Heavy is the Head, Wildcard Day #5
Heavy Is The Head
A Moste Excellent Greate and Lamentable Tragedie in Five Actes
Author:
losyark
Summer Steam Harlequin Challenge
Approx Word Count: 22 000
Genre: Grand High Romance! / slash / AU
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis (Spoilers up to and including 2.15, "The Tower" with brief mentions of 3.15 "The Game" and 3.08 "McKay and Mrs. Miller")
Pairing: Rodney McKay/ Baldric; Rodney McKay/ John Sheppard
Rating: NC-17 for potty-mouthness and boy-boinking.
Author's Notes: Guess which other R and J I'm looting. Thanks once again to
pearbean, my wonderful beta, and
bratfarrar who stepped up to beta for me for the first time and was perfectly marvelous about my unreasonable deadline and Gratuitous Use of Capitalization.
Backstory:
For the non-SGA fans: this story is an AU after the episode "The Tower", wherein the Atlantis expedition (a group of explorers from Earth trapped in a remote galaxy in the ancient city of Atlantis) accidentally finds the Tower, a replica of just the control spire of their own city. The Tower is occupied with a Shakesperian-esque court of nobles who were tyrannically suppressing their serfs. Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, military leader of Atlantis, is captured by the Lord Protector and threatened into marrying his daughter, Princess Mara, to pass on his Ancient Technology Activation (ATA) gene, which is required to run the systems in both The Tower and Atlantis. Otho, the Royal Genealogist and Alchemist poisoned the old Lord Protector, killing him, and forced Sheppard into a fight over the throne, which Sheppard won by injuring Otho with his own poisoned dagger. The Atlantians escaped with several of the Tower=s spaceships (affectionately known as "puddlejumpers") and as many drone missiles as they could load up. In canon, the expedition never return to the planet, leaving it in civic turmoil, upheaval, and totally vulnerable to attack by the Wraith, the vampire-like creatures who treat the human population of the Pegasus galaxy as their herds.
Summary: From two cities, both alike in dignity; on fair Veritanus, where we lay our scene. From sibling feud breaks to new mutiny, and civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal ranks of these two foes, a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life.
***
Prologue:
From two cities, both alike in dignity,
To fair Veritanus, where we lay our scene.
From sibling feud breaks to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal ranks of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death, bury the planet=s strife.
***
Prologue the Second:
"What do you mean, you're going back?!" Rodney sputtered into his morning coffee.
"I just am," Sheppard said. He was staring down at the bowl of cereal he had thought about eating. “I don’t think I have an appetite after all.”
“You have to eat something,” Rodney clucked.
“I thought I'd hoped to be able to trick myself into it once something was sitting on the table in front of me. Yeah, nope.”
“Well don’t come crying to me if you faint while Teyla is kicking your ass in an hour.”
"Pass out from manly hunger,” John corrected with a sly sideways grin. The corners of his mouth pulled up teasingly, before flattening again in consternation. “Look at this, Rodney," he said, gesturing at the Mess Hall around them, the early morning Atlantian sun shining in the windows, washing the world in the warm ambers of the angular stained glass. "Coffee, sort-of-eggs, pancakes. Clean clothes on our backs, paycheques waiting for us when we get back to Earth. Look at everything we've got. We left those villages with nothing. The Court of the Tower can=t fend for themselves and the villagers are starving. We even took their drones."
"Oh, god, are you having an attack of conscience now, Colonel? I thought you turned down the kingship."
"I don't want it." John scowled. "What do you mean, now?"
Rodney waved his cup expressively. "I didn"t think you"d care. We got the drones, we got some 'jumpers, we have the chair, we have the superior city. The Wraith haven"t culled Veritanus in decades, they don"t know that the Tower is defenseless now. Besides, they"re focussing on us - we"ll be the ones to end the war with the Wraith. The peasants will overthrow the Court of the Tower, there will be a revolution, and then all will be well in the land of Shakespeare-Gone-Wrong-Wrong-So-Very-Wrong."
Sheppard slammed his palms down on the table, rattling both the cutlery and Rodney"s flippant mood.
"We left them with nothing, Rodney," he said, scowling darkly. "We left Veritanus in the middle of a civil war that we started. People are going to die."
Rodney's crooked mouth pulled down into a scowl to match Sheppard's. "Is it Princess Mara?"
"What?"
"You want to go back for Princess Mara, don't you? Or is it Prince Tavius?"
"Jesus, Rodney, is that what you think of me? No wonder you--"
"No! I..." Rodney trailed off, set down his coffee. He made an aborted gesture towards Sheppard that may have begun with an attempt to place one broad hand over Sheppard's, but ended with rapping a fist angrily on the table top. "Your place is here, Colonel. With ... us. You have a duty to Atlantis. You can't just leave."
"The hell I can't," Sheppard said darkly, and Rodney remembered too late that the worst thing to do to John Sheppard was to challenge him to anything by telling him what he couldn't do.
"Colonel!"
"Just watch me."
Sheppard got up and left the mess hall, and Rodney turned to watch the stretch and play of the furious lines of his back through his black tee-shirt. The anger clouded, radiated out of John so forcefully that it was nearly visible. Even Atlantis' lights seemed to wince in sympathy.
And that was the last Doctor M. Rodney McKay saw of Lieutenant Colonel John T. Sheppard for six months.
Act One
Edit: Reposted to try to fix formating wonkiness.