The Awful Moment by Purna (Post Secret Challenge)
The Awful Moment by purna
McKay/Sheppard
2,000 words
NC-17
A/N: The instant I saw 20thcenturyvole's Rodney postcard, here (third one down), this story started taking over my brain.
Summary: Rodney's never said "I love you" to anyone because he thought it would sound ridiculous coming out of his mouth.
The Awful Moment
The best thing about fucking Sheppard, besides the hot, roll-your-eyes-back-in-your-head, toe-curling sex--okay, maybe the sex was the best thing, now that Rodney had stopped to think about it, taken a moment to prioritize. Because really, sex that good deserved the top spot on any list of things occupying the parts of his brain not already busy with ZPMs and is there citrus in this? and male pattern baldness.
Anyway, the second best thing about fucking Sheppard was that he didn't have to worry about the awful moment, which was italicized and said with gravitas even in Rodney's head. The awful moment had loomed like a big looming thing over all of Rodney's relationships, making him nervous and awkward, just waiting for the awful moment to strike, the test he'd inevitably fail.
The first awful moment, which was unique only in that it set the trend, happened in undergrad. Rebecca Green, only a year Rodney's senior and something of a physics prodigy herself, was so not Rodney's type, dark and skinny and loud and possibly his match in both sarcasm and smarts (although Rodney wouldn't have admitted the last under threat of physical harm or even spoken-word poetry readings).
They'd been teamed up together in the lab--Dr. Henson had said that his two most annoying students were obviously meant for each other. The only thing Rodney and Rebecca agreed on when they first eyed each other warily over the black soapstone lab counter was that Dr. Henson was an evil, evil man.
They'd spent the first week screaming at each other, and the second week fucking like bunnies in Rebecca's narrow dormitory bed, the sheets printed with daisies and the smell of pot smoke and disinfectant in the air.
Rodney was never really sure how it happened and didn't ever think of Rebecca as his girlfriend. The regular sex was nice, and they had someone to talk to when they found themselves awake at four a.m. with the next best idea in theoretical physics or at least the solutions to Dr. Kwan's devilishly difficult extra-credit proofs.
Three months in, and Rodney was congratulating himself with the whole woman thing, which had thoroughly confounded him up to now in life. Everyone made out women to be complex and strange. They really weren't, if you were lucky enough to have a geek female friend with social skills as retarded as your own.
It all came to a screeching halt one night when he was lying back against Rebecca's too fluffy pillows, sated and on the edge of sleep. He'd had to shove her well-worn stuffed bear off the bed, because nothing killed his erection faster as he was trying to roll a condom on than the accusing, glassy eyes of her beloved childhood companion.
Rebecca snuggled close, and Rodney stifled the urge to move away. He was really too hot and sticky for all that skin contact. "Rodney," she said. Rodney just grunted, because sleep trumped post-coital chitchat hands down, in his book. "Rodney," she repeated, and he knew they were enough alike that she wouldn't let it go.
"Rebecca," he said evenly, because he knew it pissed her off a little when he did that.
She ignored it, tracing a finger over his chest, grazing a nipple, which made him shiver every time. "Rodney, I love you," she said, just as the shiver really kicked in.
Which Rodney thought was a little unfair, to be distracted at a moment like that. Her finger coaxed another shiver from him, and she leaned into his body, tense and expectant. His mouth was hanging open inelegantly, and he really, really didn't know what to say.
He knew what she wanted him to say, and he knew that many guys would just return it, say, "I love you, too," because it didn't take a genius to come up with the answer to that cost-benefit analysis.
He really did like Rebecca, though; she was cool and smart and wickedly funny, and he'd never known a girl who owned every Tom Baker episode of Dr. Who on VHS. But he didn't love her, and he'd never, ever thought that she'd love him. He'd thought they were clearly defined already--friends, fuck-buddies, socially dysfunctional smart-ass conspirators. Not sappy romantics in love.
