Dead Reckoning by Purna (Amnesty 2006/Dangling Challenge)
Dead Reckoning by purna
McKay/Sheppard
~2,200 words
NC-17
Summary: "I told you this wasn't the way back to the gate," Rodney said. "Now we're stuck here, twirling in the breeze like some kind of giant human piñata."
"Oh, this is so not fair," Rodney said, struggling against the coarse vine ropes of the net that had captured them.
The movement made them swing wildly. Rodney got a good view of the ground spinning dizzily far below them, and his stomach did queasy flip flops "Oh, god," he gulped. "I don't feel so good."
"You better not throw up on me," Sheppard said, digging a bony elbow into Rodney's ribs.
"Ow!" It hadn't really hurt, since the net held them too tightly to allow much movement, but it was the principle of the thing.
Sheppard ignored him. "And if you'd stay still, like I said three times already--"
"Don't even go there, Colonel No-Sense-of-Direction. Who got us into this in the first place, huh? I told you this wasn't the way back to the gate," Rodney said. "Now we're stuck here, twirling in the breeze like some kind of giant human piñata."
His righteous outrage came out sounding unfortunately muted. Being folded up with Sheppard, origami-style, was distracting him. Fortunately, even a distracted Rodney McKay could theorize on the fly better than almost anyone.
Rodney considered the primitive vine ropes of the netting, and then craned his neck to take in the ground beneath them again. "You had us following a game trail, Sheppard. We just spoiled someone's dinner." And the fact that important brain cells were being used to store that sort of rustic information was more than a little appalling.
"Like you could have done any better," Sheppard said. "So I'm not all Grizzly Adams like Ronon, sue me."
"That was a good TV show," Rodney said absently, trying to scratch his cheek. "Oh, great, I wonder if I'm allergic to these vines."
"I liked that show, too. Greenhorn," Sheppard said, in a crotchety voice.
"You sound like my great aunt Clara." Rodney elbowed the vine rope netting, letting out a frustrated sigh. "I bet this is to trap those little deer-things Teyla was talking about. I'm surprised it's holding up under the weight of two grown men."
"If I could just reach my knife," Sheppard muttered.
"Yeah, cut us down. Great idea there; then we can fall three stories to our respective painful deaths. You should wish for something useful, like, say, for the solar flares to stop interfering with the radios."
"Rodney, it's fifteen feet down to the ground, tops," Sheppard said in his most irritating drawl. Sheppard hadn't stopped trying to reach his knife, and the futile movements of his hands, trapped against Rodney's lower back, made Rodney squirm.
His face heating up, he grimaced and tried to shift away from Sheppard's hands, from the warmth and hard muscle of Sheppard's body trapped behind his. The only result was a sudden wholesale drop of the net trapping them. For a heart-stopping second, Rodney thought they were going to plummet straight down to the forest floor below them, and the noise that came out of his mouth then was embarrassingly close to a shriek.
At least the shrill sound of Sheppard's voice as he shouted Rodney's name eased his bruised manhood somewhat.
They didn't fall very far, less than a meter, before the rope pulled them up short again. The sudden stop jolted them, shifting them to a new, but still intimate and cramped position. Rodney was still mostly on top of Sheppard, their legs tangled together, as they spun slowly in their net.
Sheppard let out a grunt. "Rodney, could you move a little? You're kind of on my--"
Rodney frowned, trying to shift his left buttock from Sheppard's lap, which was warm and lumpy, and, "Oh, my god, you freak. I can't believe this. You pick now to unleash your big gay hard-on for me?"
Silence greeted his outburst. He hadn't meant to say all that out loud, or in quite those words, but of course Sheppard would pick a moment like this. Rodney glowered at a nearby branch, wishing it were Sheppard's stupid face.
"All this time," Rodney said. "All this time, you've been watching me. I may suck with people, but I know that look. I've had it on my own face too many times not to. But you never seemed to want more."
Rodney shrugged as much as the tight space would allow. "And now that we're netted like tuna, and my acrophobia is giving me heart palpitations, you start wanting to get all jiggy with me?"
