Fic: It Takes a Week to Form an Ulcer (SGA) (pt. 2)
It Takes a Week to Form an Ulcer (part 2)
SGA, AU, McKay/Sheppard, NC-17, 11,047 words
Rodney McKay has never been good with relationships, so when his current 'significant other' Katie Brown forces him into Couples Therapy he thinks things can't get much worse--until he meets his therapist: Dr. John Sheppard.
Rodney wakes the next morning to the incessant buzz of his alarm clock and an under-stocked fridge. He’d ended up spending an inordinate amount of time in the coffee shop with Sheppard the day before, trading horrible relationship stories and stealing tiny packets of creamer. In the laws that govern normal society, making friends with one’s therapist is probably considered inappropriate; Rodney is sure Katie wouldn’t approve. He simply hasn’t mustered up the energy to care. He decides to purposely ignore the phone lines, screening any call that comes in from the comfort of his couch where he’s shoveling down what’s left in the Count Chocula cereal box.
By mid-day he’s spent most of his time tottering around the condo, plucking stray articles of clothing from behind couches and between cushions, throwing away magazines and Thai food cartons. He’s even cleaned out his fridge. He feels determined not to think about Katie or Sheppard, or the acidic feeling that’s been curdling his system since Tuesday. At a quarter to three he decides to head to the fresh market in Henderson to restock his fridge.
The market is a local joint on the outskirts of Vegas and depending on the time of day it’s home to an astounding array of cheap jewelry and spandex, or geriatric footwear. Rodney hopes that once the health food craze dies down he’ll be left alone with the elderly and by that time most of them will be dead. When he arrives there’s a miniature chalkboard two feet from the store’s entrance declaring a new shipment of Brillat-Savarin and Rodney takes this as a sign that god has yet to abandon him. He makes a mental note to buy dates for accompaniment and heads towards the seafood section. He’s had a Halibut craving for days, one he’s yet to quell thanks to overtime in the lab and--other things. Burgess, the head of fish and poultry, knows him by name and he smiles handsomely as Rodney makes his way over. He’s got a rough cut and square jaw, voice hard like it cuts across the back of his throat when he speaks.
“Lo, Dr. McKay,” he tilts his head in greeting as Rodney stops, wiping his hands over his apron.
“Burgess,” Rodney replies, mood lifting as he catches sight of the fresh cuts in the display window. “How’s the Halibut today?”
“Prime, Dr. McKay, prime.” He’s already moving to pluck Rodney’s customary fillet from the case, wrapping it tightly in layers of wax and brown paper. “Will that be all for you?”
“Yes, thank you,” Rodney chirps happily, cheeks round.
The next stop is the bakery for chocolate sourdough bread. It’s one of Rodney’s favorite addictions, the only problem being that he manages to eat at least 1/3 of the loaf on his way to the checkout (which is why he usually gets two). As soon as he turns into the aisle, however, he catches a glimpse of dark hair and low-slung jeans. Apparently god had abandoned him after all.
Oh, come on. He’d seen Sheppard enough for that week, any more coincidental run-ins and this was going to look really, really bad. Rodney tries to back out, stalled by an older woman who pulls her cart up behind him and tuts loudly. Sheppard looks up at that, mouth quirking as Rodney resists the urge to roll his eyes and sigh deeply.
“Young man, if you would please make up your mind.” Rodney is halfway to turning around and telling her where to shove it when Sheppard, ever the chivalrous knight, steps over and pushes Rodney’s cart toward the aisle wall with his hip. “Thank you,” the woman says pointedly, glaring darkly at Rodney before waddling off.
“It’s like a compulsion with you, isn’t it?”
“Nah,” Sheppard says, holding up two fingers, “I was just a boy scout. On my honor, I will do my--”
“Stop,” Rodney says, pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes, “stop right now,” but he’s grinning, refusing to meet Sheppard’s eyes as he cocks a hip against Rodney’s cart and looks over its contents. Rodney mentally un-stocks and restocks it, trying to weed out anything potentially humiliating for Sheppard to happen upon.
“You know, this stalking thing is kind of creepy.”
Rodney snorts, “Please, like I’d even have the time to stalk you.”
“So, if you cleared your schedule we’d be bumping into each other twice a day instead of once?”
“What? No.” Sheppard’s eyes are dancing and Rodney wants to shove at him, punch him in the shoulder, or do something equally as gay in the spirit of brotherhood. He feels embarrassed and he doesn’t know why. “Why am I the stalker anyways? It’s completely logical that someone in my position of personal achievement would be followed and--and watched from afar.”
Sheppard doesn’t look like he’s buying it, shrugging loosely, “Because I’m the therapist. In the movies the therapist always gets stalked.” Rodney watches the curve of his mouth as he says it, knows he’s teasing by the badly suppressed grin. It causes something in his stomach to twitch and turn over, his palms growing moist as Sheppard continues to laze about in his personal space. He nudges Sheppard with his cart, gets him to move so he can move. So he can occupy his hands and mind with something else.
“Yes, well, it’s usually the therapist’s fault.”
----
Rodney blames John again when Katie finds him the next morning. She’s standing near the entrance to the labs when he comes into work, eyes strained like she’s trying to mask whatever emotions she’s currently feeling. “Rodney,” she says, tone tight and caught somewhere around her nasal passages.
“Katie, you look well.”
“We need to talk.”
So much for pleasantries, “Sure,” he holds out a hand for her to lead the way and she backs down the hall into a nearby office. “Well,” he starts, following her into the empty room, rubbing his thumb across his middle fingers. It’s a nervous habit he can’t seem to break. He’s got a good idea where this conversation is headed, Katie’s complete avoidance of direct eye contact is a great signifier. Hopelessly, Rodney tries to pile his thoughts into a coherent string.
“Look,” Katie says, “This isn’t working.” But being mentally prepared doesn’t stop the surge of panic Rodney feels arcing through his system. His muscles seize up automatically as his mind scrambles for purchase on something lucid, something grandiose that will stall the inevitable. “You’ve been avoiding me all week,” she says and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, looking up to meet his gaze until all he sees is the pale color of her skin and the blue of her eyes, “and I’d be lying if I pretended I were behaving any better.”
“Katie,” Rodney says, palms sweating. She holds up a hand and shakes her head.
“Just--just let me say this, please.” She shifts focus until she’s staring at the tiled floors, twisting the skin on her fingers to ugly shades of red. “I know this isn’t easy for you--making time with work--but I think, I think if you tried. If we tried, it’d be worth it.” She smiles, her eyes steady, focused and Rodney’s struck by the sudden perfection that had him first feigning pteridology skills to impress her.
He nods silently, mouth crooked. He’s not sure what he wants it to mean, but she seems to take it as an affirmation. She’d been his ideal once and watching her walk out the door now Rodney wonders when that changed.
----
“You do not look well,” Rodney slumps haphazardly against the lab table, Radek’s eyes roving over him with a disturbing sort of efficiency. “You have not been eating?” Rodney ignores him, opting to press his suddenly pounding head against the cool metal of Zelenka’s desk. He feels sick and he doesn’t know why; bile thick and sour at the back of his throat. He should feel relieved, light in the face his near failed relationship, but he doesn’t. He feels claustrophobic, trapped, guilty.
