Infection Tag: Rescue

[kriadydragon]

Title: Infection Tag: Rescue
Rating: PG for language, some blood, whumping for everyone!
Characters: Rodney, Todd, John, some Teyla, Ronon and Lorne
Summary: Rodney wakes up first, Todd wakes up second.

A/N: Written for lcshepp, who wanted a tag to Infection that dealt with the rescue, preferably Sheppard being rescued :D. Beta'd by the wonderful wildcat88.

Infection Tag: Rescue

Rodney awoke to someone drilling into his skull and panicked. He had another thing in his brain; he was being operated on again, but this time without even any pseudo anesthesia. What were these idiots thinking!

Equally important: why was it so damn wet?

As much as he didn't want to, he pried his eyelids apart, cringing in anticipation for the high-pitched whine of a drill digging into his skull. All he heard was water slapping into water and the groan of pained metal. He blinked salty water from his eyes, waiting for them to adjust enough to discern shapes in the darkness.
His eyes refused to adjust. He thought, Oh, crap, I'm blind! and panic resumed crushing his chest. His eyes darted, frantically searching for something, anything, to prove him wrong. He saw it, blurred beneath rippling water: an array of glowing dots and what looked like funky but familiar symbols...

Wraith symbols. Panic squeezed until he couldn't breathe. He gasped, inhaled water and choked.

And then it hit him like a reprimanding slap upside the head.

Wraith ship, Wraith, team, infection, going down, down, down and... crash.

“Oh, crap!” Rodney bolted upright and choked on a garbled yelp when the invisible drill dug deeper. He grabbed his head, fat lot of good it ever did but his hands weren't listening to reason and he was in too much pain to command them to do otherwise. Plus, it helped, a little, rather like a placebo. As long as he held his head, the pain was more a throb than a hacksaw heading toward his brain.

He received another slap of remembrance, hard this time.

Team. He hadn't been alone, thank goodness, but at the extreme moment he sure as hell felt alone. He couldn't hear anyone.

Because of the splashing. It's really loud, probably drown- muffling everyone's shouts. Or they're passed out or... But like he was going to finish that line of thought. There was no other “or.” It was either too noisy or the others were passed out; that was it. No other “ors” included.

“Hello?” Rodney called. Just the sound of his own strained voice made his head feel like a cracked egg about to ooze. But until he knew for sure he wasn't alone, he was just going to have to suffer. “Hello? Anyone? Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla...?” Where the hell was everyone?

A low moan to the right made Rodney's heart do somersaults in his chest. “Hello? Who is that?”

There was shifting, the hiss of cloth against cloth and water splashing. Whoever-it-was moaned louder.

Then snarled.

Rodney's heart took refuge behind his Adam's apple. “Oh, crap.” Splitting skull only partially forgotten, he flailed backward away from the sound. “Oh, crap. Oh, crap. Oh, crap. Oh--”

“Dr, McKay,” Whoever-it-was hissed.

Todd, it was Todd, which was so not any better that it was actually a hell of a lot worse. He was trapped, in a sinking ship, and the only other person conscious... could he even be called a person? The only other thing conscious was Todd, the currently diseased and most likely very pissed off Wraith.

Suddenly, Rodney found himself missing the drill.

He gasped. “Oh, crap, Sheppard!” Then panted, gulping air that wasn't doing him any good; dark motes still danced in his eyes and lack of oxygen killed all coordination. His hand slipped on slick Wraith-ship skin melting in the salt water and he went under. Water pouring into his mouth brought him quickly back to the surface, sputtering and hacking. “Ronon!” he coughed. “Teyla, Lorne! Anyone!”

“They are all unconscious, Dr. McKay!” Todd barked. “Those I can see. There is too much debris.”

Rodney stopped, still gulping, but when he realized there was no frantic splashing of a hungry Wraith heading toward him, his heart eased cautiously out of its mad hammering into his ribs. All the same, his hand groped through the water until curling around the comforting grip of the nine-mil at his hip.

“Wh - who can you see?” he asked.

Todd grunted from the darkness and replied, “Teyla. She is slumped over a console. The one you call Lorne, lying against the wall. And they are alive. They are close enough for me to hear their heartbeats.”

Rodney swallowed. “Good. That's... that's good. But no one else?”

