Handmade (McKay/Sheppard, R)
Title: Handmade
Warnings: Lame childhood trauma.
Summary: The shyer he became, the more people wanted to touch him.
Author's Notes: Companion piece to But Wait, There's More!, as several people asked for, well, more. This is a bit of backstory.
~~~
Cover by smuffster
Handmade
When John was a kid, he lived with the curse of a really huge family. As if mother, father, three older sisters and a younger one, grandfathers and grandmothers; as if all of them weren't already more than enough, there were also aunts and uncles and cousins twice removed, family friends and neighbours, all of them beleaguering the house for every birthday, each communion; every Thanksgiving and Easter and Christmas and Independence day a party.
It probably wouldn't have been so bad if John had been anything but a cute kid, except he was, and that meant hugs and kisses and pinching his cheeks and ruffling his hair, smiling and cooing and laughter when he withdrew. In fact, the shyer he became, the more people wanted to touch him. Nothing inappropriate, never, but he still started to hate those hands reaching out for him without permission. His permission. He hated that he couldn't pull away without his mother chiding him, or his father slapping him on the shoulder before pushing him right back into grabby, grabby hands.
They didn't even stop hugging and petting him when he fell head-first into puberty and started acting out his rebellious streak by pulling away and snapping at them - it only made them hug him harder. After a growth spurt and with his first facial hair, John was sure that he'd be safe now, but as it turned out he was merely considered to have progresses from cute to good-looking. Which was even worse, because now everyone wanted to touch him.
By the time John hit high school, he was seriously messed up. Then the whole girlfriend/boyfriend thing started.
At first John thought he didn't enjoy sex with girls because he was, you know. Gay. But guys didn't really work for him either, maybe because all his girlfriends and boyfriends - yes, plural: John tried with increasing desperation to be normal - had one thing in common: they wanted to touch him.
"John, you're so pretty, let me-"
"Just lie back, I want to-"
"Oh god, can I just-"
"Don't move, I-"
John's own fumbling explorations were usually cut short by eager hands, lips, tongues; something he minded less and less as he just wanted the whole thing to be over already, so he could pull away. Finally, he had a brilliant idea: if he were obviously taken, people would stop trying to chat him up and he'd just have to get used to one single person. So he proposed to his latest girlfriend and married her. In hindsight, that was probably a little rash.
The marriage was a catastrophe. He tried, he really did, because he did love Kate and his parents wanted a grandkid, and he figured that he could, with a little practice, get used to being close to someone. Turned out he couldn't, though, and after two miserable years Kate decided that she wanted a little more from life than a withdrawn husband and eloped with Bernhard From Accounting.
After that, John kept his distance. He learned to do it with a smile and a shrug and if someone ever noticed, nobody called him on it. There were a few exceptions, like Teyla, who treated him like a skittish animal and got him used to her with patience, or Ronon, whose full-body hugs were as heartfelt as they were rare, and who wouldn't take no for an answer until John had stopped flinching. But with most others even a handshake was too much, and John gritted his teeth and forced a smile and kept each press of a palm against his own as brief as he could, until…
Until he shook the hand of one Dr. Rodney McKay and didn't find it repulsive at all.
John blinked and stared briefly at his hand as though there might be a change, something unlike before. Then he looked at McKay and sank on a chair and made it through the conversation on autopilot, trying hard to see what made this man different. There was nothing physical, nothing in his personality that seemed particularly trust-inspiring, so the handshake was maybe a fluke or delusion. Imagination. John steeled himself and took a breath and slapped McKay's shoulder when they walked out of Elizabeth's office. It felt warm and bony under his hand; strong, somehow. Kind of nice. He wanted to touch it again.
John's first reaction was panic. The second was shock, and yet more panic. He brushed against people in the supermarket and on the street and found the contact more horrible than ever, barely suppressing a revolted shudder even as he apologised for his supposed ungainliness. At home, he spent the entire night awake, tossing and turning and torn between avoiding McKay as best he could, or reeling him in and keeping him close for the rest of their lives.
Which would probably be rash again.
Over night, John came up with a game plan. He threw out his sweaters - with a pang of regret: they'd done a good job of distracting from his looks - and bought a few shirts, and sooner than he would have liked operation "Will Most Likely End In Disaster" was a go. It took time and cunning and slouching a lot, but eventually McKay came close enough to be touched. And John reached out.