“She didn’t break up with me,” he says, zeroing in on the trip click of Zelenka’s fingers as they trail across the keyboard.
“I assume you mean Katie. Is this not good thing?”
“Yes. No. It should be.” Rodney moans, turning his head until the refracted light from the overhead fluorescents blink against his retinas. Radek stops typing, stilling as though he’s deep in thought. Rodney lets the silence curl into the crooks of his body, his own thoughts breaking recklessly as they wash over each other.
“There is nothing wrong with moving on, Rodney,” Radek says eventually. Rodney says nothing in return.
----
The day passes in relative calm, routine procedures seeming particularly mundane in light of Rodney’s personal issues. His earlier conversation with Katie itches at the edge of his consciousness, pulling him out of his element, and ruining any attempt he makes to get actual work done. Around eleven he calls it quits and gives Zelenka a vague goodbye. Without the focus of work he finds himself consumed by thoughts of Katie, the sensation of drowning cutting clear across his system.
It’s an hour before he realizes he’s been driving aimlessly, searching for a beat-up truck to sidle up against. “I’m completely insane,” he says out loud, rubbing a hand across his eyes. He feels exhausted, muscles weak against the restlessness he can’t seem to pinpoint or alleviate. Mentally he weighs the odds of him just happening across Sheppard, factoring in the distance between John’s practice and Area 51. He has no idea where Sheppard lives, but he uses the café as a breaking point and begins to circle the area.
It takes twenty-three minutes and thirty-five seconds for Rodney to find him, time in which he has managed to fully convince himself that searching for one’s couples therapist with a stalker-like accuracy near midnight is a completely sane venture. He wants to discuss his relationship and Sheppard is a relationship therapist. Rodney is doing exactly what he’s supposed to do, seek out reasonable advice from a professional. He has his shrink on call 24/7 why should Sheppard be any different? Rodney can’t function with the distraction and everyone was losing out by his continued inability to work. This thing with Katie, this thing beyond Katie, needed to be rectified.
The bar sits on a slant, dingy brick overlaid with shadows. There’s a sleekness in the way the neon sign burns it’s letters back into the building, alphabet curves edged pure white. Rodney doesn’t bother to read it, simply notes the smooth shift of it against his skin as he pulls into the parking lot. He’s focused on the truck loitering in a far corner of the pavement. There’s a moment’s hesitation where he debates whether or not the vehicle actually belongs to Sheppard and not to some other cowboy with a complex, but the lure of liquor and chance win out and Rodney pushes into the bar with his chin raised.
He starts to rethink his conviction when he spots a familiar curve of spine pressed into tight black cotton. Sheppard’s hanging idly over the bar, eyes firmly attached to the nearest plasma where fourteen men appear to be beating each other into Astroturf. It’s not until he’s close enough to see the graze of a five o’ clock shadow across John’s jaw that he figures it out, words tumbling out of him as Sheppard looks up, uncoiling from where they’ve been lodged on the back of his tongue since Tuesday. “I don’t think I love my girlfriend.”
John blinks at him slow, licking his lips before motioning the bartender over and ordering Rodney a drink.
They move to a sterilized table in the back, wood blistering even under the plastic veneer. Rodney picks at is as Sheppard waits for him to talk. He takes a deep breath and runs his palms over the tops of his thighs, chancing a look at Sheppard--who’s quiet and still--before opening his mouth to make sense of all the things he’d rather not say. “I don’t think I love my girlfriend,” he repeats, like it’s a starting point. Sheppard’s eyes slit, lashes a dark rim against his skin. Rodney can’t tell if he’s annoyed or simply weighing the statement to some sort of graph inside his head. His fingers go loose around the neck of his beer bottle and he looks Rodney straight in the eye.
“Do you think you need to love someone to be in a relationship?” he asks, and Rodney realizes with an immediate clarity that this isn’t what he wanted. Not Sheppard the couples therapist who asks invasive questions in an insipid, detached fashion. He wants John, the idiot who drives a shitty pick-up and uses fluid mechanics to back Superman’s reputation.
“Don’t,” he says, watching Sheppard’s eyes flash as his eyebrow arches, “It’s not--not this. I don’t want it like this.”
Now Sheppard does look irritated, face a mix of anxious strain and exhaustion. He’s picking at the slip around his beer, peeling the watered paper from the glass. “Then what do you want, Rodney?”
His voice is low and Rodney breaths in at the familiar flip turn of his stomach. John’s no longer looking at him, shaded by a diffused overhead light. Rodney watches the hitch of his shoulders as he tenses and relaxes, waiting. Rodney can feel his mouth dry out, tongue heavy and thick against his teeth. You, he thinks, before giving in to whatever brought him to this point, twisting to reach across the table and pull John to him with a fistful of worn fabric clutched between his fingers. The kiss is clumsy, angle completely wrong and they click teeth before John’s hand comes up and tugs Rodney’s hair to tilt him and plunge deeper into his mouth. God, yes. John tastes like he smells, summer sweet with the bitter taint of sweat, the tang of alcohol a heady buzz beneath all the heat.
“Jesus,” Rodney hisses, lips throbbing as he takes in Sheppard-- unkempt and wild eyed.
“Car,” John says and Rodney catches a strip of bare skin as he pulls back from the table and throws down a few bills. They trip from the bar in an unorganized fashion. Tangling together as soon as the truck comes into view, the car is cool against Rodney’s back, a rough contrast to John’s hand as he pushes it up and under Rodney’s t-shirt. He’s so goddamn warm and Rodney can’t figure out which part of him he wants to touch first. He wraps his fingers around the crook of John’s elbow, presses his thumb into the crease hard enough to get a phantom heartbeat. “Need to,” John’s nips at his jaw, tongue following the path of his teeth, smoothing over bitten skin.
“Oh,” Rodney says, nodding dumbly at the loss of John’s body. He turns instinctively to open the car door, tugging mindlessly on the handle and slipping inside as John starts the engine with steady hands. He’s mindless in the car ride, hands picking a pattern over his pants until John grabs a hold of his hand and presses his thumb into the hollow of Rodney’s wrist. Rodney studies his fingers, the contrast between Sheppard’s skin and his own, and the searing warmth of John’s flesh.
They don’t make it far into John’s condo, Rodney tucking back into the curve of John’s body as soon as they shut the front door. He finds John’s mouth with his eyes closed, giving into the urge to run his hands over the waistband of John’s low-slung jeans, dipping his hands in to get at John’s ass. Sheppard growls when Rodney pulls at him for friction, and Rodney can feel his erection heavy against his thigh, knows he’s just as hard. There are limits, he thinks when John thrusts up and arches, giving Rodney a clear path up the line of his throat. It’s rough, dark with stubble and sweat and Rodney licks up a strip of it regardless. John whines, body bucking. He frees a hand to palm Rodney through his khakis, curving against the line of Rodney’s zipper. Too much, too much, too much, Rodney drops his head back against the door, tightening his grip on John’s ass.