He'd never thought to be in this position, never thought someone would ever want that sort of thing from him. Just the thought of those words coming out of his mouth, "I love you," seemed utterly ridiculous. Because what did he know about love? Hell, he'd pretty much failed at loving his parents, good luck with the whole non-platonic side of the word.
And while he knew himself to be a selfish asshole, he wasn't that kind of selfish asshole, who'd say those words just to keep an active sex life.
So he lay there with his mouth open, until he finally got it together enough to say, "Ummm. Rebecca."
"You don't feel the same way." She'd pulled away a little, the sentence a question.
He sat up, glancing down at the sheet before he forced himself to meet her eyes. "I... I don't know what to say. I thought we were just friends," he stuttered and winced at his own complete lack of tact.
"Friends." Her voice sounded hollow. She'd sat up in bed, pulled the sheet up over her breasts, the first discomfort she'd shown at being naked with him. "A friend who'll fuck you, is that it, Rodney? That's all I am, a friend?"
"Damn it, Rebecca, you're my best friend, oww--"
She'd punched him, hard, on the bicep. "I'm in love with you, stupid." The last syllable rose on a little hiccup, and Rodney felt his insides twist. "Rodney, I want someone who'll love me back."
He didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. This was bad, really bad. He might not be in love with her, but she was his friend. His friend, who was now all broken and confused and wistful, and he'd put that look on her face. How could they have gone from laughing and great sex and mocking the intellectual inadequacies of Michael Firmer, Dr. Henson's charity case of a grad student, to here, with drama and angst and awkwardness.
Okay, so maybe the woman thing wasn't as easy as he'd thought. "Rebecca," he pleaded. "I'm sorry; I didn't know. C'mon, Rebecca. No, don't..." He trailed off because she was crying now, and he never knew how to handle that. Crying, it was like the female secret weapon, the big guns, and he didn't know whether to feel manipulated or like the biggest asshole on the planet.
Easing out of bed, he'd pretty much settled on biggest asshole on the planet. He hunted for his clothes to the sound of Rebecca crying, and where the hell had his underwear ended up, and screw it and pulled his jeans on without them.
Buttoned up and wincing a little as the seam of his jeans rubbed sensitive parts, he sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his shoes.
"I'm sorry." He reached out to brush her hair back from her face, but she pulled away.
"Just go, Rodney."
And then he was out in the hall, blinking in the harsh fluorescent light. He paused there, a little stunned, before he started the long walk back to his room. He hunched his shoulders, sure that everyone he passed could tell exactly what he'd just done.
The rest of the semester had been awkward, not meeting the other's eyes in the lab and no more tag team challenging of Dr. Henson's every word. He'd seen her on campus afterwards, holding hands with a tall, athletic-looking Asian guy, and tried to be happy for her, but felt only a twisting, pathetic jealousy. Jealous of what, he wasn't sure, because they'd still be together except for him, and for the millionth time Rodney was reminded that human emotion made quantum physics seem simple. Dealing with people just sucked; it made misanthropy seem like a perfectly reasonable lifestyle choice.
So Rodney's first experience with the awful moment was pretty damn awful, and it set the stage for subsequent ones. Rodney'd kept trying, sure that this time would be different--he could do this thing, this love thing that everyone else seemed to do so easily. He'd hear those words and actually feel something profound, could return them without feeling like a fraud.
For all his utter brilliance with everything else, this one thing escaped him--how did anybody say those words with a straight face? How did you pass that test of mutual emotion? How did you know that it wasn't just the flush of sexual satisfaction making your heart beat faster?
Here and now, though, in Rodney's quarters, John was definitely making Rodney's heart beat faster, thrusting into him with the controlled power that John brought to everything he did. John had him covered, literally, plastered over Rodney's back and if Rodney had known how good a dick up your ass could feel, he'd never have hesitated when John had asked that first time. John made everything they did together really, really hot, especially this part, with the slicking up and easing him open and sliding home.
Being with John was easy. Easy, even the guy thing, which Rodney had never done before, but he'd always been a quick study. Maybe not quite a natural with the blowjob part, what with Rodney's hair-trigger gag reflex, but they were working on that.
