fic: Okay to be a Little Lost Sometimes
Title: Okay to be a Little Lost Sometimes
Author: x_sleeptodream
Pairing/Fandom: John/Rodney friendship / SGA
Rating: PG13
Summary: "I needed to hear your mindless and totally undeserved optimism."
Prompt: Believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Believe that you may be that light for someone else.
AN: This is set after The Return, Part 1, so obviously, spoilers for that episode. Also, I would have never written this if not for maisiuil, who mentioned wanting to see these things and then my prompt just sort of … fit. Thank you, honey. 'Tis for you :)
The first thing John sees after he comes through the gate is Rodney, and for the briefest of moments he thinks, Atlantis? But Rodney's in ripped jeans and a faded black t-shirt without a Canadian flag on his sleeve, and the room around him isn't an open, airy gray-blue, it's concrete, and John's suffocating in it. Rodney's talking to one of the marines guarding the gate room but looks up when John makes his way down the ramp, trailing mud behind him.
"What-"
John cuts him off by holding up his right hand - Rodney quirks an eyebrow and the marine grips his sidearm. "I don't want to talk about it," John says, and keeps walking.
"Yes, but you might want to put your gun down," Rodney says. He falls into step with John at the door.
He misses this so much it makes it hard to breathe sometimes, causes him to wonder if it will ever be okay. It's a poor substitute for Atlantis, but he's tried arguing for Rodney in the field, he needs some kind of familiarity, even if it is just walking side-by-side to the showers while covered in mud from an alien planet. "No," he says, jerking his arm away when Rodney catches his wrist and tries to pry his fingers free. "I need it for when I shoot myself in-"
"Shut. Up," Rodney hissed. "You can't do that here, this isn't Atlantis, they don't know you're joking. And don't even try to say you're not, okay? Because otherwise-"
"Otherwise?" Rodney's followed him right into the showers but he can't really bring himself to care, just starts stripping out of his gear and hands his gun to Rodney. "Can you bring that to the armory, if you're not going to let me have any fun?"
"What am I, your slave?" But he goes, and John's almost resorted to cutting his bootlaces off when Rodney comes back. Rodney bats his hands away and sits on the bench next to John's propped up foot. "Here, come on, let me do it," he says, and John just gives up.
"They pushed me," he says, and adds, to cover Rodney's sharp questioning, "down a ravine."
"Oh, no big deal, then," Rodney says, and yanks off his boot. "Other one, come on."
John hauls his other foot up and reaches down to pull his sock off. "It was a small one," he says. "To be fair, they were trying to protect me from the cat."
"The cat?" Rodney's fingers are quick with the dried mud covered laces; clumps of dirt are shaken onto the bench as he digs them out and starts working on the knot.
"In the bushes. They didn't know it was a cat, and it started making these noises so they pulled me back."
"They pulled you back," Rodney says, loosening the untied laces, "and pushed you down a ravine to save you from a cat."
"Not exactly," John says. Rodney pulls the boot and his sock off this time, then looks vaguely disgusted with himself. "Then I almost tripped over Robinson - they were a little, well, overenthusiastic about pulling me back - you didn't send them any memos, did you?" He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror after he pulls his t-shirt off. Hair sticking every which way, bruise on his cheek, mud completely covering his neck, some smeared on his face.
"Hadn't thought of it," Rodney says. "Besides, they, ah, told me you were getting the easy planets."
John snorts. "Yeah, easy. Easy as in boring."
"Better than being shot at," Rodney says, and before John can disagree, he adds, "so, Robinson pushed you down the ravine?"
"A small one," John says again, and his fingers fumble with the button on his pants twice before he can get it open. "But no, not really. Robinson was standing a foot or so near the edge of the ravine-"
"You're all idiots."
"Whatever, Rodney, there wasn't any more room or we wouldn't have been that close. Anyway, he moved, I stumbled, and started falling." He shoves his pants and boxers down - Rodney doesn't look away but it doesn't bother John, they've been in public showers after missions, though Rodney is usually as naked as he is.
"Right," Rodney says. "In case you were wondering why I was here-" John wasn't- "it's because I might have, possibly, missed-"
"Me?"
"Hardly," Rodney says. He raises an eyebrow. "For your information, I was going to say I missed the puddlejumper."