They aren’t going to make it to the bed Rodney thinks belatedly, noting the doorknob pressed into the small of his back. He nuzzles the space behind John’s ear, closing his eyes as John continues to twist and thrive beneath Rodney’s hands. He finds John’s mouth again before the end, ghosts his lips across John’s cheek and dips into the recesses of his mouth. John swallows his litany of curses, traces new words against his lips, across the curve of his jaw. He feels the burn of blunt nails when he comes, John’s breath a rush of air before he loses any concentration and his knees buckle.
----
When Rodney wakes the next morning it’s to the long forgotten burn of muscles and a pressing weight on his left. It takes him a moment to figure out where he is, blinking up into an unfamiliar ceiling as the body beside him turns and huffs sleepily. Oh my god, he thinks, tensing. What the hell was I--he refuses to look over, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the speckled plaster covering Sheppard’s bedroom ceiling. Sheppard’s ceiling. Rodney tries not to move, insides seizing up until he feels like the air in his lungs is being pushed out against his will.
The longer he lays there, the more pronounced Sheppard’s breathing becomes and Rodney is practically flinging himself from the bed, piling on clothes haphazardly. He leaves a note as an afterthought; scribbling out a half-assed apology before walking half a block to hail a taxi.
Fuck, he thinks, fuck, fuck, fuck.
----
He spends the rest of the week in self-loathing, avoiding the labs and any other base form of communication. Sheppard calls, messages slipping from personable query to ‘You dumb hypocritical bastard,’ before he stops calling altogether. Rodney’s inclined to agree with him, but clings to the last shreds of his heterosexuality until Tuesday rolls around and Katie appears on his doorstep. He can’t figure out why she’s there at first, staring out the glass pane alongside his door in confusion until it clicks. Therapy, the thought makes him nauseous and he debates not opening the door, wishing to instead crawl back into bed and let Ringo sleep on his face. “Rodney?”
He takes in his battered socks, woolen and full of holes as well as his wrinkled caffeine molecule t-shirt and striped boxers and realizes he hasn’t shaved since Friday. Coming to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way to make himself look any better in the span of four seconds he opens the door with the proclamation of ‘flu’ on his tongue. Katie hones into his space, feeling his forehead with the back of her palm and Rodney fully appreciates the impromptu nap he took face down on the couch for making him pliant and sleep warm. Katie’s fingers are like ice, thin and bony and Rodney feels a pang for callused hands and slick palms. “We don’t have to go,” she says and Rodney almost takes the out. He’s been hiding for days, coated in guilt and regret, dreams awash in hazel eyes and tan skin. Seeing Katie only makes it worse, the split second decisions he’d made five days prior burning like an ulcer through his skin.
“No,” he says, motioning towards his bedroom, the shower.
Katie nods, smiling worriedly as Rodney makes his way upstairs on clumsy legs.
He spends an unusual amount of time just standing under the spray. He knows he’s on the crest of something, knows he slipped when he slept with Sheppard and knows he could still pull back. He could call off and go back to bed, go back to the labs, go back to everything he had before and wait for the heat in his veins to dissipate and go numb. “Rodney?” Katie’s voice causes him to flex unconsciously, fumbling for the shampoo.
“Not dead,” he says, hoping his voice is loud enough to reach the other side of the door. The “but close,” is just for him.
Katie isn’t there when he exits the bathroom, the click of her heels echoing from the tile in the kitchen. Rodney relaxes, pulling on the cleanest clothes he can find. He figures it’s best not to look like he’s spent the weekend in the bowels of hell when he’s about to throw himself onto the sacrificial pyre.
The ride to the psychiatry office is quiet; Rodney perched mulishly in the passenger side as Katie drives three miles under the speed limit. His mind is a maelstrom of contradictions, thoughts bouncing back and forth beneath the hollow mutter of straight, straight, straight. When the double glass doors come into view Rodney has to mentally still himself, taking a few deep breaths and running a hand over his hair before he gets out of the car. The receptionist greets them with the same plastic smile she’d left them with, tilting her head towards the waiting room chairs and then ignoring them completely.
It’s so disturbingly familiar that Rodney finds himself fidgeting, hands moving restlessly over the same magazines he’d written in the week before. He doesn’t bother to open them, the lure of mutilating the work of his supposed peers less tempting this time round. Katie doesn’t bother to remark on his mood, too lost in her own world of thought. When the receptionist calls to them Rodney practically jumps, snapping his hands back into his lap like he’s been struck. “Dr. McKay? Dr. Brown? Please follow me.”
This is it, Rodney thinks, thumb finding its way back to worrying at his middle fingers. It’s like being on the edge of a vital discovery, just one that you know is going to go horribly, horribly wrong. Rodney had been on the bad end of plenty of hypotheses, but in the face of his current situation he thinks he’d almost rather lose and actual limb then face emotional castration. There’s a surge in his system when Sheppard’s door comes into view, mind screaming ABORT, ABORT, ABORT, as the receptionist turns the doorknob and waves them in. Rodney stops then, watches Katie disappear through the doorway and counts to ten. The mental preparation he’d undergone for this moment was incredibly inept. When he opens his eyes again the receptionist is staring at him, smile twitching. Rodney attempts to shrug nonchalantly but feels it might have come out more like a mini-seizure. Her smile turns sympathetic and she pats him awkwardly before moving away and heading back to her post. Right, here we go.
Katie is mid-comment when he pushes through the doorway, eyes flying to Sheppard. He’s behind his desk, exuding the same easy confidence he had when they’d first met. Rodney takes five seconds to be mildly confused before he gets pissed. Fine, if Sheppard wants to play that way, he knows the rules to this game, too. “I’m sorry we’re late,” Katie is saying, “Rodney wasn’t feeling well.”
There’s a twitch in John’s features and Rodney knows the first point has been claimed, and it’s not by him. Goddamn Katie in her conversationalist honesty. Why didn’t she just tell Sheppard she’d found him coked out in his boxers, licking Wheaties residue from the kitchen table. This wasn’t going to go well unless he could get her to shut up. “Thankfully Katie was there to take care of me,” he says, patting the top of Katie’s hand and smiling tightly. It’s flimsy at best, but Sheppard doesn’t look at Katie’s reaction, he looks at Rodney and Rodney can see the second the remark hits home. One to one.
“Well,” John says, smiling sweetly, “thank god for therapy sessions or she might never have shown up.”
That blow was a little below the belt, and Rodney falters, meeting Sheppard’s eyes as he stares Rodney down. Katie, for her part, holds her tongue, confusion apparent but otherwise unnoted. “Yes,” Rodney says, barely keeping the sneer from coloring his tone, “I’ve no idea where we’d be without therapy.” John’s hand curls around the file holding Rodney and Katie’s charts and Rodney knows he’s scored another hit. It’s not nearly as satisfying as he wants it to be, revenge tainted by the want he still feels towards Sheppard. There’s a small part of him desperately clawing at the surface and he beats it down before it shows. The tension in the room is palpable, Katie’s eyes flicking from Rodney to Sheppard and back. Rodney can empathize, it’s the not knowing. The being able to understand that there’s something going on and not being able to grasp what it is, its there-- she just can’t get it to click into focus.