Rodney liked this, liked having this with John. He didn't have to worry about the awful moment either, because they were guys, who didn't do declarations. Feelings were for sessions with Heightmeyer. They had arm-punching and groping and one time a wedgie that John was so going to regret, as soon as Rodney got around to his vengeance.
Good, so hot, Rodney thought, his brain stuttering wildly. Hot, with John hitting that spot inside him every damn time, lighting him up, every stroke wrenching sounds out of him. He didn't even know half the things he was saying, mixed in with profane, "God, fuck me," and broken, "Need you, John."
John reached around him, wrapped long fingers around Rodney's dick, and Rodney was coming with a shout. Shuddering through the last shocks, he could tell John was close. John was pounding away at him, shoving him into the bed, rough, as if he knew Rodney could take whatever he gave him, which made Rodney's brain white out again. John came with a low grunt, and then Rodney just breathed, face pressed into the sheets. John rolled off him and they lay there together, limp and unstrung.
John inched over and leaned against him, solid and sweaty and too warm, but Rodney found he didn't mind. He'd closed his eyes, nearly asleep, when a mouth on his shoulder woke him up a little. He lay there listening to John breathe, to the wet sound of John marking the skin of his shoulder.
Trust John to put the foreplay after the orgasms. "Freak," he muttered. The word sounded like an endearment, and John didn't even pause. Rodney's shoulder would be sore and bruised beneath his uniform tomorrow. His hand would seek it out during the workday; he'd press on the spot and remember. Zelenka would shake his head gently and raise an eyebrow at him when he caught Rodney touching his shoulder and smiling.
John sucked and bit, and Rodney listened, eyes closed, and realized that he'd been wrong. It seemed the awful moment happened no matter who you were with. He hadn't escaped it by being with a guy.
But he thought maybe that with John, it had happened a long time ago, had passed without him being aware of it. The moment had slipped by without a word from either of them. The test had been unspoken. Unspoken, but real all the same, and Rodney had passed.
McKay/Sheppard
2,000 words
NC-17
A/N: The instant I saw 20thcenturyvole's Rodney postcard, here (third one down), this story started taking over my brain.
Summary: Rodney's never said "I love you" to anyone because he thought it would sound ridiculous coming out of his mouth.
The Awful Moment
The best thing about fucking Sheppard, besides the hot, roll-your-eyes-back-in-your-head, toe-curling sex--okay, maybe the sex was the best thing, now that Rodney had stopped to think about it, taken a moment to prioritize. Because really, sex that good deserved the top spot on any list of things occupying the parts of his brain not already busy with ZPMs and is there citrus in this? and male pattern baldness.
Anyway, the second best thing about fucking Sheppard was that he didn't have to worry about the awful moment, which was italicized and said with gravitas even in Rodney's head. The awful moment had loomed like a big looming thing over all of Rodney's relationships, making him nervous and awkward, just waiting for the awful moment to strike, the test he'd inevitably fail.
The first awful moment, which was unique only in that it set the trend, happened in undergrad. Rebecca Green, only a year Rodney's senior and something of a physics prodigy herself, was so not Rodney's type, dark and skinny and loud and possibly his match in both sarcasm and smarts (although Rodney wouldn't have admitted the last under threat of physical harm or even spoken-word poetry readings).
They'd been teamed up together in the lab--Dr. Henson had said that his two most annoying students were obviously meant for each other. The only thing Rodney and Rebecca agreed on when they first eyed each other warily over the black soapstone lab counter was that Dr. Henson was an evil, evil man.
They'd spent the first week screaming at each other, and the second week fucking like bunnies in Rebecca's narrow dormitory bed, the sheets printed with daisies and the smell of pot smoke and disinfectant in the air.
Rodney was never really sure how it happened and didn't ever think of Rebecca as his girlfriend. The regular sex was nice, and they had someone to talk to when they found themselves awake at four a.m. with the next best idea in theoretical physics or at least the solutions to Dr. Kwan's devilishly difficult extra-credit proofs.
