Aerodynamics (The Flip to the B-side Mix) [Stargate Atlantis; John Sheppard/Rodney McKay]
Title: Aerodynamics (The Flip to the B-side Mix)
Author: gblvr
Summary: Most days the closest he gets to flying is the bike ride to and from....
Rating: PG
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Title, Author and URL of original story: Aerodynamics by busaikko; http://busaikko.slashcity.org/?p=65#more-65
Beta thanks: Many, many thanks to my friend M., who is not even in fandom, for beta work....
If he'd known starting his own aerial tour company would mean never flying any of his own damn helicopters, John Sheppard would have said fuck it all, and worked for someone else. He hadn’t known, though, and now he spends all of his time doing paperwork and balancing books and scheduling other pilots, and most days the closest he gets to flying is the bike ride to and from the Puddlejumper, Inc. hangar at the airport.
He rides fast, leaning low over the handlebars, weaving in and out of snarled traffic, speeding up when he hits a stretch without traffic lights. The wind feels fantastic rushing past his ears, not as cold as it should be for December in Chicago, but cool enough that he isn't even breaking a sweat.
He passes several cars, pushing hard to make the next light, but when he glances up, he sees the light has already turned yellow and everyone is braking hard to avoid hitting the car in front of them. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of movement, and he turns his head to look; the woman in the car he's passing is smacking her hand against the steering wheel and cussing. Typical Chicago behavior; after three years living here, John's used to it.
When he faces forward again, the moron in the next car up has opened his door, and John swerves hard to avoid crashing head first into it -- safety glass or not, going through a car window is low in his list of fun things to do. Instead, he turns sharply to the left, doing some cussing of his own when his front tire hits the curb. He's untangling himself from the wreckage of his favorite bike when he hears his name.
"Sheppard?"
He looks up to see Rodney McKay trying, and failing, to get out of the car. He just blinks a couple of times in shock before he turns back to assess the damage to his front tire. The tire is shredded, and the wheel is bent beyond repair, but it's not until he feels the hot trickle of blood from a stinging cut running down over his knee that he really starts to lose it. He stands up, unbuckles the chinstrap of his now useless helmet and flings it to the ground. His breath is coming hard now, and he can feel sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades.
"So you're trying to kill me now?" As he watches. McKay finally fumbles the seatbelt off and half-falls out into the street. He looks...good, maybe a little less hair, a few more wrinkles and a little more padding around the middle, but he looks good. The cut of his suit is sharp and well-tailored, and if the tie isn't silk, John will eat what's left his bike tire. For once Rodney looks well-rested and John doesn't think he's ever seen him look less stressed.
So yeah, he looks better than John remembers, not that he'd admit he ever thinks about Rodney, or Teyla, or Ronon, or anyone else he left behind when the Air Force recalled him to Earth.
He'd thought it was a temporary recall; they'd all thought it was, and so they hadn't really said goodbye. He figured he'd spend a few months at the Mountain, before the SGC cut him loose, and sent him back to Atlantis. It wasn't the short stint he'd thought it would be, though -- hell, he hadn't even been assigned to the Mountain. He'd been reassigned to flying combat missions in fucking Iraq, for an unspecified amount of time, as part of the Pentagon's ongoing stop-gap measures.
He'd forgotten how hard it was to make new friends, how bad he was at opening up. He'd gritted his teeth and played nice and kept everything light and on the surface, while trying to forget how it felt to fly something that responded to his very thoughts, what it felt like to step through the event horizon and onto another planet, how well he'd fit with Rodney and Teyla and Ronon.
When he couldn't forget, he thought about writing, maybe sending an email, but he'd never been good at that kind of thing, so...he didn't. Mitchell sent him updates for a year or so, but then his chopper was shot down outside Mosul, and by the time he was up for reading of any kind, he'd spent four months in an Army hospital in Germany, and then been discharged. Once he was no longer in the Air Force, his emails to Mitchell bounced back, and so he hadn't heard anything about Atlantis until the news broke about declassification. He'd wondered how long it would take Rodney to publish, and how long after that he'd be awarded his much-deserved and often talked about Nobel.
He didn't try to get in touch though; he figured he'd already missed his chance.
And now they're here, standing in the middle of the road, with people honking and shouting at them, and Rodney is touching him, gripping his shoulder and brushing shaking fingers over his cheek, rasping against the stubble there, and it feels like coming home. Rodney's babbling, words tumbling out in a hurried rush that matches John's memories so perfectly it takes his breath away.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be creepy and weird, it's just, you're alive, you're alive, and -- God, look at you."
John can feel the weight of his regard, sees the way Rodney is drinking him in, and he knows -- this is it, this is the chance they never let themselves take, the chance they were too chicken shit to take, and so he leans in, keeping his gaze on Rodney's as he says, "I'm alive, and I'm sorry if I'm reading this all wrong, but --" He kisses Rodney then, soft and chaste and sweet, and when he pulls away he whispers, "You're alive."
Rodney slides his hand from John's shoulder to his neck and wraps his fingers into John's hair, tugging a bit as he says, "We're alive, John." And then he's kissing John, hard and deep and perfect, and all John can do is hold on, and hope that Rodney hears everything he's not saying....
