Nox Est Perpetua Una Dormienda - Darkness Challenge - davechicken
Title: Nox Est Perpetua Una Dormienda
Author: davechicken
Genre: Het, pre-slash
Rating: R
Pairing: Rodney McKay/Sam Carter, implied Rodney/Shep pre-slash
Summary: Rodney has trouble sleeping
Word-Count: 2859 (oops)
Author's Notes: Many thanks to alinak for poking me and reading through, and to both frostfire_17 and akire_yta for the very kind beta. It goes without saying that any remaining mistakes are all mine. Mwah.
It isn’t always ‘night’ time when he goes to bed. The timings here are off slightly; the rotation speed and size and distance and so on are similar, but not quite the same. It’s strange, in a way. That most of the inhabited planets are so much like Atlantis, and Earth itself, actually. It smacks of something other than coincidence, and he idly ponders classing them by Star Trek standards, before remembering his long-harboured contempt for that system.
Sometimes he’ll offer it as an excuse to Carson as to why he’s not sleeping so well. Decades of Terran conditioning to be uprooted here, after all. Sometimes he’ll claim it’s because of stress or necessity that he’s up most nights long after most have gone to bed, working when he can get away with it.
It isn’t true though, and he knows it. Carson knows it too, and so does Kate. They talk about sleeping pills, but Rodney says he doesn’t want the drowsiness and the reduced mental capacity anyway, that he can’t afford the side-effects. Not like they’d do him that much good anyway. He tried his mother’s, a few times, and it never helped with anything other than the ammunition used against him when the family came to blows again.
He sleeps well enough. Well enough to do his job, anyway. Only twice has Zelenka caught him huddled over the screen, trying to force the results to communicate to him as if they really were a foreign tongue - and one he’d never heard before - the numbers and the figures failing to register in his mind. He hasn’t made any stupid mistakes that he didn’t spot first himself, and he’s still upright - so that’s enough for him.
He didn’t sleep well the first few times they were off-world, of course. The tents and the sleeping bags reminded him too much of the one and only camping trip he’d been made to go on when he was younger, an experience he wouldn’t mind forgetting for good. Sleeping in the puddlejumper had been a little better, but not much. The first time outside, he’d lain awake all night, staring at the fabric of the tent and remembering jokes he’d heard and ghost stories he hadn’t. There were no owls or coyotes or anything as cliché as that, but it made it worse to think there might be something other than them, other than a wandering bear out there. Something he hadn’t been taught how to deal with in case of an emergency, and in the silence he wondered what it could be.
The second day on the planet, the major walked alongside him for some of the way, laughing and joking and staring at the lifesigns indicator and generally being the same old laid-back Major Sheppard he'd grown to know. Rodney had often wondered how John had ever been promoted this high whilst still being vaguely human and likeable. It was one of life’s little mysteries.
And then, when Rodney wasn’t expecting it:
“You didn’t get much sleep last night, did you, McKay?”
Rodney just looked at him, immediately bracing himself for his defence. “I don’t sleep that much as a rule, Major. It’s something of a habit amongst those of us with very fast minds; we find it hard to disengage them. I was merely thinking while I rested.”
“Hey, now, I was only asking,” Sheppard carried on, shrugging lightly. “I thought you were still awake when my watch ended, but I didn’t want to bother you, is all. I was just going to say, if you can’t sleep again, you might want to come keep watch with me. If you’re bored, I mean. Sometimes company helps, you know? Or I could talk you to sleep.”
Then Rodney felt like a bit of an ass, really, for snapping so much. If he’d had any sense, he’d have said thank you. But sometimes he didn’t have much sense.
“Well I’m perfectly used to spending most of my time purely in my own company, thinking - admittedly not usually in another galaxy and on a strange planet - so I’m not entirely sure it would be helpful.”
“Well, the offer stands,” the airman said, oddly not sounding offended. “I could use the company myself.”
Rodney had simply nodded, and left it at that.
Except, he didn’t. Not entirely.
That night they were back in Atlantis anyway, and he had plenty of readings to spend all night over, in his room. But the next mission they had to stay out on, despite his best efforts at sleeping, he failed miserably and found himself sitting side-to-side with the major, for warmth.
“You look bored senseless, Major.”
“Why thank you, Rodney, you look good at four in the morning, too.”
He wondered if John knew he’d woken after only a few hours asleep, then waited until it was the major’s watch and then waited until it didn’t seem like he’d been waiting for him - or waiting for it to not look like he was waiting - before finally coming to sit and talk til morning.