Three months in, and Rodney was congratulating himself with the whole woman thing, which had thoroughly confounded him up to now in life. Everyone made out women to be complex and strange. They really weren't, if you were lucky enough to have a geek female friend with social skills as retarded as your own.
It all came to a screeching halt one night when he was lying back against Rebecca's too fluffy pillows, sated and on the edge of sleep. He'd had to shove her well-worn stuffed bear off the bed, because nothing killed his erection faster as he was trying to roll a condom on than the accusing, glassy eyes of her beloved childhood companion.
Rebecca snuggled close, and Rodney stifled the urge to move away. He was really too hot and sticky for all that skin contact. "Rodney," she said. Rodney just grunted, because sleep trumped post-coital chitchat hands down, in his book. "Rodney," she repeated, and he knew they were enough alike that she wouldn't let it go.
"Rebecca," he said evenly, because he knew it pissed her off a little when he did that.
She ignored it, tracing a finger over his chest, grazing a nipple, which made him shiver every time. "Rodney, I love you," she said, just as the shiver really kicked in.
Which Rodney thought was a little unfair, to be distracted at a moment like that. Her finger coaxed another shiver from him, and she leaned into his body, tense and expectant. His mouth was hanging open inelegantly, and he really, really didn't know what to say.
He knew what she wanted him to say, and he knew that many guys would just return it, say, "I love you, too," because it didn't take a genius to come up with the answer to that cost-benefit analysis.
He really did like Rebecca, though; she was cool and smart and wickedly funny, and he'd never known a girl who owned every Tom Baker episode of Dr. Who on VHS. But he didn't love her, and he'd never, ever thought that she'd love him. He'd thought they were clearly defined already--friends, fuck-buddies, socially dysfunctional smart-ass conspirators. Not sappy romantics in love.
He'd never thought to be in this position, never thought someone would ever want that sort of thing from him. Just the thought of those words coming out of his mouth, "I love you," seemed utterly ridiculous. Because what did he know about love? Hell, he'd pretty much failed at loving his parents, good luck with the whole non-platonic side of the word.
And while he knew himself to be a selfish asshole, he wasn't that kind of selfish asshole, who'd say those words just to keep an active sex life.
So he lay there with his mouth open, until he finally got it together enough to say, "Ummm. Rebecca."
"You don't feel the same way." She'd pulled away a little, the sentence a question.
He sat up, glancing down at the sheet before he forced himself to meet her eyes. "I... I don't know what to say. I thought we were just friends," he stuttered and winced at his own complete lack of tact.
"Friends." Her voice sounded hollow. She'd sat up in bed, pulled the sheet up over her breasts, the first discomfort she'd shown at being naked with him. "A friend who'll fuck you, is that it, Rodney? That's all I am, a friend?"
"Damn it, Rebecca, you're my best friend, oww--"
She'd punched him, hard, on the bicep. "I'm in love with you, stupid." The last syllable rose on a little hiccup, and Rodney felt his insides twist. "Rodney, I want someone who'll love me back."
He didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. This was bad, really bad. He might not be in love with her, but she was his friend. His friend, who was now all broken and confused and wistful, and he'd put that look on her face. How could they have gone from laughing and great sex and mocking the intellectual inadequacies of Michael Firmer, Dr. Henson's charity case of a grad student, to here, with drama and angst and awkwardness.
Okay, so maybe the woman thing wasn't as easy as he'd thought. "Rebecca," he pleaded. "I'm sorry; I didn't know. C'mon, Rebecca. No, don't..." He trailed off because she was crying now, and he never knew how to handle that. Crying, it was like the female secret weapon, the big guns, and he didn't know whether to feel manipulated or like the biggest asshole on the planet.
Easing out of bed, he'd pretty much settled on biggest asshole on the planet. He hunted for his clothes to the sound of Rebecca crying, and where the hell had his underwear ended up, and screw it and pulled his jeans on without them.