Author: gblvr
Summary: Most days the closest he gets to flying is the bike ride to and from....
Rating: PG
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Title, Author and URL of original story: Aerodynamics by busaikko; http://busaikko.slashcity.org/?p=65#more-65
Beta thanks: Many, many thanks to my friend M., who is not even in fandom, for beta work....
If he'd known starting his own aerial tour company would mean never flying any of his own damn helicopters, John Sheppard would have said fuck it all, and worked for someone else. He hadn’t known, though, and now he spends all of his time doing paperwork and balancing books and scheduling other pilots, and most days the closest he gets to flying is the bike ride to and from the Puddlejumper, Inc. hangar at the airport.
He rides fast, leaning low over the handlebars, weaving in and out of snarled traffic, speeding up when he hits a stretch without traffic lights. The wind feels fantastic rushing past his ears, not as cold as it should be for December in Chicago, but cool enough that he isn't even breaking a sweat.
He passes several cars, pushing hard to make the next light, but when he glances up, he sees the light has already turned yellow and everyone is braking hard to avoid hitting the car in front of them. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of movement, and he turns his head to look; the woman in the car he's passing is smacking her hand against the steering wheel and cussing. Typical Chicago behavior; after three years living here, John's used to it.
When he faces forward again, the moron in the next car up has opened his door, and John swerves hard to avoid crashing head first into it -- safety glass or not, going through a car window is low in his list of fun things to do. Instead, he turns sharply to the left, doing some cussing of his own when his front tire hits the curb. He's untangling himself from the wreckage of his favorite bike when he hears his name.
"Sheppard?"
He looks up to see Rodney McKay trying, and failing, to get out of the car. He just blinks a couple of times in shock before he turns back to assess the damage to his front tire. The tire is shredded, and the wheel is bent beyond repair, but it's not until he feels the hot trickle of blood from a stinging cut running down over his knee that he really starts to lose it. He stands up, unbuckles the chinstrap of his now useless helmet and flings it to the ground. His breath is coming hard now, and he can feel sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades.
"So you're trying to kill me now?" As he watches. McKay finally fumbles the seatbelt off and half-falls out into the street. He looks...good, maybe a little less hair, a few more wrinkles and a little more padding around the middle, but he looks good. The cut of his suit is sharp and well-tailored, and if the tie isn't silk, John will eat what's left his bike tire. For once Rodney looks well-rested and John doesn't think he's ever seen him look less stressed.
So yeah, he looks better than John remembers, not that he'd admit he ever thinks about Rodney, or Teyla, or Ronon, or anyone else he left behind when the Air Force recalled him to Earth.
He'd thought it was a temporary recall; they'd all thought it was, and so they hadn't really said goodbye. He figured he'd spend a few months at the Mountain, before the SGC cut him loose, and sent him back to Atlantis. It wasn't the short stint he'd thought it would be, though -- hell, he hadn't even been assigned to the Mountain. He'd been reassigned to flying combat missions in fucking Iraq, for an unspecified amount of time, as part of the Pentagon's ongoing stop-gap measures.
He'd forgotten how hard it was to make new friends, how bad he was at opening up. He'd gritted his teeth and played nice and kept everything light and on the surface, while trying to forget how it felt to fly something that responded to his very thoughts, what it felt like to step through the event horizon and onto another planet, how well he'd fit with Rodney and Teyla and Ronon.
When he couldn't forget, he thought about writing, maybe sending an email, but he'd never been good at that kind of thing, so...he didn't. Mitchell sent him updates for a year or so, but then his chopper was shot down outside Mosul, and by the time he was up for reading of any kind, he'd spent four months in an Army hospital in Germany, and then been discharged. Once he was no longer in the Air Force, his emails to Mitchell bounced back, and so he hadn't heard anything about Atlantis until the news broke about declassification. He'd wondered how long it would take Rodney to publish, and how long after that he'd be awarded his much-deserved and often talked about Nobel.
He didn't try to get in touch though; he figured he'd already missed his chance.
And now they're here, standing in the middle of the road, with people honking and shouting at them, and Rodney is touching him, gripping his shoulder and brushing shaking fingers over his cheek, rasping against the stubble there, and it feels like coming home. Rodney's babbling, words tumbling out in a hurried rush that matches John's memories so perfectly it takes his breath away.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be creepy and weird, it's just, you're alive, you're alive, and -- God, look at you."
John can feel the weight of his regard, sees the way Rodney is drinking him in, and he knows -- this is it, this is the chance they never let themselves take, the chance they were too chicken shit to take, and so he leans in, keeping his gaze on Rodney's as he says, "I'm alive, and I'm sorry if I'm reading this all wrong, but --" He kisses Rodney then, soft and chaste and sweet, and when he pulls away he whispers, "You're alive."
Rodney slides his hand from John's shoulder to his neck and wraps his fingers into John's hair, tugging a bit as he says, "We're alive, John." And then he's kissing John, hard and deep and perfect, and all John can do is hold on, and hope that Rodney hears everything he's not saying....