A pat on McKay's arm made his palm tingle from the slight scratch of fabric, the warmth underneath. Placing a hand on the small of McKay's back to steer him where John wanted him to go was almost too much, feeling heat and muscle and the dip of McKay's spine, all yielding to him. The first time he smacked McKay over the head, John almost bolted at the sensation of fine hair tickling his skin, for the first time in his life itching to run not from revulsion, but from want.
John got himself drunk on snatched little touches, heart racing with fear and greediness as he fed on his own kind of drug. He noticed the puzzled glances Rodney started throwing his way, the lingering looks, the darkening eyes, but didn't dare act on them; not yet. He couldn't get enough of touching Rodney, true, but for now all he dared were bare brushes, the briefest of contacts. Everything else would be too much. Except then he noticed Rodney starting to pull away, so John spent two or three sleepless nights and gathered his courage and did something he hadn't done in over ten years: he asked someone on a date.
After a rather embarrassing false start, being with Rodney was fun. He had a quirky sense of humour and his very own brand of sarcasm that didn't quite manage to hide the genuinely good guy underneath. John filled him up with espresso - which was probably a bit mean but also kind of hilarious - and drove him home, all the while trying to figure out how to ask if there'd be a second date when… when they…
When somehow their fingers tangled and the contact made John go a little crazy and he leaned forward and kissed Rodney.
It seemed so easy, no big thing at all, but how was John to describe the feeling of pressing his mouth to someone else's without wanting to jerk away? How could he possibly convey what it was like, to taste Rodney on his lips and already longing for more, instead of forcing a smile and lying back with the thought of, I hope this goes fast? How was he ever supposed to tell Rodney what an amazing gift this was, the way his heart was pounding and his palms were sweating and his lungs weren't working like they should, but not from panic, not, and please, he wanted to keep this?
He wanted… he wanted Rodney. As simple and as complicated as that.
For a while, it went well. Rodney let John set his own pace, apparently sensing that there were issues to be fought with. John tried not to get too giddy of Rodney's casual use of the word 'our' in relation to the both of them. They went to the movies and had dinner dates and John slowly increased the length of their touches, lost himself in Rodney's kisses, drinking them down before he inevitably met his limits. It was the easiest relationship in his life, and he could have stayed like that forever. But then Rodney got fed up with John's evasiveness - and never before had John wished so fervently for more eloquence in private matters - and was approached by the Genii bastards, and before he really knew what just happened, John found himself dumped.
Those were the most horrible six and a half hours of his life.
He had to be the most miserable, fucked-up human being on the entire planet, to let someone like Rodney go without even putting up a fight. Someone he could touch, someone who was funny and smart and sometimes endearingly awkward, who was… shit, who was Rodney. John wanted that guy, he still wanted, and not just because for some freakish reason Rodney was the one person in the world he could reach for. He wanted the jokes, the smiles, the rants, the wide-eyed panic when John was driving. He wanted… he needed that.
He was willing to do a lot to have that.
Except Rodney said no.
Despite John just about going down on his fucking knees to beg, despite his forced-out explanation, Rodney said no. It was his goddamn marriage all over again, only unlike Kate Rodney wasn't pulling away because of John, he was doing it for John. And that kind of reasoning was just too much to get his head around, so John took a breath and a few steps forward and kissed Rodney like he'd never kissed anyone else before and simply didn't accept no for an answer. Then Rodney pulled him closer and ran his hands up and down John's back, and John shuddered and gritted his teeth and stayed still although every nerve in his body screamed, too much, too fucking much! If this was Rodney's price, John would pay it. He'd let Rodney do anything he wanted, if he didn't have to be alone again.
What Rodney wanted was for John to stop rushing ahead and overdoing it. That was also a first.
John dozed next to him that night, after talking him into sharing a bed. It was a head rush, to be able to just reach out and touch Rodney's bare forearm if he wanted to, to listen to Rodney's quiet breathing and not feel anything but content. Too giddy to sleep, too awed to get up, lying on his back with his hand brushing against Rodney's, their fingers tangling and sharing warmth.
For as long as he could remember, John had kept his guards up, flinching away from everyone who came too close. Now he found himself in a strange no man's land between clinging and running, and keeping Rodney within reach would probably be hard at times, but John would try.
He could do this. Really, he could.
If he survived Rodney's kitchen, that was.