Buttoned up and wincing a little as the seam of his jeans rubbed sensitive parts, he sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his shoes.
"I'm sorry." He reached out to brush her hair back from her face, but she pulled away.
"Just go, Rodney."
And then he was out in the hall, blinking in the harsh fluorescent light. He paused there, a little stunned, before he started the long walk back to his room. He hunched his shoulders, sure that everyone he passed could tell exactly what he'd just done.
The rest of the semester had been awkward, not meeting the other's eyes in the lab and no more tag team challenging of Dr. Henson's every word. He'd seen her on campus afterwards, holding hands with a tall, athletic-looking Asian guy, and tried to be happy for her, but felt only a twisting, pathetic jealousy. Jealous of what, he wasn't sure, because they'd still be together except for him, and for the millionth time Rodney was reminded that human emotion made quantum physics seem simple. Dealing with people just sucked; it made misanthropy seem like a perfectly reasonable lifestyle choice.
So Rodney's first experience with the awful moment was pretty damn awful, and it set the stage for subsequent ones. Rodney'd kept trying, sure that this time would be different--he could do this thing, this love thing that everyone else seemed to do so easily. He'd hear those words and actually feel something profound, could return them without feeling like a fraud.
For all his utter brilliance with everything else, this one thing escaped him--how did anybody say those words with a straight face? How did you pass that test of mutual emotion? How did you know that it wasn't just the flush of sexual satisfaction making your heart beat faster?
Here and now, though, in Rodney's quarters, John was definitely making Rodney's heart beat faster, thrusting into him with the controlled power that John brought to everything he did. John had him covered, literally, plastered over Rodney's back and if Rodney had known how good a dick up your ass could feel, he'd never have hesitated when John had asked that first time. John made everything they did together really, really hot, especially this part, with the slicking up and easing him open and sliding home.
Being with John was easy. Easy, even the guy thing, which Rodney had never done before, but he'd always been a quick study. Maybe not quite a natural with the blowjob part, what with Rodney's hair-trigger gag reflex, but they were working on that.
Rodney liked this, liked having this with John. He didn't have to worry about the awful moment either, because they were guys, who didn't do declarations. Feelings were for sessions with Heightmeyer. They had arm-punching and groping and one time a wedgie that John was so going to regret, as soon as Rodney got around to his vengeance.
Good, so hot, Rodney thought, his brain stuttering wildly. Hot, with John hitting that spot inside him every damn time, lighting him up, every stroke wrenching sounds out of him. He didn't even know half the things he was saying, mixed in with profane, "God, fuck me," and broken, "Need you, John."
John reached around him, wrapped long fingers around Rodney's dick, and Rodney was coming with a shout. Shuddering through the last shocks, he could tell John was close. John was pounding away at him, shoving him into the bed, rough, as if he knew Rodney could take whatever he gave him, which made Rodney's brain white out again. John came with a low grunt, and then Rodney just breathed, face pressed into the sheets. John rolled off him and they lay there together, limp and unstrung.
John inched over and leaned against him, solid and sweaty and too warm, but Rodney found he didn't mind. He'd closed his eyes, nearly asleep, when a mouth on his shoulder woke him up a little. He lay there listening to John breathe, to the wet sound of John marking the skin of his shoulder.
Trust John to put the foreplay after the orgasms. "Freak," he muttered. The word sounded like an endearment, and John didn't even pause. Rodney's shoulder would be sore and bruised beneath his uniform tomorrow. His hand would seek it out during the workday; he'd press on the spot and remember. Zelenka would shake his head gently and raise an eyebrow at him when he caught Rodney touching his shoulder and smiling.
John sucked and bit, and Rodney listened, eyes closed, and realized that he'd been wrong. It seemed the awful moment happened no matter who you were with. He hadn't escaped it by being with a guy.
But he thought maybe that with John, it had happened a long time ago, had passed without him being aware of it. The moment had slipped by without a word from either of them. The test had been unspoken. Unspoken, but real all the same, and Rodney had passed.