John holds Rodney’s gaze for a minute before turning on him and tossing the file he’d held onto his desk. “So, how were things last week in regards to your communication?” Non-existent, Rodney thinks, and knows that Sheppard knows this too.
“Things,” Katie says, looking to Rodney for guidance; none of which he gives, “things were rocky at first but I think we came to an impasse that forced us to make a decision. We’re both willing to try and I think that’s what’s most important.” Sheppard’s mask slips and Rodney feels color stain his cheeks. He didn’t want Sheppard to know this.
“Extremely important,” John says, looking directly at Rodney. “Most relationships don’t stand a chance if one of the partners is unwilling totry.”
“Stop.” Rodney says, standing up, the inanity of the entire situation finally too much for him to bear. He’s tired of the game now, tired of stepping around each other without actually saying what they mean; acting like neither of them gives a shit. He knows it’s not true, knows that Sheppard showed up for the same reason he did. Unless he was a masochist, there was no way he’d have kept the appointment. He had to think that he Rodney had something, that they have something.
“Rodney,” Katie says, obviously startled. She’s got her hand out like she wants to pull him down, but knows he won’t follow.
“I’m sorry,” he says, but it’s to John, “I panicked. I--”
“Rodney what are you talking about?” Katie’s voice is tinged with frustration and he can’t blame her, she’d have to be a moron not to catch the in-between dialogue battering back and forth across the room. It’s not fair to her; it was never fair to her. It takes a lot for Rodney to look at her, the guilt a bitter twinge amidst the desperation he feels to fix everything else.
“I slept with him,” he says, blunt and final like he always is. Katie looks bewildered, face going from slack to pinched in a matter of seconds. Rodney can tell the moment realization hits and wishes more than anything he wasn’t around to see it--that he hadn’t been the one to cause it. Katie draws herself up, gathering her things quietly with her shoulders tight.
“Jesus Christ, Rodney,” John swears low, moving from his own chair, “Katie--”
“She deserves to know!”
“Stop it,” Katie’s voice is soft, steady, “just stop. This whole time you two have been--”
“It wasn’t--”
“Don’t, Rodney. Don’t lie to me. I knew something was going on. I knew it and still. I thought you were just--but this.” She shakes her head, self-deprecating, “You should have told me.” Rodney opens his mouth, clenches his hands helplessly as he fumbles for the proper wording. Nothing he said would make it better and he wasn’t well practiced in futility. An experiment failed you fixed it or moved on. This--this he couldn’t fix, not completely and leaving it wasn’t an option. “Fuck you, Rodney.” She says, not even bothering to look at Sheppard as she leaves the room, taking what’s left of Rodney’s dignity with her.
“You’re a jackass,” John says and Rodney feels his anger spark in reflex.
“I’m a jackass? I’m a jackass? Because sleeping with your patients is part of any moral practice. Tell me, John, exactly what number am I in the--” John’s fist hits his face before he can finish and Rodney blearily curses him for taking the first punch as the taste of copper fills his mouth. He ratchets back with arms and elbows, taking John around the waist and pulling him to the floor.
“I never forced you to sleep with me, McKay,” John hisses, digging his nails into Rodney’s shoulders as he tries to push him off. Rodney has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s got more bulk than John and he knows the schoolyard bullies were always the biggest; his weight should be enough to keep Sheppard down. He curls a fist around John’s hip, other hand wrapping around his bicep. Sheppard struggles viciously, body twisting in vain attempts to buck Rodney off. They’ve knocked over most of the things on John’s desk through mere vibration, and Rodney is pretty sure he broke one of John’s chairs while taking him down. It probably won’t be long until the receptionist or someone else walks in and calls the cops to pick Rodney up for assault. “Don’t project your issues,” John breathes out, stilling completely before bringing a knee up to knock the wind from Rodney’s lungs, “I wasn’t the one that walked out.”
Rodney wheezes, hands fisting the floor in a hopeless fashion. John rolls out from under him but doesn’t bother to get up, his own breathing shaky at best. “Dr. Sheppard, are you--?” He waves the receptionist off before she fully gets her head around the door, turning to look at Rodney who’s laying face first in the carpet.
“I don’t fuck my patients, McKay,” John says but there’s no heat behind it, “contrary to whatever you think about me.” He moves to get up and Rodney makes a hapless grab for his ankle, fingers curling beneath the fabric of his pants until he reaches skin. Warm, still warm.
“I know,” he says after a bit, voice small and slightly muffled, “and I never thought--I didn’t think--I didn’t think that.” He turns so he can look up, blinking until John’s face comes into focus and he can see the frown creasing his features. “I’ve messed up everything, haven’t I?” Rodney’s insides feel mashed together, pressed tight enough to force the air from his lungs. He feels exposed, the urge to curl into himself almost overpowering. He tightens his grip on John’s ankle instead and waits for a change in his features. John’s eyes slit, concentrating on Rodney’s face before he drops his gaze, rubs a hand across his eyes and crouches.
“Yeah, you fucked up,” he takes hold of the hand Rodney has wrapped around his ankle, and Rodney feels his stomach drop. He doesn’t move though, “but I should have seen it coming,” simply lingering until Rodney’s warmed by the shared heat.
“I thought I was straight,” Rodney supplies, relief flushing through his system as John lips quirk up.
“I know.”
“I’m not though, not really.” John’s grin gets a little wider and Rodney feels the worry evaporate, that acidic feeling in his stomach clear. There’s still so much he needs to say, to explain to both John and to Katie, but for now its okay. This is okay.
“Yeah, I know that, too.”
3 months later ----
Rodney’s been pressed into the space between Sheppard’s sofa and coffee table for over an hour, writing equations into a overcrowded notebook and eating leftover Chinese directly from the carton. John’s flitted in and out of the room, picking up pieces of discarded clothing, wads of paper Rodney’s thrown in aggravation, and made numerous asinine comments on whatever show Rodney’s tuned into. Half of Rodney’s things have migrated into John’s condo, strewn and abandoned when Rodney spends the night; which is more and more of a frequent occurrence.
“Rodney?” There’s a sock clad foot pressing hard into his thigh, prodding him to attention as he stares at the television. “You’re muttering, McKay.” Rodney looks up, mouth slightly ajar as John holds out a drink and sidles next to him.
“I don’t believe this,” he says, motioning to the piece of paper in his hands.
“What is it?” John asks, propping his chin on Rodney’s shoulder.
“It’s Katie, she’s moving to California.” He can practically feel the lift of Sheppard’s eyebrow, knows the exact look he’s giving by the way his head tilts against Rodney’s skin.
“S’good surfing,” he mutters, still not grasping the point.
“Yes I’m sure that was her first consideration.” He waves his arms, jarring John from his position, “She’s going to film a television show--on plants.**” John wrinkles his nose, taking the letter from Rodney’s fingers and putting it on the coffee table away from his direct line of sight. He pulls Rodney into his lap, curling his fingers under the crook of his elbow and across his arm.
“A good work ethic is nothing to be ashamed of, McKay.”
“Plants,” Rodney hisses, and John smiles into his skin.
