"Those paper doll chains belonged to the stupid Rodney..."
First of all, there is actually an end to this story! It will have 15 chapters in total, just so you know where you are. And I'm so sorry for the huge delay, I promise there won't be such a huge gap before part ten.
Title: Paper Doll Chains - Chapter Nine
Characters/Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Genre: Angst/Drama
Notes: world_president was my wonderful beta as always and neth_dugan made the cover art which I'm including again. *g*
(Chapters One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven. and Eight.)
Summary: If he could just make the perfect chain, then everything would be alright, everything would be like it was.
Paper Doll Chains
Chapter Nine
They show him part of what must be a larger device, because what he has in front of him doesn’t look dangerous or deadly. It’s nothing he would have refused to fix, so he knows it can’t be whole. He turns it over in his hands for a while, running his fingers over the smooth metal surface, letting the feel of it slowly sink in. It’s been so long since he held something alien in his hands, something he doesn’t understand but that he feels he might be able to. Rodney knows he will be able to fix this, which brings him in a full circle back to the theory that this can’t be the thing he refused to fix, isn’t dangerous enough to be the thing he would have refused to fix, so it must be part of something more.
That or they are testing him, to see if he will be the good little drone they wanted him to be.
Rodney remembers reading somewhere that the male drone bees have a life span of a little over twenty days and when their single task is over, the worker bees would kill them. He wonders if he is a drone or a worker - and which is worse.
:::
It took him nearly six hours, but Rodney finally managed to piece the metal object together, asking as many questions as he dares about its use and design. He has to be careful what he asks though, because too much will annoy the native scientists and he isn’t sure what will happen now the original native has left him alone - will it be he they take out their frustration on or John?
He couldn’t take the risk it that it would be John they punish and so he kept himself un-naturally quiet. It was hard to keep the questions in his mind, refusing them power by speaking them aloud. It was hard because he had almost forgotten what it felt like to have his mind full of ideas and thoughts.
Rodney felt dirty as he let himself be led back to his cell, angry for giving himself up. He couldn’t help but feel as if he had sold his soul to the devil. John looked up as he entered back into the room, a worried expression on his face. There were two devils in Rodney’s life, and they both owned his soul. He tried to ignore the fact that to save one devil, he would have to give himself completely to the other.
:::
He lashed out at the wall, screaming in rage at it, howling and frothing at the mouth as he kicked and punched, and he didn’t even know why.
All Rodney felt and thought became clouded with anger, until everything else in the whole world became covered in a fine red mist and nothing else mattered besides the urge to destroy anything and everything.
He felt without purpose, the anger directed at nothing, energy bubbling out of him in any way it could, forced into hot rage directed at - nothing. Or perhaps everything and perhaps that was the problem.
:::
“What are you building?”
It’s the third time John’s asked that question and Rodney doesn’t have an answer to give him, not one that would satisfy either of them. So for the third time he ignores his companion, head resting against the stone wall, his eyes closed as if in sleep, tired beyond the telling due to his latest rage attack.
He is trying to commit the past hours into memory, storing the image of the device as best he can. But the memory is slipping away from him like quicksilver, the details blurring away, as if he can no longer learn anything new and retain it. It scares him. It’s not the thing that scares him the most about this.
:::
He draws on the dirt, because he has no paper, no scissors and even if he did, he didn’t think he could use them to make chains. Those paper doll chains belonged to the stupid Rodney, the one who was born and who died in the same place, in a small little room that stank of sweat and fear.
So he draws on the ground, little stick figures with large skirts for the women and large trousers for the men. The trousers and skirts he fills with patterns, meaningless scribble of numbers, letters and pictograms. Sometimes he amuses himself by writing whole words in Morse code, messages to people within the chains, letting them stay written for the right eyes to see before rubbing them from existence. Sometimes he writes to John; I’m sorry. Sometimes he writes to the natives; See You in Hell. Sometimes he writes names of those lost; a memorial on a dusty floor. And sometimes he writes; Why.
Rodney draws on the floor, and sometimes he doesn’t truly know who he is sending his messages to.
:::
Rodney wants to smash the things he builds and fixes, little jigsaw pieces of something larger, but he can’t tell what is sky and what is land. He doesn’t even know what are edge pieces and which go somewhere in the middle of the image.
The frustration at not knowing the end goal lurks in every piece he creates, and sometimes he thinks he can feel the ugly emotion coming off the bits of machinery, that he has corrupted them to such a state that they themselves have anger.
He’s relatively sure he never had such thoughts in any of the times before.
