Fic: Endless Waltz by Spacebabe (NC-17)
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex
Pairing: Established McKay/Sheppard
Word count: ~ 8,900
Beta: Unbeta'ed. Please let me know if you spot anything.
Author's notes: Title and quote borrowed from Gundam Wing. And since I'm an idiot, I hope we can all pretend that Tao of Rodney happened AFTER Common ground while you read this.
Endless Waltz
"History is much like an endless waltz; the three beats of war, peace, and revolution continue on forever."
-Mariemaia Kushrenada
It's not sudden. It's gradual and sneaky and utterly fucking treacherous, like that thing with the frog and the boiling water. Lucky for Rodney, he's not a frog, which is why he eventually gets it, why he eventually notices that the water is getting unpleasant.
The bitch of it is that he can't even say he feels used, because that would imply that he'd entered into this under the belief that something else was being offered. Something more. But he'd known the stakes and limitations right from the start, never been under any illusions about what they were doing. Too bad his inner, über-emo teenage girl decided that now would be a good time to kick reason and logic square in the head and stake claim on his life.
"Not that I'm complaining, but you're unusually quiet," Sheppard says behind Rodney, his words a little breathless.
Rodney's on his knees. He drops his head onto his forearm and braces himself against the mattress. He's cursed with the worst poker face in two galaxies, and no matter how hard he's tried to keep it to himself until he's sure what it is and what to do about it, he had always known it was just a matter of time before Sheppard would notice his ambivalence.
"Savor it while it lasts," he grunts and takes Sheppard's cock all the way in an attempt to derail any additional questions lined up behind the first one.
Sheppard apparently isn't expecting that course of action, and the stuttering exhalation that escapes him is such a sweet, sweet sound that it almost makes Rodney forget everything that's nagging at the back of his mind. He closes his eyes when one of Sheppard's clever, clever hands finds its way to the sensitive inside of his thigh. The touch is a live wire against his skin - sharp and dangerous, like Sheppard himself when that switch that's hidden somewhere deep inside is thrown from laid-back to lethal.
Rodney is morbidly fascinated with that aspect of Sheppard - the hint of darkness beyond the carefree surface, the edge that's so close to all of Rodney's unprotected places.
Behind him, Sheppard finally gets with the program and starts moving. Slow - tortuously slow, but the pace soon builds, and builds and builds, until Sheppard's fucking Rodney into the bed with each thrust. Rodney digs his fingers in to the sheets and rides it. Rides the possession, rides the raw want. Sheppard's fingers leave his thigh, and Rodney knows what's coming. He turns his head and waits. When the two fingers press against his lips, demanding entry, he sucks them in without hesitation. It's a thing Sheppard has, having his fingers sucked on, and Rodney is happy to oblige. He dips his tongue between Sheppard's fingers, running his tongue over the calloused skin of the tips and down to the soft, salty space between. He teases a little before applying some proper suction.
While sucking, Rodney reaches down and wraps his fingers around himself. He adds saliva to the liquid that leaks from the tip of his cock and tightens his fist until the pressure is bordering on something dark. The pace he sets is hard and fast. Like life in this place.
Sheppard's good at what he's doing, really good, and it doesn't take long before tension creeps up Rodney's thighs and groin. It tingles at his scalp and makes his toes want to curl. With a moan, he puts his forehead down against his arm, caught between the sensation of Sheppard at his back and his own hand in front, and it's easy to allow his mind to take the backseat for once and let his body do the driving.
Sheppard reaches around and his strong fingers replace Rodney's on his cock. That's all it takes. Rodney tries to hold on, tries to make it last longer, but it's like fighting the ocean. It's all over and everywhere, buffeting, carrying, pushing him towards the edge without mercy. Sheppard's mouth is warm against his the back of his shoulder - teeth, sharp and strong - and Rodney squeezes his eyes shut as space closes in on him from all sides, then ceases to matter all together. All the impossible tension is wrenched from his body along with the warm slickness that spills over both their fingers when he comes with a shudder.
His heart is beating hard and fast in his chest, and he's barely able to brace his hand against the wall to keep Sheppard's thrusts (harder, harder) from shoving his head into it. A few seconds later, Sheppard comes with no more fanfare than a tensing of his whole body and a stuttering exhalation. Rodney crumples willingly under the weight when Sheppard slumps down over his back, and he trembles with Sheppard through the last moments of climax.
It's warm. Silent except for their breathing. Seconds pass, piling up into minutes in the gray afternoon light. Rodney's heart keeps beating wild against his ribcage, like it wants to escape from its prison. Sheppard is heavy and loose-limbed on top of him and warm puffs of air brush the short hairs at the nape of Rodney's neck. He closes his eyes against the softness of the rumpled sheets. He should be able to enjoy this, should be able to just lie there and be content, but this is achingly familiar this, all of this, and Rodney suddenly can't stand waiting for Sheppard to collect himself enough to get restless and antsy, so he pre-empts the whole thing and pushes at Sheppard to move over on the narrow bed.
Sheppard grunts his disapproval, but obediently rolls away. Rodney gets to his feet. He doesn't know if he's imagining the pressure of Sheppard's gaze on his back, following him across the floor to the bathroom door.
"Rodney." Sheppard says his name like it's made from ice, breakable if spoken too loudly, and Rodney doesn't want to be breakable, so he closes the door between them.
The faucet is motion controlled, and with a wave of Rodney's hand, the water starts. It's cool and soothing against his face, and the hiss of water is a veil of white noise, an illusion of peace and calm that doesn't really exist.
He's been part of a few of these arrangements before. The human memory is an utterly unreliable source of information, he knows that, but the way he remembers it, it used to be easy. No emotional investments, just availability and convenience, and without fail, Rodney had been the one to break it off when that hadn't been enough for the other person any longer. He'd despised them. Thought them weak.
He leans against the sink and stares at the man in the mirror.
Oh, how the mighty fall.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
He's not deliberately avoiding Sheppard. He's really not. It's just that things keep getting in the way, but he won't deny that he's grateful that Sheppard doesn't push it.
But when days turn into weeks turn into a full month, he stops being grateful because it verifies that there is a dissymmetry to this whole thing. If the roles were reversed, Rodney might have missed the distance thing for a while, but he's quite certain he'd complain about the lack of blowjobs.
But life in Atlantis continues in the same vein as it always has, with large portions of routine work mixed up with moments of sheer terror. Late one night when the rain is coming down over the city like it's never going to stop, Rodney finally gives in. He finds himself outside Sheppard's door. Then inside. Then under the covers.
Sheppard always leaves pretty much immediately when they get together, and Rodney takes his cues from him. When the door slides shut behind him again, there are red marks on the skin beneath the wristband of his watch. Fading mementos of Sheppard's fingers on him. Holding. Claiming and owning.
Rodney's fingers linger for a moment before pulling his sleeve down and walking back to his own room.
* ~* ~* ~*
The explosion blows out the entire chem lab in L2.
The city locks down the entire section and initiates emergency protocols to keep the spilled chemicals from contaminating the air supply. Five people were supposed to be working in the lab, but only two life-signs register on the detector. Rodney tells himself the other three could have been somewhere else temporarily. He does his best to get the rescue teams in as quickly as he can, but when two dots drop to a single one, he knows that his best wasn't enough.
When the mainframe finally allows them back in, Dr. Fazer is lying on the floor inside the door. A heavy trail of blood through the debris tells Rodney he must have crawled to the door, hoping for help. Dr. Kovacs sits next to him. She's holding Fazer's large, limp hand in hers like it's a fragile, breakable thing.
For a moment, their eyes meet, and Rodney doesn't know what to do with what he sees, because he's never knows Anita Kovacs, the dragon of the chemistry department to look so very devastated, so very scared. Atlantis' powerful fans roar around them, working at full speed to vent out the acrid smoke, then Keller pushes Rodney to the side and kneels on the floor, and Rodney's released from the hold of Kovacs red eyes.
It doesn't take more than a few seconds before Keller looks up from Fazer and shakes her head minutely at Rodney, confirming what he already knew. Rodney places his hand on Kovacs shoulder, feels the trembles there. Then a piece of the ceiling collapses ahead, and it's chaos all over again.
The air is thick with dust and debris and people are trapped under the beams and almost-concrete and the polymer composite material the Ancients were so fond of. More people arrive, and it's hell all over again when Rodney has to stop the rescue work until they've secured the structural integrity, at least haphazardly. They can't risk any more people. When Rodney's reasonably sure the floor above them won't come crashing down, he lets them back in and joins in the frantic work to dig the unfortunate souls out.
Sheppard is one of them.
They find them. Alive. All three of them. They hault them out from under the rubble and cart them off to the infirmary post-haste. Sheppard's face, lips, hair, clothes, every square inch of him is covered in gray, chalky dust, and he looks dead when the stretcher is rushed past Rodney.
Rodney spends the next hours restoring power and yelling at people. Most of them deserve it. Someone brings him a bottle of water a few hours later and tells him that Sheppard and Nunez and Polinski are okay.
It takes them four hours to get to Karen Kipkemboi's crumpled body in the far corner of the lab, and when Rodney finally returns to his room, his eyes burn from smoke and the fumes of burned electronics and destruction. It's too much effort to get out of his clothes and get into the shower right away, so he sits down at his desk.
Moonlight bleeds its way across the diplomas on his wall, and when he finally blinks back to himself, the papers that litter the desk are cool beneath his cheek. He rubs his eyes and curses the city, the fucking galaxy, he curses life for making them forget that here more than elsewhere, danger comes from within as well as without, and if his breathing catches a little, it's all frustration and fatigue and anger. He's getting so tired of things exploding and he just lost two of his people, and Sheppard--
Sheppard had looked dead.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sheppard is released from the infirmary the next morning. The band-aid along his hairline hides nine neat, black stitches. It's a visual reminder of how easy it would be to lose so very much, and Rodney doesn't need that on top of everything else. He doesn't need that at all, so later that night, when Sheppard tries to maneuver him onto his back, face-to-face, Rodney insists on staying on his knees.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Things go downhill from there. Rodney can't curb the twists and turns his thoughts make whenever he isn't fully focused on something, and he can't decipher the feelings that come with them, either. Guilt bleeds into shame bleeds into fear bleeds into anger. He latches on to that last thing. Anger he can do. Only this is not his usual flash combustion kind of anger. This is something else. This is a dark, brooding kind of angry that isn't diluted in the least by yelling at people. Doesn't keep him from doing it, though.