He turns the shower on full blast and steps under the spray, closing his eyes against the water running down his face for a few seconds before turning away and saying, "Aw, Rodney. Always the sentimental one."
"Shut up," Rodney says. He's tapping on his cell phone but looks up and catches John's eye. "Anyway, since I'm here and all, we should go grab drinks. Or, you know, do something."
He shrugs and Rodney seems to take that as a yes, because he makes a humming, pleased noise in the back of his throat. John doesn't really mind, it was that or sit around doing nothing, and he probably would have spent the night on the phone with Rodney anyway.
He doesn't notice Rodney get up at all but there are fresh clothes sitting on the bench and his dirty ones are folded into his gym bag when he finally turns the shower off and towels off his hair. "Thanks," he says, and Rodney just nods.
"Mitchell was telling me about this new pizza place-"
"Nah," John says. "He brought some back the other day, I grabbed a slice. Wasn't that great. There's a bar I've been to a few times, we can go there. Besides," he adds, "I think they're showing hockey tonight. Flames and Avalanche, I think."
"Sure," Rodney says, and John thinks his eyes might light up a little because Rodney can never resist the lure of hockey and beer, especially if he has the opportunity to put down football during it all. Which he will. Rodney doesn't wait for opportunities to come along; he creates them.
Rodney joins in on the mission debrief, which doesn't get as many odd looks as John had suspected there might be, and tags along in the infirmary, where he makes a beeline for Carson and starts complaining about the state of things at Area 51. By the time he's let out of the mountain and is harassing Rodney for the keys to his car it's half an hour past the start time of the game.
Rodney doesn't seem to mind. He stakes out a table with a good view of one of the big screens while John wanders to the bar to get a few beers and he's playing with the menu when John slides a Molson across the table.
They order cheeseburgers and French fries and John gets to complain a lot about his team in between listening to Rodney accuse his new science team - though he refuses to call them a team - of being even stupider than John is (which John ignores because there's a backwards compliment in there, and Rodney doesn't give those out often) and demanding to know if John's gone to see the puddlejumper yet.
He hasn't. They won’t let him.
They give up on hockey when the game is still 0-0 in the third quarter, also, because Rodney sees the dartboard in the corner and bets John he's got a better aim.
The idea is pretty ludicrous, so John bets him a trip to Hawaii against a trip to visit Jeannie and picks the darts up from the bartender.
"I've been shooting in my off time," Rodney says, and he aims by squinting one eye shut before his arm jerks down and the dart goes flying. It hits the double ring right around the four, and John rolls his eyes.
"You don't have downtime," he says, and hands the next dart over. "And watch where you're flinging those things, okay? They're sharp at the end."
"This?" Rodney says, and lets the next dart fly, "This is why they don't call you a genius. Sharp at the end, thank you. Next you'll be telling me that night is dark and day is light."
The dart hit around the same place, slightly lower, and John bites him lip from trying to correct Rodney. They set a score of 501, and if Rodney keeps hitting the four they'll be there all night. "Nah," he says. "That's common sense."
Rodney pauses to glare at him. His last dart hits the bull's ring, and he has a stunned expression for about a second before grinning smugly. "I believe that's, let's see - 33?"
"Yeah," John says. Rodney's quiet while he throws his and manages to not look annoyed when John hits the red ring under the twenty twice before hitting a one, and takes the darts from him after, inspecting them.
"Just checking," he says when John sighs loudly.
He's up by just seventeen when Rodney drops his arm, turns around and asks, "Do you think we'll ever get back?"
John's not surprised. He's been waiting for Atlantis to come up since he saw Rodney in the gate room - they've managed to avoid talking about it on the phone but it's only been two weeks since they had to leave, and it still hurts. But he says, "Yeah, of course," and, "why?" and it seems to be all Rodney needs.
"I guess I just needed," Rodney pauses and John understands - Rodney hates to admit he needs anything at all - "I needed to hear your mindless and totally undeserved optimism."
"Gee," John says. "Thank you, Rodney."
"Shut up," Rodney says, but it's half-hearted and he puts the darts down. "I miss Teyla," he blurts out. "And Ronon, and if you ever tell him I said this I'll kill you, Sheppard, I swear, but I miss working with Zelenka, because he wasn't entirely stupid."
"And me?" John says, and he's teasing, trying to lighten the mood but Rodney just looks at him.
