New John/Rodney Story: Black Widow (G)
Title: Black Widow
Author: esteefee
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay UST; McKay/Keller (briefly)
Rating: G
Wordcount: 2,013
Spoilers: EatG
Warnings: This doesn't end happily. Not necessarily for Rodney-lovers, since I hold him responsible for the PTB's actions.
Categories: post-series
Summary: Rodney has a back-up plan.
Black Widow
by esteefee
Three months and five days after Atlantis splash-landed in the ocean just off the Golden Gate Bridge, Jennifer broke up with him.
"It's not that I don't care for you a lot, Rodney," she said, staring at him with woeful, pretty, pretty brown eyes, and he had to bite back a loud retort in order to let her finish, "but I just don't think we're, um, you know, compatible. Not like that! Not, you know, everything is fine that way," she said, waving vague hands, "you're great. You're awesome." She blew out a breath and her bangs flew up. "I just get the feeling all the time like we're walking on eggshells around each other, and it's never really comfortable, you know?" There came the Bambi eyes again, and she bit her lip. "You're never you, and I'm never really me, because I'm worrying about you all the time."
And whose brilliant idea was that, I wonder? he thought meanly, but didn't say, and that was just the problem, wasn't it, because he'd been censoring himself around her for so long it was an ingrained habit.
There was much more from her along the same lines, and as vindictively enjoyable as it was to watch her squirm in discomfort while she arduously broke up with him, she was obviously trying to be as kind as possible about the whole thing. And he did get it-for the longest time he'd been feeling like a two-bit actor in an American sitcom, and really, she'd been his best girlfriend ever, or at least the most successful, which wasn't saying much, anyway, so he sighed and dropped his head and opened his arms, and she sighed back gratefully and gave him a quick hug before backing away too quickly to be altogether flattering.
"So, I'll just-" She waved her hand away. "You can say this was all my fault. I was too flighty, or stupid, or something, and you simply couldn't bear my idiocy any longer." Her smile was rueful and conspiratorial.
As if anyone would believe the Chief Medical Officer of the Expedition was stupid.
"I'll tell them the truth," Rodney spoke at last. "I'm too old and stuck in my ways."
"Oh, Rodney."
"It's true." He turned away. "Now, if you please. I have some calculations to run on the wormhole drive if we're ever going to get this floating hunk of junk back to Pegasus."
:::
The thing was, he was just as relieved as she was, but it wouldn't be very nice to tell her that. And, again, he'd been trying so hard lately to be nice. But the effort just wasn't worth the trouble, ultimately, and he was finding his florist's bill was growing outrageous.
He always had his fall-back plan, anyway.
In the meantime, they'd worked hard jumping through all of the IOA's hoops, and Woolsey had done his bureaucratic magic and gotten them permission to go home, so Rodney was too busy in final preparations anyway to worry about his pathetic love life.
Finally Sheppard sat in the chair and triggered the stardrive, shrugging them free of Earth's gravity, pushing them out of the atmosphere and to the edge of the Solar System, and Rodney and Radek engaged the wormhole drive and shot them home.
Home, sweet Pegasus. Land of Wraith and honey.
It took them two weeks or so to get settled in their new location, a nice little planet designated P6V-010, or Neolantia, as Sheppard stupidly decided to coin it and for some reason everyone went along with like idiot sheep. What with the move and kissing off Todd and everything, the gossip mongers stopped wagging their tongues about Jennifer and Rodney in the interest of other topics. Jennifer had started seeing some apple pie-cheeked Marine named Washborn, blond and buff and spit-shined. He escorted her around like she was fine china, and she giggled a lot.
If Rodney had known that was what she wanted, he would have bought an Ab Roller.
Sheppard raised his eyebrows in the mess line when he saw Jennifer and Washborn at it, then flicked a glance at Rodney, but turned back to the steam trays without saying anything. Rodney had expected more; some ribbing, perhaps, or even a hint of something else, now that the opportunity presented. He'd actually been waiting for a while now, in between his various doomed relationships. He'd been hoping for years, it felt like, but nothing had ever surfaced. Just the usual teasing and griping and camaraderie. Nothing, it seemed, had or ever would change between them.
It was unbearable. After this latest failure with the woman who should have been perfect; who had been perfect in every way-bright, mostly accommodating of his foibles, beautiful, sexually precocious-it was unbearable that everything should still be the same. Because Rodney found himself thinking, as he had many a time before, well, there's always Sheppard. The perfect fall-back. Friendship ready-made, comfort in familiarity, and the man was extremely good-looking, in an annoyingly insouciant sort of way. And there was undeniably a frisson of attraction between them, so it made perfect sense.