But anger takes a lot of energy to sustain, and eventually it drains out of him, little by little. One morning it's gone all together. Without it he feels watered out and colorless, like the cloud cover that refuses to release Atlantis from its grip.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
"I don't want to do this any more."
The dinner rush is over. Despite the rain that's going on day nine now, the doors and windows in the mess hall are wide open. Small puddles have already collected on the floor. Even with the extra ventilation, the smell of burned Pegasus-style lasagna still hangs heavy in there. Outside on the balcony, the culprit - a pan filled with charred pasta - is cooling down.
Sheppard's fork stops halfway to his mouth. "You don't want eat with me any more?"
Rodney rearranges the food on his plate. Sheppard's playing stupid and doesn't deserve an answer. In the corner of his eye, he sees Sheppard put his fork down carefully and sit back. Rodney refuses to look up, even though he can feel Sheppard's eyes willing him to.
Finally, Sheppard speaks. "So, you don't want to do this any more?"
Rodney doesn't trust his voice not to rebel and call a do-over of this whole conversation, so he just nods in reply. He wraps his fingers around his almost-empty coffee mug and holds on. His stomach feels sour.
"If that's what you want…" Sheppard trails off.
No. It's not what Rodney wants. Rodney wants Sheppard to react. Wants him to ask why. Wants him to say it's worth it. But he doesn't, and Rodney can't go on like this. Thinking of Sheppard dying in the line of duty makes Rodney's mouth taste like ash, but he's made some kind of half-assed peace with the knowledge that every day could be the day one of them dies, so that's not even the real issue. The deal breaker here is Rodney. He wants something Sheppard isn't offering of his own free will, and he's too damn proud to ask for it.
"Okay." Sheppard empties his cup. He gathers his stuff unhurriedly. "See you later, then."
Rodney stares at the last remnants of his watery coffee and he feels sick. Feels hot and cold at the same time. Of all the possible scenarios he'd gone over in his head beforehand, this had been the most likely one, but still the disappointment burns him.
He doesn't look up as Sheppard takes his tray and walks away.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Rodney tries really hard to not change things between them, but he's not all that surprised when it doesn't work. He is after all, a petty, petty man.
A deliberateness finds its way into their arguments, a calculated edge, like a razor's - too sharp to for the wound to register right away. Instead the pain comes later, and once it has made its presence known, it stings and burns for a long time. Sheppard gives as good as he gets, and Rodney finds a dark kind of satisfaction the few times Sheppard loses his temper for real.
Rodney runs back-to-back emergency and evacuation drills in all departments. Despite having the chem lab incident in fresh memory, they don't go well at all. The post-mortems are brutal and Rodney pulls up every evacuation and incident policy in the database on the big screen. He tells people to take a good look. If they mess up the follow-up drill, they'll be packing.
He can't concentrate on anything after that meeting, and he sits down in his room to finish the letter he's been writing for the past week. Elizabeth has informed Karen Kipkemboi's family, but Karen was one of his people, and he wants to tell her mother that she didn't die for nothing. He wants her to know about the contributions her daughter made, wants her to know that Karen's presence here made a difference to many people. But the non-disclosure agreement applies to everything, even letters to mothers who have just lost their only daughter. He knows this. Respects this. Nevertheless, the words he can't say keep appearing on his screen
The click-click-click of the delete key sounds a lot like betrayal.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
It's a routine meet and greet, and they're invited to stay the night. The air is warm, the food is really very good, and in the flickering firelight, Rodney feels content for the first time in a long time.
He knows it's all artificial, the work of the sweet ruby-red wine, but he can't make himself care, because Yan is sitting next to him, and the warmth of her bare, freckled arm is pressing against his. She's beautiful and intelligent and attentive, and Rodney feels like he's inside some magical bubble where the light is kinder, the sounds are softer, and sometimes he gets what he wants. He leans in a little closer and Yan looks sideways at him. There's promise in that smile.
They meander away from the main group of people, and settle by one of the smaller fires that burn along the outskirts of the settlement. It's darker here, and the mat is softer than it looks. Yan's lips when she leans in are soft against his, and he's almost afraid to breathe. Then Yan drags him to his feet and grabs the mat. They stumble into the forest and when Yan decides they've gone far enough she dumps the mat on the ground and shimmies out of her dress.
Moonlight and the distant light from the bonfires chase shadows around her breasts and hips. The air is warm and the feeling's right and Rodney thinks he may never have wanted something as bad as he wants this. Yan is as eager as he is, and when she wraps her strong legs around him, he's lost. He forgets everything about Sheppard and being miserable.
Forgetting lasts exactly four hours and thirty-five minutes, then Sheppard effectively pops Rodney's magical bubble by shaking him awake to a gray morning and a hefty hang-over. Yan's sleeping next to him, still naked, her hair wild and tangled around her face.
On their way back to the gate, Sheppard says nothing - not a word - and his eyes stay hidden behind the reflective lenses of his aviator shades.
Rodney throws up twice before they reach the DHD
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sheppard spends a few weeks avoiding Rodney like the plague. Then he gets himself caught by the Genii, who feed him to a starving Wraith.
The whole gateroom is there, staring horrified at the static-riddled screen, but Rodney feels like he's alone. He's rooted to the spot, hearing and seeing nothing but Sheppard' screaming as years and decades of his life are taken. Rodney wants to put his hands over his ears to keep the wretched sound out. He doesn't allow himself that luxury. Sheppard sure as hell doesn't have it. So instead he watches and listens. Every gasp, every cry is etched into his brain, permanent, like morbid carvings into a tree. It's a soundtrack that will feature in his nightmares for years to come.
They get Sheppard back, and through some improbable Wraith voodoo he looks not a day older than when they all stepped through the gate in Atlantis that very first time.
Rodney should be able to relax, should be able to breathe right with Sheppard sitting right in front of him, alive and looking the same as ever, but he can't. There's something inside him that's coiled up so tightly, pushed down in favour of rational thinking while coming up with some way to get Sheppard back, and now, now they've got him, Rodney doesn't know what to do with that feeling.
So he heads for his lab, his sanctuary, and spends two and a half hours trying to concentrate on the math proofs he'd managed to get down in writing during his brush with ascension. Everything had changed during those few days, tilted in a way that was totally right and totally wrong. Even to himself, Rodney can't explain it in better terms than that it had been a little like those 3-D stereograms, where all you had to do was change your depth of focus, and like magic, you saw things you didn't see a second earlier.
He scrolls down the page and squints at his own incomplete equations. But that's all gone now. He doesn't understand his own notes, and it's killing him. In his even-more-genius-than-usual state, he'd started from problem(A) and gone on towards a solution where A was a function of Y and Z, but the route hadn't included B or C or D, or any other letters that would indicate a logic progression. Instead, he seemed to have paid a non-documented visit to sigma, phi, and perhaps even 42 before reaching his conclusion.
He decides he's not in the mood to be reminded of what he lost, so he saves the file and leaves. Without really meaning to, he meanders towards the infirmary. The flurry of activities there has long since died down and Sheppard is propped up in a bed in the corner, asleep. A multitude of electrode wires stick out from underneath his scrubs; it seems he's hooked up to every monitoring device in the city. Rodney stops in the doorway. Sheppard's a little pale, but he doesn't look a day older. Not a damn day older.
Still, Rodney thinks of micro-fractures.
The kind you only see at exactly the right angle, in exactly the right light.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sheppard is cleared for duty sooner than anyone thought was possible.
On his first trip through the gate - a routine recon mission with a bunch of newbies - he loses two men. A week later he gets in a fist fight on one of the worlds they regularly trade with. It takes Ronon and Rodney to pull him off the guy. Afterwards Sheppard goes silent and stony, and refuses to go into detail what happened. Elizabeth pulls the leash and grounds him for two weeks.
R&R is the official version.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
"I believe your assistance is needed," Teyla's voice had said, and Rodney had gone from hazy half-sleep into disaster mode in the blink of an eye. It had taken Teyla a while to explain that no, the city wasn't sinking, and no, they weren't under attack. Rodney had a feeling he'd been a little less than gracious when he'd asked why she was calling him at this hour if they weren't about to die.
Teyla moves from the doorway to let Rodney into Ronon's room. Ronon lies on the floor, and Rodney thinks for a split second that maybe Teyla finally snapped and bashed his dreadlock laden head in with those sticks of hers. But a moment later his brain registers the smell of alcohol and the two empty bottles on the nightstand table. Then Sheppard's head pops up from the floor on the other side of the bed, like a cross-eyed, demented jack-in-the-box.
"Rodney!" he exclaims with a grin that's a mile wide.
"I think John needs some assistance in getting to his quarters," Teyla says with a sigh and rounds the bed. She manages to get Sheppard to his feet and moving towards Rodney. Rodney stumbles under the uncoordinated mass of limbs that more or less fall against him.
Teyla kneels and rolls Ronon onto his side (none too gently) and ties his dreads back with her hair band, before looking up at Rodney. She looks tired, like she too was rudely awakened.
"Will you be able to get John to his quarters?"
Rodney grabs Sheppard's belt and hoists him a little more upright. "I'll manage. What about you?" he asks with a nod in Ronon's direction. It's not like Teyla will be able to move him.
"I will be fine," she says. She pulls the blanket off Ronon's bed and tosses it at the prone figure before lying down on the bed. "He, on the other hand, will wish that he had never been born tomorrow."
Rodney leaves the room, very happy that he's not Ronon Dex.
It's not easy trying to pull Sheppard along the corridor towards his quarters, and Rodney gets about ten feet before he realizes that his quarters are closer and at the rate they're going it would take approximately forever to reach Sheppard's. Sheppard keeps sliding further and further down, and Rodney tries to hike him back up, but he can't get a good grip on the heavy, semi-boneless body against him.
"God, you're like a jellyfish," he grunts.
"Am not," Sheppard protests and snakes an arm around Rodney's waist and seems to have no plans on getting his feet under himself. The other hand reaches around and finds a parking space on Rodney's ass.
"How about some cooperation here?" Rodney asks.
"Sure," Sheppard readily agrees, and stays right where he is.
With a little coaxing and a lot of cursing Rodney gets them moving again and Sheppard's hands are kept mostly to himself. Lorne scares Rodney half to death when he shows up like a genie in a bottle, enquiring with a straight face if Rodney needs help to dispose of the body. But he hikes Sheppard's other arm over his shoulder without being asked to, and Rodney steers them in the direction of Sheppard's room. With Lorne there to help, it's not an impossible goal.