"You don't have acrophobia, Rodney," Sheppard said, and it was infuriating that he sounded not at all flustered. "And 'jiggy'?" Rodney didn't even need to see Sheppard's face to know there was a raised eyebrow on that one.
"Cadman says it all the time," he protested. "And at least try to track the main topic of discussion here, Sheppard, which is your rather obvious...response." No need to stroke Sheppard's already healthy ego. "So this is what gets you going? What is it, the kinky rope? Some biological imperative triggered by our impending deaths?"
"Rodney, you're practically giving me a lap dance here." At least, Sheppard had the decency to sound embarrassed now.
"Oh," Rodney said, subdued. So maybe it was more of a general gay lap dance hard-on that Sheppard was sporting, not the Rodney-specific variety. He knew Sheppard liked guys; he'd known that for a long time. Not that Rodney had ever asked, or Sheppard had ever told, which was how they handled far more than just the subject of sexual orientation.
But the awareness of it had filtered through like osmosis, the idea, the possibilities gradually bleeding into their friendship.
Or so Rodney had thought. Maybe he'd been mistaken; it wouldn't be the first time he'd gotten his social signals crossed. He was well on his way down that depressing train of thought when Sheppard mumbled something.
"What was that?" Rodney asked.
Another mumble and before Rodney could repeat the question, Sheppard said impatiently, "For Christ's sake, I said you smell good." Warm breath stirred the hair on the back of Rodney's neck, and oh, god, Sheppard was sniffing him.
Logic intruded for a moment. "We'd been hiking for hours before you led us into this stupid trap. I'm all hot and sweaty and pumped on adrenaline," Rodney protested. "There is no way I could smell good--oh. Oh."
Another deep sniff stirred Rodney's neck hair and made other parts of him sit up and take notice. "You smell like you," Sheppard said, his voice low and rough. "You smell like sex."
A warm, wet pressure on his neck--Sheppard's tongue, Sheppard was licking him--made him groan. Sheppard's lips, still chapped and rough from the desert air of their last mission, found a hot spot just under Rodney's ear, pulling a shudder out of him. Sheppard's mouth moved down Rodney's throat, and he wondered if Sheppard could feel the pulse racing there.
"Just keep doing that," Rodney gasped, tilting his head to expose more of his neck. Sheppard showed no signs of stopping.
So of course that was when the vine ropes parted and the net gave way beneath them.
His shriek was definitely girlish this time. The frustration of losing the heat of Sheppard's mouth took a back seat to stark fear and calculations of injury and mortality: the distance to the ground, acceleration due to gravity, the force required to break an average femur, to shatter an average skull.
The ground rushed up to meet them, until it was all Rodney could see, nothing but dark, leafy forest floor.
He hit hard. The landing knocked the wind out of him, although overall it wasn't as bad as he'd feared. Somehow he managed to avoid crashing down right on top of Sheppard; in fact, Sheppard ended up half on top of him. They lay there tangled up together, Rodney on his back, fighting for breath.
He wasn't really sure how it happened or who started it. One minute Rodney was making sure his arms and legs still worked, and the next minute Sheppard's lips were on his, Sheppard's tongue pushing its way into his mouth as if it belonged there.
Then it was a blur of breathless kisses, Sheppard's weight pressing down on him, Sheppard's hands shoving at the hem of his shirt. The scent of sweat and arousal filled his nose, mixing with the loamy smell of the leaves beneath him. His hands were cupping Sheppard's hips, sliding closer and closer to Sheppard's ass. One of his thighs ended up shoved between Sheppard's, pushing against the hardness there.
Sheppard's hands tugged at Rodney's fly, working the zipper down and sliding his hand inside Rodney's boxers. Oh, yeah, oh, god, yeah, Rodney thought, and it wasn't until Sheppard breathed, "Easy, easy, Rodney," that he realized he'd said it aloud.