“Let me see.” There was movement, splashing, and Rodney didn't think, just back-peddled. His hand landed on something soft and too coarse to be melting ship. Cloth, it had to be cloth. Bolstered by this discovery, Rodney let his hands be his eyes as they mapped out the source. Never in a million years would Rodney be caught dead or alive in a church, but he surprised himself by saying a little prayer to whoever might be listening that this wasn't a Wraith he was feeling up.

When his fingers found the ropes of spongy, knotted hair, his sigh of relief was carried by a whimper. He dropped his hands back to the cool skin of the neck, pressing until a steady pulse beat beneath his fingers.

“Found Ronon!” he called to whoever cared to hear. He highly doubted Todd gave much of a damn.

Overhead, the lights flickered, loose wires spewing sparks that had Rodney ducking over Ronon, covering him as best he could with his own body. The ship was a friggin' death trap, the melting hull exposing wires that could drop into the water at any minute and fry them all. They needed to get the hell out of here.

But first, they all needed to wake up.

No, first, first, Rodney needed an account of who was alive and where. The intervals between flickers were long enough for Rodney to assess Ronon's condition - limp against a girder, gash down his temple, forearm looking suspiciously and uncomfortably misaligned, but otherwise nothing that looked like it would require a tourniquet. Thank goodness for small - very small - favors: Rodney sucked at tourniquets

Rodney then turned his attention to his surroundings. The pulsing lights were like more drills digging into his eyes, making him wish it were possible to detach his own head just for a moment of relief. His stomach churned, forcing him to clamp his mouth shut. Surrounding him were piles of girders, pipes, framework and curtains of oozing, melting ship-skin, some of it dropping off and plopping like amoebas into the water - undulating, rippling, shiny, wet and...

Rodney lurched to the side and lost his lunch. Finished, he wiped his mouth, forced himself to ignore the melting skin (some of which was brushing across his hand, like leeches, like... not thinking about it!), and continued his search. There wasn't much to see, the piles of debris high and the lights completely dead in certain areas. He thought he spotted Teyla through a gap in a tangle of large pipes and slurping skin, slumped over a console like Todd had said. He couldn't see Lorne or Sheppard.

“I have found Sheppard!” Todd suddenly called, making Rodney jump. He whipped his head around and remembered with much agony that he, too, was currently concussed without the blessed unconsciousness. When the stars stopped sparking and his gut stopped bucking, he was able to focus on the flickering shadow through a thin tangle of debris. He heard splashing, followed by the clang and whine of metal being moved.

Todd grunted, sounding both pained and frustrated. “Dr. McKay.” He grunted again, deeper, less annoyed and more pained. “I need your assistance.”
Translated: I'm weak and need to feed on you. Except... no. Rodney remembered - infection, no more feeding slit. Todd was officially as harmless as a kitten.
A kitten with wicked-looking fingernails, and teeth, and apparently strength if he was able to move debris around.

But Sheppard was where Todd was, or close by, and passed out or he would have answered Rodney by now. If he was passed out and not...

“Is he - he alive?” Rodney called, voice breaking at the end into a squeak.

Silence followed his question, then, “I can hear his heart. But from what I can see he looks to be buried beneath debris and I am having difficulty reaching him. I need your help.”

Say no more. Fingers wrapped tight around the grip of his gun, Rodney forced himself to his feet. A massive surge of dizziness made him take a moment and lean against the deteriorating wall until it passed. He pushed from the wall, taking a chunk of it with him. The sight and feel nearly made him lose the rest of his lunch. Crap, how he hated Wraith ships. Although right now he'd take a live one for a dying one any day. Wraith ships as a whole could use a good soak in a pot of potpourri but had nothing on a dying ship. It was like being in a tomb, before the corpses had had a chance to fully decay.

Rodney swallowed multiple times to keep the persistent bile down as he pushed through water and rippling ship-skin. The gap to Todd was big enough for Rodney to slip through doubled-over and crouched, careful to keep any part of him from touching sharp edges and dead stuff. Once on the other side, he inched back upright and still ended up having to reach out for support.

Todd stopped his digging to look Rodney up and down. Thin lips parted from his glassy teeth; a snarl of amusement or disgust, Rodney couldn't tell. Either way, instinct made him recoil. Sharp teeth were sharp teeth even if the owner didn't really use them.

“You are injured,” Todd said, his slitted eyes focused on Rodney's forehead. “Bleeding.”