Except Sheppard, goddamn him, wasn't cooperating.
:::
They liked to sometimes have beer on the pier, although that tradition, along with most of their other free-time and team activities, had fallen by the wayside once Rodney started seeing Jen seriously and no longer had the time. Still, Rodney had taken the opportunity while on Earth to stock up on a wide sampling of real brews from his homeland, and didn't doubt they would serve as ample lure to draw Sheppard out.
"McKay to Sheppard. Do you have a moment?"
"What's up, McKay?"
"I have a chilled six-pack of Black Widow Brown Ale and I'm heading to the south pier."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Indeed."
After a moment, the radio crackled, "I'll be there in fifteen."
Sheppard loped down the ramp fourteen minutes later, which Rodney took as a good sign. He held over the long-necked bottle, already opened, as John settled beside him.
"So, what's the big occasion?"
Rodney squinted out at the fading light of Neolantia's second blue giant, which had just dropped below the horizon. It gave the ocean the quality of a comic book illustration of rolling black glass.
"Do we need an occasion? It has been a while, you know." Rodney had always been a terrible liar, evidenced now by John's turned head and raised eyebrows.
"Fine. Fine. You heard I broke up with Jen?"
A slight twitch broke the side of Sheppard's mouth. "Or was the other way around?"
"Well...same difference."
"Makes a big difference."
Rodney frowned; John sounded almost sincere.
"She broke your heart...shot your dog...stole your truck..." John placed his hand over his heart. "And drove off with Sergeant Washborn in the shotgun seat."
Rodney thwapped him in the arm. "Oh, shut up."
"I could tell you were taking it real hard."
"Well, of course I was disappointed. But we were simply...incompatible."
Sheppard's eyebrows appeared to try to crawl on top of each other.
"Not like that!" Rodney amended hastily.
Nodding easily, John gave him a brotherly pat on the back. "Well, then I'm sorry; but better you both figured out now you drive each other crazy, than getting hitched and three years later ending up with a table between you and lawyers by your sides." John gave a exaggerated shiver.
"Not...fun, I take it?" Rodney asked hesitantly.
John shook his head and took a sip of his beer.
"Yes, well, here's to narrow escapes, I suppose," Rodney said, knocking his bottle against John's.
John grinned and said, "And now you're a free agent again."
"Yup. Free as a bird." He waited expectantly, but all John did was grunt in agreement and finish off his drink, his throat moving in long swallows. Rodney's mouth went dry as he realized he'd have to do it himself; he'd have to be the one to make the move, because Sheppard was as stubborn as they came.
"Sheppard-"
"Hey-
They both paused, then, "You go first," John said, giving a little embarrassed tilt of his head.
"No, you. I insist."
"It wasn't anything important. Just, you know," John shrugged and gave a half smile, "nice to be out here. 'Sbeen a while. You know. Us. Hanging out." Sheppard cleared his throat and picked at the label on his beer bottle.
God. Really, no better opening could present itself. Rodney took another swallow to fortify himself; the dark ale was bitter against his tongue, doing heady things to his brain, which swam a little, pleasantly.
"Listen, Sheppard, have you ever thought how-" God, this was awkward. "I know you're not seeing anyone; you haven't been for a while..."
John's neck turned a little red, and he shot Rodney a puzzled look. "What're you-jeez, Rodney." There was a flicker of something in John's eyes, of disbelief, of something hopeful, that made Rodney go bumbling on excitedly.
"It's just, I'm aware, I've been aware, for quite some time now, that the two of us felt, well, a certain...you could call it a m-mutual attraction...and I just wanted-" Oh. Oh, that was definitely the wrong thing to say, because John had swung his leg up and was facing Rodney with a suddenly hard look, one hand tightly clenched around the empty beer bottle.
"-since, as you said, I'm a free agent now..." Rodney heard himself continue weakly, mouth on auto-pilot.
"And just how long," John asked, his voice the fake-casual of an interrogation cell, "How long have you 'been aware'?"
"Since...since, well, I can't remembered a time when I haven't been, really," he felt backed into a corner, "but if you want specifics...there was that stunt you pulled with Norina when you didn't even want her-and of course when I had the parasite, you seemed so emotionally distraught at the prospect of my...but then it wasn't just that!" Rodney raised his hands because John's eyes had narrowed to dangerous slits. "It's just that you've always, just, you've always, always taken care of me."
