Fic: Walk the Line ~ complete, one shot.
Title: Walk the Line
Author: kodiak bear
Pairing: Slash, Sheppard/McKay
Rating: M (for adult theme)
Warning: Character death
Word count: 1,100 +
Summary: There were three things I didn’t do well. People, kids and death. (told from Rodney’s POV).
Walk the Line
By Kodiak Bear
Life could be a real bitch. Moody, and fickle. One moment you’re on top of the world, and the next, you think dying would be preferable to living. What the hell was up with that, anyway? Happiness might be elusive; maybe it was the universe’s mountain and rock to the little Prometheus humans. Just when you think you’ve got it, there it went.
“No…dying is not an acceptable end, Sheppard!”
I had snapped it, bitched it, pleaded it…but did it matter? Course not. The bastard up and died anyway. Where was Chaya, or Teer, or any of those Ancients that could’ve fixed it? No damn glowy being around when it really counts.
“I’ve got a real problem with this. You die, and that means I’m alone, and if I’m alone, I’m going to…going…Jesus, Sheppard, see what you’ve done to me - I’ve been reduced to a bad broken record.”
I had watched him brush against death before. I’d fought alongside him to keep our asses out of the fire. But this was the first time there’d been no miraculous save, or last minute reprieve. We didn’t all go home, and we all didn’t think to ourselves how freaking-incredibly lucky we’d gotten, again.
Because this time, we hadn’t all gone home. Least not alive.
There were three things I didn’t do well; people, kids and death. I suppose that made two, actually, kids being a subset of people, but wasn’t there some rule about not sweating the small stuff? Two, three, whatever - the big one was in there, regardless.
Death scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to die. There were scientists out there that believed in God, but not many of them had ever seen a wormhole to another planet, let alone, another galaxy, and none of them had seen the Goa’uld before. The Ancients.
If there was a God, I sure hoped to hell he’d taken Sheppard.
“Don’t…oh, God…don’t.”
The really crappy part of this? He’d never woken up. I’d never gotten to tell him all the things that mattered. John Sheppard had been more than his gene to me. Friend, support; he’d latched on to me, or hell, maybe I’d latched on to him; from the beginning, and then we’d proceeded to bug the shit out of each other. And I liked it.
His room still smelled like him. Sheets, clothes. The guitar in the corner that I’d never heard him play. I stared at the poster of Johnny Cash, and wondered if Sheppard had known how to play his songs. I’d worked with this guy for three years; I’d seen him bleeding, sick, angry and lost. He’d fought with me, worried about me, protected me - but now who was going to do it? Who was going to protect me from me?
“I made a mistake…I couldn’t pretend there was nothing there, and it was stupid. Self serving, stupid, and I should’ve just held a fucking gun to both our heads.”
When I’d accepted the hopelessness of the situation, I’d sat by Sheppard’s body in the dark cave. The rescue team was going to show up eventually, just not in time for John. Normally, I would have panicked. Normally, I would’ve whined, and bitched, and moaned about impending death…except that he’d already died.
Funny how having your best friend…lover…die in your arms shocks even the most selfish bone out of your system. That wasn’t quite right. Not ‘out’, subdued. Because even as his empty body was next to me on the floor, I started to rage at his selfishness in leaving me.
“Do you know what you’ve just done to me? Trauma - psychological trauma. I’m going to be a useless husk for the remainder of my life, and I can’t even figure out if I want to follow you soon, or last till I’m crippled and yellowed, just to spite you, you son of a bitch.”
One fucking week. That was it. Best friends, until one of us got the guts to make the first move. There’d been all sorts of moral objections; he’d quoted military law and I’d quoted Einstein.
“What the hell does Einstein have to do with being gay?”
“The same thing that military law has to do with it!”
My point made, I’d seen the resistance drop away in small reluctant chunks. It wasn’t about being gay, military laws, or even relativity. What it was about was him, and me, and the fact that we cared. Loved was such a loaded word, and neither one of us had said it…until I was all alone in that cold black cave, where all my happiness had died, along with John Sheppard.
Which brings me back to why I should’ve shot us both before ever letting this go farther. The reason he died? Protecting me. Spelunking on an alien world, and a stupid seismic event ruined my life. Chunks of stalactites came loose, and before I had a chance to do anything, Sheppard had thrown himself over me.
At first, I thought the stillness was shock. Then a joke - Sheppard’s idea of a joke was to make me sweat. It was only when the stillness continued, and wetness dripped around his ear, along his jawbone, and onto my face underneath, that I’d known.
He was gone. It had to have been instantaneous, but I still rolled him, frantically trying to do CPR. I’d begged, pleaded, fucking cried…and he never came back.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” I whispered raggedly.
“Why not?”
If it were possible for sound to stop a heart, it did. The room was as dark as the cave had been. It had to be dark, everything had to be dark. “Because, I needed you here.” It made perfect sense. If he was dead, he couldn’t be there for me. Couldn’t make me laugh, love…
John sauntered around the edge of his bed, and knelt in front of me. His eyes were sad, and I wondered why. Holding a hand out, he sighed. “Come on, McKay.”
Staring at the pale hand, I hesitated. “Where are we going?”
He shrugged. “Out there -”
Accepting his hand, I let him pull me to my feet. Walking away from the bed, I looked back. His things. The man in black looked over the bed, where I still lay, a guitar in my hand, and a gun in the other. I never did do death well. I turned away, and smiled tiredly at John. “Okay.”