Rodney touched around the general area of Todd's stare. His fingers came away bloody along the tips. And yet all the reaction he could muster was to raise both eyebrows and mutter, “Huh.”

At the moment, it was the least of his problems. The water was coming in fast, lapping around his thighs when only moments ago it had been at his knees, and he was surrounded by teammates passed out and in the perfect positions to drown. But at least he knew why his head hurt.

Todd shook his head then returned to his digging. The clanging made Rodney's head feel like it was imploding, but he squinted against the pain and forced himself forward.

“So, where is he?” he asked. “What's he trapped under this time?” He reached the pile and had to duck to see through the only gap.

His eyes popped wide. “Oh no.”

Sheppard wasn't just buried; he was prone, and the water was lapping at his chin. In the poor, seizing light, he looked pale: dea- No! Not thinking it!

“Oh, crap!” Rodney jumped into the effort of removing debris, flinging pipes, crumbling wall and fleshy wall aside. Most of the pieces of wall melted like overheated chocolate in his hands, oozing between his fingers like squished slugs and smelling worse.

He didn't care.

“Sheppard!” he called. “Sheppard, wake up! Don't you realize you're about to drown?” He tossed more wall to one side, then shoved a narrow girder to the other. “I know you have a thing for water like you do for air but this isn't the time to be basking in it. Sheppard!”

“He is unconscious, Doctor!” Todd snapped, chest heaving like an animal that had run a mile and was pissed about it. Rodney froze mid-shove of another girder, staring at Todd, waiting for the inevitable attack. Todd look like hell - if a Wraith could look worse than it usually did: lank hair dripping, color more gray than gray-blue, eyes sunken. Rodney had briefly forgotten - Todd was sick, and the sick had about as much patience as Rodney did for the incompetent.

Except the sick usually didn't retain enough strength to haul chunks of metal around like it was Styrofoam.

Rodney gulped, gripping his piece of girder to hide the fact that his hands were shaking. He forced his lips into a tentative smile. “N-never hurts to try.” He returned as much of his focus as he could to moving the girder aside.

Then Todd moved, shoving Rodney aside to get to the enlarged gap. Suddenly, shoving that even a sick Wraith was still a strong Wraith from his mind, Rodney grabbed the shoulder of Todd's coat and stopped him.

“Whoa, hold up there! Where do you think you're going?”

Todd stared at Rodney with those shark eyes of his, flat and cold and penetrating. It took effort, one that sent many chills down Rodney's spine, but he met that gaze, refusing to back down until he got his answer.

“To move him,” Todd rasped. “The hole is large, but not large enough for you to fit through. I am the only one who can reach him.”

Rodney snorted. “We'll see about that.” He ducked into the hole and was only halfway through when his shoulders tried to wedge him into place. Damn his broad-shouldered frame. He jerked, squirmed, wriggled but managed only another inch. At this rate, Sheppard would be dead before he got through. He jerked, squirmed and wriggled back out.

In the end, he still needed Todd to pull him out by the ankles. Conceding the point, Rodney stepped aside and let Todd through.

It was with much satisfaction that he had to help Todd by pushing him the rest of the way. Rodney crouched enough to peer through and watch Todd wade toward the girder pinning Sheppard down. He attempted various ways to lift it but the damn thing refused to budge.

Todd then moved to Sheppard's head.

Good old panic put Rodney's heart in a chokehold. He didn't think about it when he pulled his gun from his holster and pointed it at Todd. It was instinct, like self-preservation only different, sharper, with anger equal to fear, because it wasn't his life he was trying to preserve. He knew he shouldn't have let Todd go through. Knew, knew, knew and would have to kick himself later for it. For now, “Hey. Hey! You better not be doing what I think you're doing. Get away from him!”

Todd ignored him as he knelt beside John - adjacent, to be more precise, lifting as much as he could of Sheppard's upper-body out of the water. Rodney winced, another thrill of fear tap-dancing down his back.

“Hey, careful! You don't know what's wrong with him. He could have an injured spine or crushed ribs or something.”

Todd looked up at him, Rodney swore, wearing a longsuffering expression. “And that is more dire than him drowning?”

“Well, the rib thing is if they're broken and you end up puncturing his lung by moving him like that.”