“I spent all day inside an access hatch, Major, what do you expect?”
Some times on missions, though, he would sleep like a baby, curled up in his sleeping bag, in the insane conviction that he was safe. Long, long nights of good, solid rest that he had no right to be getting in such unusual conditions, where he should be panicking and fretting and all sorts of other things, not blissfully unaware. Maybe it was all the exertion and fresh air. He wouldn’t be surprised.
It’s different on Atlantis. For one, night and day can be artificially imposed here, light flooding his senses and keeping the hormones flooding through his caffeine system so his internal clock can’t count at all. He can dim the lights, too, so whenever he wants, he can sit in his room lit by… actually, it isn’t often. He either has the lights up high for his work, or down to an almost minimum on those occasions when his migraines take precedence.
He’s never been the kind to enjoy communal sleeping arrangements, which is why it’s odd that he seems to have grown… fond of them. The quiet noises of existence the other people make around him, the whispered words and tousled hair first thing in a morning that normally helped relax him these days.
Here in the city, the only noise in his room is him. He’ll wake up, some days, expecting to see a mop of dark hair curled up beside him, mouth already open to tell the major what he’s just been thinking of - only to find he’s been alone in his room all night long.
Having the room to himself does have its advantages, though. As long as he’s not too tired, he’ll turn the lights out completely before he even plans on sleeping. In the darkness he’ll remember he needs to get tissues or a cloth, and he’ll find them by the bed. Then he can… ease some of his problems in peace and quiet, instead of willing them to wait.
He’s heard all about these military types and their ‘male bonding’ over showers and towels and joysticks and stuff like that, but he wonders if it’s just a silly stereotype without any real basis in reality. It’s possible that’s the case, but you never can tell.
Ford seems a kid far too… nice for anything as seedy or vaguely… whatever-it-is as that, and he can see the other man smiling at his grad-student girlfriend over spaghetti, almost, the Disney-sweet mentality of it all. Except, perhaps, with a little more regular explosives than a ‘normal’ relationship would have.
Teyla… Teyla seems so far above it all that occasionally he wonders if she’s some female eunuch. The major…
Rodney isn’t all that sure what the major is. He’s not all grunt mentality and shoot-now shoot-later, anyway. But he was much too much of a… charmer, a ladies’ man to resort to that, Rodney was sure.
Anyway. Ford didn’t seem to even know what sex was all about, really - or he did, but he preferred those high explosives of his. Teyla knew better, and the major - for all his ‘intergalactic relations’, seemed to otherwise have firm… control over himself. Mostly. So Rodney rolled over in the morning, keeping his eyes jammed tight shut or mumbling something about a nearby stream - where he could then cool off.
Sometimes the human body could be an incredibly inconvenient contrivance.
Here he doesn’t have the same problem. He’ll turn all the lights out and plunge his room into darkness, all the better to fantasise by.
Sometimes he’ll undress a little slower than he usually would, letting his fingers trail. Sometimes he’ll just stroke himself through his trousers before he works on the fly, lowering it and his boxers just enough so they bunch around his hips and he can stroke himself with them on. It’s not that much of a variety but it’s the best he can do.
It’s always Samantha he thinks of when he does this, come night-time, when he’s not so tired and listless that he just falls onto the pallet with his clothes on still and waits until he has to get up again. He sleeps so badly on the mattress that unless he’s half blind with exhaustion beforehand, he’ll lie awake and stare at the ceiling with his whole life rolling past his eyes if he doesn’t. Recently it’s getting harder to do it all in summary.
A lot of the time he still won’t have the energy, or even the interest, despite his best efforts and he finally drops his head back on the pillow, feeling the air slightly cool over his chest. A lot of the time his mind is too full of reality for him to escape. But when he does manage it, it helps - not enough to fully relax him, but it does help soothe some itch.
Today there was no real emergency and nothing needing his attention that couldn’t wait for morning. He’s due off-world tomorrow, and the major always insists he’s in bed reasonably early the night before. After the third time he goes through everything with Zelenka and the Czech finally loses patience with him, he heads back to his room with every intention of doing what the major suggested.
Samantha won’t undress him, normally, not unless he holds completely still. Perhaps it’s because he can’t work the logistics of whose hand would go where if they undressed one another at the same time, but he has the sneaking suspicion it’s because he can’t quite see her doing this at all.