:::
There are still blanks in his memory, gaps missing from his life but it isn’t that which scares him the most. It’s the way some of his memories are almost faded, the way he can clearly see someone from his past, be it his piano teacher from his childhood or someone more recent, such as Zelenka on Atlantis. He can see them as a photo, a still image. Rodney can’t put voices to faces or names, can’t remember incidents that caused him to laugh or shake his head. Those little moments of friendship, companionship, just sitting next to someone who would talk to him and let him steamroll over the conversation are missing, glossed over in his mind.
He can remember cold, technical details of things like how to retract engine pods but he can’t remember the way everyone looked and felt as they thought John would die from the thing around his neck, his life sucked away. That includes himself.
It’s that which scares him the most about this.
:::
The first time his parents had forgotten him and accidentally left him behind had been in a supermarket. Rodney just hadn’t been high enough on their list of priorities, stuck somewhere between frozen peas and dog food.
Afterwards Rodney counted himself lucky that it had taken them so long too actually forget him. He had been expecting it for nearly five years.
Expecting to be forgotten and actually being forgotten were two vastly different things however and Rodney couldn’t stop the panic swelling in his chest, the way all the strange adults towered over him, the pity in their eyes as they tried to get ahold of his parents, ignoring his requests to just walk home, that his dad would just get frustrated and mad at having to come back for him.
It wasn’t the first time he became proved right, or scared or frustrated. It just became one of the more important times.
:::
Rodney thought he might be scaring John. No, he amended in his head, peering over at where John paced back and forth, carefully not looking at him, he knew he was scaring John.
It isn’t my fault! He wanted to say, to rant at John in such a way that it would make him relax, make him believe. Rodney shook his head in frustration, feeling another one of his attacks rising. He couldn’t control himself, or the others. The way he would suddenly laugh or scream, the pure hysterical or rage that bubbled up inside him and he could do nothing about it.
“Stop not looking at me!” Rodney shouted; the frustration and fear falling away from him until he couldn’t remember why he had felt like that. He simply felt angry as he stalked over to John.
His frenzied bright blue eyes met John’s calm gaze, the soldier’s blank face revealing nothing of his true feelings and Rodney hated that. He wanted John to show something, to feel something, even if it was fear. Without even being fully aware of his actions, Rodney’s hand tightened around John’s bicep, squeezing it hard enough to leave a mark.
:::
The night before they left for Atlantis, Rodney found himself in a sort of limbo, unable to move forward in his life but having nothing to step backwards to. He slept in the same bed as he had for the last week, under tons of earth. Rodney had never really thought about it before but that night he found himself unable to sleep, in a strange bed in a strange room. It felt as if for the first time since Atlantis became real instead of a dim dream he suddenly realised that it really would happen, that he really was leaving, going, and who really knew?
For six hours he lay in the bed, unable to sleep staring up at the ceiling, feeling frozen in mindless panic, in the transformation. Afterwards he would tell all who would listen that he either slept like a log or instead, if need be, he had felt too excited to sleep, depending on what tale he wanted to spin that day. Rodney had always found himself spinning lies in his past, fitting his own history to whatever he wanted.
:::
Carefully, his brow furrowed in concentration, Rodney added to the chains of people, drawing complex patterns, patterns that only he understands, images that trigger memories of things built. Technical specs hidden within the meaningless jumble, his trees hidden in wood, the forbidden information in plain sight.
And everything clicked into place, the patterns burning brightly in his mind’s eye, the sudden knowledge sending him reeling, backing away from the chains, away from John, away from the damned information.
“I know what I’m making; I know what it is,” Rodney said dully, staring in fascination at the wall, unable to face John. He couldn’t face him now, not when he had the face of a soon to be killer, a mass murderer, a monster… John stepped closer to him and still Rodney stared at the wall, watching as some tiny black insect crawled along the rocky surface, futilely searching for escape, for food, for freedom of a sort. Dully, he reached out, thumb pressing against the beetle, increasing the pressure until the shiny shell cracked and he killed it. Better for it to die now, die a relatively pain free death. John grabbed at his hand and before, that would have been enough to trigger his anger, to make him lash out, to make him scream hateful words.
There was nothing left there.
“Rodney…” the hissed whisper forced him out of his hole in the ground in a way that the touch of physical contact seemed unable to, and he tried to pull away. John didn’t let him go, spinning him away from the wall, brining him closer as if the physical contact would be enough.
“Now I am become death…” Rodney whispered, burrowing deep into John’s arm so he didn’t have to look up at him, unable to watch the horror grow on his friend’s face. He would have turned away again, if John would only let him go. Let him go back to the safety of the wall, where he could see the start of his legacy. “The destroyer of worlds.”
“An A-bomb?” John questioned after a moment, his voice higher than normal, clearly having recognised the quotation. His hand twitched slightly on Rodney’s shoulder, grip loosening before tightening again, as if he could physically keep Rodney in the present instead of the safe past he so desperately wanted to hide in. “It’s an A-Bomb?”