When Todd, after another look coupled with a sigh, moved his hand to Sheppard's chest, Rodney's gun-hand shot up. “Hey, hey! What did I say!”
Todd replied by lifting his feeding-slit-free hand and waggling the fingers. Rodney relaxed, lowering the gun. “Oh.”

Shaking his head, Todd placed his hand back on Sheppard and patted him down: chest, sides, the back of his neck - wherever he could reach.
“I feel nothing broken,” he announced. “But that does not mean there is no damage.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you, Dr. Quinn, for that excellent diagnosis. Of course, there's damage; he has a damn beam on his chest! How's his breathing? Can he breathe? Is he bleeding anywhere?”

“He is breathing,” said Todd, his hand still resting on Sheppard's chest, much to Rodney's discomfort. “It is shallow. I do not know if it is because of the beam or injury. You should see to the others; the water level is rising quickly.”

“Gee, really? Hadn't noticed,” Rodney sneered. “And like hell I'm leaving Sheppard with you.”

Todd tilted his head to one side. “Do you think you actually have a choice, Dr. McKay? Were I to do anything, you would not be able to stop me, not without risking Sheppard. As of this moment, I am the only reason he is not underwater. That I am keeping him alive should be evidence enough that I intend him no harm. Now, I suggest you stop being idle and do what you can for the others.”

Rodney hesitated, seething. The bastard had a point; Sheppard was alive thanks to a Wraith and the others were well on their way to drowning if Rodney didn't haul ass and get to them. He gave this round to the Wraith, forcing his body away from the too-small gap to the large gap and back to his side of the sinking ship.

“You know,” Rodney said as he grabbed Ronon beneath the armpits to start dragging him to a higher spot. He grunted, the effort doing nasty things to his skull. “I'm surprised... you even care. You're pretty much screwed.” The water made hefting Ronon blessedly easier. The hard part was finding a place to stow him so Rodney could help the others. “Once Atlantis comes - and, yes, they will come - do you really think we're going to just let you walk out of here?”

Which probably wasn't a smart thing to point out, Rodney realized too late. Todd was in the perfect position to use Sheppard as a hostage; or go down and take Sheppard with him. Desperation made bad guys plain evil. And sometimes oddly stupid after being anything but for so long.

“That remains to be seen,” Todd said.

The effort became more of an effort when Rodney lifted and dragged Ronon's body to drape it over a console. With Ronon in position, he was able to move on to the slightly less heavy Lorne, and just in time; the water was at the major's mouth. Rodney lifted him and draped him over another console, saying yet another prayer to whomever that the major's spine hadn't suffered the brunt of the crash.

Dumping Lorne onto the console, Rodney slumped against him, reminding himself of the wonders of getting enough oxygen. Why did everyone have to be so much heavier than they looked?

Rodney blinked with a sudden realization that had nothing to do with weight. He looked in the general direction of where Todd sat with Sheppard.
“You think Sheppard's going to let you go?”

Rodney thought he heard a wheezy chuckle.

“Seriously.” Rodney started toward Teyla. “You think he's just going to up and let you go.” Reaching her meant crawling over debris, which sucked worse than climbing through it. Reaching her, he checked her pulse, then felt her sides - and only her sides; nothing like having her wake up while he groped her chest - for injuries and impeded breathing.

Todd didn't answer, which was answer enough.

“Why?” Rodney asked. “He's been treating you like pond-scum for this entire debacle. What makes you think he's going to play nice and let you waltz out of here?”

“Because I still have my uses,” said Todd. “And Sheppard does not kill without reason. I have yet to give him a reason.”

“You sure about that? He's been pretty pissed this whole mission, lost some men - that makes him even less happy, by the way. And that they were killed because you decided to play mad scientist with yourself and your buddies hasn't won you any points. More like lost a great big chunk of points...”

A chill swept through Rodney, making him shiver and his words trail away from him.

As much as Rodney would like to say or think otherwise, there was a good chance Sheppard would let Todd go. Why? Because Sheppard killed, but he wasn't a killer. It was a funny realization, hard to buy if you didn't know Sheppard beyond the decisions he made, and Sheppard had made some rough, dark decisions over the years; Rodney could have sworn each decision darker than the last. It would be so easy to call him a cold-blooded killer if it wasn't for what followed after - the pain in his eyes, the constant tension, nights of bad sleeping (Rodney had seen the empty packages of sleeping pills in the man's trash can) and an overall aura of exhaustion about him. The teasing didn't change, but he didn't smile as much as he used to.