Rodney's not naïve enough to believe that Lorne just happened to stumble across them. One of Sheppard's people must have spotted them, in person or on camera, and reported to Lorne. Rodney feels a brief flash of resentment on Sheppard's behalf. Rodney's lived under the microscope all his professional life, with petty people watching and waiting for him to make that one mistake that would mean the end of his career. Sheppard has too. Sheppard still is, and Rodney knows Lorne is just looking out for his commanding officer, but somehow it grates on his nerves.
By the time they reach the nearest transporter, Rodney's sweating. "With the two of us carrying him, you'd think it wouldn't be so damn heavy," he groans.
"He's dragged your ass back to the gate once or twice, so maybe this is karma," Lorne points out.
Rodney's about to tell Lorne where to stick his karma, but Sheppard chooses this particular time to lift his head and announce that he needs to take a leak.
"We'll be right there, Sir," Lorne tells him in his keep-the-natives-calm voice.
"Seriously," Sheppard mumbles. "I have to take a leak." He squishes his eyes shut again against Rodney's shoulder. He smells like a whole distillery, and god, Rodney thinks, just how much did he have to drink?
They make a pit stop on one of the balconies that line the residential area, hoping no one will stumble upon them out there. They help Sheppard get his belt and pants open. Sheppard hangs between them, and it takes a nudge to get him back from whatever place he's drifted off to in his head. Between the two of them, Rodney and Lorne manage to get him to finish his business and they get to his room without any more detours.
Lorne helps Rodney wrangle the now mostly-sleeping Sheppard onto the narrow bed.
"You're a nice guy, Lorne," Sheppard says.
Lorne unties Sheppard's boots and throws them into a corner. "Thank you, Sir."
"No, no. I mean it," Sheppard says in that all too sincere tone that more than anything tells just how drunk he is. He tries to grab onto Lorne's sleeve, but misses and almost falls off the bed. Lorne catches him at the last moment and directs him to lie back. He looks across at Rodney.
"I don't think we should leave him alone like this."
As on cue, Sheppard rolls over on his side and throws up.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Rodney stays. Of course he stays. He cleans up the mess on the floor, changes the sheet that got in the way, and he even gets a few minutes of sleep slumped against the side of the bed before Sheppard rolls out of bed and all but crawls towards the bathroom. With a little help from Rodney, he makes it there before he throws up again.
Rodney sits on the hard, cool floor of Sheppard's tiny bathroom and tries not to listen to him throwing up, because that has a way of triggering his own gag reflexes. Sheppard shivers and shivers and Rodney gets a blanket from the bed, tossing it at Sheppard. Sheppard seems to have problems pulling the blanket around himself, so Rodney finally intervenes and helps him.
"Don't need your help," Sheppard says. His voice is rough, like wet gravel.
"Mm-hmm." Rodney tries to maneuver the blanket out of Sheppard's grip.
"Get out."
"Trust me, I want to."
Sheppard still won't let go of the blanket. "Then fuck off. I can be sick on my own."
"And you can pass out and respire your own vomit on your own, too," Rodney snaps and finally wrenches the blanket out of Sheppard's grip. "Excuse me for not wanting that on my conscience." He shakes out the blanket and spreads it over Sheppard's shoulders, tucking it in tightly.
Sheppard shoves him away. "Fuck off," he says again.
Rodney's tired of this game already, so he opts out of answering. He stretches his legs in front of him and groans under his breath when the muscles in his back protest. Sleeping on the floor isn't something he can get away with any longer.
Sheppard's knuckles are white on the rim of the toilet as his body rebels again.
Rodney winces. "Seriously, how much did you drink?"
"Apparently not enough," Sheppard mumbles into the toilet.
Rodney gets to his feet, dumps Sheppard's toothbrush out of the pink plastic mug that sits on the side of the sink "Not enough? Are you crazy or just trying to kill yourself?" He fills the mug up with water.
Sheppard's hands shake a little as they take it. He sips the water carefully, spitting the first mouthful into the toilet before flushing.
"How are you feeling?" Rodney asks when the silence stretches too long.
"Peachy," Sheppard mutters, his eyes closed. "Wonderful. Like new." He opens his eyes and brings his hand up in front of his face. He turns it around, like he's never seen it before and then he giggles, actually giggles, and the sound is wrong on so many levels. "Like new," he says again, and this time despair leaks into his words.
Right there, right then, the bright, color-sucking light in the bathroom falls just so, and Rodney sees the cracks, the invisible fractures superimposed over Sheppard's pale skin. He doesn't think, doesn't analyze it, he just reaches over and pulls Sheppard close, envelops the lean body, the smell of sweat and vomit, the utter desperation. It's uncomfortable and cramped in the tiny bathroom, but Sheppard's clinging to him like he's drowning, and Rodney's not about to let go.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sheppard falls asleep on the floor and Rodney tucks another blanket around him. Since Sheppard's not using his bed, Rodney decides that Teyla had the right idea, but the few hours of sleep he's allowed are restless and transparent like cobweb, incapable of completely closing out reality.
He remains half-aware of every sound in the room and gets up a few times to check on Sheppard. When gray morning light starts seeping in through the windows, he decides that the danger should be over by now. He boots up Sheppard's laptop and composes an e-mail that spells out in detail just how much Sheppard owes him for this. He leaves the e-mail open on the screen and leaves.
In the still-empty lab, he mainlines three cups of coffee, but still feels cranky and strangely on edge. Enough so that he takes pity on his people and takes his computer and ensconces himself in the back of Jumper 5, trying to figure out why the bay doors decided to close on it during launch earlier that week.
He doesn't get to finish it because something else gets priority. And then something else. And something else again, and really, since they can just jam the bay doors open, the task is soon removed from the prio list, and demoted to the things-to-get-around-to when-there-are-a-few-minutes-to-spare list.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Rodney doesn't see much of Sheppard over the next few days, and Rodney's back to being grateful, because out of 'sight out, of mind' works most of the time. But during the few minutes when it doesn't work, he's painfully aware that 'you don't appreciate what you got till it's gone' is an annoyingly truthful cliché.
Eventually, he gets around to Jumper 5 again. The door system is controlled by capacitive proximity sensors. And three months prior, Rodney himself updated the control algorithm to include an additional number of safety and security checks and a handshaking procedure between the jumper in question and the bay system, so he knows the software is not the problem.
Rodney has spent two and a half hours on his back in the cramped space under the seats, and it looks like he's going to be there for a while longer, because as far as he can tell the sensors work just fine and the logs aren't showing much of interest, either. He lodges his pen-sized Maglite between his teeth to allow him to work with both hands, but he can't even see the part he has to access. And why all crawl spaces are made for midget-sized people he'll never know. He counts the crystals and interface connector shells he can't see by touch and finds the right wire. He follows it with his fingers until he gets to the newly-made splice he suspects is the culprit in the whole mess. The wire feels weird. Is that electrical tape?
"So this is where you keep your secret stash of chocolate," Sheppard's voice suddenly says, and Rodney bangs his head, losing the wire junction he just identified.
He squirms out from beneath the power control to finds Sheppard leaning against wall at the jumper hatch, arms relaxed and crossed in front of him. He's got a lollipop in his mouth.
"What do you want?"
"Well, hello to you, too."
Rodney rubs his head. "Is there a reason you're here, scaring me half to death?"
Sheppard shrugs, takes the lollipop out of his mouth with a 'plop'. "Not really. You want one?" He waves the lollipop at Rodney, who blames the blow to the head for momentarily being trapped in one of those rare bubbles when his brain catches up with the fact that they're holed up in another galaxy, in a flying city, fighting replicators and Wraith and god knows what else, and the military commander of the whole shebang is standing there offering him a lollipop. A freaking lollipop. Like Sheppard's seven years old and this is his playground.
But what a playground it is, Rodney's own seven year-old pipes up. It has stargates. And ZPMs, and jumpers, and nano technology, macro technology, amazing discoveries behind every corner. Rodney's already seen and learned and lived more than he ever thought he would, and four years into this thing (depending on the day, he labels it either a nightmare or the meaning of life) Atlantis still has the power to render him speechless.
But he's not about to share this with Sheppard just now.
Sheppard apparently takes his silence as a no, because he pops the lollipop back into his mouth. "Listen," he says around it. The grin fades. "Can we, uh, talk?" He says it like the word tastes bad.
"Sure," Rodney says, faking indifference. Getting to his feet is a show in inelegance and stiffness, and god, when did he get this old? He grabs the pliers from his toolbox and gets back on the floor again. He uses his feet to scoot back under the seats, but not before he sees Sheppard's eyes flicker to the security camera in the corner.
"Somewhere else?"
"I'm sure it's difficult for a layman to see, but I'm actually working here."
"I'll wait."
Rodney can see Sheppard's sneakers from where he's lying and it doesn't take long for Sheppard to start tapping his foot soundlessly. Despite his petty urge to prolong Sheppard's discomfort, Rodney's back really is killing him, but should probably leave the jumper with at least basic operations so repositioning himself on his side, he reaches as far in as he can and identifies the right wire by touch once again. It will be a stretch to reconnect it, but it should be possible if he could just get...
Sparks suddenly flash blue, and Rodney jerks his fingers away, banging his head again. There's a smell of burned plastic in the small space. "You worthless piece of--!" He crawls back out, his hand tingling from the electrical shock.
"You okay?" Sheppard asks, close suddenly.
"No!" Rodney pulls his arm free as he gets to his feet and hurls the pliers in the direction of the tool box. He doesn't care that he misses by several feet. The clang of it hitting the material crate rings through the empty jumper bay.
"Whoa. Careful," Sheppard protests, but really, Rodney wasn't even close to hitting him and Rodney is suddenly angry, so angry his chest constricts and he pushes Sheppard away, hard, because he can't stand it any longer.
The shove right back sends him stumbling. "What the hell is your problem?" Sheppard snaps.
"My problem? My problem is I'm so tired of fixing other people's messes!"
Rodney's talking about the jumper, then he's not, and fuck, that's not at all what he wanted to say, it's not even what he thinks, but afterwards, the only way Rodney can describe the change in Sheppard is that he goes quiet. He goes quiet. Then tucks his hands deep into his pockets and any emotion into an even deeper place.
And that's the end of that conversation.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Next time off-world, it's apparently Rodney's turn to almost die, and almost-dying fucking hurts.
"Dammit, Rodney, don't move!"
'I'm not moving', he wants to protest, but his trusted words seem to get lost somewhere between formation in his head and freedom at the tip of his tongue.
Their voices are coming from above, and he blinks up towards them, but can't see them in the dark of night. They sound worried, their words urgent.