~~~
End.
Warnings: Lame childhood trauma.
Summary: The shyer he became, the more people wanted to touch him.
Author's Notes: Companion piece to But Wait, There's More!, as several people asked for, well, more. This is a bit of backstory.
~~~
Cover by smuffster
Handmade
When John was a kid, he lived with the curse of a really huge family. As if mother, father, three older sisters and a younger one, grandfathers and grandmothers; as if all of them weren't already more than enough, there were also aunts and uncles and cousins twice removed, family friends and neighbours, all of them beleaguering the house for every birthday, each communion; every Thanksgiving and Easter and Christmas and Independence day a party.
It probably wouldn't have been so bad if John had been anything but a cute kid, except he was, and that meant hugs and kisses and pinching his cheeks and ruffling his hair, smiling and cooing and laughter when he withdrew. In fact, the shyer he became, the more people wanted to touch him. Nothing inappropriate, never, but he still started to hate those hands reaching out for him without permission. His permission. He hated that he couldn't pull away without his mother chiding him, or his father slapping him on the shoulder before pushing him right back into grabby, grabby hands.
They didn't even stop hugging and petting him when he fell head-first into puberty and started acting out his rebellious streak by pulling away and snapping at them - it only made them hug him harder. After a growth spurt and with his first facial hair, John was sure that he'd be safe now, but as it turned out he was merely considered to have progresses from cute to good-looking. Which was even worse, because now everyone wanted to touch him.
By the time John hit high school, he was seriously messed up. Then the whole girlfriend/boyfriend thing started.
At first John thought he didn't enjoy sex with girls because he was, you know. Gay. But guys didn't really work for him either, maybe because all his girlfriends and boyfriends - yes, plural: John tried with increasing desperation to be normal - had one thing in common: they wanted to touch him.
"John, you're so pretty, let me-"
"Just lie back, I want to-"
"Oh god, can I just-"
"Don't move, I-"
John's own fumbling explorations were usually cut short by eager hands, lips, tongues; something he minded less and less as he just wanted the whole thing to be over already, so he could pull away. Finally, he had a brilliant idea: if he were obviously taken, people would stop trying to chat him up and he'd just have to get used to one single person. So he proposed to his latest girlfriend and married her. In hindsight, that was probably a little rash.
The marriage was a catastrophe. He tried, he really did, because he did love Kate and his parents wanted a grandkid, and he figured that he could, with a little practice, get used to being close to someone. Turned out he couldn't, though, and after two miserable years Kate decided that she wanted a little more from life than a withdrawn husband and eloped with Bernhard From Accounting.
After that, John kept his distance. He learned to do it with a smile and a shrug and if someone ever noticed, nobody called him on it. There were a few exceptions, like Teyla, who treated him like a skittish animal and got him used to her with patience, or Ronon, whose full-body hugs were as heartfelt as they were rare, and who wouldn't take no for an answer until John had stopped flinching. But with most others even a handshake was too much, and John gritted his teeth and forced a smile and kept each press of a palm against his own as brief as he could, until…
Until he shook the hand of one Dr. Rodney McKay and didn't find it repulsive at all.
John blinked and stared briefly at his hand as though there might be a change, something unlike before. Then he looked at McKay and sank on a chair and made it through the conversation on autopilot, trying hard to see what made this man different. There was nothing physical, nothing in his personality that seemed particularly trust-inspiring, so the handshake was maybe a fluke or delusion. Imagination. John steeled himself and took a breath and slapped McKay's shoulder when they walked out of Elizabeth's office. It felt warm and bony under his hand; strong, somehow. Kind of nice. He wanted to touch it again.
John's first reaction was panic. The second was shock, and yet more panic. He brushed against people in the supermarket and on the street and found the contact more horrible than ever, barely suppressing a revolted shudder even as he apologised for his supposed ungainliness. At home, he spent the entire night awake, tossing and turning and torn between avoiding McKay as best he could, or reeling him in and keeping him close for the rest of their lives.
Which would probably be rash again.
Over night, John came up with a game plan. He threw out his sweaters - with a pang of regret: they'd done a good job of distracting from his looks - and bought a few shirts, and sooner than he would have liked operation "Will Most Likely End In Disaster" was a go. It took time and cunning and slouching a lot, but eventually McKay came close enough to be touched. And John reached out.