"Yeah," he says. "And you."
The reason John hates talking about his feelings is because he's always afraid he'll do it wrong, say the wrong things and not look sincere enough, but Rodney looks utterly miserable, standing in the corner of a poorly lit sports bar in Colorado Springs, and John doesn't really think he has a choice. "Teyla," he says, and swallows, because he's gone the whole time on Earth without talking about her, "she said, once, that one day we'd look to the sky and there'd be no wraith darts, no hive ships, and we could rejoice because we had come to the end of a long journey, and it meant we could start another one."
Rodney looks at him, brow furrowed, for a long time, until John starts to feel vaguely uncomfortable. "So - is that like, there's a light at the end of the tunnel?"
"I guess," John says, and reaches out for the darts.
"I never believed that crap," Rodney says, and sighs.
John laughs and bumps his shoulder. "I guess you'll just have to go for some of my mindless optimism."
"You forgot the 'totally undeserved' part," Rodney says. He takes the box of darts back and says, "I'm glad-"
John waits a few seconds before saying, "You're glad, what?"
"I'm glad I have you," Rodney says, and his cheeks flush red. "You know, here. I'm glad that you're here, too."
"Oh," John says. He takes the darts and turns around, walks to the bar and sets them down before going back and slinging an arm around Rodney's shoulder. "Yeah. You'll have me in Hawaii, too. Come on, you owe me. I can put in for leave tomorrow, how does that sound? A week in the sun, I'll teach you to surf, you can yell about citrus and we'll watch girls in grass skirts dance all night."
"You didn't win," Rodney protests. "You had to win for that to count and being ahead when you decide the game is over does not constitute winning, it constitutes cheating."
"Whatever, Rodney," he says. "You totally know I won."
"It does sound better than working with-"
"No stress, come on. Just think about it: blue sky, blue water, we can fly over the volcanoes and you can imagine dropping Kavanaugh into them."
"Fine," Rodney says. "Fine, we'll go. Hey, maybe we can invite Jeannie; she'd probably like that, right?"
John grins, drops his arm, and follows Rodney out the door. It might take some getting used to, being back on Earth, but they'd get back, one way or another. He was pretty sure some of his optimism wasn't completely undeserved.
Author: x_sleeptodream
Pairing/Fandom: John/Rodney friendship / SGA
Rating: PG13
Summary: "I needed to hear your mindless and totally undeserved optimism."
Prompt: Believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Believe that you may be that light for someone else.
AN: This is set after The Return, Part 1, so obviously, spoilers for that episode. Also, I would have never written this if not for maisiuil, who mentioned wanting to see these things and then my prompt just sort of … fit. Thank you, honey. 'Tis for you :)
The first thing John sees after he comes through the gate is Rodney, and for the briefest of moments he thinks, Atlantis? But Rodney's in ripped jeans and a faded black t-shirt without a Canadian flag on his sleeve, and the room around him isn't an open, airy gray-blue, it's concrete, and John's suffocating in it. Rodney's talking to one of the marines guarding the gate room but looks up when John makes his way down the ramp, trailing mud behind him.
"What-"
John cuts him off by holding up his right hand - Rodney quirks an eyebrow and the marine grips his sidearm. "I don't want to talk about it," John says, and keeps walking.
"Yes, but you might want to put your gun down," Rodney says. He falls into step with John at the door.
He misses this so much it makes it hard to breathe sometimes, causes him to wonder if it will ever be okay. It's a poor substitute for Atlantis, but he's tried arguing for Rodney in the field, he needs some kind of familiarity, even if it is just walking side-by-side to the showers while covered in mud from an alien planet. "No," he says, jerking his arm away when Rodney catches his wrist and tries to pry his fingers free. "I need it for when I shoot myself in-"
"Shut. Up," Rodney hissed. "You can't do that here, this isn't Atlantis, they don't know you're joking. And don't even try to say you're not, okay? Because otherwise-"
"Otherwise?" Rodney's followed him right into the showers but he can't really bring himself to care, just starts stripping out of his gear and hands his gun to Rodney. "Can you bring that to the armory, if you're not going to let me have any fun?"
"What am I, your slave?" But he goes, and John's almost resorted to cutting his bootlaces off when Rodney comes back. Rodney bats his hands away and sits on the bench next to John's propped up foot. "Here, come on, let me do it," he says, and John just gives up.