Sheppard being a soldier and a commanding officer of an expedition to another galaxy meant having to make hard decisions. It meant having to kill.
It didn't mean he had to like it. He didn't like it. Rodney was pretty sure he hated it with every fiber of his being.

And Todd knew this.

Rodney found it incredibly creepy. He'd learned the hard way that vital information isn't always about city defenses, schematics and weapon capabilities. Just knowing how a man ticked could be all the advantage in the world.

Todd was a sneaky, sneaky bastard. His existence alone put Sheppard between a rock and a hard place: kill to save the city, kill and risk losing someone who could provide valuable intel, kill to rid the galaxy of one more trouble-making Wraith, kill and restock on sleeping pills...

Knowing John, he'd let Todd go.

Teyla stirred, moaning lightly, snapping Rodney back to the here and now. He tapped her cheek, calling her name, then shook her gently by the shoulder. Her eyes opened, dark in the bad light and looking pained: the best thing Rodney had seen all day.

“Rodney?” she croaked.

A relieved breath rushed from Rodney's chest. “Yeah. Yeah, it's me. Rodney McKay.” He chuckled lightly. “It's about time one of you woke up.”

She lifted her head, blinking blearily, and asked about the others. Rodney filled her in. When he told her about Sheppard, all lethargy fled from her like cockroaches in the light. She had him show her where Sheppard and Todd were, limping after him with gritted teeth, fighting her own pain. Unlike Rodney, she was small enough to slip through the hole, the ankle of her pants riding up enough for him to see one hell of a gash from ankle almost to her knee. Not deep, though, as it wasn't bleeding that much.

The water was back to Sheppard's chin with no more room left for Todd to lift him higher. He was actually holding John by the head, tilting it back to keep the water away. The sight was scaring the hell out of Rodney; it wouldn't take much for Todd to snap Sheppard's neck. Just a slight twitch of his hands...

Teyla searched along the girder then ducked beneath the water. She surfaced with a gasp, tossing her wet hair out of her face. “There is debris beneath him that I can remove. It should enable us to slide him out.” Without waiting for a reply, she ducked back under. Every time she surfaced it was to toss aside this piece of metal or that pipe, then go back under. The next time she surfaced, there was nothing in her hand to toss. She joined Todd on the other side of Sheppard, taking Sheppard's arm.

On three, they slid him out from under the girder - more like tugged and pulled, hopefully not yanking his arm out of the socket. Freed, Todd was able to lift Sheppard into his arms and carry him to the hole. Together, he and Todd slipped Sheppard through. The skinny SOB fit, though barely. Todd gathered him back up on the other side and laid him out at an angle on the flat end of a reclining girder.

Rodney all but shoved him aside to get to Sheppard, lifting the John's wet and sticking shirt up to his armpits. Touch only told you so much about an injury, leaving the rest up to sight. Sheppard was now the proud owner of a girder-shaped bruise running across his chest directly under the tip of his sternum. Rodney would bet his Batman DVDs there were cracked ribs. He had Teyla press on Sheppard's stomach like the doctors always did when looking for internal bleeding. She was happy to announce no rigid abdomen.

Then the comm device that Rodney had completely forgotten about crackled in his ear. The voice on the other end was interrupted and garbled, but the message was clear.

Rescue had come.

-------------------------------

Rodney languished against a hill of pillows and the reclined infirmary bed, watching Batman on his laptop. He'd suffered the worst of the collective bumps on the head and yet had still managed to save everyone's ass; he'd earned the indulgence. Hell yes, he'd earned the indulgence. His was the worst of the injuries because it required another day of supervision, although Sheppard's cracked ribs couldn't really be considered the lesser evil in terms of pain - that man was walking around like he had a slightly curved rod in his spine, and seemed to grunt every time he breathed. Other than that, Teyla's gash didn't require any stitches, and everyone else's bumped heads only needed one day of observation. Ronon's arm had been monumentally swollen, with only a hairline crack. He, Teyla and Lorne were to be released in a couple of minutes.

Sheppard, however, had been given early release in order to “take care of an important matter.”

Rodney would bet his Star Trek DVDs that that matter had to do with the release of a certain Wraith.

Speak of the devil, Sheppard walked in, holding himself like a man in mild pain but pretending not to be. He looked up at his convalescing team and smiled.
The smile didn't reach his eyes.

