says happily, sitting down on the blanket and opening up the basket. “Turkey sandwiches all around.”
“You got any roast beef?” Rodney asks, just to see what’ll happen.
Sheppard frowns, and reaches into the basket. His face clears up as he pulls out a roast beef sandwich and tosses it Rodney’s way.
It’s impressive, and slightly disturbing. Rodney still thinks about what the spokesperson of the fog planet had said. ‘Major Sheppard displayed a unique talent for manipulating his own reality.’ Sometimes he wonders what Sheppard could do if he really put his mind to it. A small part of him is surprised they’re not picnicking on a Ferris Wheel.
They eat companionably in silence, and when they’re done, Sheppard stretches, and flops backwards on the blanket, trusting in a soft landing. Rodney is a bit more wary, and lowers himself slowly, and if he ends up almost plastered against Sheppard’s side - well it’s just a byproduct of natural caution.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Sheppard says almost dreamily.
Maybe he shouldn’t ask. “What?” he asks anyway, because he long ago learned he’s incapable of ignoring Sheppard, even when he wishes he could.
Sheppard rolls over - moving quicker than Rodney thought he ever could, unless he was being chased by a Wraith - and kisses him lightly, a brief brush of lips, before pulling back and eyeing Rodney steadily. “That.”
Rodney can’t argue with that. He’d always wanted to do it too, from the moment Sheppard had calculated the number of gate addresses without even needing to give it thought. He hadn’t known Sheppard very well yet, but what he’d known he’d admired, and ever since then, nothing Sheppard did could change the way Rodney felt.
Sheppard stays still as he hovers above Rodney, his eyes making it clear the next move is Rodney’s call. Sheppard’s been brave - even if he thinks this is just a dream. Rodney can be brave as well. “John,” he says softly. “Kiss me again.”
John is quick to oblige, leaning back in and capturing Rodney’s mouth. Rodney responds, but lets John lead the way. It is John’s dream after all, and he’s interested in seeing what John would want to do in a world where he can make the rules. Besides, it’s no hardship to lie back and let John lick his lower lip with his clever tongue.
His passivity ends the moment John draws his tongue into his mouth, and nips it - the bite just on the far side of pain. He makes a questioning noise, and John bites him again, this time a bit harder. “C’mon,” John murmurs against his lips.
Far be it for him to argue. Rodney flips them over, and claims John’s mouth, kissing him with an intensity he thought he’d kept hidden. It almost frightens him, and he pulls back for air. John isn’t scared though. He winds his hands through Rodney’s hair and reels him back in, wrapping a leg around Rodney’s waist with a flexibility Rodney wishes he could explore.
It wouldn’t be right though. This is already skirting the edge to begin with. John may have his suspicions, but he clearly believes this is a dream, and Rodney can’t take advantage of him in that way. John talks a good game, but the list of people he trusts is very small, and Rodney knows he’s on it. He’s not willing to risk that, not even for another chance at John’s mouth.
He lets himself have one last kiss, and then frees himself from John’s grip on his hair. John isn’t thrilled about letting him go and Rodney finds himself facing John’s scowling face.
“Why’d you stop?” John asks.
“I think you know why,” Rodney says, and waits to see how John will respond. Aside from a brief flash in John’s eyes, there’s no visible reaction. “It’s time for me to go, anyway.”
“Not if I want you to stay, it isn’t.”
“John.” Rodney sighs. “Tell me you want this when you’re awake, and I’ll be the first one to celebrate. But you can’t stay in a dream-world of your own creation, and expect to be happy.”
John looks mutinous. “I was happy until you stopped.”
“Yes,” Rodney points out. “But I’m also not real.” He waves at the meadow. “And besides, is this really how you want it to be? It’s not real either. We don’t live in this world.”
“Which one,” John asks bleakly. “The one where everything is perfect, or the one where everybody is dead?”