"Do not move, Rodney."
He's actually quite content to be curled up on the wet, hard ground, eyes shut against the pain. He tries to catalogue what he can feel. His back hurts. His arm hurts. His fingers feel funny. Tingly. Like white noise is running though his veins instead of blood. Like he's been shocked. Did he touch something he shouldn't have? No. No, that was another time. Another time.
"Okay, you ready?" Sheppard's voice is suddenly close to his ear and Rodney almost startles. Sheppard shifts and there's a distinct clink-clink of karabiners and other climbing gear, and Rodney realizes he's heard those noises for a while now.
"You ready?" Sheppard asks again, but Rodney doesn't remember what he's supposed to be ready for. Whatever it is, he's not. He's so unready it's not even funny. He plans on telling Sheppard this, but his tongue still refuses to cooperate. Then the ground shifts, only it's not the ground, it's Sheppard dragging Rodney upright, and there's a moment of metallic battery taste in Rodney's mouth before the pain catches up and swallows him whole.
When he comes back to himself, the rock beneath him has been replaced by swaying, moon-lit grass, and it's a pretty bad sign he's been injured so many times in the Pegasus galaxy that he recognizes the feel of morphine in his system.
"Hey." Sheppard floats into vision above him, grim looking.
"Hey." Rodney might be high, but at least his voice works now.
"Sorry about that." Sheppard's hand lands briefly on Rodney's shoulder.
Rodney tries to smile. "'S okay." He's about to ask what happened, but he gets lost in the million of stars that floats like pixie dust in the night sky above them.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
He fell down a mountain is what happened. A steep-ass mountain with jagged cliffs, treacherous twenty foot drops, and other bone-breaking features.
He wakes up from the surgery to set his arm and promptly throws up. He's always reacted badly to general anaesthesia, and he knows it's in his journal so why the hell didn't Carson give him something to curb the nausea beforehand? Then he remembers that Carson is dead.
Teyla drops by a few hours later. Rodney doesn't remember her leaving. He blames the painkillers. He doesn't remember Sheppard coming either. But the next time he wakes, Sheppard is flopped down in the chair Keller pulled up on her last check-in. He looks tired. Worn out.
"Don't do that again, please," Sheppard says without preamble when he sees that Rodney's awake.
"What?" Rodney's voice comes out rough and gravely. His tongue feels too large for his mouth. "You mean fall down a mountain and almost get myself killed?
"That would be it."
"I'll gladly never do that again."
Sheppard looks down, fingers the zipper to his jacket. "Good."
Something metallic clanks against the floor in another part of the infirmary and Sheppard looks up. When nothing seems to happen that require his attention, he smoothes down his jacket and leaves without saying anything else.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Convalescence is slow and painful, and Rodney suspects he's even less charming than usual. The day the cast comes off, he celebrates by leaving the labs early. He enjoys the bliss of a hot, long shower without having to bother with protecting the cast. When the door chimes in the middle of his shower, he ignores it. If it's an emergency, they will radio him or patch through to the PA system.
There are a million things that he needs to do, even more than usual since the cast has been slowing him down more than he would like to admit. And since everyone has almost as much as him to do, there's no one to take up the slack. Not that he'd trust most of them to do it right, anyway. But for now, he puts that aside and enjoys taking a shower without having to worry about getting the cast wet. The water is hot and surprisingly, Rodney feels himself relax in a manner he thought he'd forgotten somewhere around the time they arrived in Atlantis that first time. He leans his forehead against the tiles and simply stands there, letting the water swirl down his body and down the drain.
By the time he turns the water off, the mirror is all fogged up and his fingers and toes are wrinkled like raisins. They haven't paged him yet, so he figures they're probably not about to die horribly in the next hour or two. He almost trips on his feet when he opens the door to the main room.
"You lost, Sheppard?" he says, clutching at the towel that is slipping from his hips. The air feels cold against his still-wet skin, and he's suddenly not at all relaxed any longer.
Sheppard, sitting on Rodney's bed, holds up one of the books that used to sit and collect dust on Rodney's desk. "Any good?"
Rodney shrugs, feeling weirdly naked in front of Sheppard despite the towel. "Haven't had time to read it." In the drawer he finds a t-shirt - gray and soft with use - and a pair of sweat pants, and doesn't turn to see if Sheppard looks when he drops the towel on the floor and pulls the pants on. The shirt sticks to his skin where the water hasn't dried, and he spends way too much time to get it to sit just right over his shoulders.
When he's done, Sheppard is still flipping through the book.
"You could borrow it if it looks interesting," Rodney says, even though the energy that radiates from Sheppard like a silent, low-frequent carrier wave tells him that the interest in the book is nothing but stalling. And then it hits him, like a two-by-four right over the head, that fuck, Sheppard's here to take another stab at talking. That has to be it, because the only other thing that has the potential to create this tension between them is Doranda, and they're over that. Mostly, at least.
"I want to know," Sheppard says.
Rodney sighs and sits down by the over-flowing desk, and doesn't even pretend not to know what Sheppard's talking about. "What do you want to know?"
Sheppard hesitates a second. "It was okay, wasn't it? You know…" He makes a vague gesture that encompasses the two of them.
"Sure," Rodney says. And he's not lying. It had been good. It really had. Right along side frustrating and disappointing and terrifying and a million other things that always seemed to outweigh the good things.
"So what changed?"
Rodney's mind goes curiously blank for a second, and then he realizes the mistake he made. He assumed that Sheppard had come to talk - as in 'doing the talking' - but with this one, seemingly innocuous question Sheppard put everything, every damn thing, on Rodney's shoulders, and fuck, isn't he supposed to be the smart one? He buries his face in his hands and breathes for a while.
"It's complicated," he finally says into his fingers.
"It shouldn't have to be."
"Hello!" Rodney spreads his hands. "Have you met me? I don't know how to not make things complicated."
"True," Sheppard admits.
Rodney wracks his brain from somewhere to start, something to say that won't make him come off like a total loser, but for once, he comes up with nothing. Zero. Zilch. So he says nothing. It doesn't take long before Sheppard - who usually does silence a lot better than Rodney - looks as uncomfortable as Rodney feels.
"Look," Sheppard starts hesitantly, but is cut off by a soft chime from his rado. "Damn." He keys his radio on. "Yes?" Rodney hears the whisper of a voice at the other end. "They what?" More whispers. Sheppard rubs his eyes. "Okay. I'll be there in a few. Keep them separated."
"What's going on?"
Sheppard sighs. "Some kind of disagreement between two of my new arrivals."
"Best of the best," Rodney says wryly.
"Sometimes even I wonder about SGC's recruitment criteria." Sheppard shakes his head.
"You should go take care of it."
Sheppard gets up. Puts the book down on Rodney's bedside table. "I will," he says. He stops and turns around to face Rodney. "But before I go, I'd prefer to say what I came here to say." He gives Rodney a grim smile. "What with this being pretty much my definition of things I'd rather not do ever again."
Rodney's curiosity mixes with apprehension, because on the one hand, he really wants to know what is so important that Sheppard voluntarily sits down and brings up a subject like this. His modus operandi around feelings and personal things usually involves denial and avoidance. But on the other hand, Rodney would rather not hear Sheppard tell him this was all a big mistake and hey, let's never talk about it again.
Sheppard studies his hands, looking very much like he's steeling himself. When he levels his gaze on Rodney, it's with a single-minded intensity that makes Rodney think of suicide missions and doing things in the face of terrible odds.
"I'm sorry," Sheppard says.
Rodney blinks. "What for?"
"I'm not sure." Sheppard makes a grimace. "For whatever I did. Or didn't do." He ducks his head. "Listen, I just wanted to--" He rakes a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. "I'm sorry, okay? I miss--," his eyes flicker and Rodney doesn't miss it. I miss you is too much to ask for from Sheppard. "I miss what we had," Sheppard says instead, and Rodney is okay with that.
"Yeah. It had its perks," Rodney concedes.
"Do you think--?" The radio chirps again, and Sheppard taps it hard. "What!" Rodney watches him listen and then roll his eyes. "What part of 'keep them separated' didn't you understand?" He listens. "Mm-hmm." More listening. "Well, sit on them if you need to!" He signs off and turns back to Rodney. "I have to go."
Rodney waves towards the door. "Go. Do your duty."
Sheppard hesitates, as if he's about to say something more. But in the end, he doesn't, and the door closes after him with a hiss.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
The cold front that is moving past Atlantis is chasing the wind around the tall buildings until the air howls with discontent.
Rodney can't sleep. In the darkness, he kneads his pillow into yet another shape and tries to blank his mind, but to no avail. He keeps coming back to Sheppard's visit. It might be wishful thinking - God knows he's never been too good at reading people - but he can't help feeling that Sheppard maybe had wanted more than to just apologize. It feels like maybe he, in his own roundabout way, had wanted to suggest that they give it another try.
On the other hand, maybe he was just saying they should put it all behind them and move on for real.
Rodney doesn't know which one he wants it to be.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
His coffee mug has been empty for hours and the damn power simulations won't come out the way he expects them too, so he looks up to call Zelenka over, but finds that the lab is deserted. He glances as the clock on his computer. It's later than the thought. He gives the simulation one more try, but it remains as uncooperative as before, so he saves the files, shuts down the laptop, and turns out the lights. The code lock to the fire proof locker beeps happily when he opens it and deposits his laptop on the shelf labelled with his name.
The city is asleep around him as he makes his way towards his room. Except for a skeleton crew manning the most important functions and the patrols that sweep the corridors regularly, the corridors at this time of night are populated only with only the occasional insomniac and night time service personnel.
He doesn't end up in his room. He ends up at Sheppard's door, and before he can convince himself that this is a spectacularly bad idea, he knocks.
Sheppard takes his sweet time opening and Rodney's palms are suddenly sweaty, like he's fifteen again and he's about to ask Jenny Smith to go out with him. He still isn't sure what Sheppard wanted to say when he kept being interrupted by the radio, but Rodney's willing to take a chance, because now really and truly sucks more than then, and how the hell can he ask Sheppard for more if he isn't ready to offer it himself? And even more importantly, does he really need more? He doesn't have an answer to that quite yet, he just knows this is one of the few time he's more than happy to admit he might have fucked up (not out loud, of course, but to himself, at least).
Sheppard looks like he'd been sleeping when he finally opens the door.
"You lost, McKay?" he asks, and Rodney dares to smile. The relief, running deep as a river beneath Sheppard's casual greeting is all the answer he needs for now.