Today she’s standing in the doorway to his shower, and he drops his jacket onto the chair, the lights out as soon as the door closes. It makes it easier if he can’t see where she isn’t. She’s silent as he pulls off his boots, standing on one leg but still leaning on the wall for support. He still feels self-conscious doing this in front of her, even though he thinks he stopped feeling silly doing it in front of the other members of the team - he’s much faster than he used to be, now. But here, for some reason, he still feels every second drag over the laces and leather as he tries to pull his feet free.
His cheeks are red by the time his socks are in his boots and his trousers are folded neatly on the seat of the chair. Not military precision - he’s seen how John folds his - and she strolls over to the foot of the bed as he reluctantly takes off his shirt, too. In his mind, she runs her fingers over the fabric - almost as though she’s checking for dust, and he wonders why.
He sits on the bed, not touching himself yet, palm resting on his belly. One too many donuts and not enough exercise over the years have taken their toll. Not that he’s by any means terribly unfit, but it does show. He wonders if all the exercise is helping, but she never seems impressed.
He wonders what it says about him that even his fantasy, his ideal woman doesn’t much care for him.
His fingers are a little cold when he touches them to his hardening dick experimentally, eyes closed despite the dark and teeth digging into his lip. Cold, but not cold enough to kill the mood, and he moves them experimentally up and down, feeling the imperfections of his skin and gently teasing himself to full hardness before he starts in earnest.
Fake-Carter smiles and shakes her head, saying something he’s not sure he wants to hear. She’s wearing blues a little like the major’s, and it’s the way he always thinks of her. The one time he tried to imagine her in something else it went horribly wrong, so now he settles for one of those plain, straight skirts and tight, nice blouses. He stares at her chest and she rolls her eyes, and even that’s as sexy as hell, though it shouldn’t be.
Her hands are nice and her fingernails trimmed short and clean. He saw them before, before all this, when he would lean over her at the keyboard, breathing in her scent. He can’t put her hands on him, though, and he only has his own square fingers and thumbs to rub over the head of his cock, to stroke and squeeze.
She shakes her head at him, looks down so he could almost imagine she was staring at her own chest, at the soft, round breasts that aren’t too big, aren’t too small and which beg to be cupped, fondled and all the other words that would have made him hot and bothered back when he was a horny teenager and not closer to the answer to life, the universe and everything than anything else. He would trace them through her blouse with his fingers if she wouldn’t slap him. Well, no. He would if it would just be a slap, but then he thinks she might not come back at all, and he needs these precious few moments with her. Needs anything he can get.
Through the darkness he feels her smile, wry and unwilling, because she knows he’s called her across a whole galaxy, and still can’t make her do what he wants. He wants to run his hands all over her, to feel where she’s soft and warm. He wants to glide those hands down to her hips so he can hold her legs while he fucks her, slides into her over and over until she writhes and moans. He wants to feel her eyes on him, watching him, only him as they move together, both looking for the same thing. Both looking in the same place.
His strokes become short and fast, his hand bumping into his balls every time, and he spreads his legs a little wider, even though it means she can see more clearly. The sheets feel stiff and rough under his heels and it’s strange that he dislikes it so much, that even a couch would be better, even a sleeping bag in a tent somewhere. Quiet little noises in the back of his throat, the vague creaking noises of the bed and his own hand on his cock are all he can hear. He’s sure that the sounds won’t travel - he’s never heard anyone else even move around - but he wants to make sure no one hears him now, after hearing him all day. The frustrated little whimper he can’t hold back as he tugs wouldn’t do to be heard.
Then, fully clothed, she walks out of the room, her hips shimmying into nothing, leaving Rodney wishing he could see her on all fours, see her pressed into the wall, panting and hot. He wishes he could brush back sweat-damp hair from her brow, worship her body while she uses his - but the closest he gets is an unsatisfying climax born more of desperation than anything else, as he finally gives up trying.
It doesn’t take him long to clean up, to remove the evidence and the stickiness from his hand and his belly. He should shower, but it can wait til morning, when he can make his way to the door in the sunlight, prepare for the long day ahead. There’s a sort of deadness in his arms and legs now, and all he wants to do is sink into the cot and let the numbness take him. He feels… warm and cold at the same time, and he cowers under the sheets with a shiver.
He still won’t sleep well, but he can rest and let his thoughts drift, to ponder over things his waking mind might miss. Tomorrow he’ll sleep. Tomorrow on another planet, under the alien stars he’d dreamed of all his life.
In a sleeping bag, under a tent. In the Pegasus galaxy, with his team.