"They pushed me," he says, and adds, to cover Rodney's sharp questioning, "down a ravine."
"Oh, no big deal, then," Rodney says, and yanks off his boot. "Other one, come on."
John hauls his other foot up and reaches down to pull his sock off. "It was a small one," he says. "To be fair, they were trying to protect me from the cat."
"The cat?" Rodney's fingers are quick with the dried mud covered laces; clumps of dirt are shaken onto the bench as he digs them out and starts working on the knot.
"In the bushes. They didn't know it was a cat, and it started making these noises so they pulled me back."
"They pulled you back," Rodney says, loosening the untied laces, "and pushed you down a ravine to save you from a cat."
"Not exactly," John says. Rodney pulls the boot and his sock off this time, then looks vaguely disgusted with himself. "Then I almost tripped over Robinson - they were a little, well, overenthusiastic about pulling me back - you didn't send them any memos, did you?" He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror after he pulls his t-shirt off. Hair sticking every which way, bruise on his cheek, mud completely covering his neck, some smeared on his face.
"Hadn't thought of it," Rodney says. "Besides, they, ah, told me you were getting the easy planets."
John snorts. "Yeah, easy. Easy as in boring."
"Better than being shot at," Rodney says, and before John can disagree, he adds, "so, Robinson pushed you down the ravine?"
"A small one," John says again, and his fingers fumble with the button on his pants twice before he can get it open. "But no, not really. Robinson was standing a foot or so near the edge of the ravine-"
"You're all idiots."
"Whatever, Rodney, there wasn't any more room or we wouldn't have been that close. Anyway, he moved, I stumbled, and started falling." He shoves his pants and boxers down - Rodney doesn't look away but it doesn't bother John, they've been in public showers after missions, though Rodney is usually as naked as he is.
"Right," Rodney says. "In case you were wondering why I was here-" John wasn't- "it's because I might have, possibly, missed-"
"Me?"
"Hardly," Rodney says. He raises an eyebrow. "For your information, I was going to say I missed the puddlejumper."
He turns the shower on full blast and steps under the spray, closing his eyes against the water running down his face for a few seconds before turning away and saying, "Aw, Rodney. Always the sentimental one."
"Shut up," Rodney says. He's tapping on his cell phone but looks up and catches John's eye. "Anyway, since I'm here and all, we should go grab drinks. Or, you know, do something."
He shrugs and Rodney seems to take that as a yes, because he makes a humming, pleased noise in the back of his throat. John doesn't really mind, it was that or sit around doing nothing, and he probably would have spent the night on the phone with Rodney anyway.
He doesn't notice Rodney get up at all but there are fresh clothes sitting on the bench and his dirty ones are folded into his gym bag when he finally turns the shower off and towels off his hair. "Thanks," he says, and Rodney just nods.
"Mitchell was telling me about this new pizza place-"
"Nah," John says. "He brought some back the other day, I grabbed a slice. Wasn't that great. There's a bar I've been to a few times, we can go there. Besides," he adds, "I think they're showing hockey tonight. Flames and Avalanche, I think."
"Sure," Rodney says, and John thinks his eyes might light up a little because Rodney can never resist the lure of hockey and beer, especially if he has the opportunity to put down football during it all. Which he will. Rodney doesn't wait for opportunities to come along; he creates them.
Rodney joins in on the mission debrief, which doesn't get as many odd looks as John had suspected there might be, and tags along in the infirmary, where he makes a beeline for Carson and starts complaining about the state of things at Area 51. By the time he's let out of the mountain and is harassing Rodney for the keys to his car it's half an hour past the start time of the game.
Rodney doesn't seem to mind. He stakes out a table with a good view of one of the big screens while John wanders to the bar to get a few beers and he's playing with the menu when John slides a Molson across the table.
They order cheeseburgers and French fries and John gets to complain a lot about his team in between listening to Rodney accuse his new science team - though he refuses to call them a team - of being even stupider than John is (which John ignores because there's a backwards compliment in there, and Rodney doesn't give those out often) and demanding to know if John's gone to see the puddlejumper yet.
He hasn't. They won’t let him.
They give up on hockey when the game is still 0-0 in the third quarter, also, because Rodney sees the dartboard in the corner and bets John he's got a better aim.