“You let him go, didn't you,” Ronon said, part exasperated, part accusing, and too far away for Rodney to whack his shoulder. And people accused him of being tactless.

Leaning on the foot of Rodney's bed, going for casual though Rodney knew good and well it was taking the pressure off his chest, Sheppard grimaced. “Yeah, I did.”

Ronon rolled his eyes. All Sheppard could do was shrug and reply, “He's still useful. And he hasn't stabbed us in the back, yet.”

“Yet,” Ronon emphasized.

“You sure that was a good idea, sir?” Lorne asked from the bed next to Ronon's.

Again, Sheppard shrugged. “Why not? He probably won't survive, and I think he's far beyond any hive welcoming him back with open arms. He's harmless.”
Rodney recalled Todd lifting debris and tossing it aside, holding Sheppard's head in his hands like someone about to snap a neck. Glancing at Sheppard, he didn't think the colonel bought his own bull, either. He had that look, that subtle tension, that exhaustion.

Two nurses dropped by, giving Ronon and Lorne one more once-over before Jennifer's arrival. In the other bed next to Rodney's, Teyla slept the sleep of the exhausted and bumped-on-the-head. Shallow as the cut had been, its length had caused a bit of blood loss, and she was looking a tad pale.
John moved to the head of the bed to watch the laptop. “So I heard it was one hell of a rescue.”

Rodney snorted. “No, it was dumb luck. More like natural luck, actually. Apparently, even rotting ship-flesh has gas. Its decay created several pockets of air that kept the ship from sinking. Rescue had no problems reaching us.”

“Score one for rotting wraith ships,” said John.

“Try saying that when most of what you're swimming through is rotting Wraith ship.” He soured his expression. “I can still smell it, and I took two baths.”
Jennifer arrived, pulling the curtains shut around Ronon's area for some privacy. Marie took Lorne, and minutes later both men were out of bed and heading out of the infirmary with a bottle of pain pills in hand and matching grins on their faces. Rodney would have called them lucky, but he was quite content to be where he was, waited on hand and foot.

“I heard it was you who did the real rescuing,” Sheppard said.

“With a concussion,” Rodney emphasized. A concussion that still required the lights to be low, but not so bad that all he wanted to do was sleep. And he could watch movies without too much trouble. It was the new Batman movie, with lots of dark colors: easy on the eyes.

Sheppard patted his shoulder. “You did good, McKay, real good. We owe you.”

“Damn right you do,” he said smugly. And then he deflated, just a little, when he looked up at John's tense shoulders that might or might not be due discomfort.

“You can pull up a chair, you know,” he said.

“I know,” Sheppard said. “I wasn't planning on sticking around too long. Keller wants me in my quarters passed out ASAP.”

“So, why are you still here?”

“She also said I could stop by and check on you guys. She never stipulated on how long.” He turned the screen enough for a better view.

Rodney chuffed. “You were a nightmare as a child, weren't you?”

“Probably.”

Rodney chuffed again, shaking his head in disbelief.

It wasn't long until Sheppard finally pulled up a chair, setting it where he'd been standing. He squirmed and fidgeted, unable to find a comfortable spot and yet still enduring.

Hesitating. Sheppard didn't want to leave and Rodney had a pretty good idea why. Bed rest in one's quarters was all fine and dandy but also quiet, lonely, leaving one prey to their own thoughts, decisions, doubts. Sheppard wasn't trying to avoid leaving; he was trying to avoid himself.

Which was why Rodney blurted before he had a chance to determine whether or not it was a good idea, “It was Todd who rescued you.”

Sheppard looked at him, one eyebrow arched.

“You heard me,” Rodney said. “He kept you from drowning.”

The eyebrow lowered, the other joining it, both angled in a severe slant. “So, I owe him again?”

“Good thing you let him go, then, huh? And, you know, he still has his uses.”

Sheppard stared at Rodney a moment longer, then shook his head and looked back at the screen. “So much for all bets are off.”

“Yes, sucks mightily. Now either go away or lay down in that bed. You're noisy when you squirm.”

Sheppard went with the bed option, even pushing it closer for a better view of the screen. Reclined, there was less discomfort; with less discomfort, there wasn't so much tension. John actually looked relaxed for once.

Rodney felt not unlike having accomplished something, but managed not to smirk about it... barely.

The End