It’s an odd price to pay for a good night’s sleep. But it’s worth it.
Author: davechicken
Genre: Het, pre-slash
Rating: R
Pairing: Rodney McKay/Sam Carter, implied Rodney/Shep pre-slash
Summary: Rodney has trouble sleeping
Word-Count: 2859 (oops)
Author's Notes: Many thanks to alinak for poking me and reading through, and to both frostfire_17 and akire_yta for the very kind beta. It goes without saying that any remaining mistakes are all mine. Mwah.
It isn’t always ‘night’ time when he goes to bed. The timings here are off slightly; the rotation speed and size and distance and so on are similar, but not quite the same. It’s strange, in a way. That most of the inhabited planets are so much like Atlantis, and Earth itself, actually. It smacks of something other than coincidence, and he idly ponders classing them by Star Trek standards, before remembering his long-harboured contempt for that system.
Sometimes he’ll offer it as an excuse to Carson as to why he’s not sleeping so well. Decades of Terran conditioning to be uprooted here, after all. Sometimes he’ll claim it’s because of stress or necessity that he’s up most nights long after most have gone to bed, working when he can get away with it.
It isn’t true though, and he knows it. Carson knows it too, and so does Kate. They talk about sleeping pills, but Rodney says he doesn’t want the drowsiness and the reduced mental capacity anyway, that he can’t afford the side-effects. Not like they’d do him that much good anyway. He tried his mother’s, a few times, and it never helped with anything other than the ammunition used against him when the family came to blows again.
He sleeps well enough. Well enough to do his job, anyway. Only twice has Zelenka caught him huddled over the screen, trying to force the results to communicate to him as if they really were a foreign tongue - and one he’d never heard before - the numbers and the figures failing to register in his mind. He hasn’t made any stupid mistakes that he didn’t spot first himself, and he’s still upright - so that’s enough for him.
He didn’t sleep well the first few times they were off-world, of course. The tents and the sleeping bags reminded him too much of the one and only camping trip he’d been made to go on when he was younger, an experience he wouldn’t mind forgetting for good. Sleeping in the puddlejumper had been a little better, but not much. The first time outside, he’d lain awake all night, staring at the fabric of the tent and remembering jokes he’d heard and ghost stories he hadn’t. There were no owls or coyotes or anything as cliché as that, but it made it worse to think there might be something other than them, other than a wandering bear out there. Something he hadn’t been taught how to deal with in case of an emergency, and in the silence he wondered what it could be.
The second day on the planet, the major walked alongside him for some of the way, laughing and joking and staring at the lifesigns indicator and generally being the same old laid-back Major Sheppard he'd grown to know. Rodney had often wondered how John had ever been promoted this high whilst still being vaguely human and likeable. It was one of life’s little mysteries.
And then, when Rodney wasn’t expecting it:
“You didn’t get much sleep last night, did you, McKay?”
Rodney just looked at him, immediately bracing himself for his defence. “I don’t sleep that much as a rule, Major. It’s something of a habit amongst those of us with very fast minds; we find it hard to disengage them. I was merely thinking while I rested.”
“Hey, now, I was only asking,” Sheppard carried on, shrugging lightly. “I thought you were still awake when my watch ended, but I didn’t want to bother you, is all. I was just going to say, if you can’t sleep again, you might want to come keep watch with me. If you’re bored, I mean. Sometimes company helps, you know? Or I could talk you to sleep.”
Then Rodney felt like a bit of an ass, really, for snapping so much. If he’d had any sense, he’d have said thank you. But sometimes he didn’t have much sense.
“Well I’m perfectly used to spending most of my time purely in my own company, thinking - admittedly not usually in another galaxy and on a strange planet - so I’m not entirely sure it would be helpful.”
“Well, the offer stands,” the airman said, oddly not sounding offended. “I could use the company myself.”
Rodney had simply nodded, and left it at that.
Except, he didn’t. Not entirely.
That night they were back in Atlantis anyway, and he had plenty of readings to spend all night over, in his room. But the next mission they had to stay out on, despite his best efforts at sleeping, he failed miserably and found himself sitting side-to-side with the major, for warmth.
“You look bored senseless, Major.”
“Why thank you, Rodney, you look good at four in the morning, too.”
He wondered if John knew he’d woken after only a few hours asleep, then waited until it was the major’s watch and then waited until it didn’t seem like he’d been waiting for him - or waiting for it to not look like he was waiting - before finally coming to sit and talk til morning.