Rodney moaned as Sheppard's fingers tightened around his dick, stripping it in counterpoint to the thrusting of his own erection against Rodney's thigh. It was awkward and messy, and unbearably hot, and Rodney didn't think he was going to last long.
Sheppard's hand felt as good as Rodney had thought it would, strong and sure, a little exploratory. Experimenting, finding out what Rodney liked, and that thought made him groan and grope at Sheppard's ass. Sheppard liked that, judging by the sounds that he made, so Rodney did it again, kneading the muscle through the heavy cloth.
Sheppard's thrusts stuttered to a stop. "God, Rodney," he said, ragged and breathless. "Yeah," he said, the word an explosion of air as he started thrusting against Rodney's thigh once more.
It had been so long that Rodney had almost forgotten how good it felt to have hands other than his own on his dick. That it was Sheppard here with him, Sheppard shoving his dick against Rodney's thigh, Sheppard's hand down his pants made it even better. It was Sheppard making him feel good, and Rodney doing the same for Sheppard.
He'd gotten bold enough to slide his fingers down the back of Sheppard's pants, his hand against the hot bare skin of Sheppard's ass. He hadn't meant to go beyond that, but Sheppard moved at just the right time, twitching so that Rodney's fingers slid right down between Sheppard's buttocks. Rodney gave a mental shrug and pressed gently, and Sheppard just exploded. "Fuck," he breathed, his thrusts going jerky and uneven. "Harder, fuck."
Rodney obliged, pressing just inside with the tip of one finger. Sheppard surged against him in one final thrust and came, loud and long.
Rodney's dick was feeling a little neglected, but to Rodney's relief, Sheppard didn't make him wait long. He groped for Rodney's dick again, and started jerking him, no teasing, just a strong hard steady movement that got better and better, until Rodney felt it in his ass and all the way down to his toes. Shivery pleasure rolled up and over him, and Rodney came all over himself and Sheppard's hand.
Afterwards, Rodney was sore and tired and sticky. His back was killing him, a root was trying to get intimate with his ass, and he had dirt and leaves in his hair and clothes.
He was happier than he'd been in a long, long time.
*
They were once more headed back to the gate, Rodney leading the way this time, when Rodney said in a low voice, "This isn't smart, doing this, is it?"
"What, me trusting your sense of direction?"
Rodney didn't say anything, and after a few minutes of hiking, Sheppard spoke again. "No, it isn't. "
Rodney stopped and turned to look at Sheppard, whose expression was tight, unsmiling. Not exactly happy, and Rodney tried to ignore the uneasiness coiling in his belly.
"I know it's not smart. I held out three years, remember?" Sheppard said.
"You've wanted to...since the beginning?" Rodney asked, a little stunned. Yeah, Sheppard had played with him, had flirted with him, almost from the start, but Rodney hadn't really thought--
"Let's get back to the gate," Sheppard said roughly, trying to push his way past Rodney.
Rodney started walking again. He reached up to touch the skin around his mouth, which felt hot, almost sunburned. Beard burn. He swallowed.
"So we stop," he said. He could hear his voice shake, and he winced. "If this is a bad idea, we can just stop."
"Can we?" Sheppard asked as they maneuvered their way over a clutch of fallen logs, slippery with moss.
"I," Rodney said and faltered. He paused, considering his next foot placement on the log. "I don't think so."
"Me, neither," Sheppard said. He sounded resigned. He also sounded relieved, Rodney realized with a sharp glance over at Sheppard's face.
"Forward, then," Rodney said. He took a step, and spoke softly enough Sheppard could choose to ignore it. "We'll figure it out, John."
Sheppard's laugh sounded genuine, if a little rueful. "Don't we always?"
Rodney breathed a sigh of thanks when he caught sight of the stargate, glinting in a meadow below them. "There it is. We know the way now," he said, waving a hand in a wild gesture that almost clipped Sheppard's ear. He smiled over at Sheppard, who couldn't seem to help smirking back at him.
"C'mon," Sheppard said. He pulled on Rodney's vest, tugging him onward. He left his hand there as they got moving again, sliding his fingers beneath the mesh panel. "Teyla and Ronon are probably waiting for us."