John's eyes went wide again, and he looked away, his jaw working soundlessly. After a moment he put the bottle down, his hand hanging empty. "So, let me get this straight: you knew this whole time, God, you knew I-when I had no idea that you-and what? You went after someone else." There was a white look around his mouth that made Rodney's stomach flip.
John obviously didn't understand. Rodney tried to explain, the words tumbling erratically, "No, it wasn't that-I had to try, didn't I? She was my ideal, smart and funny and gorgeous, and the thing is she actually liked me, she really, really liked me like no one else in my life has ever-" Rodney suddenly heard himself, heard the stupidity streaming out, and his mouth just stopped dead of its own volition. "But that's over now-" he added hastily, trying to fix it. "It's over, John. It never should have started."
There was a long minute of near silence, just the reverberation of the water slapping against the side of the pier, down low and far away, and the thunder of blood in Rodney's ears. He could feel more words pressing against his throat, but none of them seemed good enough, and coldness congealed in the pit of his stomach while he waited, staring at John's profile and the dark of his eyes, as glassy black as the glittering waves.
Finally, John gave a low, flat-sounding chuckle. "Thanks for the beer," he said firmly, pushing himself to his feet. "Black Widow, I'll have to remember that. Goes down smooth, but the aftertaste is a little bitter."
"John," Rodney said helplessly.
"See ya later, McKay." John's voice was light and buddy-buddy. "Don't stay out too long; gets cold fast here at night."
Always takes care of me. "Yeah," Rodney said roughly. "I'll be in soon."
John's bootsteps faded behind him, and as full night struck and Rodney could see the new configuration of the constellations, it occurred to him he'd been wrong-he'd thought his breakup with Jen hadn't been too bad; that it hadn't cost him much at all.
Turned out it had cost him far more than he'd known.
End.
A/N: Oh, the sequel. Yes. Really, it's coming along. *cough* ::shuffles papers::
ETA: And now, with painfully long sequel Bionic Heart.
Black Widow Brown Ale is from the
Tin Whistle Brewing Company, Penticton, British Columbia
Author: esteefee
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay UST; McKay/Keller (briefly)
Rating: G
Wordcount: 2,013
Spoilers: EatG
Warnings: This doesn't end happily. Not necessarily for Rodney-lovers, since I hold him responsible for the PTB's actions.
Categories: post-series
Summary: Rodney has a back-up plan.
Black Widow
by esteefee
Three months and five days after Atlantis splash-landed in the ocean just off the Golden Gate Bridge, Jennifer broke up with him.
"It's not that I don't care for you a lot, Rodney," she said, staring at him with woeful, pretty, pretty brown eyes, and he had to bite back a loud retort in order to let her finish, "but I just don't think we're, um, you know, compatible. Not like that! Not, you know, everything is fine that way," she said, waving vague hands, "you're great. You're awesome." She blew out a breath and her bangs flew up. "I just get the feeling all the time like we're walking on eggshells around each other, and it's never really comfortable, you know?" There came the Bambi eyes again, and she bit her lip. "You're never you, and I'm never really me, because I'm worrying about you all the time."
And whose brilliant idea was that, I wonder? he thought meanly, but didn't say, and that was just the problem, wasn't it, because he'd been censoring himself around her for so long it was an ingrained habit.
There was much more from her along the same lines, and as vindictively enjoyable as it was to watch her squirm in discomfort while she arduously broke up with him, she was obviously trying to be as kind as possible about the whole thing. And he did get it-for the longest time he'd been feeling like a two-bit actor in an American sitcom, and really, she'd been his best girlfriend ever, or at least the most successful, which wasn't saying much, anyway, so he sighed and dropped his head and opened his arms, and she sighed back gratefully and gave him a quick hug before backing away too quickly to be altogether flattering.
"So, I'll just-" She waved her hand away. "You can say this was all my fault. I was too flighty, or stupid, or something, and you simply couldn't bear my idiocy any longer." Her smile was rueful and conspiratorial.
As if anyone would believe the Chief Medical Officer of the Expedition was stupid.
"I'll tell them the truth," Rodney spoke at last. "I'm too old and stuck in my ways."
"Oh, Rodney."