~ The End ~
Pairing: Established McKay/Sheppard
Word count: ~ 8,900
Beta: Unbeta'ed. Please let me know if you spot anything.
Author's notes: Title and quote borrowed from Gundam Wing. And since I'm an idiot, I hope we can all pretend that Tao of Rodney happened AFTER Common ground while you read this.
Endless Waltz
"History is much like an endless waltz; the three beats of war, peace, and revolution continue on forever."
-Mariemaia Kushrenada
It's not sudden. It's gradual and sneaky and utterly fucking treacherous, like that thing with the frog and the boiling water. Lucky for Rodney, he's not a frog, which is why he eventually gets it, why he eventually notices that the water is getting unpleasant.
The bitch of it is that he can't even say he feels used, because that would imply that he'd entered into this under the belief that something else was being offered. Something more. But he'd known the stakes and limitations right from the start, never been under any illusions about what they were doing. Too bad his inner, über-emo teenage girl decided that now would be a good time to kick reason and logic square in the head and stake claim on his life.
"Not that I'm complaining, but you're unusually quiet," Sheppard says behind Rodney, his words a little breathless.
Rodney's on his knees. He drops his head onto his forearm and braces himself against the mattress. He's cursed with the worst poker face in two galaxies, and no matter how hard he's tried to keep it to himself until he's sure what it is and what to do about it, he had always known it was just a matter of time before Sheppard would notice his ambivalence.
"Savor it while it lasts," he grunts and takes Sheppard's cock all the way in an attempt to derail any additional questions lined up behind the first one.
Sheppard apparently isn't expecting that course of action, and the stuttering exhalation that escapes him is such a sweet, sweet sound that it almost makes Rodney forget everything that's nagging at the back of his mind. He closes his eyes when one of Sheppard's clever, clever hands finds its way to the sensitive inside of his thigh. The touch is a live wire against his skin - sharp and dangerous, like Sheppard himself when that switch that's hidden somewhere deep inside is thrown from laid-back to lethal.
Rodney is morbidly fascinated with that aspect of Sheppard - the hint of darkness beyond the carefree surface, the edge that's so close to all of Rodney's unprotected places.
Behind him, Sheppard finally gets with the program and starts moving. Slow - tortuously slow, but the pace soon builds, and builds and builds, until Sheppard's fucking Rodney into the bed with each thrust. Rodney digs his fingers in to the sheets and rides it. Rides the possession, rides the raw want. Sheppard's fingers leave his thigh, and Rodney knows what's coming. He turns his head and waits. When the two fingers press against his lips, demanding entry, he sucks them in without hesitation. It's a thing Sheppard has, having his fingers sucked on, and Rodney is happy to oblige. He dips his tongue between Sheppard's fingers, running his tongue over the calloused skin of the tips and down to the soft, salty space between. He teases a little before applying some proper suction.
While sucking, Rodney reaches down and wraps his fingers around himself. He adds saliva to the liquid that leaks from the tip of his cock and tightens his fist until the pressure is bordering on something dark. The pace he sets is hard and fast. Like life in this place.
Sheppard's good at what he's doing, really good, and it doesn't take long before tension creeps up Rodney's thighs and groin. It tingles at his scalp and makes his toes want to curl. With a moan, he puts his forehead down against his arm, caught between the sensation of Sheppard at his back and his own hand in front, and it's easy to allow his mind to take the backseat for once and let his body do the driving.
Sheppard reaches around and his strong fingers replace Rodney's on his cock. That's all it takes. Rodney tries to hold on, tries to make it last longer, but it's like fighting the ocean. It's all over and everywhere, buffeting, carrying, pushing him towards the edge without mercy. Sheppard's mouth is warm against his the back of his shoulder - teeth, sharp and strong - and Rodney squeezes his eyes shut as space closes in on him from all sides, then ceases to matter all together. All the impossible tension is wrenched from his body along with the warm slickness that spills over both their fingers when he comes with a shudder.
His heart is beating hard and fast in his chest, and he's barely able to brace his hand against the wall to keep Sheppard's thrusts (harder, harder) from shoving his head into it. A few seconds later, Sheppard comes with no more fanfare than a tensing of his whole body and a stuttering exhalation. Rodney crumples willingly under the weight when Sheppard slumps down over his back, and he trembles with Sheppard through the last moments of climax.
It's warm. Silent except for their breathing. Seconds pass, piling up into minutes in the gray afternoon light. Rodney's heart keeps beating wild against his ribcage, like it wants to escape from its prison. Sheppard is heavy and loose-limbed on top of him and warm puffs of air brush the short hairs at the nape of Rodney's neck. He closes his eyes against the softness of the rumpled sheets. He should be able to enjoy this, should be able to just lie there and be content, but this is achingly familiar this, all of this, and Rodney suddenly can't stand waiting for Sheppard to collect himself enough to get restless and antsy, so he pre-empts the whole thing and pushes at Sheppard to move over on the narrow bed.
Sheppard grunts his disapproval, but obediently rolls away. Rodney gets to his feet. He doesn't know if he's imagining the pressure of Sheppard's gaze on his back, following him across the floor to the bathroom door.
"Rodney." Sheppard says his name like it's made from ice, breakable if spoken too loudly, and Rodney doesn't want to be breakable, so he closes the door between them.
The faucet is motion controlled, and with a wave of Rodney's hand, the water starts. It's cool and soothing against his face, and the hiss of water is a veil of white noise, an illusion of peace and calm that doesn't really exist.
He's been part of a few of these arrangements before. The human memory is an utterly unreliable source of information, he knows that, but the way he remembers it, it used to be easy. No emotional investments, just availability and convenience, and without fail, Rodney had been the one to break it off when that hadn't been enough for the other person any longer. He'd despised them. Thought them weak.
He leans against the sink and stares at the man in the mirror.
Oh, how the mighty fall.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
He's not deliberately avoiding Sheppard. He's really not. It's just that things keep getting in the way, but he won't deny that he's grateful that Sheppard doesn't push it.
But when days turn into weeks turn into a full month, he stops being grateful because it verifies that there is a dissymmetry to this whole thing. If the roles were reversed, Rodney might have missed the distance thing for a while, but he's quite certain he'd complain about the lack of blowjobs.
But life in Atlantis continues in the same vein as it always has, with large portions of routine work mixed up with moments of sheer terror. Late one night when the rain is coming down over the city like it's never going to stop, Rodney finally gives in. He finds himself outside Sheppard's door. Then inside. Then under the covers.
Sheppard always leaves pretty much immediately when they get together, and Rodney takes his cues from him. When the door slides shut behind him again, there are red marks on the skin beneath the wristband of his watch. Fading mementos of Sheppard's fingers on him. Holding. Claiming and owning.
Rodney's fingers linger for a moment before pulling his sleeve down and walking back to his own room.
* ~* ~* ~*
The explosion blows out the entire chem lab in L2.
The city locks down the entire section and initiates emergency protocols to keep the spilled chemicals from contaminating the air supply. Five people were supposed to be working in the lab, but only two life-signs register on the detector. Rodney tells himself the other three could have been somewhere else temporarily. He does his best to get the rescue teams in as quickly as he can, but when two dots drop to a single one, he knows that his best wasn't enough.
When the mainframe finally allows them back in, Dr. Fazer is lying on the floor inside the door. A heavy trail of blood through the debris tells Rodney he must have crawled to the door, hoping for help. Dr. Kovacs sits next to him. She's holding Fazer's large, limp hand in hers like it's a fragile, breakable thing.
For a moment, their eyes meet, and Rodney doesn't know what to do with what he sees, because he's never knows Anita Kovacs, the dragon of the chemistry department to look so very devastated, so very scared. Atlantis' powerful fans roar around them, working at full speed to vent out the acrid smoke, then Keller pushes Rodney to the side and kneels on the floor, and Rodney's released from the hold of Kovacs red eyes.
It doesn't take more than a few seconds before Keller looks up from Fazer and shakes her head minutely at Rodney, confirming what he already knew. Rodney places his hand on Kovacs shoulder, feels the trembles there. Then a piece of the ceiling collapses ahead, and it's chaos all over again.
The air is thick with dust and debris and people are trapped under the beams and almost-concrete and the polymer composite material the Ancients were so fond of. More people arrive, and it's hell all over again when Rodney has to stop the rescue work until they've secured the structural integrity, at least haphazardly. They can't risk any more people. When Rodney's reasonably sure the floor above them won't come crashing down, he lets them back in and joins in the frantic work to dig the unfortunate souls out.
Sheppard is one of them.
They find them. Alive. All three of them. They hault them out from under the rubble and cart them off to the infirmary post-haste. Sheppard's face, lips, hair, clothes, every square inch of him is covered in gray, chalky dust, and he looks dead when the stretcher is rushed past Rodney.
Rodney spends the next hours restoring power and yelling at people. Most of them deserve it. Someone brings him a bottle of water a few hours later and tells him that Sheppard and Nunez and Polinski are okay.
It takes them four hours to get to Karen Kipkemboi's crumpled body in the far corner of the lab, and when Rodney finally returns to his room, his eyes burn from smoke and the fumes of burned electronics and destruction. It's too much effort to get out of his clothes and get into the shower right away, so he sits down at his desk.
Moonlight bleeds its way across the diplomas on his wall, and when he finally blinks back to himself, the papers that litter the desk are cool beneath his cheek. He rubs his eyes and curses the city, the fucking galaxy, he curses life for making them forget that here more than elsewhere, danger comes from within as well as without, and if his breathing catches a little, it's all frustration and fatigue and anger. He's getting so tired of things exploding and he just lost two of his people, and Sheppard--
Sheppard had looked dead.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sheppard is released from the infirmary the next morning. The band-aid along his hairline hides nine neat, black stitches. It's a visual reminder of how easy it would be to lose so very much, and Rodney doesn't need that on top of everything else. He doesn't need that at all, so later that night, when Sheppard tries to maneuver him onto his back, face-to-face, Rodney insists on staying on his knees.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Things go downhill from there. Rodney can't curb the twists and turns his thoughts make whenever he isn't fully focused on something, and he can't decipher the feelings that come with them, either. Guilt bleeds into shame bleeds into fear bleeds into anger. He latches on to that last thing. Anger he can do. Only this is not his usual flash combustion kind of anger. This is something else. This is a dark, brooding kind of angry that isn't diluted in the least by yelling at people. Doesn't keep him from doing it, though.
