Fic: A New Refutation of Time
Title: A New Refutation of Time
Author: yin_again
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Trinity, Instinct, Conversion, Aurora
Summary: John walks a circular path.
Notes: Title, section titles and epigram are all from Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges.
A New Refutation of Time
Thus fought the heroes, tranquil their admirable hearts, violent their swords, resigned to kill and die.
The Circular Ruins
John wakes cold. That’s how he knows that something is very wrong. Waking up cold just doesn’t happen. Rodney hates the cold, and one morning in bed John thought very hard about warmth. Atlantis listened, and Rodney was never cold in his bed again. When Rodney noticed it, he smiled at John - crooked mouth and crinkled eyes - and John never really felt the cold again.
Until now.
Cold, alone - on a hard surface in a tiny alcove off a hallway to nowhere, and no Rodney.
The cold is worse than Antarctica. It’s the kind that’s bone-deep, and each inhalation pulls a grinding ache further into John’s body. He eases himself off the table and lets his feet touch the floor, bracing his hands on his thighs to find the leverage to stand. He looks down and then stops to huff out a surprised breath. His hands are smooth and perfect - the knuckles skinned while working on Jumper One three days ago are unmarked. A quick brush of fingers to his neck proves the absence of the Iratus bug scar, a look at his forearm reveals the absence of the knot of blued tissue that until now refused to fade, a touch under his plain white shirt fails to find the twisted crag of scar tissue from a bullet in Kabul.
The floor is chilly under his bare feet, and the white shirt and matching pants are thin. He’s got to find Rodney - Rodney hates the cold.
John walks down the seemingly endless hallway - the light comes from nowhere special and the sound of his footsteps doesn’t echo. This isn’t Atlantis with her hum and warmth and welcoming touch lazy at the back of his mind. It’s not Earth, teeming with ozone smells and tension. He tries to remember how he got here, but it’s as if his life started ten minutes ago, coming awake in the alcove.
He remembers specific instances in the past - trapped half in, half out of the Stargate; the siege; the storm; breaking the window in Elizabeth’s office with the casual flick of a bare hand. And he remembers much more than that. He remembers Rodney - remembers their first kiss; the way Rodney’s mouth had covered his own, question and answer wrapped together in heat and wetness and softness. He remembers falling down, down onto Rodney’s bed, in Rodney’s arms - remembers the way he’d surrendered - easily, gratefully. Rodney’s hands, Rodney’s mouth, Rodney’s cock - in him and on him; Rodney’s gasps and moans and quiet words, his own given in return.
I didn’t expect you to want this - to want me. I didn’t think you’d let me have you this way. Why didn’t you tell me? We could have been doing this for so long.
Rodney’s hot mouth and quicksilver tongue had traced his contours, mapped his flesh, brought every part of him to life.
I’m sorry. I’m stupid. I didn’t know, I didn’t know.
So now you do. Now you know.
Now I know. And I won’t forget.
So that’s what he’s doing - not forgetting. He’ll find Rodney and Rodney will solve all the mysteries of the universe between bites of power bar and John won’t be alone and cold anymore.
And so he walks on.
Disembark in the Unanimous Night
The corridor has a subtle curve, John feels as though his path is winding back on itself, but he can’t be sure. It doesn’t really matter - he’ll keep walking. There’s nothing else to do, only the seemingly endless expanse of wall and floor and ceiling. The exercise warms him, and the quiet slap-slap of his bare feet on the floor is a tiny respite in the oppressive silence.
John’s not used to silence anymore. Atlantis hums and buzzes with activity, and he’s always got Rodney’s voice. Always - always isn’t that long, really. He keeps coming back to that first kiss and even further back, to the place where things changed. He can pinpoint it, he’ll always know it, always feel it inside - the moment that his world shifted on its axis and he opened his eyes to the possibilities that stood in front of him with pleading eyes and fingers that itched to touch - the moment John Sheppard figured it out and then felt like a moron for missing it for so long.
Rodney’s voice, so uncharacteristically uncertain, the way he stayed back a little, so unlike his usual disregard for the concept of personal space.
I would hate to think that recent events might have permanently dimmed your faith in my abilities, or your trust. At the very least, I hope I can earn that back.
Himself, standing just inside the transporter, feelings warring - anger and hurt and not a small amount of bewilderment; there was relief there, too and the thrum of exhilaration that came from cheating death yet again.
That may take a while.