McKay/Sheppard
~2,200 words
NC-17
Summary: "I told you this wasn't the way back to the gate," Rodney said. "Now we're stuck here, twirling in the breeze like some kind of giant human piñata."
"Oh, this is so not fair," Rodney said, struggling against the coarse vine ropes of the net that had captured them.
The movement made them swing wildly. Rodney got a good view of the ground spinning dizzily far below them, and his stomach did queasy flip flops "Oh, god," he gulped. "I don't feel so good."
"You better not throw up on me," Sheppard said, digging a bony elbow into Rodney's ribs.
"Ow!" It hadn't really hurt, since the net held them too tightly to allow much movement, but it was the principle of the thing.
Sheppard ignored him. "And if you'd stay still, like I said three times already--"
"Don't even go there, Colonel No-Sense-of-Direction. Who got us into this in the first place, huh? I told you this wasn't the way back to the gate," Rodney said. "Now we're stuck here, twirling in the breeze like some kind of giant human piñata."
His righteous outrage came out sounding unfortunately muted. Being folded up with Sheppard, origami-style, was distracting him. Fortunately, even a distracted Rodney McKay could theorize on the fly better than almost anyone.
Rodney considered the primitive vine ropes of the netting, and then craned his neck to take in the ground beneath them again. "You had us following a game trail, Sheppard. We just spoiled someone's dinner." And the fact that important brain cells were being used to store that sort of rustic information was more than a little appalling.
"Like you could have done any better," Sheppard said. "So I'm not all Grizzly Adams like Ronon, sue me."
"That was a good TV show," Rodney said absently, trying to scratch his cheek. "Oh, great, I wonder if I'm allergic to these vines."
"I liked that show, too. Greenhorn," Sheppard said, in a crotchety voice.
"You sound like my great aunt Clara." Rodney elbowed the vine rope netting, letting out a frustrated sigh. "I bet this is to trap those little deer-things Teyla was talking about. I'm surprised it's holding up under the weight of two grown men."
"If I could just reach my knife," Sheppard muttered.
"Yeah, cut us down. Great idea there; then we can fall three stories to our respective painful deaths. You should wish for something useful, like, say, for the solar flares to stop interfering with the radios."
"Rodney, it's fifteen feet down to the ground, tops," Sheppard said in his most irritating drawl. Sheppard hadn't stopped trying to reach his knife, and the futile movements of his hands, trapped against Rodney's lower back, made Rodney squirm.
His face heating up, he grimaced and tried to shift away from Sheppard's hands, from the warmth and hard muscle of Sheppard's body trapped behind his. The only result was a sudden wholesale drop of the net trapping them. For a heart-stopping second, Rodney thought they were going to plummet straight down to the forest floor below them, and the noise that came out of his mouth then was embarrassingly close to a shriek.
At least the shrill sound of Sheppard's voice as he shouted Rodney's name eased his bruised manhood somewhat.
They didn't fall very far, less than a meter, before the rope pulled them up short again. The sudden stop jolted them, shifting them to a new, but still intimate and cramped position. Rodney was still mostly on top of Sheppard, their legs tangled together, as they spun slowly in their net.
Sheppard let out a grunt. "Rodney, could you move a little? You're kind of on my--"
Rodney frowned, trying to shift his left buttock from Sheppard's lap, which was warm and lumpy, and, "Oh, my god, you freak. I can't believe this. You pick now to unleash your big gay hard-on for me?"
Silence greeted his outburst. He hadn't meant to say all that out loud, or in quite those words, but of course Sheppard would pick a moment like this. Rodney glowered at a nearby branch, wishing it were Sheppard's stupid face.
"All this time," Rodney said. "All this time, you've been watching me. I may suck with people, but I know that look. I've had it on my own face too many times not to. But you never seemed to want more."
Rodney shrugged as much as the tight space would allow. "And now that we're netted like tuna, and my acrophobia is giving me heart palpitations, you start wanting to get all jiggy with me?"