“Either of them!” Rodney snaps. “We live in the world of reality - where it’s sometimes good and sometimes bad, and yes, people you care about die, but some of them stay alive as well. We live in a world of science and logic, and you can’t manipulate it with your brain. You can’t manipulate me, so instead you hide out here, and pretend it’s good enough for you. It may be, but it’s not good enough for me.”
With that he stands up, brushing grass off his palms. John won’t meet his eyes, and focuses on the blanket when Rodney clears his throat.
“Some part of you knows I’m really here,” Rodney warns. “And you can’t hide from it forever. I won’t let you. Talk to me during the daytime, or talk to me in the next dream - even if it takes place at the circus. If you don’t, I’ll come to you. But now,” he checks the watch that appears on his wrist. “I’m going back to bed. Wanna walk me out?”
John rises silently, and walks him back to the doorway. “If you open it, it should take you to your room,” he says, and catches Rodney’s hand when he turns to leave. “Rodney.” He swallows. “I like it when you call me John.”
“I know you do,” Rodney says, and leans in to give John a gentle kiss. “I do too.” With that, he twists the knob, and the world around him vanishes.
**
If he hadn’t been sure all Atlantis personnel were on-base and accounted for, he would’ve thought Sheppard had managed to slip off-world. No matter where Rodney thought of searching, Sheppard couldn’t be found, and eventually Rodney stopped looking. He had a sneaking suspicion Sheppard was monitoring him with a life-signs detector, and in a game of covert tracking, there was no way he was ever going to win.
Aside from the unsuccessful Sheppard hunt, the day passed in the usual manner. He drank his coffee, ran his tests, presided over his meetings with Zelenka and the other head scientists, and refused to admit it felt something vital was missing.
In a way it was a flashback to his original time in Antarctica, when he’d been free to work without any distractions. Nobody came by to yank him away from his work to fix a broken puddle-jumper just as things were getting interesting with his attempt to increase the power levels in the ZPM. Nobody posed around the lab in a series of positions so obscene they’d led to Lister dropping her tray, and Collman forgetting about her work in her attempt to graph the planes of Sheppard’s ass. Nobody disrespected the walls Rodney had worked so carefully to erect, and he’d always thought a day without Sheppard would be bliss, but he’d been so very, very wrong.
“Rodney, you missed a transponder here.” A chewed-up pen poked at the screen, and Rodney blinked himself back into his lab.
“Hmmm.” Zelenka was right. He quickly corrected his error, mentally smacking himself. This was the kind of mistake he’d expect an undergrad to notice, and he had missed it because he’d been too busy obsessing over Sheppard. He wondered what was going on in Sheppard’s mind - wherever he was. Probably nothing Sheppard had an amazing ability to shut out whatever he didn’t want to deal with.
“You seem distracted,” Zelenka said tentatively. As close as they were in terms of working together, they’d never had many personal discussions - and Rodney had thought they both preferred it that way. Either he’d been wrong, or he was so out of it he was becoming a professional liability. Whatever reason Zelenka had, Rodney wasn’t anticipating the upcoming conversation.
“I’m fine,” he said brusquely, hoping it would be enough to ease Zelenka’s mind.
It wasn’t, of course. “I have a story I wish to tell you.”
Oh, wonderful, story time. “Do I get some milk and cookies to go along with it?”
Zelenka ignored him with the ease of a year of practice. “I will give you a nice lemon cookie, if you do not shut up and listen. When I was at university, there was a girl, the president of our student government. She was strong and smart, and beautiful. I counted myself lucky to be her friend. We would talk sometimes after classes, and she would tell me stories of her dreams, how she would make the world a better place.”
His accent grew heavier as he slipped deeper into the story. “So many friends, she had, yet always she seemed to be so alone. She never seemed lonely, always joking and laughing and surrounded by people, but I was her friend. I knew how to see her.
“My roommate told me she watched when I could not see her. He told me to tell her how I felt, and I wanted, I wanted to very much. But I was shy and could not believe such things were mine to have. I waited for her to come to me and tell me of her feelings. She was always the brave one, but she never came. After the year ended, I went to spend a summer in Germany studying, and while there, I swore to myself when I returned, I would tell her how I felt.”