A pat on McKay's arm made his palm tingle from the slight scratch of fabric, the warmth underneath. Placing a hand on the small of McKay's back to steer him where John wanted him to go was almost too much, feeling heat and muscle and the dip of McKay's spine, all yielding to him. The first time he smacked McKay over the head, John almost bolted at the sensation of fine hair tickling his skin, for the first time in his life itching to run not from revulsion, but from want.
John got himself drunk on snatched little touches, heart racing with fear and greediness as he fed on his own kind of drug. He noticed the puzzled glances Rodney started throwing his way, the lingering looks, the darkening eyes, but didn't dare act on them; not yet. He couldn't get enough of touching Rodney, true, but for now all he dared were bare brushes, the briefest of contacts. Everything else would be too much. Except then he noticed Rodney starting to pull away, so John spent two or three sleepless nights and gathered his courage and did something he hadn't done in over ten years: he asked someone on a date.
After a rather embarrassing false start, being with Rodney was fun. He had a quirky sense of humour and his very own brand of sarcasm that didn't quite manage to hide the genuinely good guy underneath. John filled him up with espresso - which was probably a bit mean but also kind of hilarious - and drove him home, all the while trying to figure out how to ask if there'd be a second date when… when they…
When somehow their fingers tangled and the contact made John go a little crazy and he leaned forward and kissed Rodney.
It seemed so easy, no big thing at all, but how was John to describe the feeling of pressing his mouth to someone else's without wanting to jerk away? How could he possibly convey what it was like, to taste Rodney on his lips and already longing for more, instead of forcing a smile and lying back with the thought of, I hope this goes fast? How was he ever supposed to tell Rodney what an amazing gift this was, the way his heart was pounding and his palms were sweating and his lungs weren't working like they should, but not from panic, not, and please, he wanted to keep this?
He wanted… he wanted Rodney. As simple and as complicated as that.
For a while, it went well. Rodney let John set his own pace, apparently sensing that there were issues to be fought with. John tried not to get too giddy of Rodney's casual use of the word 'our' in relation to the both of them. They went to the movies and had dinner dates and John slowly increased the length of their touches, lost himself in Rodney's kisses, drinking them down before he inevitably met his limits. It was the easiest relationship in his life, and he could have stayed like that forever. But then Rodney got fed up with John's evasiveness - and never before had John wished so fervently for more eloquence in private matters - and was approached by the Genii bastards, and before he really knew what just happened, John found himself dumped.
Those were the most horrible six and a half hours of his life.
He had to be the most miserable, fucked-up human being on the entire planet, to let someone like Rodney go without even putting up a fight. Someone he could touch, someone who was funny and smart and sometimes endearingly awkward, who was… shit, who was Rodney. John wanted that guy, he still wanted, and not just because for some freakish reason Rodney was the one person in the world he could reach for. He wanted the jokes, the smiles, the rants, the wide-eyed panic when John was driving. He wanted… he needed that.
He was willing to do a lot to have that.
Except Rodney said no.
Despite John just about going down on his fucking knees to beg, despite his forced-out explanation, Rodney said no. It was his goddamn marriage all over again, only unlike Kate Rodney wasn't pulling away because of John, he was doing it for John. And that kind of reasoning was just too much to get his head around, so John took a breath and a few steps forward and kissed Rodney like he'd never kissed anyone else before and simply didn't accept no for an answer. Then Rodney pulled him closer and ran his hands up and down John's back, and John shuddered and gritted his teeth and stayed still although every nerve in his body screamed, too much, too fucking much! If this was Rodney's price, John would pay it. He'd let Rodney do anything he wanted, if he didn't have to be alone again.
What Rodney wanted was for John to stop rushing ahead and overdoing it. That was also a first.
John dozed next to him that night, after talking him into sharing a bed. It was a head rush, to be able to just reach out and touch Rodney's bare forearm if he wanted to, to listen to Rodney's quiet breathing and not feel anything but content. Too giddy to sleep, too awed to get up, lying on his back with his hand brushing against Rodney's, their fingers tangling and sharing warmth.
For as long as he could remember, John had kept his guards up, flinching away from everyone who came too close. Now he found himself in a strange no man's land between clinging and running, and keeping Rodney within reach would probably be hard at times, but John would try.
He could do this. Really, he could.
If he survived Rodney's kitchen, that was.
~~~
End.