"You don't have acrophobia, Rodney," Sheppard said, and it was infuriating that he sounded not at all flustered. "And 'jiggy'?" Rodney didn't even need to see Sheppard's face to know there was a raised eyebrow on that one.
"Cadman says it all the time," he protested. "And at least try to track the main topic of discussion here, Sheppard, which is your rather obvious...response." No need to stroke Sheppard's already healthy ego. "So this is what gets you going? What is it, the kinky rope? Some biological imperative triggered by our impending deaths?"
"Rodney, you're practically giving me a lap dance here." At least, Sheppard had the decency to sound embarrassed now.
"Oh," Rodney said, subdued. So maybe it was more of a general gay lap dance hard-on that Sheppard was sporting, not the Rodney-specific variety. He knew Sheppard liked guys; he'd known that for a long time. Not that Rodney had ever asked, or Sheppard had ever told, which was how they handled far more than just the subject of sexual orientation.
But the awareness of it had filtered through like osmosis, the idea, the possibilities gradually bleeding into their friendship.
Or so Rodney had thought. Maybe he'd been mistaken; it wouldn't be the first time he'd gotten his social signals crossed. He was well on his way down that depressing train of thought when Sheppard mumbled something.
"What was that?" Rodney asked.
Another mumble and before Rodney could repeat the question, Sheppard said impatiently, "For Christ's sake, I said you smell good." Warm breath stirred the hair on the back of Rodney's neck, and oh, god, Sheppard was sniffing him.
Logic intruded for a moment. "We'd been hiking for hours before you led us into this stupid trap. I'm all hot and sweaty and pumped on adrenaline," Rodney protested. "There is no way I could smell good--oh. Oh."
Another deep sniff stirred Rodney's neck hair and made other parts of him sit up and take notice. "You smell like you," Sheppard said, his voice low and rough. "You smell like sex."
A warm, wet pressure on his neck--Sheppard's tongue, Sheppard was licking him--made him groan. Sheppard's lips, still chapped and rough from the desert air of their last mission, found a hot spot just under Rodney's ear, pulling a shudder out of him. Sheppard's mouth moved down Rodney's throat, and he wondered if Sheppard could feel the pulse racing there.
"Just keep doing that," Rodney gasped, tilting his head to expose more of his neck. Sheppard showed no signs of stopping.
So of course that was when the vine ropes parted and the net gave way beneath them.
His shriek was definitely girlish this time. The frustration of losing the heat of Sheppard's mouth took a back seat to stark fear and calculations of injury and mortality: the distance to the ground, acceleration due to gravity, the force required to break an average femur, to shatter an average skull.
The ground rushed up to meet them, until it was all Rodney could see, nothing but dark, leafy forest floor.
He hit hard. The landing knocked the wind out of him, although overall it wasn't as bad as he'd feared. Somehow he managed to avoid crashing down right on top of Sheppard; in fact, Sheppard ended up half on top of him. They lay there tangled up together, Rodney on his back, fighting for breath.
He wasn't really sure how it happened or who started it. One minute Rodney was making sure his arms and legs still worked, and the next minute Sheppard's lips were on his, Sheppard's tongue pushing its way into his mouth as if it belonged there.
Then it was a blur of breathless kisses, Sheppard's weight pressing down on him, Sheppard's hands shoving at the hem of his shirt. The scent of sweat and arousal filled his nose, mixing with the loamy smell of the leaves beneath him. His hands were cupping Sheppard's hips, sliding closer and closer to Sheppard's ass. One of his thighs ended up shoved between Sheppard's, pushing against the hardness there.
Sheppard's hands tugged at Rodney's fly, working the zipper down and sliding his hand inside Rodney's boxers. Oh, yeah, oh, god, yeah, Rodney thought, and it wasn't until Sheppard breathed, "Easy, easy, Rodney," that he realized he'd said it aloud.
Rodney moaned as Sheppard's fingers tightened around his dick, stripping it in counterpoint to the thrusting of his own erection against Rodney's thigh. It was awkward and messy, and unbearably hot, and Rodney didn't think he was going to last long.