“I spent all day inside an access hatch, Major, what do you expect?”
Some times on missions, though, he would sleep like a baby, curled up in his sleeping bag, in the insane conviction that he was safe. Long, long nights of good, solid rest that he had no right to be getting in such unusual conditions, where he should be panicking and fretting and all sorts of other things, not blissfully unaware. Maybe it was all the exertion and fresh air. He wouldn’t be surprised.
It’s different on Atlantis. For one, night and day can be artificially imposed here, light flooding his senses and keeping the hormones flooding through his caffeine system so his internal clock can’t count at all. He can dim the lights, too, so whenever he wants, he can sit in his room lit by… actually, it isn’t often. He either has the lights up high for his work, or down to an almost minimum on those occasions when his migraines take precedence.
He’s never been the kind to enjoy communal sleeping arrangements, which is why it’s odd that he seems to have grown… fond of them. The quiet noises of existence the other people make around him, the whispered words and tousled hair first thing in a morning that normally helped relax him these days.
Here in the city, the only noise in his room is him. He’ll wake up, some days, expecting to see a mop of dark hair curled up beside him, mouth already open to tell the major what he’s just been thinking of - only to find he’s been alone in his room all night long.
Having the room to himself does have its advantages, though. As long as he’s not too tired, he’ll turn the lights out completely before he even plans on sleeping. In the darkness he’ll remember he needs to get tissues or a cloth, and he’ll find them by the bed. Then he can… ease some of his problems in peace and quiet, instead of willing them to wait.
He’s heard all about these military types and their ‘male bonding’ over showers and towels and joysticks and stuff like that, but he wonders if it’s just a silly stereotype without any real basis in reality. It’s possible that’s the case, but you never can tell.
Ford seems a kid far too… nice for anything as seedy or vaguely… whatever-it-is as that, and he can see the other man smiling at his grad-student girlfriend over spaghetti, almost, the Disney-sweet mentality of it all. Except, perhaps, with a little more regular explosives than a ‘normal’ relationship would have.
Teyla… Teyla seems so far above it all that occasionally he wonders if she’s some female eunuch. The major…
Rodney isn’t all that sure what the major is. He’s not all grunt mentality and shoot-now shoot-later, anyway. But he was much too much of a… charmer, a ladies’ man to resort to that, Rodney was sure.
Anyway. Ford didn’t seem to even know what sex was all about, really - or he did, but he preferred those high explosives of his. Teyla knew better, and the major - for all his ‘intergalactic relations’, seemed to otherwise have firm… control over himself. Mostly. So Rodney rolled over in the morning, keeping his eyes jammed tight shut or mumbling something about a nearby stream - where he could then cool off.
Sometimes the human body could be an incredibly inconvenient contrivance.
Here he doesn’t have the same problem. He’ll turn all the lights out and plunge his room into darkness, all the better to fantasise by.
Sometimes he’ll undress a little slower than he usually would, letting his fingers trail. Sometimes he’ll just stroke himself through his trousers before he works on the fly, lowering it and his boxers just enough so they bunch around his hips and he can stroke himself with them on. It’s not that much of a variety but it’s the best he can do.
It’s always Samantha he thinks of when he does this, come night-time, when he’s not so tired and listless that he just falls onto the pallet with his clothes on still and waits until he has to get up again. He sleeps so badly on the mattress that unless he’s half blind with exhaustion beforehand, he’ll lie awake and stare at the ceiling with his whole life rolling past his eyes if he doesn’t. Recently it’s getting harder to do it all in summary.
A lot of the time he still won’t have the energy, or even the interest, despite his best efforts and he finally drops his head back on the pillow, feeling the air slightly cool over his chest. A lot of the time his mind is too full of reality for him to escape. But when he does manage it, it helps - not enough to fully relax him, but it does help soothe some itch.
Today there was no real emergency and nothing needing his attention that couldn’t wait for morning. He’s due off-world tomorrow, and the major always insists he’s in bed reasonably early the night before. After the third time he goes through everything with Zelenka and the Czech finally loses patience with him, he heads back to his room with every intention of doing what the major suggested.
Samantha won’t undress him, normally, not unless he holds completely still. Perhaps it’s because he can’t work the logistics of whose hand would go where if they undressed one another at the same time, but he has the sneaking suspicion it’s because he can’t quite see her doing this at all.