But anger takes a lot of energy to sustain, and eventually it drains out of him, little by little. One morning it's gone all together. Without it he feels watered out and colorless, like the cloud cover that refuses to release Atlantis from its grip.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
"I don't want to do this any more."
The dinner rush is over. Despite the rain that's going on day nine now, the doors and windows in the mess hall are wide open. Small puddles have already collected on the floor. Even with the extra ventilation, the smell of burned Pegasus-style lasagna still hangs heavy in there. Outside on the balcony, the culprit - a pan filled with charred pasta - is cooling down.
Sheppard's fork stops halfway to his mouth. "You don't want eat with me any more?"
Rodney rearranges the food on his plate. Sheppard's playing stupid and doesn't deserve an answer. In the corner of his eye, he sees Sheppard put his fork down carefully and sit back. Rodney refuses to look up, even though he can feel Sheppard's eyes willing him to.
Finally, Sheppard speaks. "So, you don't want to do this any more?"
Rodney doesn't trust his voice not to rebel and call a do-over of this whole conversation, so he just nods in reply. He wraps his fingers around his almost-empty coffee mug and holds on. His stomach feels sour.
"If that's what you want…" Sheppard trails off.
No. It's not what Rodney wants. Rodney wants Sheppard to react. Wants him to ask why. Wants him to say it's worth it. But he doesn't, and Rodney can't go on like this. Thinking of Sheppard dying in the line of duty makes Rodney's mouth taste like ash, but he's made some kind of half-assed peace with the knowledge that every day could be the day one of them dies, so that's not even the real issue. The deal breaker here is Rodney. He wants something Sheppard isn't offering of his own free will, and he's too damn proud to ask for it.
"Okay." Sheppard empties his cup. He gathers his stuff unhurriedly. "See you later, then."
Rodney stares at the last remnants of his watery coffee and he feels sick. Feels hot and cold at the same time. Of all the possible scenarios he'd gone over in his head beforehand, this had been the most likely one, but still the disappointment burns him.
He doesn't look up as Sheppard takes his tray and walks away.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Rodney tries really hard to not change things between them, but he's not all that surprised when it doesn't work. He is after all, a petty, petty man.
A deliberateness finds its way into their arguments, a calculated edge, like a razor's - too sharp to for the wound to register right away. Instead the pain comes later, and once it has made its presence known, it stings and burns for a long time. Sheppard gives as good as he gets, and Rodney finds a dark kind of satisfaction the few times Sheppard loses his temper for real.
Rodney runs back-to-back emergency and evacuation drills in all departments. Despite having the chem lab incident in fresh memory, they don't go well at all. The post-mortems are brutal and Rodney pulls up every evacuation and incident policy in the database on the big screen. He tells people to take a good look. If they mess up the follow-up drill, they'll be packing.
He can't concentrate on anything after that meeting, and he sits down in his room to finish the letter he's been writing for the past week. Elizabeth has informed Karen Kipkemboi's family, but Karen was one of his people, and he wants to tell her mother that she didn't die for nothing. He wants her to know about the contributions her daughter made, wants her to know that Karen's presence here made a difference to many people. But the non-disclosure agreement applies to everything, even letters to mothers who have just lost their only daughter. He knows this. Respects this. Nevertheless, the words he can't say keep appearing on his screen
The click-click-click of the delete key sounds a lot like betrayal.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
It's a routine meet and greet, and they're invited to stay the night. The air is warm, the food is really very good, and in the flickering firelight, Rodney feels content for the first time in a long time.
He knows it's all artificial, the work of the sweet ruby-red wine, but he can't make himself care, because Yan is sitting next to him, and the warmth of her bare, freckled arm is pressing against his. She's beautiful and intelligent and attentive, and Rodney feels like he's inside some magical bubble where the light is kinder, the sounds are softer, and sometimes he gets what he wants. He leans in a little closer and Yan looks sideways at him. There's promise in that smile.
They meander away from the main group of people, and settle by one of the smaller fires that burn along the outskirts of the settlement. It's darker here, and the mat is softer than it looks. Yan's lips when she leans in are soft against his, and he's almost afraid to breathe. Then Yan drags him to his feet and grabs the mat. They stumble into the forest and when Yan decides they've gone far enough she dumps the mat on the ground and shimmies out of her dress.
Moonlight and the distant light from the bonfires chase shadows around her breasts and hips. The air is warm and the feeling's right and Rodney thinks he may never have wanted something as bad as he wants this. Yan is as eager as he is, and when she wraps her strong legs around him, he's lost. He forgets everything about Sheppard and being miserable.
Forgetting lasts exactly four hours and thirty-five minutes, then Sheppard effectively pops Rodney's magical bubble by shaking him awake to a gray morning and a hefty hang-over. Yan's sleeping next to him, still naked, her hair wild and tangled around her face.
On their way back to the gate, Sheppard says nothing - not a word - and his eyes stay hidden behind the reflective lenses of his aviator shades.
Rodney throws up twice before they reach the DHD
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sheppard spends a few weeks avoiding Rodney like the plague. Then he gets himself caught by the Genii, who feed him to a starving Wraith.
The whole gateroom is there, staring horrified at the static-riddled screen, but Rodney feels like he's alone. He's rooted to the spot, hearing and seeing nothing but Sheppard' screaming as years and decades of his life are taken. Rodney wants to put his hands over his ears to keep the wretched sound out. He doesn't allow himself that luxury. Sheppard sure as hell doesn't have it. So instead he watches and listens. Every gasp, every cry is etched into his brain, permanent, like morbid carvings into a tree. It's a soundtrack that will feature in his nightmares for years to come.
They get Sheppard back, and through some improbable Wraith voodoo he looks not a day older than when they all stepped through the gate in Atlantis that very first time.
Rodney should be able to relax, should be able to breathe right with Sheppard sitting right in front of him, alive and looking the same as ever, but he can't. There's something inside him that's coiled up so tightly, pushed down in favour of rational thinking while coming up with some way to get Sheppard back, and now, now they've got him, Rodney doesn't know what to do with that feeling.
So he heads for his lab, his sanctuary, and spends two and a half hours trying to concentrate on the math proofs he'd managed to get down in writing during his brush with ascension. Everything had changed during those few days, tilted in a way that was totally right and totally wrong. Even to himself, Rodney can't explain it in better terms than that it had been a little like those 3-D stereograms, where all you had to do was change your depth of focus, and like magic, you saw things you didn't see a second earlier.
He scrolls down the page and squints at his own incomplete equations. But that's all gone now. He doesn't understand his own notes, and it's killing him. In his even-more-genius-than-usual state, he'd started from problem(A) and gone on towards a solution where A was a function of Y and Z, but the route hadn't included B or C or D, or any other letters that would indicate a logic progression. Instead, he seemed to have paid a non-documented visit to sigma, phi, and perhaps even 42 before reaching his conclusion.
He decides he's not in the mood to be reminded of what he lost, so he saves the file and leaves. Without really meaning to, he meanders towards the infirmary. The flurry of activities there has long since died down and Sheppard is propped up in a bed in the corner, asleep. A multitude of electrode wires stick out from underneath his scrubs; it seems he's hooked up to every monitoring device in the city. Rodney stops in the doorway. Sheppard's a little pale, but he doesn't look a day older. Not a damn day older.
Still, Rodney thinks of micro-fractures.
The kind you only see at exactly the right angle, in exactly the right light.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sheppard is cleared for duty sooner than anyone thought was possible.
On his first trip through the gate - a routine recon mission with a bunch of newbies - he loses two men. A week later he gets in a fist fight on one of the worlds they regularly trade with. It takes Ronon and Rodney to pull him off the guy. Afterwards Sheppard goes silent and stony, and refuses to go into detail what happened. Elizabeth pulls the leash and grounds him for two weeks.
R&R is the official version.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
"I believe your assistance is needed," Teyla's voice had said, and Rodney had gone from hazy half-sleep into disaster mode in the blink of an eye. It had taken Teyla a while to explain that no, the city wasn't sinking, and no, they weren't under attack. Rodney had a feeling he'd been a little less than gracious when he'd asked why she was calling him at this hour if they weren't about to die.
Teyla moves from the doorway to let Rodney into Ronon's room. Ronon lies on the floor, and Rodney thinks for a split second that maybe Teyla finally snapped and bashed his dreadlock laden head in with those sticks of hers. But a moment later his brain registers the smell of alcohol and the two empty bottles on the nightstand table. Then Sheppard's head pops up from the floor on the other side of the bed, like a cross-eyed, demented jack-in-the-box.
"Rodney!" he exclaims with a grin that's a mile wide.
"I think John needs some assistance in getting to his quarters," Teyla says with a sigh and rounds the bed. She manages to get Sheppard to his feet and moving towards Rodney. Rodney stumbles under the uncoordinated mass of limbs that more or less fall against him.
Teyla kneels and rolls Ronon onto his side (none too gently) and ties his dreads back with her hair band, before looking up at Rodney. She looks tired, like she too was rudely awakened.
"Will you be able to get John to his quarters?"
Rodney grabs Sheppard's belt and hoists him a little more upright. "I'll manage. What about you?" he asks with a nod in Ronon's direction. It's not like Teyla will be able to move him.
"I will be fine," she says. She pulls the blanket off Ronon's bed and tosses it at the prone figure before lying down on the bed. "He, on the other hand, will wish that he had never been born tomorrow."
Rodney leaves the room, very happy that he's not Ronon Dex.
It's not easy trying to pull Sheppard along the corridor towards his quarters, and Rodney gets about ten feet before he realizes that his quarters are closer and at the rate they're going it would take approximately forever to reach Sheppard's. Sheppard keeps sliding further and further down, and Rodney tries to hike him back up, but he can't get a good grip on the heavy, semi-boneless body against him.
"God, you're like a jellyfish," he grunts.
"Am not," Sheppard protests and snakes an arm around Rodney's waist and seems to have no plans on getting his feet under himself. The other hand reaches around and finds a parking space on Rodney's ass.
"How about some cooperation here?" Rodney asks.
"Sure," Sheppard readily agrees, and stays right where he is.
With a little coaxing and a lot of cursing Rodney gets them moving again and Sheppard's hands are kept mostly to himself. Lorne scares Rodney half to death when he shows up like a genie in a bottle, enquiring with a straight face if Rodney needs help to dispose of the body. But he hikes Sheppard's other arm over his shoulder without being asked to, and Rodney steers them in the direction of Sheppard's room. With Lorne there to help, it's not an impossible goal.