Rodney’s small, disappointed “I see” cut through him like a knife, and he had to say something, do something to get the light back in Rodney’s eyes, anger be damned. What had anger ever gotten him anyway, and who was he to judge? Hypocrite wouldn’t be too strong a word for him if he condemned Rodney for disobeying orders and common sense to try and do what he considered the right thing. Yeah, the fallout had been big, but Rodney’s 5/6 of a solar system didn’t feel all that different from his own dead friends and destroyed career.
But, I'm sure you can do it, if you really wanna try.
Just that, and a small smile. That’s all he had to offer, but Rodney’s return smile was worth it - the sadness and regret in his eyes slipping away. And, when John would have reached for the touchpad, Rodney’s hand was there, Rodney moving faster than John thought possible to slip into the transporter and close the door.
I really wanna try.
Four words and then a piercing look that apparently found what it was looking for, because Rodney’s eyes drifted closed and he leaned forward and took John’s face between his big, hot hands and kissed him like he was beautiful and precious and John had never been kissed like that, ever.
He let McKay kiss him in the transporter for a long time, kissed back, even - without a clue as to what he was doing or why, but also without any driving need to make it stop. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he finally let them settle lightly on Rodney’s hips. That must have been correct, because Rodney groaned and moved closer, pressing John’s back against the wall.
It felt weird to be held there so effortlessly, but something inside John liked it, wanted it, craved it with some sort of unholy glee - Rodney’s bulk and heat and breadth pinning him down. It made him want to throw his head back and expose the vulnerable expanse of his throat.
He doesn’t remember much after that, only that Rodney somehow got them back to the living quarters and to Rodney’s room and to Rodney’s bed. John’s memory has holes in it; some parts of it are crystal clear, others shrouded in gauze.
He let Rodney strip him, listened to the gasps and murmurs as his body was uncovered little by little, felt the tips of Rodney’s fingers trace his neck and collarbones, the length of his bicep, the angle of his hipbone. John fell back onto the bed - a glorious combination of firm mattress and soft pillows that cradled his body.
And then Rodney was there - big and solid and hairy and rough, and John pulled him down and this time, he did tilt his head back to give Rodney his throat, he parted his legs to let Rodney in between. And John Sheppard, who was always with women, who was almost always on top, let Rodney touch him and kiss him and push his knees back and open him up with slick fingers and fuck him into two mind-shattering orgasms before shoving him over onto his knees and sawing into him with short, sharp strokes and coming inside him in a wash of heat that ended with both of them in a spent and sticky heap, gasping and moaning and laughing just a little at the wonder of it all.
The Shape of the Sword
The hallway curves again, and John’s starting to get a feel for it. It feels like he’s doubling back on himself, going over and over the same ground. He’s not tired, he’s not hungry or thirsty, he doesn’t have to pee. He just walks. Two thoughts in his head - keep moving and find Rodney. He somehow has faith that, if he just keeps going, Rodney will be there. It seems inevitable, and that’s enough for John. He just wants to be warm again, just wants to be back where he belongs.
He’s like a shark, endlessly swimming - he’ll die if he stops.
John’s not afraid of death. Some would say he courts it, with coy smiles and teasing brushes of his hand, his body, his life.
Are you sure your birth certificate doesn’t have an expiration date on it?
Sitting by his bed in the infirmary, Rodney’s voice cracks on the joke. John’s still restrained, still a little blue around the edges. The whole turning-into-a-bug debacle has strained their connection, mainly because John had ordered his men to keep Rodney away and Rodney, typically, had protested. Loudly. Often.
John remembers the height of it, the point where human and bug were in perfect balance, like two warriors on a rocky peak, each trying to push the other into the abyss. But balance implies harmony, and there was none of that. It was pure suffering laced with terrible exultation. The man in him cried out for Rodney, for the safety he found in strong arms and broad body, and the creature cried out also. But the creature’s cries were not for safety, but for pain and claiming. It wanted Rodney, but not the way the man did - not with the heat and passion, not the way John wanted Rodney, the way John had Rodney.
I think it’s a military thing.
What is?
Your switchiness.
Is switchiness a word?
Is now. Think about it - career military - there’s always someone under you and always someone on top. Best of both worlds. You like it when I fuck you, right? Even though you never…
I do. I didn’t know, though.
And you like it when you fuck me, right?
God, yes.
Good. Show me how much.
The creature, the monster wanted to own, to destroy, to see Rodney bleeding and broken, and John managed to relay his orders in the shaky moments just before the change gave the monster the extra strength it needed to push the man over the precipice to fall away to the jagged rocks below.