"It's true." He turned away. "Now, if you please. I have some calculations to run on the wormhole drive if we're ever going to get this floating hunk of junk back to Pegasus."
:::
The thing was, he was just as relieved as she was, but it wouldn't be very nice to tell her that. And, again, he'd been trying so hard lately to be nice. But the effort just wasn't worth the trouble, ultimately, and he was finding his florist's bill was growing outrageous.
He always had his fall-back plan, anyway.
In the meantime, they'd worked hard jumping through all of the IOA's hoops, and Woolsey had done his bureaucratic magic and gotten them permission to go home, so Rodney was too busy in final preparations anyway to worry about his pathetic love life.
Finally Sheppard sat in the chair and triggered the stardrive, shrugging them free of Earth's gravity, pushing them out of the atmosphere and to the edge of the Solar System, and Rodney and Radek engaged the wormhole drive and shot them home.
Home, sweet Pegasus. Land of Wraith and honey.
It took them two weeks or so to get settled in their new location, a nice little planet designated P6V-010, or Neolantia, as Sheppard stupidly decided to coin it and for some reason everyone went along with like idiot sheep. What with the move and kissing off Todd and everything, the gossip mongers stopped wagging their tongues about Jennifer and Rodney in the interest of other topics. Jennifer had started seeing some apple pie-cheeked Marine named Washborn, blond and buff and spit-shined. He escorted her around like she was fine china, and she giggled a lot.
If Rodney had known that was what she wanted, he would have bought an Ab Roller.
Sheppard raised his eyebrows in the mess line when he saw Jennifer and Washborn at it, then flicked a glance at Rodney, but turned back to the steam trays without saying anything. Rodney had expected more; some ribbing, perhaps, or even a hint of something else, now that the opportunity presented. He'd actually been waiting for a while now, in between his various doomed relationships. He'd been hoping for years, it felt like, but nothing had ever surfaced. Just the usual teasing and griping and camaraderie. Nothing, it seemed, had or ever would change between them.
It was unbearable. After this latest failure with the woman who should have been perfect; who had been perfect in every way-bright, mostly accommodating of his foibles, beautiful, sexually precocious-it was unbearable that everything should still be the same. Because Rodney found himself thinking, as he had many a time before, well, there's always Sheppard. The perfect fall-back. Friendship ready-made, comfort in familiarity, and the man was extremely good-looking, in an annoyingly insouciant sort of way. And there was undeniably a frisson of attraction between them, so it made perfect sense.
Except Sheppard, goddamn him, wasn't cooperating.
:::
They liked to sometimes have beer on the pier, although that tradition, along with most of their other free-time and team activities, had fallen by the wayside once Rodney started seeing Jen seriously and no longer had the time. Still, Rodney had taken the opportunity while on Earth to stock up on a wide sampling of real brews from his homeland, and didn't doubt they would serve as ample lure to draw Sheppard out.
"McKay to Sheppard. Do you have a moment?"
"What's up, McKay?"
"I have a chilled six-pack of Black Widow Brown Ale and I'm heading to the south pier."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Indeed."
After a moment, the radio crackled, "I'll be there in fifteen."
Sheppard loped down the ramp fourteen minutes later, which Rodney took as a good sign. He held over the long-necked bottle, already opened, as John settled beside him.
"So, what's the big occasion?"
Rodney squinted out at the fading light of Neolantia's second blue giant, which had just dropped below the horizon. It gave the ocean the quality of a comic book illustration of rolling black glass.
"Do we need an occasion? It has been a while, you know." Rodney had always been a terrible liar, evidenced now by John's turned head and raised eyebrows.
"Fine. Fine. You heard I broke up with Jen?"
A slight twitch broke the side of Sheppard's mouth. "Or was the other way around?"
"Well...same difference."
"Makes a big difference."
Rodney frowned; John sounded almost sincere.
"She broke your heart...shot your dog...stole your truck..." John placed his hand over his heart. "And drove off with Sergeant Washborn in the shotgun seat."
Rodney thwapped him in the arm. "Oh, shut up."
"I could tell you were taking it real hard."
"Well, of course I was disappointed. But we were simply...incompatible."
Sheppard's eyebrows appeared to try to crawl on top of each other.
"Not like that!" Rodney amended hastily.
Nodding easily, John gave him a brotherly pat on the back. "Well, then I'm sorry; but better you both figured out now you drive each other crazy, than getting hitched and three years later ending up with a table between you and lawyers by your sides." John gave a exaggerated shiver.