Rodney's not naïve enough to believe that Lorne just happened to stumble across them. One of Sheppard's people must have spotted them, in person or on camera, and reported to Lorne. Rodney feels a brief flash of resentment on Sheppard's behalf. Rodney's lived under the microscope all his professional life, with petty people watching and waiting for him to make that one mistake that would mean the end of his career. Sheppard has too. Sheppard still is, and Rodney knows Lorne is just looking out for his commanding officer, but somehow it grates on his nerves.
By the time they reach the nearest transporter, Rodney's sweating. "With the two of us carrying him, you'd think it wouldn't be so damn heavy," he groans.
"He's dragged your ass back to the gate once or twice, so maybe this is karma," Lorne points out.
Rodney's about to tell Lorne where to stick his karma, but Sheppard chooses this particular time to lift his head and announce that he needs to take a leak.
"We'll be right there, Sir," Lorne tells him in his keep-the-natives-calm voice.
"Seriously," Sheppard mumbles. "I have to take a leak." He squishes his eyes shut again against Rodney's shoulder. He smells like a whole distillery, and god, Rodney thinks, just how much did he have to drink?
They make a pit stop on one of the balconies that line the residential area, hoping no one will stumble upon them out there. They help Sheppard get his belt and pants open. Sheppard hangs between them, and it takes a nudge to get him back from whatever place he's drifted off to in his head. Between the two of them, Rodney and Lorne manage to get him to finish his business and they get to his room without any more detours.
Lorne helps Rodney wrangle the now mostly-sleeping Sheppard onto the narrow bed.
"You're a nice guy, Lorne," Sheppard says.
Lorne unties Sheppard's boots and throws them into a corner. "Thank you, Sir."
"No, no. I mean it," Sheppard says in that all too sincere tone that more than anything tells just how drunk he is. He tries to grab onto Lorne's sleeve, but misses and almost falls off the bed. Lorne catches him at the last moment and directs him to lie back. He looks across at Rodney.
"I don't think we should leave him alone like this."
As on cue, Sheppard rolls over on his side and throws up.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Rodney stays. Of course he stays. He cleans up the mess on the floor, changes the sheet that got in the way, and he even gets a few minutes of sleep slumped against the side of the bed before Sheppard rolls out of bed and all but crawls towards the bathroom. With a little help from Rodney, he makes it there before he throws up again.
Rodney sits on the hard, cool floor of Sheppard's tiny bathroom and tries not to listen to him throwing up, because that has a way of triggering his own gag reflexes. Sheppard shivers and shivers and Rodney gets a blanket from the bed, tossing it at Sheppard. Sheppard seems to have problems pulling the blanket around himself, so Rodney finally intervenes and helps him.
"Don't need your help," Sheppard says. His voice is rough, like wet gravel.
"Mm-hmm." Rodney tries to maneuver the blanket out of Sheppard's grip.
"Get out."
"Trust me, I want to."
Sheppard still won't let go of the blanket. "Then fuck off. I can be sick on my own."
"And you can pass out and respire your own vomit on your own, too," Rodney snaps and finally wrenches the blanket out of Sheppard's grip. "Excuse me for not wanting that on my conscience." He shakes out the blanket and spreads it over Sheppard's shoulders, tucking it in tightly.
Sheppard shoves him away. "Fuck off," he says again.
Rodney's tired of this game already, so he opts out of answering. He stretches his legs in front of him and groans under his breath when the muscles in his back protest. Sleeping on the floor isn't something he can get away with any longer.
Sheppard's knuckles are white on the rim of the toilet as his body rebels again.
Rodney winces. "Seriously, how much did you drink?"
"Apparently not enough," Sheppard mumbles into the toilet.
Rodney gets to his feet, dumps Sheppard's toothbrush out of the pink plastic mug that sits on the side of the sink "Not enough? Are you crazy or just trying to kill yourself?" He fills the mug up with water.
Sheppard's hands shake a little as they take it. He sips the water carefully, spitting the first mouthful into the toilet before flushing.
"How are you feeling?" Rodney asks when the silence stretches too long.
"Peachy," Sheppard mutters, his eyes closed. "Wonderful. Like new." He opens his eyes and brings his hand up in front of his face. He turns it around, like he's never seen it before and then he giggles, actually giggles, and the sound is wrong on so many levels. "Like new," he says again, and this time despair leaks into his words.
Right there, right then, the bright, color-sucking light in the bathroom falls just so, and Rodney sees the cracks, the invisible fractures superimposed over Sheppard's pale skin. He doesn't think, doesn't analyze it, he just reaches over and pulls Sheppard close, envelops the lean body, the smell of sweat and vomit, the utter desperation. It's uncomfortable and cramped in the tiny bathroom, but Sheppard's clinging to him like he's drowning, and Rodney's not about to let go.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sheppard falls asleep on the floor and Rodney tucks another blanket around him. Since Sheppard's not using his bed, Rodney decides that Teyla had the right idea, but the few hours of sleep he's allowed are restless and transparent like cobweb, incapable of completely closing out reality.
He remains half-aware of every sound in the room and gets up a few times to check on Sheppard. When gray morning light starts seeping in through the windows, he decides that the danger should be over by now. He boots up Sheppard's laptop and composes an e-mail that spells out in detail just how much Sheppard owes him for this. He leaves the e-mail open on the screen and leaves.
In the still-empty lab, he mainlines three cups of coffee, but still feels cranky and strangely on edge. Enough so that he takes pity on his people and takes his computer and ensconces himself in the back of Jumper 5, trying to figure out why the bay doors decided to close on it during launch earlier that week.
He doesn't get to finish it because something else gets priority. And then something else. And something else again, and really, since they can just jam the bay doors open, the task is soon removed from the prio list, and demoted to the things-to-get-around-to when-there-are-a-few-minutes-to-spare list.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Rodney doesn't see much of Sheppard over the next few days, and Rodney's back to being grateful, because out of 'sight out, of mind' works most of the time. But during the few minutes when it doesn't work, he's painfully aware that 'you don't appreciate what you got till it's gone' is an annoyingly truthful cliché.
Eventually, he gets around to Jumper 5 again. The door system is controlled by capacitive proximity sensors. And three months prior, Rodney himself updated the control algorithm to include an additional number of safety and security checks and a handshaking procedure between the jumper in question and the bay system, so he knows the software is not the problem.
Rodney has spent two and a half hours on his back in the cramped space under the seats, and it looks like he's going to be there for a while longer, because as far as he can tell the sensors work just fine and the logs aren't showing much of interest, either. He lodges his pen-sized Maglite between his teeth to allow him to work with both hands, but he can't even see the part he has to access. And why all crawl spaces are made for midget-sized people he'll never know. He counts the crystals and interface connector shells he can't see by touch and finds the right wire. He follows it with his fingers until he gets to the newly-made splice he suspects is the culprit in the whole mess. The wire feels weird. Is that electrical tape?
"So this is where you keep your secret stash of chocolate," Sheppard's voice suddenly says, and Rodney bangs his head, losing the wire junction he just identified.
He squirms out from beneath the power control to finds Sheppard leaning against wall at the jumper hatch, arms relaxed and crossed in front of him. He's got a lollipop in his mouth.
"What do you want?"
"Well, hello to you, too."
Rodney rubs his head. "Is there a reason you're here, scaring me half to death?"
Sheppard shrugs, takes the lollipop out of his mouth with a 'plop'. "Not really. You want one?" He waves the lollipop at Rodney, who blames the blow to the head for momentarily being trapped in one of those rare bubbles when his brain catches up with the fact that they're holed up in another galaxy, in a flying city, fighting replicators and Wraith and god knows what else, and the military commander of the whole shebang is standing there offering him a lollipop. A freaking lollipop. Like Sheppard's seven years old and this is his playground.
But what a playground it is, Rodney's own seven year-old pipes up. It has stargates. And ZPMs, and jumpers, and nano technology, macro technology, amazing discoveries behind every corner. Rodney's already seen and learned and lived more than he ever thought he would, and four years into this thing (depending on the day, he labels it either a nightmare or the meaning of life) Atlantis still has the power to render him speechless.
But he's not about to share this with Sheppard just now.
Sheppard apparently takes his silence as a no, because he pops the lollipop back into his mouth. "Listen," he says around it. The grin fades. "Can we, uh, talk?" He says it like the word tastes bad.
"Sure," Rodney says, faking indifference. Getting to his feet is a show in inelegance and stiffness, and god, when did he get this old? He grabs the pliers from his toolbox and gets back on the floor again. He uses his feet to scoot back under the seats, but not before he sees Sheppard's eyes flicker to the security camera in the corner.
"Somewhere else?"
"I'm sure it's difficult for a layman to see, but I'm actually working here."
"I'll wait."
Rodney can see Sheppard's sneakers from where he's lying and it doesn't take long for Sheppard to start tapping his foot soundlessly. Despite his petty urge to prolong Sheppard's discomfort, Rodney's back really is killing him, but should probably leave the jumper with at least basic operations so repositioning himself on his side, he reaches as far in as he can and identifies the right wire by touch once again. It will be a stretch to reconnect it, but it should be possible if he could just get...
Sparks suddenly flash blue, and Rodney jerks his fingers away, banging his head again. There's a smell of burned plastic in the small space. "You worthless piece of--!" He crawls back out, his hand tingling from the electrical shock.
"You okay?" Sheppard asks, close suddenly.
"No!" Rodney pulls his arm free as he gets to his feet and hurls the pliers in the direction of the tool box. He doesn't care that he misses by several feet. The clang of it hitting the material crate rings through the empty jumper bay.
"Whoa. Careful," Sheppard protests, but really, Rodney wasn't even close to hitting him and Rodney is suddenly angry, so angry his chest constricts and he pushes Sheppard away, hard, because he can't stand it any longer.
The shove right back sends him stumbling. "What the hell is your problem?" Sheppard snaps.
"My problem? My problem is I'm so tired of fixing other people's messes!"
Rodney's talking about the jumper, then he's not, and fuck, that's not at all what he wanted to say, it's not even what he thinks, but afterwards, the only way Rodney can describe the change in Sheppard is that he goes quiet. He goes quiet. Then tucks his hands deep into his pockets and any emotion into an even deeper place.
And that's the end of that conversation.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Next time off-world, it's apparently Rodney's turn to almost die, and almost-dying fucking hurts.
"Dammit, Rodney, don't move!"
'I'm not moving', he wants to protest, but his trusted words seem to get lost somewhere between formation in his head and freedom at the tip of his tongue.
Their voices are coming from above, and he blinks up towards them, but can't see them in the dark of night. They sound worried, their words urgent.