The End
**Next Door With Katie Brown
SGA, AU, McKay/Sheppard, NC-17, 11,047 words
Rodney McKay has never been good with relationships, so when his current 'significant other' Katie Brown forces him into Couples Therapy he thinks things can't get much worse--until he meets his therapist: Dr. John Sheppard.
Rodney wakes the next morning to the incessant buzz of his alarm clock and an under-stocked fridge. He’d ended up spending an inordinate amount of time in the coffee shop with Sheppard the day before, trading horrible relationship stories and stealing tiny packets of creamer. In the laws that govern normal society, making friends with one’s therapist is probably considered inappropriate; Rodney is sure Katie wouldn’t approve. He simply hasn’t mustered up the energy to care. He decides to purposely ignore the phone lines, screening any call that comes in from the comfort of his couch where he’s shoveling down what’s left in the Count Chocula cereal box.
By mid-day he’s spent most of his time tottering around the condo, plucking stray articles of clothing from behind couches and between cushions, throwing away magazines and Thai food cartons. He’s even cleaned out his fridge. He feels determined not to think about Katie or Sheppard, or the acidic feeling that’s been curdling his system since Tuesday. At a quarter to three he decides to head to the fresh market in Henderson to restock his fridge.
The market is a local joint on the outskirts of Vegas and depending on the time of day it’s home to an astounding array of cheap jewelry and spandex, or geriatric footwear. Rodney hopes that once the health food craze dies down he’ll be left alone with the elderly and by that time most of them will be dead. When he arrives there’s a miniature chalkboard two feet from the store’s entrance declaring a new shipment of Brillat-Savarin and Rodney takes this as a sign that god has yet to abandon him. He makes a mental note to buy dates for accompaniment and heads towards the seafood section. He’s had a Halibut craving for days, one he’s yet to quell thanks to overtime in the lab and--other things. Burgess, the head of fish and poultry, knows him by name and he smiles handsomely as Rodney makes his way over. He’s got a rough cut and square jaw, voice hard like it cuts across the back of his throat when he speaks.
“Lo, Dr. McKay,” he tilts his head in greeting as Rodney stops, wiping his hands over his apron.
“Burgess,” Rodney replies, mood lifting as he catches sight of the fresh cuts in the display window. “How’s the Halibut today?”
“Prime, Dr. McKay, prime.” He’s already moving to pluck Rodney’s customary fillet from the case, wrapping it tightly in layers of wax and brown paper. “Will that be all for you?”
“Yes, thank you,” Rodney chirps happily, cheeks round.
The next stop is the bakery for chocolate sourdough bread. It’s one of Rodney’s favorite addictions, the only problem being that he manages to eat at least 1/3 of the loaf on his way to the checkout (which is why he usually gets two). As soon as he turns into the aisle, however, he catches a glimpse of dark hair and low-slung jeans. Apparently god had abandoned him after all.
Oh, come on. He’d seen Sheppard enough for that week, any more coincidental run-ins and this was going to look really, really bad. Rodney tries to back out, stalled by an older woman who pulls her cart up behind him and tuts loudly. Sheppard looks up at that, mouth quirking as Rodney resists the urge to roll his eyes and sigh deeply.
“Young man, if you would please make up your mind.” Rodney is halfway to turning around and telling her where to shove it when Sheppard, ever the chivalrous knight, steps over and pushes Rodney’s cart toward the aisle wall with his hip. “Thank you,” the woman says pointedly, glaring darkly at Rodney before waddling off.
“It’s like a compulsion with you, isn’t it?”
“Nah,” Sheppard says, holding up two fingers, “I was just a boy scout. On my honor, I will do my--”
“Stop,” Rodney says, pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes, “stop right now,” but he’s grinning, refusing to meet Sheppard’s eyes as he cocks a hip against Rodney’s cart and looks over its contents. Rodney mentally un-stocks and restocks it, trying to weed out anything potentially humiliating for Sheppard to happen upon.
“You know, this stalking thing is kind of creepy.”
Rodney snorts, “Please, like I’d even have the time to stalk you.”
“So, if you cleared your schedule we’d be bumping into each other twice a day instead of once?”
“What? No.” Sheppard’s eyes are dancing and Rodney wants to shove at him, punch him in the shoulder, or do something equally as gay in the spirit of brotherhood. He feels embarrassed and he doesn’t know why. “Why am I the stalker anyways? It’s completely logical that someone in my position of personal achievement would be followed and--and watched from afar.”
Sheppard doesn’t look like he’s buying it, shrugging loosely, “Because I’m the therapist. In the movies the therapist always gets stalked.” Rodney watches the curve of his mouth as he says it, knows he’s teasing by the badly suppressed grin. It causes something in his stomach to twitch and turn over, his palms growing moist as Sheppard continues to laze about in his personal space. He nudges Sheppard with his cart, gets him to move so he can move. So he can occupy his hands and mind with something else.
“Yes, well, it’s usually the therapist’s fault.”
----
Rodney blames John again when Katie finds him the next morning. She’s standing near the entrance to the labs when he comes into work, eyes strained like she’s trying to mask whatever emotions she’s currently feeling. “Rodney,” she says, tone tight and caught somewhere around her nasal passages.
“Katie, you look well.”
“We need to talk.”
So much for pleasantries, “Sure,” he holds out a hand for her to lead the way and she backs down the hall into a nearby office. “Well,” he starts, following her into the empty room, rubbing his thumb across his middle fingers. It’s a nervous habit he can’t seem to break. He’s got a good idea where this conversation is headed, Katie’s complete avoidance of direct eye contact is a great signifier. Hopelessly, Rodney tries to pile his thoughts into a coherent string.
“Look,” Katie says, “This isn’t working.” But being mentally prepared doesn’t stop the surge of panic Rodney feels arcing through his system. His muscles seize up automatically as his mind scrambles for purchase on something lucid, something grandiose that will stall the inevitable. “You’ve been avoiding me all week,” she says and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, looking up to meet his gaze until all he sees is the pale color of her skin and the blue of her eyes, “and I’d be lying if I pretended I were behaving any better.”
“Katie,” Rodney says, palms sweating. She holds up a hand and shakes her head.
“Just--just let me say this, please.” She shifts focus until she’s staring at the tiled floors, twisting the skin on her fingers to ugly shades of red. “I know this isn’t easy for you--making time with work--but I think, I think if you tried. If we tried, it’d be worth it.” She smiles, her eyes steady, focused and Rodney’s struck by the sudden perfection that had him first feigning pteridology skills to impress her.
He nods silently, mouth crooked. He’s not sure what he wants it to mean, but she seems to take it as an affirmation. She’d been his ideal once and watching her walk out the door now Rodney wonders when that changed.
----
“You do not look well,” Rodney slumps haphazardly against the lab table, Radek’s eyes roving over him with a disturbing sort of efficiency. “You have not been eating?” Rodney ignores him, opting to press his suddenly pounding head against the cool metal of Zelenka’s desk. He feels sick and he doesn’t know why; bile thick and sour at the back of his throat. He should feel relieved, light in the face his near failed relationship, but he doesn’t. He feels claustrophobic, trapped, guilty.