The End.
Author: kodiak bear
Pairing: Slash, Sheppard/McKay
Rating: M (for adult theme)
Warning: Character death
Word count: 1,100 +
Summary: There were three things I didn’t do well. People, kids and death. (told from Rodney’s POV).
Walk the Line
By Kodiak Bear
Life could be a real bitch. Moody, and fickle. One moment you’re on top of the world, and the next, you think dying would be preferable to living. What the hell was up with that, anyway? Happiness might be elusive; maybe it was the universe’s mountain and rock to the little Prometheus humans. Just when you think you’ve got it, there it went.
“No…dying is not an acceptable end, Sheppard!”
I had snapped it, bitched it, pleaded it…but did it matter? Course not. The bastard up and died anyway. Where was Chaya, or Teer, or any of those Ancients that could’ve fixed it? No damn glowy being around when it really counts.
“I’ve got a real problem with this. You die, and that means I’m alone, and if I’m alone, I’m going to…going…Jesus, Sheppard, see what you’ve done to me - I’ve been reduced to a bad broken record.”
I had watched him brush against death before. I’d fought alongside him to keep our asses out of the fire. But this was the first time there’d been no miraculous save, or last minute reprieve. We didn’t all go home, and we all didn’t think to ourselves how freaking-incredibly lucky we’d gotten, again.
Because this time, we hadn’t all gone home. Least not alive.
There were three things I didn’t do well; people, kids and death. I suppose that made two, actually, kids being a subset of people, but wasn’t there some rule about not sweating the small stuff? Two, three, whatever - the big one was in there, regardless.
Death scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to die. There were scientists out there that believed in God, but not many of them had ever seen a wormhole to another planet, let alone, another galaxy, and none of them had seen the Goa’uld before. The Ancients.
If there was a God, I sure hoped to hell he’d taken Sheppard.
“Don’t…oh, God…don’t.”
The really crappy part of this? He’d never woken up. I’d never gotten to tell him all the things that mattered. John Sheppard had been more than his gene to me. Friend, support; he’d latched on to me, or hell, maybe I’d latched on to him; from the beginning, and then we’d proceeded to bug the shit out of each other. And I liked it.
His room still smelled like him. Sheets, clothes. The guitar in the corner that I’d never heard him play. I stared at the poster of Johnny Cash, and wondered if Sheppard had known how to play his songs. I’d worked with this guy for three years; I’d seen him bleeding, sick, angry and lost. He’d fought with me, worried about me, protected me - but now who was going to do it? Who was going to protect me from me?
“I made a mistake…I couldn’t pretend there was nothing there, and it was stupid. Self serving, stupid, and I should’ve just held a fucking gun to both our heads.”
When I’d accepted the hopelessness of the situation, I’d sat by Sheppard’s body in the dark cave. The rescue team was going to show up eventually, just not in time for John. Normally, I would have panicked. Normally, I would’ve whined, and bitched, and moaned about impending death…except that he’d already died.
Funny how having your best friend…lover…die in your arms shocks even the most selfish bone out of your system. That wasn’t quite right. Not ‘out’, subdued. Because even as his empty body was next to me on the floor, I started to rage at his selfishness in leaving me.
“Do you know what you’ve just done to me? Trauma - psychological trauma. I’m going to be a useless husk for the remainder of my life, and I can’t even figure out if I want to follow you soon, or last till I’m crippled and yellowed, just to spite you, you son of a bitch.”
One fucking week. That was it. Best friends, until one of us got the guts to make the first move. There’d been all sorts of moral objections; he’d quoted military law and I’d quoted Einstein.
“What the hell does Einstein have to do with being gay?”
“The same thing that military law has to do with it!”
My point made, I’d seen the resistance drop away in small reluctant chunks. It wasn’t about being gay, military laws, or even relativity. What it was about was him, and me, and the fact that we cared. Loved was such a loaded word, and neither one of us had said it…until I was all alone in that cold black cave, where all my happiness had died, along with John Sheppard.
Which brings me back to why I should’ve shot us both before ever letting this go farther. The reason he died? Protecting me. Spelunking on an alien world, and a stupid seismic event ruined my life. Chunks of stalactites came loose, and before I had a chance to do anything, Sheppard had thrown himself over me.
At first, I thought the stillness was shock. Then a joke - Sheppard’s idea of a joke was to make me sweat. It was only when the stillness continued, and wetness dripped around his ear, along his jawbone, and onto my face underneath, that I’d known.
He was gone. It had to have been instantaneous, but I still rolled him, frantically trying to do CPR. I’d begged, pleaded, fucking cried…and he never came back.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” I whispered raggedly.
“Why not?”
If it were possible for sound to stop a heart, it did. The room was as dark as the cave had been. It had to be dark, everything had to be dark. “Because, I needed you here.” It made perfect sense. If he was dead, he couldn’t be there for me. Couldn’t make me laugh, love…
John sauntered around the edge of his bed, and knelt in front of me. His eyes were sad, and I wondered why. Holding a hand out, he sighed. “Come on, McKay.”
Staring at the pale hand, I hesitated. “Where are we going?”
He shrugged. “Out there -”
Accepting his hand, I let him pull me to my feet. Walking away from the bed, I looked back. His things. The man in black looked over the bed, where I still lay, a guitar in my hand, and a gun in the other. I never did do death well. I turned away, and smiled tiredly at John. “Okay.”
The End.