Same Old Same Old by mific (H/C challenge)
Title: Same Old Same Old
Author: mific
Pairing: John/Rodney, established relationship
Warnings: hurt/comfort, they’re old codgers
Rating: R, just for rude words
Word Count: 1508
Disclaimer: I don't own SGA, I'm just fond of John and Rodney
“Dr McKay to the Chair Room! Dr McKay to the Chair Room!”
Rodney jerked awake, cursing, and rolled off the couch, his knees protesting as they hit the hard floor and his back spasmed painfully. Shit, the fucking Chair Room again. It only ever meant one thing, so there was no point calling for John to help him up.
He crawled across to the Rodmobile and levered himself up, clenching his teeth against the sharp stabbing ache at the base of his spine. Slumping into the padded seat, Rodney lifted each leg separately and positioned his slippered feet in the footwell, then powered up the converted golf cart and aimed it at the door, thinking open before barrelling out into the corridor and turning towards the eastern tower.
“Out of the way, morons! Move assholes, genius driving here!” He unclipped his gnarled walking stick from the handlebars and brandished it as he picked up speed, clearing a path as the denizens of Atlantis leaped for their lives and hugged the walls. “C’mon, c’mon,” Rodney muttered to himself, frustrated with the cart’s modest turn of speed. The idiots who passed for security these days had insisted that he remove the naquadah-powered turbo booster from the back after a nasty incident involving Kavanagh and second degree burns. Was it Rodney’s fault if the malicious old coot was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Anyway, he was sure Kavanagh had been trying to slide a whoopee cushion under the cart’s seat.
Why, of all the people from the heyday of the mission who might have have survived so as to enliven his twilight years, did it have to be fucking Kavanagh? Conclusive proof that the universe totally hated him, if any more was needed. Not content with half-paralysing him with back pain and removing every last vestige of his hair, swelling the joints of his hands so that he had to use voice-activation to work on his laptop at all and forcing him to limp off to the bathroom several times a night, the universe had also gifted him with Major General John Sheppard (retd), who had to be the stupidest, most irritating old fool in two galaxies. As the current crisis amply demonstrated.
Rodney screamed abuse at a gaggle of ludicrously young-looking scientists clustered at a corridor junction and they scattered before his flailing walking stick. Teenagers, they were sending teenagers out from Earth these days, not a neurone worth joining up among them. The rant helped a little, distracting him from the persistent ache of worry as he neared the eastern tower. Please let him be all right, let them have caught him in time.
The doors were guarded by two security gorrillas but they stepped back smartly and opened up for him, dodging his stick as he rolled to a stop in the Chair Room. One of the new doctors was there, a redhead he didn’t know because really, who could be bothered with all their names? He had better things to do with what remained of his faculties. The doctor was kneeling on the floor; she looked around at him.
John was crumpled at the base of the Chair, pale and still. For a moment Rodney felt a savage surge of pain and grief, almost welcome in its inevitability. A faint sense of finally ghosted across his consciousness. No more worrying, no more heart-in-mouth disasters. John had gone and now he could follow and it would all be peaceful at last. Finally.
His vision misted over for a second, and when it cleared he noticed a faint rise and fall in the thin, bony chest, covered in the most disreputable T-shirt from John’s collection, threadbare and faded, Cash’s features almost obliterated. The redhead had pushed the T-shirt up to listen to John’s chest and Rodney ached to see his knobbly ribs and thinning, white chest-hair exposed. His unruly hair had survived the years and was just as chaotic as ever, white strands falling across his forehead as he lay there. It made him look bizarrely angelic, and wasn’t that irritating, that he was still handsome even now, despite the lines and the scars? Because of them. Rodney wanted to stroke the hair back from his forehead and kick him, in equal measure.
“Is he? -” His mouth was dry, his voice a hoarse croak.
The doctor removed her stethoscope from John’s chest and smiled at him reassuringly. Get on with it woman! He wanted to brain her with his stick, but managed to restrain himself.
“He’ll be OK, Dr McKay. He did get into the Chair this time but he slipped and fell before it got fully powered-up so he didn’t overload himself. His heart’s fine, just a little rapid. He fainted, but he doesn’t seem to have injured himself - no broken bones.”
“Yes, because all we need is another fractured hip like the last ridiculous escapade in the Gate Room. How in hell did he get in here again? I thought they doubled security on the doors?”
“The guards say an emergency alarm went off down the corridor and they had to check it out. He slipped in while their backs were turned.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, don’t they know he can still get Atlantis to do pretty much whatever he wants? Including setting off false alarms? I swear, the city indulges him. They’re like a pair of geriatric delinquents!”
The doors opened and two paramedics pushed a gurney into the room and carefully loaded John onto it, settling him in the recovery position on his side, facing Rodney. Rodney wheeled himself over, stowed the walking stick and put his hand on John’s cheek. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, trying to suppress the tight lump in his throat and the hot pricking in his eyes. “Idiot. Moron. If I can avoid being choked to death by citrus for over seventy-five years, you can fucking well take better care and stop half-killing yourself with these mindbogglingly cretinous adventures. You can’t use the Chair any more, John, your body won’t take it, it’s just not strong enough.” His hand strayed into the thick white hair, soft and fine as he smoothed it back from John’s temple.
“Rodney…” John’s voice was a whisper, his papery eyelids fluttering. “She woke up for me Rodney, just for a moment. I could feel her all around.” He swallowed and a small smile crooked the corner of his mouth. “Almost like old times…”
“Jesus, John. I know you miss her but you can’t, you mustn’t…”
“Just wanted to remember how it felt, Rodney. S’like going blind and deaf, without her.”
“Can’t you make do with feeling up the transporters or, or the bloody wall panels or our table lamp for Christ’s sake? They still go all glowy for you.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like the Chair.” John pouted. And really, on a man pushing eighty that was just fucking ridiculous and Rodney was not going to kiss him. Not in public, anyway. John put on what he probably imagined was an irresistably soulful look and his voice got a wheedling tone. “If you’d let me fly a ’jumper again I wouldn’t need the Chair you know.”
“Yeah. Not going to happen. You know damn well they revoked your licence after you crashed one into the ocean off the South Pier. And no, I don’t want to hear how you were rescuing those Athosian children. It was a supervised swimming lesson for fuck’s sake. They were wearing water wings.”
The doctor tapped him on the shoulder. “We need to take General Sheppard to the Infirmary now Dr McKay, to check him over properly.”
Rodney trundled along beside John’s gurney, waited while he underwent the usual blood tests and scans and then maneuvered himself in beside John’s bed. The Infirmary was their second home and the staff knew better than to ask him to leave.
He reached across the bed and took John’s hand, stroking it and lacing their fingers together. John’s were slender against his own arthritic nodules and swollen wrists: years of bashing keyboards and wiring up Ancient technology had taken their toll. He sighed and caressed John’s palm with his thumb.
John’s eyes opened. “Hi Rodney - here we are again.” He grinned and squeezed Rodney’s hand, a light pressure, careful not to hurt Rodney’s joints. “Don’t leave me.”
Rodney snorted. “Idiot: where would I go? Besides, they stockpile blue jello in the pathology fridge. That blond nurse likes me, she’ll give me some.”
John’s eyes were shutting again. “Sing to me, Rodney, c’mon…”
Rodney sighed: “Jesus. Oh, all right.”
My daddy left home when I was three
And he didn't leave much to ma and me
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.
Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me "Sue."
John bent his arm up and tucked Rodney’s hand in beside his cheek, smiling.
~~0~~