“She didn’t break up with me,” he says, zeroing in on the trip click of Zelenka’s fingers as they trail across the keyboard.
“I assume you mean Katie. Is this not good thing?”
“Yes. No. It should be.” Rodney moans, turning his head until the refracted light from the overhead fluorescents blink against his retinas. Radek stops typing, stilling as though he’s deep in thought. Rodney lets the silence curl into the crooks of his body, his own thoughts breaking recklessly as they wash over each other.
“There is nothing wrong with moving on, Rodney,” Radek says eventually. Rodney says nothing in return.
----
The day passes in relative calm, routine procedures seeming particularly mundane in light of Rodney’s personal issues. His earlier conversation with Katie itches at the edge of his consciousness, pulling him out of his element, and ruining any attempt he makes to get actual work done. Around eleven he calls it quits and gives Zelenka a vague goodbye. Without the focus of work he finds himself consumed by thoughts of Katie, the sensation of drowning cutting clear across his system.
It’s an hour before he realizes he’s been driving aimlessly, searching for a beat-up truck to sidle up against. “I’m completely insane,” he says out loud, rubbing a hand across his eyes. He feels exhausted, muscles weak against the restlessness he can’t seem to pinpoint or alleviate. Mentally he weighs the odds of him just happening across Sheppard, factoring in the distance between John’s practice and Area 51. He has no idea where Sheppard lives, but he uses the café as a breaking point and begins to circle the area.
It takes twenty-three minutes and thirty-five seconds for Rodney to find him, time in which he has managed to fully convince himself that searching for one’s couples therapist with a stalker-like accuracy near midnight is a completely sane venture. He wants to discuss his relationship and Sheppard is a relationship therapist. Rodney is doing exactly what he’s supposed to do, seek out reasonable advice from a professional. He has his shrink on call 24/7 why should Sheppard be any different? Rodney can’t function with the distraction and everyone was losing out by his continued inability to work. This thing with Katie, this thing beyond Katie, needed to be rectified.
The bar sits on a slant, dingy brick overlaid with shadows. There’s a sleekness in the way the neon sign burns it’s letters back into the building, alphabet curves edged pure white. Rodney doesn’t bother to read it, simply notes the smooth shift of it against his skin as he pulls into the parking lot. He’s focused on the truck loitering in a far corner of the pavement. There’s a moment’s hesitation where he debates whether or not the vehicle actually belongs to Sheppard and not to some other cowboy with a complex, but the lure of liquor and chance win out and Rodney pushes into the bar with his chin raised.
He starts to rethink his conviction when he spots a familiar curve of spine pressed into tight black cotton. Sheppard’s hanging idly over the bar, eyes firmly attached to the nearest plasma where fourteen men appear to be beating each other into Astroturf. It’s not until he’s close enough to see the graze of a five o’ clock shadow across John’s jaw that he figures it out, words tumbling out of him as Sheppard looks up, uncoiling from where they’ve been lodged on the back of his tongue since Tuesday. “I don’t think I love my girlfriend.”
John blinks at him slow, licking his lips before motioning the bartender over and ordering Rodney a drink.
They move to a sterilized table in the back, wood blistering even under the plastic veneer. Rodney picks at is as Sheppard waits for him to talk. He takes a deep breath and runs his palms over the tops of his thighs, chancing a look at Sheppard--who’s quiet and still--before opening his mouth to make sense of all the things he’d rather not say. “I don’t think I love my girlfriend,” he repeats, like it’s a starting point. Sheppard’s eyes slit, lashes a dark rim against his skin. Rodney can’t tell if he’s annoyed or simply weighing the statement to some sort of graph inside his head. His fingers go loose around the neck of his beer bottle and he looks Rodney straight in the eye.
“Do you think you need to love someone to be in a relationship?” he asks, and Rodney realizes with an immediate clarity that this isn’t what he wanted. Not Sheppard the couples therapist who asks invasive questions in an insipid, detached fashion. He wants John, the idiot who drives a shitty pick-up and uses fluid mechanics to back Superman’s reputation.
“Don’t,” he says, watching Sheppard’s eyes flash as his eyebrow arches, “It’s not--not this. I don’t want it like this.”
Now Sheppard does look irritated, face a mix of anxious strain and exhaustion. He’s picking at the slip around his beer, peeling the watered paper from the glass. “Then what do you want, Rodney?”
His voice is low and Rodney breaths in at the familiar flip turn of his stomach. John’s no longer looking at him, shaded by a diffused overhead light. Rodney watches the hitch of his shoulders as he tenses and relaxes, waiting. Rodney can feel his mouth dry out, tongue heavy and thick against his teeth. You, he thinks, before giving in to whatever brought him to this point, twisting to reach across the table and pull John to him with a fistful of worn fabric clutched between his fingers. The kiss is clumsy, angle completely wrong and they click teeth before John’s hand comes up and tugs Rodney’s hair to tilt him and plunge deeper into his mouth. God, yes. John tastes like he smells, summer sweet with the bitter taint of sweat, the tang of alcohol a heady buzz beneath all the heat.
“Jesus,” Rodney hisses, lips throbbing as he takes in Sheppard-- unkempt and wild eyed.
“Car,” John says and Rodney catches a strip of bare skin as he pulls back from the table and throws down a few bills. They trip from the bar in an unorganized fashion. Tangling together as soon as the truck comes into view, the car is cool against Rodney’s back, a rough contrast to John’s hand as he pushes it up and under Rodney’s t-shirt. He’s so goddamn warm and Rodney can’t figure out which part of him he wants to touch first. He wraps his fingers around the crook of John’s elbow, presses his thumb into the crease hard enough to get a phantom heartbeat. “Need to,” John’s nips at his jaw, tongue following the path of his teeth, smoothing over bitten skin.
“Oh,” Rodney says, nodding dumbly at the loss of John’s body. He turns instinctively to open the car door, tugging mindlessly on the handle and slipping inside as John starts the engine with steady hands. He’s mindless in the car ride, hands picking a pattern over his pants until John grabs a hold of his hand and presses his thumb into the hollow of Rodney’s wrist. Rodney studies his fingers, the contrast between Sheppard’s skin and his own, and the searing warmth of John’s flesh.
They don’t make it far into John’s condo, Rodney tucking back into the curve of John’s body as soon as they shut the front door. He finds John’s mouth with his eyes closed, giving into the urge to run his hands over the waistband of John’s low-slung jeans, dipping his hands in to get at John’s ass. Sheppard growls when Rodney pulls at him for friction, and Rodney can feel his erection heavy against his thigh, knows he’s just as hard. There are limits, he thinks when John thrusts up and arches, giving Rodney a clear path up the line of his throat. It’s rough, dark with stubble and sweat and Rodney licks up a strip of it regardless. John whines, body bucking. He frees a hand to palm Rodney through his khakis, curving against the line of Rodney’s zipper. Too much, too much, too much, Rodney drops his head back against the door, tightening his grip on John’s ass.