There was silence. Rodney looked at Zelenka, who seemed lost in his memories. “What happened?”
“Oh.” Zelenka blinked and pushed at the frame of his glasses. “She was gone.”
That wasn’t what he had expected to hear. “Gone?”
“Yes, she was very vocal in her thoughts about our government. I tried, but was told it was better not to ask questions. I was only a student - no power at all. There was nothing I could do, and she was lost to me forever.”
Rodney didn’t like the parallels being drawn here. He was more than capable of remembering the final solo flight of a nuclear-powered puddlejumper without any help from anybody else. “This is a tragic story indeed, I’m all teared up, but I fail to see what it has to do with me.”
Zelenka’s eyes were soft, and Rodney hated himself for being so transparent. “I think you know.”
"So, what, the moral of your Lifetime movie of the week is you lost your one true love, and I should make sure never do the same? Why the hell are you even telling me this?”
Zelenka snorted. “Yes, Rodney, that was my point. The world is a romance novel, and you are the main character.” Rodney glared at him and he rolled his eyes. “The point is, do not be a coward. I am no matchmaker.”
“That’s for sure,” Rodney muttered.
“But I am your friend,” Zelenka continued. “And I see you.”
“Wait,” Rodney said, mildly alarmed. “This isn’t your way of telling me you’re in love with me, is it?”
Zelenka cursed to himself in Czech, and hopped off of the desk. “I do not know why I even try.”
“I’m so glad we were able to have this little talk,” Rodney called after him, but he kept Zelenka’s words in mind.
He turned his attention back to tweaking the biometric sensor, and shoved Sheppard to the back of his brain, until he could figure out what to do with him. It was clear Sheppard wasn’t going to seek him out to talk while they were awake, which gave Rodney a few hours to decide how he was going to handle the next dream.
**
It’s dark and quiet - no party this time, no oddly decorated room, only John sitting in a chair, with an empty chair across from him. Rodney takes his cue and sits down.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he finally says when it becomes clear John isn’t going to speak first. John shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets.
“I want you to sing me a song,” John says.
“What?” Perhaps the disco ball has done something horrible to John’s brain. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. A song. Right now.”
“Any particular choice in mind?” Rodney knows he sounds sarcastic, but this is exceedingly strange, even for John.
“Yeah, The Farmer in the Dell. Sing The Farmer in the Dell.”
“I’ve never even heard of The Farmer in the Dell. What the hell is a dell?”
John’s brow creases with frustration. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is I want you to sing it.” When Rodney doesn’t move, his mouth twists. “This isn’t a dream,” he says flatly. “If this was my dream, you’d be doing what I wanted.”
“It’s still your dream,” Rodney says. “I’m just in it. And besides, when did I ever do what you wanted?”
“You do whatever I want in my dreams all the time. Except lately. You’ve just been yourself.”
“That’s because I am myself,” Rodney says, wondering if John is deliberately trying to be obtuse. “John -”
John cuts him off before Rodney can say anything embarrassing, or even worse, anything about feelings. “I don’t want to hear it. I didn’t ask for this, and I sure as hell don’t want it.”
“What is it you do want?” Rodney snaps, losing patience with the entire situation.
“None of your fucking business.”
“Oh, I think it’s extremely my fucking business,” Rodney says, surprised at how low and threatening his voice sounds. “Especially when you’re the one wanting to do the fucking.”
John swallows. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“I thought your dreams were all about what you wanted.”
“Yes, but they’re not real!” John says roughly. “And this is. And I’m done with letting a fucking disco ball fuck with my head.”
“John, you can’t just stop it. It’s trite, but this is happening for a reason, and ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away.”
“Just watch me,” John says. “It’s over.” He snaps his fingers, and suddenly he’s gone. A pop echoes in the air, and Rodney’s gone as well, waking up alone.
click here for part three