“Relax John,” Rodney answered, feeling the familiar hysterical giggles building up in him again. “It’s much worse than that.”
-tbc-
Title: Paper Doll Chains - Chapter Nine
Characters/Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Genre: Angst/Drama
Notes: world_president was my wonderful beta as always and neth_dugan made the cover art which I'm including again. *g*
(Chapters One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven. and Eight.)
Summary: If he could just make the perfect chain, then everything would be alright, everything would be like it was.
Paper Doll Chains
Chapter Nine
They show him part of what must be a larger device, because what he has in front of him doesn’t look dangerous or deadly. It’s nothing he would have refused to fix, so he knows it can’t be whole. He turns it over in his hands for a while, running his fingers over the smooth metal surface, letting the feel of it slowly sink in. It’s been so long since he held something alien in his hands, something he doesn’t understand but that he feels he might be able to. Rodney knows he will be able to fix this, which brings him in a full circle back to the theory that this can’t be the thing he refused to fix, isn’t dangerous enough to be the thing he would have refused to fix, so it must be part of something more.
That or they are testing him, to see if he will be the good little drone they wanted him to be.
Rodney remembers reading somewhere that the male drone bees have a life span of a little over twenty days and when their single task is over, the worker bees would kill them. He wonders if he is a drone or a worker - and which is worse.
:::
It took him nearly six hours, but Rodney finally managed to piece the metal object together, asking as many questions as he dares about its use and design. He has to be careful what he asks though, because too much will annoy the native scientists and he isn’t sure what will happen now the original native has left him alone - will it be he they take out their frustration on or John?
He couldn’t take the risk it that it would be John they punish and so he kept himself un-naturally quiet. It was hard to keep the questions in his mind, refusing them power by speaking them aloud. It was hard because he had almost forgotten what it felt like to have his mind full of ideas and thoughts.
Rodney felt dirty as he let himself be led back to his cell, angry for giving himself up. He couldn’t help but feel as if he had sold his soul to the devil. John looked up as he entered back into the room, a worried expression on his face. There were two devils in Rodney’s life, and they both owned his soul. He tried to ignore the fact that to save one devil, he would have to give himself completely to the other.
:::
He lashed out at the wall, screaming in rage at it, howling and frothing at the mouth as he kicked and punched, and he didn’t even know why.
All Rodney felt and thought became clouded with anger, until everything else in the whole world became covered in a fine red mist and nothing else mattered besides the urge to destroy anything and everything.
He felt without purpose, the anger directed at nothing, energy bubbling out of him in any way it could, forced into hot rage directed at - nothing. Or perhaps everything and perhaps that was the problem.
:::
“What are you building?”
It’s the third time John’s asked that question and Rodney doesn’t have an answer to give him, not one that would satisfy either of them. So for the third time he ignores his companion, head resting against the stone wall, his eyes closed as if in sleep, tired beyond the telling due to his latest rage attack.
He is trying to commit the past hours into memory, storing the image of the device as best he can. But the memory is slipping away from him like quicksilver, the details blurring away, as if he can no longer learn anything new and retain it. It scares him. It’s not the thing that scares him the most about this.
:::
He draws on the dirt, because he has no paper, no scissors and even if he did, he didn’t think he could use them to make chains. Those paper doll chains belonged to the stupid Rodney, the one who was born and who died in the same place, in a small little room that stank of sweat and fear.
So he draws on the ground, little stick figures with large skirts for the women and large trousers for the men. The trousers and skirts he fills with patterns, meaningless scribble of numbers, letters and pictograms. Sometimes he amuses himself by writing whole words in Morse code, messages to people within the chains, letting them stay written for the right eyes to see before rubbing them from existence. Sometimes he writes to John; I’m sorry. Sometimes he writes to the natives; See You in Hell. Sometimes he writes names of those lost; a memorial on a dusty floor. And sometimes he writes; Why.
Rodney draws on the floor, and sometimes he doesn’t truly know who he is sending his messages to.
:::
Rodney wants to smash the things he builds and fixes, little jigsaw pieces of something larger, but he can’t tell what is sky and what is land. He doesn’t even know what are edge pieces and which go somewhere in the middle of the image.
The frustration at not knowing the end goal lurks in every piece he creates, and sometimes he thinks he can feel the ugly emotion coming off the bits of machinery, that he has corrupted them to such a state that they themselves have anger.
He’s relatively sure he never had such thoughts in any of the times before.
:::
There are still blanks in his memory, gaps missing from his life but it isn’t that which scares him the most. It’s the way some of his memories are almost faded, the way he can clearly see someone from his past, be it his piano teacher from his childhood or someone more recent, such as Zelenka on Atlantis. He can see them as a photo, a still image. Rodney can’t put voices to faces or names, can’t remember incidents that caused him to laugh or shake his head. Those little moments of friendship, companionship, just sitting next to someone who would talk to him and let him steamroll over the conversation are missing, glossed over in his mind.