They aren’t going to make it to the bed Rodney thinks belatedly, noting the doorknob pressed into the small of his back. He nuzzles the space behind John’s ear, closing his eyes as John continues to twist and thrive beneath Rodney’s hands. He finds John’s mouth again before the end, ghosts his lips across John’s cheek and dips into the recesses of his mouth. John swallows his litany of curses, traces new words against his lips, across the curve of his jaw. He feels the burn of blunt nails when he comes, John’s breath a rush of air before he loses any concentration and his knees buckle.
----
When Rodney wakes the next morning it’s to the long forgotten burn of muscles and a pressing weight on his left. It takes him a moment to figure out where he is, blinking up into an unfamiliar ceiling as the body beside him turns and huffs sleepily. Oh my god, he thinks, tensing. What the hell was I--he refuses to look over, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the speckled plaster covering Sheppard’s bedroom ceiling. Sheppard’s ceiling. Rodney tries not to move, insides seizing up until he feels like the air in his lungs is being pushed out against his will.
The longer he lays there, the more pronounced Sheppard’s breathing becomes and Rodney is practically flinging himself from the bed, piling on clothes haphazardly. He leaves a note as an afterthought; scribbling out a half-assed apology before walking half a block to hail a taxi.
Fuck, he thinks, fuck, fuck, fuck.
----
He spends the rest of the week in self-loathing, avoiding the labs and any other base form of communication. Sheppard calls, messages slipping from personable query to ‘You dumb hypocritical bastard,’ before he stops calling altogether. Rodney’s inclined to agree with him, but clings to the last shreds of his heterosexuality until Tuesday rolls around and Katie appears on his doorstep. He can’t figure out why she’s there at first, staring out the glass pane alongside his door in confusion until it clicks. Therapy, the thought makes him nauseous and he debates not opening the door, wishing to instead crawl back into bed and let Ringo sleep on his face. “Rodney?”
He takes in his battered socks, woolen and full of holes as well as his wrinkled caffeine molecule t-shirt and striped boxers and realizes he hasn’t shaved since Friday. Coming to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way to make himself look any better in the span of four seconds he opens the door with the proclamation of ‘flu’ on his tongue. Katie hones into his space, feeling his forehead with the back of her palm and Rodney fully appreciates the impromptu nap he took face down on the couch for making him pliant and sleep warm. Katie’s fingers are like ice, thin and bony and Rodney feels a pang for callused hands and slick palms. “We don’t have to go,” she says and Rodney almost takes the out. He’s been hiding for days, coated in guilt and regret, dreams awash in hazel eyes and tan skin. Seeing Katie only makes it worse, the split second decisions he’d made five days prior burning like an ulcer through his skin.
“No,” he says, motioning towards his bedroom, the shower.
Katie nods, smiling worriedly as Rodney makes his way upstairs on clumsy legs.
He spends an unusual amount of time just standing under the spray. He knows he’s on the crest of something, knows he slipped when he slept with Sheppard and knows he could still pull back. He could call off and go back to bed, go back to the labs, go back to everything he had before and wait for the heat in his veins to dissipate and go numb. “Rodney?” Katie’s voice causes him to flex unconsciously, fumbling for the shampoo.
“Not dead,” he says, hoping his voice is loud enough to reach the other side of the door. The “but close,” is just for him.
Katie isn’t there when he exits the bathroom, the click of her heels echoing from the tile in the kitchen. Rodney relaxes, pulling on the cleanest clothes he can find. He figures it’s best not to look like he’s spent the weekend in the bowels of hell when he’s about to throw himself onto the sacrificial pyre.
The ride to the psychiatry office is quiet; Rodney perched mulishly in the passenger side as Katie drives three miles under the speed limit. His mind is a maelstrom of contradictions, thoughts bouncing back and forth beneath the hollow mutter of straight, straight, straight. When the double glass doors come into view Rodney has to mentally still himself, taking a few deep breaths and running a hand over his hair before he gets out of the car. The receptionist greets them with the same plastic smile she’d left them with, tilting her head towards the waiting room chairs and then ignoring them completely.
It’s so disturbingly familiar that Rodney finds himself fidgeting, hands moving restlessly over the same magazines he’d written in the week before. He doesn’t bother to open them, the lure of mutilating the work of his supposed peers less tempting this time round. Katie doesn’t bother to remark on his mood, too lost in her own world of thought. When the receptionist calls to them Rodney practically jumps, snapping his hands back into his lap like he’s been struck. “Dr. McKay? Dr. Brown? Please follow me.”
This is it, Rodney thinks, thumb finding its way back to worrying at his middle fingers. It’s like being on the edge of a vital discovery, just one that you know is going to go horribly, horribly wrong. Rodney had been on the bad end of plenty of hypotheses, but in the face of his current situation he thinks he’d almost rather lose and actual limb then face emotional castration. There’s a surge in his system when Sheppard’s door comes into view, mind screaming ABORT, ABORT, ABORT, as the receptionist turns the doorknob and waves them in. Rodney stops then, watches Katie disappear through the doorway and counts to ten. The mental preparation he’d undergone for this moment was incredibly inept. When he opens his eyes again the receptionist is staring at him, smile twitching. Rodney attempts to shrug nonchalantly but feels it might have come out more like a mini-seizure. Her smile turns sympathetic and she pats him awkwardly before moving away and heading back to her post. Right, here we go.
Katie is mid-comment when he pushes through the doorway, eyes flying to Sheppard. He’s behind his desk, exuding the same easy confidence he had when they’d first met. Rodney takes five seconds to be mildly confused before he gets pissed. Fine, if Sheppard wants to play that way, he knows the rules to this game, too. “I’m sorry we’re late,” Katie is saying, “Rodney wasn’t feeling well.”
There’s a twitch in John’s features and Rodney knows the first point has been claimed, and it’s not by him. Goddamn Katie in her conversationalist honesty. Why didn’t she just tell Sheppard she’d found him coked out in his boxers, licking Wheaties residue from the kitchen table. This wasn’t going to go well unless he could get her to shut up. “Thankfully Katie was there to take care of me,” he says, patting the top of Katie’s hand and smiling tightly. It’s flimsy at best, but Sheppard doesn’t look at Katie’s reaction, he looks at Rodney and Rodney can see the second the remark hits home. One to one.
“Well,” John says, smiling sweetly, “thank god for therapy sessions or she might never have shown up.”
That blow was a little below the belt, and Rodney falters, meeting Sheppard’s eyes as he stares Rodney down. Katie, for her part, holds her tongue, confusion apparent but otherwise unnoted. “Yes,” Rodney says, barely keeping the sneer from coloring his tone, “I’ve no idea where we’d be without therapy.” John’s hand curls around the file holding Rodney and Katie’s charts and Rodney knows he’s scored another hit. It’s not nearly as satisfying as he wants it to be, revenge tainted by the want he still feels towards Sheppard. There’s a small part of him desperately clawing at the surface and he beats it down before it shows. The tension in the room is palpable, Katie’s eyes flicking from Rodney to Sheppard and back. Rodney can empathize, it’s the not knowing. The being able to understand that there’s something going on and not being able to grasp what it is, its there-- she just can’t get it to click into focus.