"Not...fun, I take it?" Rodney asked hesitantly.
John shook his head and took a sip of his beer.
"Yes, well, here's to narrow escapes, I suppose," Rodney said, knocking his bottle against John's.
John grinned and said, "And now you're a free agent again."
"Yup. Free as a bird." He waited expectantly, but all John did was grunt in agreement and finish off his drink, his throat moving in long swallows. Rodney's mouth went dry as he realized he'd have to do it himself; he'd have to be the one to make the move, because Sheppard was as stubborn as they came.
"Sheppard-"
"Hey-
They both paused, then, "You go first," John said, giving a little embarrassed tilt of his head.
"No, you. I insist."
"It wasn't anything important. Just, you know," John shrugged and gave a half smile, "nice to be out here. 'Sbeen a while. You know. Us. Hanging out." Sheppard cleared his throat and picked at the label on his beer bottle.
God. Really, no better opening could present itself. Rodney took another swallow to fortify himself; the dark ale was bitter against his tongue, doing heady things to his brain, which swam a little, pleasantly.
"Listen, Sheppard, have you ever thought how-" God, this was awkward. "I know you're not seeing anyone; you haven't been for a while..."
John's neck turned a little red, and he shot Rodney a puzzled look. "What're you-jeez, Rodney." There was a flicker of something in John's eyes, of disbelief, of something hopeful, that made Rodney go bumbling on excitedly.
"It's just, I'm aware, I've been aware, for quite some time now, that the two of us felt, well, a certain...you could call it a m-mutual attraction...and I just wanted-" Oh. Oh, that was definitely the wrong thing to say, because John had swung his leg up and was facing Rodney with a suddenly hard look, one hand tightly clenched around the empty beer bottle.
"-since, as you said, I'm a free agent now..." Rodney heard himself continue weakly, mouth on auto-pilot.
"And just how long," John asked, his voice the fake-casual of an interrogation cell, "How long have you 'been aware'?"
"Since...since, well, I can't remembered a time when I haven't been, really," he felt backed into a corner, "but if you want specifics...there was that stunt you pulled with Norina when you didn't even want her-and of course when I had the parasite, you seemed so emotionally distraught at the prospect of my...but then it wasn't just that!" Rodney raised his hands because John's eyes had narrowed to dangerous slits. "It's just that you've always, just, you've always, always taken care of me."
John's eyes went wide again, and he looked away, his jaw working soundlessly. After a moment he put the bottle down, his hand hanging empty. "So, let me get this straight: you knew this whole time, God, you knew I-when I had no idea that you-and what? You went after someone else." There was a white look around his mouth that made Rodney's stomach flip.
John obviously didn't understand. Rodney tried to explain, the words tumbling erratically, "No, it wasn't that-I had to try, didn't I? She was my ideal, smart and funny and gorgeous, and the thing is she actually liked me, she really, really liked me like no one else in my life has ever-" Rodney suddenly heard himself, heard the stupidity streaming out, and his mouth just stopped dead of its own volition. "But that's over now-" he added hastily, trying to fix it. "It's over, John. It never should have started."
There was a long minute of near silence, just the reverberation of the water slapping against the side of the pier, down low and far away, and the thunder of blood in Rodney's ears. He could feel more words pressing against his throat, but none of them seemed good enough, and coldness congealed in the pit of his stomach while he waited, staring at John's profile and the dark of his eyes, as glassy black as the glittering waves.
Finally, John gave a low, flat-sounding chuckle. "Thanks for the beer," he said firmly, pushing himself to his feet. "Black Widow, I'll have to remember that. Goes down smooth, but the aftertaste is a little bitter."
"John," Rodney said helplessly.
"See ya later, McKay." John's voice was light and buddy-buddy. "Don't stay out too long; gets cold fast here at night."
Always takes care of me. "Yeah," Rodney said roughly. "I'll be in soon."
John's bootsteps faded behind him, and as full night struck and Rodney could see the new configuration of the constellations, it occurred to him he'd been wrong-he'd thought his breakup with Jen hadn't been too bad; that it hadn't cost him much at all.
Turned out it had cost him far more than he'd known.
End.
A/N: Oh, the sequel. Yes. Really, it's coming along. *cough* ::shuffles papers::
ETA: And now, with painfully long sequel Bionic Heart.
Black Widow Brown Ale is from the
Tin Whistle Brewing Company, Penticton, British Columbia