He can remember cold, technical details of things like how to retract engine pods but he can’t remember the way everyone looked and felt as they thought John would die from the thing around his neck, his life sucked away. That includes himself.
It’s that which scares him the most about this.
:::
The first time his parents had forgotten him and accidentally left him behind had been in a supermarket. Rodney just hadn’t been high enough on their list of priorities, stuck somewhere between frozen peas and dog food.
Afterwards Rodney counted himself lucky that it had taken them so long too actually forget him. He had been expecting it for nearly five years.
Expecting to be forgotten and actually being forgotten were two vastly different things however and Rodney couldn’t stop the panic swelling in his chest, the way all the strange adults towered over him, the pity in their eyes as they tried to get ahold of his parents, ignoring his requests to just walk home, that his dad would just get frustrated and mad at having to come back for him.
It wasn’t the first time he became proved right, or scared or frustrated. It just became one of the more important times.
:::
Rodney thought he might be scaring John. No, he amended in his head, peering over at where John paced back and forth, carefully not looking at him, he knew he was scaring John.
It isn’t my fault! He wanted to say, to rant at John in such a way that it would make him relax, make him believe. Rodney shook his head in frustration, feeling another one of his attacks rising. He couldn’t control himself, or the others. The way he would suddenly laugh or scream, the pure hysterical or rage that bubbled up inside him and he could do nothing about it.
“Stop not looking at me!” Rodney shouted; the frustration and fear falling away from him until he couldn’t remember why he had felt like that. He simply felt angry as he stalked over to John.
His frenzied bright blue eyes met John’s calm gaze, the soldier’s blank face revealing nothing of his true feelings and Rodney hated that. He wanted John to show something, to feel something, even if it was fear. Without even being fully aware of his actions, Rodney’s hand tightened around John’s bicep, squeezing it hard enough to leave a mark.
:::
The night before they left for Atlantis, Rodney found himself in a sort of limbo, unable to move forward in his life but having nothing to step backwards to. He slept in the same bed as he had for the last week, under tons of earth. Rodney had never really thought about it before but that night he found himself unable to sleep, in a strange bed in a strange room. It felt as if for the first time since Atlantis became real instead of a dim dream he suddenly realised that it really would happen, that he really was leaving, going, and who really knew?
For six hours he lay in the bed, unable to sleep staring up at the ceiling, feeling frozen in mindless panic, in the transformation. Afterwards he would tell all who would listen that he either slept like a log or instead, if need be, he had felt too excited to sleep, depending on what tale he wanted to spin that day. Rodney had always found himself spinning lies in his past, fitting his own history to whatever he wanted.
:::
Carefully, his brow furrowed in concentration, Rodney added to the chains of people, drawing complex patterns, patterns that only he understands, images that trigger memories of things built. Technical specs hidden within the meaningless jumble, his trees hidden in wood, the forbidden information in plain sight.
And everything clicked into place, the patterns burning brightly in his mind’s eye, the sudden knowledge sending him reeling, backing away from the chains, away from John, away from the damned information.
“I know what I’m making; I know what it is,” Rodney said dully, staring in fascination at the wall, unable to face John. He couldn’t face him now, not when he had the face of a soon to be killer, a mass murderer, a monster… John stepped closer to him and still Rodney stared at the wall, watching as some tiny black insect crawled along the rocky surface, futilely searching for escape, for food, for freedom of a sort. Dully, he reached out, thumb pressing against the beetle, increasing the pressure until the shiny shell cracked and he killed it. Better for it to die now, die a relatively pain free death. John grabbed at his hand and before, that would have been enough to trigger his anger, to make him lash out, to make him scream hateful words.
There was nothing left there.
“Rodney…” the hissed whisper forced him out of his hole in the ground in a way that the touch of physical contact seemed unable to, and he tried to pull away. John didn’t let him go, spinning him away from the wall, brining him closer as if the physical contact would be enough.
“Now I am become death…” Rodney whispered, burrowing deep into John’s arm so he didn’t have to look up at him, unable to watch the horror grow on his friend’s face. He would have turned away again, if John would only let him go. Let him go back to the safety of the wall, where he could see the start of his legacy. “The destroyer of worlds.”
“An A-bomb?” John questioned after a moment, his voice higher than normal, clearly having recognised the quotation. His hand twitched slightly on Rodney’s shoulder, grip loosening before tightening again, as if he could physically keep Rodney in the present instead of the safe past he so desperately wanted to hide in. “It’s an A-Bomb?”
“Relax John,” Rodney answered, feeling the familiar hysterical giggles building up in him again. “It’s much worse than that.”
-tbc-