"Do not move, Rodney."
He's actually quite content to be curled up on the wet, hard ground, eyes shut against the pain. He tries to catalogue what he can feel. His back hurts. His arm hurts. His fingers feel funny. Tingly. Like white noise is running though his veins instead of blood. Like he's been shocked. Did he touch something he shouldn't have? No. No, that was another time. Another time.
"Okay, you ready?" Sheppard's voice is suddenly close to his ear and Rodney almost startles. Sheppard shifts and there's a distinct clink-clink of karabiners and other climbing gear, and Rodney realizes he's heard those noises for a while now.
"You ready?" Sheppard asks again, but Rodney doesn't remember what he's supposed to be ready for. Whatever it is, he's not. He's so unready it's not even funny. He plans on telling Sheppard this, but his tongue still refuses to cooperate. Then the ground shifts, only it's not the ground, it's Sheppard dragging Rodney upright, and there's a moment of metallic battery taste in Rodney's mouth before the pain catches up and swallows him whole.
When he comes back to himself, the rock beneath him has been replaced by swaying, moon-lit grass, and it's a pretty bad sign he's been injured so many times in the Pegasus galaxy that he recognizes the feel of morphine in his system.
"Hey." Sheppard floats into vision above him, grim looking.
"Hey." Rodney might be high, but at least his voice works now.
"Sorry about that." Sheppard's hand lands briefly on Rodney's shoulder.
Rodney tries to smile. "'S okay." He's about to ask what happened, but he gets lost in the million of stars that floats like pixie dust in the night sky above them.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
He fell down a mountain is what happened. A steep-ass mountain with jagged cliffs, treacherous twenty foot drops, and other bone-breaking features.
He wakes up from the surgery to set his arm and promptly throws up. He's always reacted badly to general anaesthesia, and he knows it's in his journal so why the hell didn't Carson give him something to curb the nausea beforehand? Then he remembers that Carson is dead.
Teyla drops by a few hours later. Rodney doesn't remember her leaving. He blames the painkillers. He doesn't remember Sheppard coming either. But the next time he wakes, Sheppard is flopped down in the chair Keller pulled up on her last check-in. He looks tired. Worn out.
"Don't do that again, please," Sheppard says without preamble when he sees that Rodney's awake.
"What?" Rodney's voice comes out rough and gravely. His tongue feels too large for his mouth. "You mean fall down a mountain and almost get myself killed?
"That would be it."
"I'll gladly never do that again."
Sheppard looks down, fingers the zipper to his jacket. "Good."
Something metallic clanks against the floor in another part of the infirmary and Sheppard looks up. When nothing seems to happen that require his attention, he smoothes down his jacket and leaves without saying anything else.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Convalescence is slow and painful, and Rodney suspects he's even less charming than usual. The day the cast comes off, he celebrates by leaving the labs early. He enjoys the bliss of a hot, long shower without having to bother with protecting the cast. When the door chimes in the middle of his shower, he ignores it. If it's an emergency, they will radio him or patch through to the PA system.
There are a million things that he needs to do, even more than usual since the cast has been slowing him down more than he would like to admit. And since everyone has almost as much as him to do, there's no one to take up the slack. Not that he'd trust most of them to do it right, anyway. But for now, he puts that aside and enjoys taking a shower without having to worry about getting the cast wet. The water is hot and surprisingly, Rodney feels himself relax in a manner he thought he'd forgotten somewhere around the time they arrived in Atlantis that first time. He leans his forehead against the tiles and simply stands there, letting the water swirl down his body and down the drain.
By the time he turns the water off, the mirror is all fogged up and his fingers and toes are wrinkled like raisins. They haven't paged him yet, so he figures they're probably not about to die horribly in the next hour or two. He almost trips on his feet when he opens the door to the main room.
"You lost, Sheppard?" he says, clutching at the towel that is slipping from his hips. The air feels cold against his still-wet skin, and he's suddenly not at all relaxed any longer.
Sheppard, sitting on Rodney's bed, holds up one of the books that used to sit and collect dust on Rodney's desk. "Any good?"
Rodney shrugs, feeling weirdly naked in front of Sheppard despite the towel. "Haven't had time to read it." In the drawer he finds a t-shirt - gray and soft with use - and a pair of sweat pants, and doesn't turn to see if Sheppard looks when he drops the towel on the floor and pulls the pants on. The shirt sticks to his skin where the water hasn't dried, and he spends way too much time to get it to sit just right over his shoulders.
When he's done, Sheppard is still flipping through the book.
"You could borrow it if it looks interesting," Rodney says, even though the energy that radiates from Sheppard like a silent, low-frequent carrier wave tells him that the interest in the book is nothing but stalling. And then it hits him, like a two-by-four right over the head, that fuck, Sheppard's here to take another stab at talking. That has to be it, because the only other thing that has the potential to create this tension between them is Doranda, and they're over that. Mostly, at least.
"I want to know," Sheppard says.
Rodney sighs and sits down by the over-flowing desk, and doesn't even pretend not to know what Sheppard's talking about. "What do you want to know?"
Sheppard hesitates a second. "It was okay, wasn't it? You know…" He makes a vague gesture that encompasses the two of them.
"Sure," Rodney says. And he's not lying. It had been good. It really had. Right along side frustrating and disappointing and terrifying and a million other things that always seemed to outweigh the good things.
"So what changed?"
Rodney's mind goes curiously blank for a second, and then he realizes the mistake he made. He assumed that Sheppard had come to talk - as in 'doing the talking' - but with this one, seemingly innocuous question Sheppard put everything, every damn thing, on Rodney's shoulders, and fuck, isn't he supposed to be the smart one? He buries his face in his hands and breathes for a while.
"It's complicated," he finally says into his fingers.
"It shouldn't have to be."
"Hello!" Rodney spreads his hands. "Have you met me? I don't know how to not make things complicated."
"True," Sheppard admits.
Rodney wracks his brain from somewhere to start, something to say that won't make him come off like a total loser, but for once, he comes up with nothing. Zero. Zilch. So he says nothing. It doesn't take long before Sheppard - who usually does silence a lot better than Rodney - looks as uncomfortable as Rodney feels.
"Look," Sheppard starts hesitantly, but is cut off by a soft chime from his rado. "Damn." He keys his radio on. "Yes?" Rodney hears the whisper of a voice at the other end. "They what?" More whispers. Sheppard rubs his eyes. "Okay. I'll be there in a few. Keep them separated."
"What's going on?"
Sheppard sighs. "Some kind of disagreement between two of my new arrivals."
"Best of the best," Rodney says wryly.
"Sometimes even I wonder about SGC's recruitment criteria." Sheppard shakes his head.
"You should go take care of it."
Sheppard gets up. Puts the book down on Rodney's bedside table. "I will," he says. He stops and turns around to face Rodney. "But before I go, I'd prefer to say what I came here to say." He gives Rodney a grim smile. "What with this being pretty much my definition of things I'd rather not do ever again."
Rodney's curiosity mixes with apprehension, because on the one hand, he really wants to know what is so important that Sheppard voluntarily sits down and brings up a subject like this. His modus operandi around feelings and personal things usually involves denial and avoidance. But on the other hand, Rodney would rather not hear Sheppard tell him this was all a big mistake and hey, let's never talk about it again.
Sheppard studies his hands, looking very much like he's steeling himself. When he levels his gaze on Rodney, it's with a single-minded intensity that makes Rodney think of suicide missions and doing things in the face of terrible odds.
"I'm sorry," Sheppard says.
Rodney blinks. "What for?"
"I'm not sure." Sheppard makes a grimace. "For whatever I did. Or didn't do." He ducks his head. "Listen, I just wanted to--" He rakes a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. "I'm sorry, okay? I miss--," his eyes flicker and Rodney doesn't miss it. I miss you is too much to ask for from Sheppard. "I miss what we had," Sheppard says instead, and Rodney is okay with that.
"Yeah. It had its perks," Rodney concedes.
"Do you think--?" The radio chirps again, and Sheppard taps it hard. "What!" Rodney watches him listen and then roll his eyes. "What part of 'keep them separated' didn't you understand?" He listens. "Mm-hmm." More listening. "Well, sit on them if you need to!" He signs off and turns back to Rodney. "I have to go."
Rodney waves towards the door. "Go. Do your duty."
Sheppard hesitates, as if he's about to say something more. But in the end, he doesn't, and the door closes after him with a hiss.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
The cold front that is moving past Atlantis is chasing the wind around the tall buildings until the air howls with discontent.
Rodney can't sleep. In the darkness, he kneads his pillow into yet another shape and tries to blank his mind, but to no avail. He keeps coming back to Sheppard's visit. It might be wishful thinking - God knows he's never been too good at reading people - but he can't help feeling that Sheppard maybe had wanted more than to just apologize. It feels like maybe he, in his own roundabout way, had wanted to suggest that they give it another try.
On the other hand, maybe he was just saying they should put it all behind them and move on for real.
Rodney doesn't know which one he wants it to be.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
His coffee mug has been empty for hours and the damn power simulations won't come out the way he expects them too, so he looks up to call Zelenka over, but finds that the lab is deserted. He glances as the clock on his computer. It's later than the thought. He gives the simulation one more try, but it remains as uncooperative as before, so he saves the files, shuts down the laptop, and turns out the lights. The code lock to the fire proof locker beeps happily when he opens it and deposits his laptop on the shelf labelled with his name.
The city is asleep around him as he makes his way towards his room. Except for a skeleton crew manning the most important functions and the patrols that sweep the corridors regularly, the corridors at this time of night are populated only with only the occasional insomniac and night time service personnel.
He doesn't end up in his room. He ends up at Sheppard's door, and before he can convince himself that this is a spectacularly bad idea, he knocks.
Sheppard takes his sweet time opening and Rodney's palms are suddenly sweaty, like he's fifteen again and he's about to ask Jenny Smith to go out with him. He still isn't sure what Sheppard wanted to say when he kept being interrupted by the radio, but Rodney's willing to take a chance, because now really and truly sucks more than then, and how the hell can he ask Sheppard for more if he isn't ready to offer it himself? And even more importantly, does he really need more? He doesn't have an answer to that quite yet, he just knows this is one of the few time he's more than happy to admit he might have fucked up (not out loud, of course, but to himself, at least).
Sheppard looks like he'd been sleeping when he finally opens the door.
"You lost, McKay?" he asks, and Rodney dares to smile. The relief, running deep as a river beneath Sheppard's casual greeting is all the answer he needs for now.
~ The End ~