Sheppard's hand felt as good as Rodney had thought it would, strong and sure, a little exploratory. Experimenting, finding out what Rodney liked, and that thought made him groan and grope at Sheppard's ass. Sheppard liked that, judging by the sounds that he made, so Rodney did it again, kneading the muscle through the heavy cloth.
Sheppard's thrusts stuttered to a stop. "God, Rodney," he said, ragged and breathless. "Yeah," he said, the word an explosion of air as he started thrusting against Rodney's thigh once more.
It had been so long that Rodney had almost forgotten how good it felt to have hands other than his own on his dick. That it was Sheppard here with him, Sheppard shoving his dick against Rodney's thigh, Sheppard's hand down his pants made it even better. It was Sheppard making him feel good, and Rodney doing the same for Sheppard.
He'd gotten bold enough to slide his fingers down the back of Sheppard's pants, his hand against the hot bare skin of Sheppard's ass. He hadn't meant to go beyond that, but Sheppard moved at just the right time, twitching so that Rodney's fingers slid right down between Sheppard's buttocks. Rodney gave a mental shrug and pressed gently, and Sheppard just exploded. "Fuck," he breathed, his thrusts going jerky and uneven. "Harder, fuck."
Rodney obliged, pressing just inside with the tip of one finger. Sheppard surged against him in one final thrust and came, loud and long.
Rodney's dick was feeling a little neglected, but to Rodney's relief, Sheppard didn't make him wait long. He groped for Rodney's dick again, and started jerking him, no teasing, just a strong hard steady movement that got better and better, until Rodney felt it in his ass and all the way down to his toes. Shivery pleasure rolled up and over him, and Rodney came all over himself and Sheppard's hand.
Afterwards, Rodney was sore and tired and sticky. His back was killing him, a root was trying to get intimate with his ass, and he had dirt and leaves in his hair and clothes.
He was happier than he'd been in a long, long time.
*
They were once more headed back to the gate, Rodney leading the way this time, when Rodney said in a low voice, "This isn't smart, doing this, is it?"
"What, me trusting your sense of direction?"
Rodney didn't say anything, and after a few minutes of hiking, Sheppard spoke again. "No, it isn't. "
Rodney stopped and turned to look at Sheppard, whose expression was tight, unsmiling. Not exactly happy, and Rodney tried to ignore the uneasiness coiling in his belly.
"I know it's not smart. I held out three years, remember?" Sheppard said.
"You've wanted to...since the beginning?" Rodney asked, a little stunned. Yeah, Sheppard had played with him, had flirted with him, almost from the start, but Rodney hadn't really thought--
"Let's get back to the gate," Sheppard said roughly, trying to push his way past Rodney.
Rodney started walking again. He reached up to touch the skin around his mouth, which felt hot, almost sunburned. Beard burn. He swallowed.
"So we stop," he said. He could hear his voice shake, and he winced. "If this is a bad idea, we can just stop."
"Can we?" Sheppard asked as they maneuvered their way over a clutch of fallen logs, slippery with moss.
"I," Rodney said and faltered. He paused, considering his next foot placement on the log. "I don't think so."
"Me, neither," Sheppard said. He sounded resigned. He also sounded relieved, Rodney realized with a sharp glance over at Sheppard's face.
"Forward, then," Rodney said. He took a step, and spoke softly enough Sheppard could choose to ignore it. "We'll figure it out, John."
Sheppard's laugh sounded genuine, if a little rueful. "Don't we always?"
Rodney breathed a sigh of thanks when he caught sight of the stargate, glinting in a meadow below them. "There it is. We know the way now," he said, waving a hand in a wild gesture that almost clipped Sheppard's ear. He smiled over at Sheppard, who couldn't seem to help smirking back at him.
"C'mon," Sheppard said. He pulled on Rodney's vest, tugging him onward. He left his hand there as they got moving again, sliding his fingers beneath the mesh panel. "Teyla and Ronon are probably waiting for us."