John holds Rodney’s gaze for a minute before turning on him and tossing the file he’d held onto his desk. “So, how were things last week in regards to your communication?” Non-existent, Rodney thinks, and knows that Sheppard knows this too.
“Things,” Katie says, looking to Rodney for guidance; none of which he gives, “things were rocky at first but I think we came to an impasse that forced us to make a decision. We’re both willing to try and I think that’s what’s most important.” Sheppard’s mask slips and Rodney feels color stain his cheeks. He didn’t want Sheppard to know this.
“Extremely important,” John says, looking directly at Rodney. “Most relationships don’t stand a chance if one of the partners is unwilling totry.”
“Stop.” Rodney says, standing up, the inanity of the entire situation finally too much for him to bear. He’s tired of the game now, tired of stepping around each other without actually saying what they mean; acting like neither of them gives a shit. He knows it’s not true, knows that Sheppard showed up for the same reason he did. Unless he was a masochist, there was no way he’d have kept the appointment. He had to think that he Rodney had something, that they have something.
“Rodney,” Katie says, obviously startled. She’s got her hand out like she wants to pull him down, but knows he won’t follow.
“I’m sorry,” he says, but it’s to John, “I panicked. I--”
“Rodney what are you talking about?” Katie’s voice is tinged with frustration and he can’t blame her, she’d have to be a moron not to catch the in-between dialogue battering back and forth across the room. It’s not fair to her; it was never fair to her. It takes a lot for Rodney to look at her, the guilt a bitter twinge amidst the desperation he feels to fix everything else.
“I slept with him,” he says, blunt and final like he always is. Katie looks bewildered, face going from slack to pinched in a matter of seconds. Rodney can tell the moment realization hits and wishes more than anything he wasn’t around to see it--that he hadn’t been the one to cause it. Katie draws herself up, gathering her things quietly with her shoulders tight.
“Jesus Christ, Rodney,” John swears low, moving from his own chair, “Katie--”
“She deserves to know!”
“Stop it,” Katie’s voice is soft, steady, “just stop. This whole time you two have been--”
“It wasn’t--”
“Don’t, Rodney. Don’t lie to me. I knew something was going on. I knew it and still. I thought you were just--but this.” She shakes her head, self-deprecating, “You should have told me.” Rodney opens his mouth, clenches his hands helplessly as he fumbles for the proper wording. Nothing he said would make it better and he wasn’t well practiced in futility. An experiment failed you fixed it or moved on. This--this he couldn’t fix, not completely and leaving it wasn’t an option. “Fuck you, Rodney.” She says, not even bothering to look at Sheppard as she leaves the room, taking what’s left of Rodney’s dignity with her.
“You’re a jackass,” John says and Rodney feels his anger spark in reflex.
“I’m a jackass? I’m a jackass? Because sleeping with your patients is part of any moral practice. Tell me, John, exactly what number am I in the--” John’s fist hits his face before he can finish and Rodney blearily curses him for taking the first punch as the taste of copper fills his mouth. He ratchets back with arms and elbows, taking John around the waist and pulling him to the floor.
“I never forced you to sleep with me, McKay,” John hisses, digging his nails into Rodney’s shoulders as he tries to push him off. Rodney has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s got more bulk than John and he knows the schoolyard bullies were always the biggest; his weight should be enough to keep Sheppard down. He curls a fist around John’s hip, other hand wrapping around his bicep. Sheppard struggles viciously, body twisting in vain attempts to buck Rodney off. They’ve knocked over most of the things on John’s desk through mere vibration, and Rodney is pretty sure he broke one of John’s chairs while taking him down. It probably won’t be long until the receptionist or someone else walks in and calls the cops to pick Rodney up for assault. “Don’t project your issues,” John breathes out, stilling completely before bringing a knee up to knock the wind from Rodney’s lungs, “I wasn’t the one that walked out.”
Rodney wheezes, hands fisting the floor in a hopeless fashion. John rolls out from under him but doesn’t bother to get up, his own breathing shaky at best. “Dr. Sheppard, are you--?” He waves the receptionist off before she fully gets her head around the door, turning to look at Rodney who’s laying face first in the carpet.
“I don’t fuck my patients, McKay,” John says but there’s no heat behind it, “contrary to whatever you think about me.” He moves to get up and Rodney makes a hapless grab for his ankle, fingers curling beneath the fabric of his pants until he reaches skin. Warm, still warm.
“I know,” he says after a bit, voice small and slightly muffled, “and I never thought--I didn’t think--I didn’t think that.” He turns so he can look up, blinking until John’s face comes into focus and he can see the frown creasing his features. “I’ve messed up everything, haven’t I?” Rodney’s insides feel mashed together, pressed tight enough to force the air from his lungs. He feels exposed, the urge to curl into himself almost overpowering. He tightens his grip on John’s ankle instead and waits for a change in his features. John’s eyes slit, concentrating on Rodney’s face before he drops his gaze, rubs a hand across his eyes and crouches.
“Yeah, you fucked up,” he takes hold of the hand Rodney has wrapped around his ankle, and Rodney feels his stomach drop. He doesn’t move though, “but I should have seen it coming,” simply lingering until Rodney’s warmed by the shared heat.
“I thought I was straight,” Rodney supplies, relief flushing through his system as John lips quirk up.
“I know.”
“I’m not though, not really.” John’s grin gets a little wider and Rodney feels the worry evaporate, that acidic feeling in his stomach clear. There’s still so much he needs to say, to explain to both John and to Katie, but for now its okay. This is okay.
“Yeah, I know that, too.”
3 months later ----
Rodney’s been pressed into the space between Sheppard’s sofa and coffee table for over an hour, writing equations into a overcrowded notebook and eating leftover Chinese directly from the carton. John’s flitted in and out of the room, picking up pieces of discarded clothing, wads of paper Rodney’s thrown in aggravation, and made numerous asinine comments on whatever show Rodney’s tuned into. Half of Rodney’s things have migrated into John’s condo, strewn and abandoned when Rodney spends the night; which is more and more of a frequent occurrence.
“Rodney?” There’s a sock clad foot pressing hard into his thigh, prodding him to attention as he stares at the television. “You’re muttering, McKay.” Rodney looks up, mouth slightly ajar as John holds out a drink and sidles next to him.
“I don’t believe this,” he says, motioning to the piece of paper in his hands.
“What is it?” John asks, propping his chin on Rodney’s shoulder.
“It’s Katie, she’s moving to California.” He can practically feel the lift of Sheppard’s eyebrow, knows the exact look he’s giving by the way his head tilts against Rodney’s skin.
“S’good surfing,” he mutters, still not grasping the point.
“Yes I’m sure that was her first consideration.” He waves his arms, jarring John from his position, “She’s going to film a television show--on plants.**” John wrinkles his nose, taking the letter from Rodney’s fingers and putting it on the coffee table away from his direct line of sight. He pulls Rodney into his lap, curling his fingers under the crook of his elbow and across his arm.
“A good work ethic is nothing to be ashamed of, McKay.”
“Plants,” Rodney hisses, and John smiles into his skin.
The End
**Next Door With Katie Brown