Today she’s standing in the doorway to his shower, and he drops his jacket onto the chair, the lights out as soon as the door closes. It makes it easier if he can’t see where she isn’t. She’s silent as he pulls off his boots, standing on one leg but still leaning on the wall for support. He still feels self-conscious doing this in front of her, even though he thinks he stopped feeling silly doing it in front of the other members of the team - he’s much faster than he used to be, now. But here, for some reason, he still feels every second drag over the laces and leather as he tries to pull his feet free.
His cheeks are red by the time his socks are in his boots and his trousers are folded neatly on the seat of the chair. Not military precision - he’s seen how John folds his - and she strolls over to the foot of the bed as he reluctantly takes off his shirt, too. In his mind, she runs her fingers over the fabric - almost as though she’s checking for dust, and he wonders why.
He sits on the bed, not touching himself yet, palm resting on his belly. One too many donuts and not enough exercise over the years have taken their toll. Not that he’s by any means terribly unfit, but it does show. He wonders if all the exercise is helping, but she never seems impressed.
He wonders what it says about him that even his fantasy, his ideal woman doesn’t much care for him.
His fingers are a little cold when he touches them to his hardening dick experimentally, eyes closed despite the dark and teeth digging into his lip. Cold, but not cold enough to kill the mood, and he moves them experimentally up and down, feeling the imperfections of his skin and gently teasing himself to full hardness before he starts in earnest.
Fake-Carter smiles and shakes her head, saying something he’s not sure he wants to hear. She’s wearing blues a little like the major’s, and it’s the way he always thinks of her. The one time he tried to imagine her in something else it went horribly wrong, so now he settles for one of those plain, straight skirts and tight, nice blouses. He stares at her chest and she rolls her eyes, and even that’s as sexy as hell, though it shouldn’t be.
Her hands are nice and her fingernails trimmed short and clean. He saw them before, before all this, when he would lean over her at the keyboard, breathing in her scent. He can’t put her hands on him, though, and he only has his own square fingers and thumbs to rub over the head of his cock, to stroke and squeeze.
She shakes her head at him, looks down so he could almost imagine she was staring at her own chest, at the soft, round breasts that aren’t too big, aren’t too small and which beg to be cupped, fondled and all the other words that would have made him hot and bothered back when he was a horny teenager and not closer to the answer to life, the universe and everything than anything else. He would trace them through her blouse with his fingers if she wouldn’t slap him. Well, no. He would if it would just be a slap, but then he thinks she might not come back at all, and he needs these precious few moments with her. Needs anything he can get.
Through the darkness he feels her smile, wry and unwilling, because she knows he’s called her across a whole galaxy, and still can’t make her do what he wants. He wants to run his hands all over her, to feel where she’s soft and warm. He wants to glide those hands down to her hips so he can hold her legs while he fucks her, slides into her over and over until she writhes and moans. He wants to feel her eyes on him, watching him, only him as they move together, both looking for the same thing. Both looking in the same place.
His strokes become short and fast, his hand bumping into his balls every time, and he spreads his legs a little wider, even though it means she can see more clearly. The sheets feel stiff and rough under his heels and it’s strange that he dislikes it so much, that even a couch would be better, even a sleeping bag in a tent somewhere. Quiet little noises in the back of his throat, the vague creaking noises of the bed and his own hand on his cock are all he can hear. He’s sure that the sounds won’t travel - he’s never heard anyone else even move around - but he wants to make sure no one hears him now, after hearing him all day. The frustrated little whimper he can’t hold back as he tugs wouldn’t do to be heard.
Then, fully clothed, she walks out of the room, her hips shimmying into nothing, leaving Rodney wishing he could see her on all fours, see her pressed into the wall, panting and hot. He wishes he could brush back sweat-damp hair from her brow, worship her body while she uses his - but the closest he gets is an unsatisfying climax born more of desperation than anything else, as he finally gives up trying.
It doesn’t take him long to clean up, to remove the evidence and the stickiness from his hand and his belly. He should shower, but it can wait til morning, when he can make his way to the door in the sunlight, prepare for the long day ahead. There’s a sort of deadness in his arms and legs now, and all he wants to do is sink into the cot and let the numbness take him. He feels… warm and cold at the same time, and he cowers under the sheets with a shiver.
He still won’t sleep well, but he can rest and let his thoughts drift, to ponder over things his waking mind might miss. Tomorrow he’ll sleep. Tomorrow on another planet, under the alien stars he’d dreamed of all his life.
In a sleeping bag, under a tent. In the Pegasus galaxy, with his team.
It’s an odd price to pay for a good night’s sleep. But it’s worth it.