The idea is pretty ludicrous, so John bets him a trip to Hawaii against a trip to visit Jeannie and picks the darts up from the bartender.
"I've been shooting in my off time," Rodney says, and he aims by squinting one eye shut before his arm jerks down and the dart goes flying. It hits the double ring right around the four, and John rolls his eyes.
"You don't have downtime," he says, and hands the next dart over. "And watch where you're flinging those things, okay? They're sharp at the end."
"This?" Rodney says, and lets the next dart fly, "This is why they don't call you a genius. Sharp at the end, thank you. Next you'll be telling me that night is dark and day is light."
The dart hit around the same place, slightly lower, and John bites him lip from trying to correct Rodney. They set a score of 501, and if Rodney keeps hitting the four they'll be there all night. "Nah," he says. "That's common sense."
Rodney pauses to glare at him. His last dart hits the bull's ring, and he has a stunned expression for about a second before grinning smugly. "I believe that's, let's see - 33?"
"Yeah," John says. Rodney's quiet while he throws his and manages to not look annoyed when John hits the red ring under the twenty twice before hitting a one, and takes the darts from him after, inspecting them.
"Just checking," he says when John sighs loudly.
He's up by just seventeen when Rodney drops his arm, turns around and asks, "Do you think we'll ever get back?"
John's not surprised. He's been waiting for Atlantis to come up since he saw Rodney in the gate room - they've managed to avoid talking about it on the phone but it's only been two weeks since they had to leave, and it still hurts. But he says, "Yeah, of course," and, "why?" and it seems to be all Rodney needs.
"I guess I just needed," Rodney pauses and John understands - Rodney hates to admit he needs anything at all - "I needed to hear your mindless and totally undeserved optimism."
"Gee," John says. "Thank you, Rodney."
"Shut up," Rodney says, but it's half-hearted and he puts the darts down. "I miss Teyla," he blurts out. "And Ronon, and if you ever tell him I said this I'll kill you, Sheppard, I swear, but I miss working with Zelenka, because he wasn't entirely stupid."
"And me?" John says, and he's teasing, trying to lighten the mood but Rodney just looks at him.
"Yeah," he says. "And you."
The reason John hates talking about his feelings is because he's always afraid he'll do it wrong, say the wrong things and not look sincere enough, but Rodney looks utterly miserable, standing in the corner of a poorly lit sports bar in Colorado Springs, and John doesn't really think he has a choice. "Teyla," he says, and swallows, because he's gone the whole time on Earth without talking about her, "she said, once, that one day we'd look to the sky and there'd be no wraith darts, no hive ships, and we could rejoice because we had come to the end of a long journey, and it meant we could start another one."
Rodney looks at him, brow furrowed, for a long time, until John starts to feel vaguely uncomfortable. "So - is that like, there's a light at the end of the tunnel?"
"I guess," John says, and reaches out for the darts.
"I never believed that crap," Rodney says, and sighs.
John laughs and bumps his shoulder. "I guess you'll just have to go for some of my mindless optimism."
"You forgot the 'totally undeserved' part," Rodney says. He takes the box of darts back and says, "I'm glad-"
John waits a few seconds before saying, "You're glad, what?"
"I'm glad I have you," Rodney says, and his cheeks flush red. "You know, here. I'm glad that you're here, too."
"Oh," John says. He takes the darts and turns around, walks to the bar and sets them down before going back and slinging an arm around Rodney's shoulder. "Yeah. You'll have me in Hawaii, too. Come on, you owe me. I can put in for leave tomorrow, how does that sound? A week in the sun, I'll teach you to surf, you can yell about citrus and we'll watch girls in grass skirts dance all night."
"You didn't win," Rodney protests. "You had to win for that to count and being ahead when you decide the game is over does not constitute winning, it constitutes cheating."
"Whatever, Rodney," he says. "You totally know I won."
"It does sound better than working with-"
"No stress, come on. Just think about it: blue sky, blue water, we can fly over the volcanoes and you can imagine dropping Kavanaugh into them."
"Fine," Rodney says. "Fine, we'll go. Hey, maybe we can invite Jeannie; she'd probably like that, right?"
John grins, drops his arm, and follows Rodney out the door. It might take some getting used to, being back on Earth, but they'd get back, one way or another. He was pretty sure some of his optimism wasn't completely undeserved.