No, no expiration date. I checked.
Scratchy voice and itchy body and his head still felt like it was full of wet paper, but the man was in charge, the monster sent away, and the small bits that remained consigned to the depths of his heart, pushed down, buried.
Glad you’re back. I missed you.
Rodney held his mutated hand like it was normal, like he’d take John any way he could get him, like he would have let the monster have him, just to be close to John. It’s humbling and horrifying and beautiful in the same fucked-up way that they are, together.
John closes his eyes.
The Mirrors of Enigmas
It’s so dark on the Aurora that, for a tiny, fleeting second John misses the monstervision that allowed him to see in the dark. The second passes, and he’s swept up in Rodney’s plan to speak to the Ancients that have become these withered husks. Rodney’s being Rodney - snarky and impatient, and John’s still unsettled from his unwanted metamorposis and reversal. They haven’t found their footing again, walking softly around one another, inadvertently getting on each other’s nerves, casual barbs finding unexpected soft spots with a regularity that’s frazzling them both.
You’re sure this is such a good idea?
What’s the matter, Colonel? Don’t trust me?
No.
The word is out before he thinks, and he’d give anything to snatch it out of the air before it hits its target. But he’s got nothing to give, and the arrow finds its mark and Rodney flinches just a little before his lips press into a hard line and he turns away. John wants to apologize with his eyes or a smile, but Rodney won’t look at him the whole time he’s helping him into the pod. When their eyes finally meet, John sees the hurt there, but also the understanding, and knows that even if he’s not there all the way, he’s on the road to being forgiven. He jokes about there being no place like home, but it’s not really that much of a joke.
Being aboard the Aurora is an exercise in frustration. Also, the uniforms are really stupid-looking. He’s pretty glad that Rodney can’t see him. White is not his best color.
More frustration with a side of unconsciousness and - joy of joys - McKay’s come to visit. He’ll hold that “rakish” comment for later. The Wraith-lusting, too.
He sends Rodney back to unplug the Wraith; he’ll join him soon.
Telling the captain the truth of his crew’s fate feels like murder; worse than the seventy Genii, worse than shooting Elia. He closes his eyes and thinks that there’s no place like home.
John keeps walking. The switchbacks seem more pronounced now, like he’s getting closer to the center, closer to his goal. The path curves a bit more and suddenly he’s there, at the end. Rodney turns toward him with a welcoming smile and John’s arms open.
Well, it's about damned time! What did you do, play a round of golf? We've got serious problems!
What happened? GET DOWN!
That happened! Not so hot now!
He finally gets it while they’re watching the Aurora detonate, taking both Wraith Hives with her. One second he’s got his arm pressed against Rodney’s just enough to feel solid muscle and heat and he’s in his safest place. In the next second, his mind changes, like a bubble breaking the surface, and two sets of memories touch and then converge, moving with a sick feeling that makes his palm sweat.
But, I'm sure you can do it, if you really wanna try.
The door to the transporter closes, with Rodney on the outside.
Author: yin_again
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Trinity, Instinct, Conversion, Aurora
Summary: John walks a circular path.
Notes: Title, section titles and epigram are all from Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges.
A New Refutation of Time
Thus fought the heroes, tranquil their admirable hearts, violent their swords, resigned to kill and die.
The Circular Ruins
John wakes cold. That’s how he knows that something is very wrong. Waking up cold just doesn’t happen. Rodney hates the cold, and one morning in bed John thought very hard about warmth. Atlantis listened, and Rodney was never cold in his bed again. When Rodney noticed it, he smiled at John - crooked mouth and crinkled eyes - and John never really felt the cold again.
Until now.
Cold, alone - on a hard surface in a tiny alcove off a hallway to nowhere, and no Rodney.
The cold is worse than Antarctica. It’s the kind that’s bone-deep, and each inhalation pulls a grinding ache further into John’s body. He eases himself off the table and lets his feet touch the floor, bracing his hands on his thighs to find the leverage to stand. He looks down and then stops to huff out a surprised breath. His hands are smooth and perfect - the knuckles skinned while working on Jumper One three days ago are unmarked. A quick brush of fingers to his neck proves the absence of the Iratus bug scar, a look at his forearm reveals the absence of the knot of blued tissue that until now refused to fade, a touch under his plain white shirt fails to find the twisted crag of scar tissue from a bullet in Kabul.
The floor is chilly under his bare feet, and the white shirt and matching pants are thin. He’s got to find Rodney - Rodney hates the cold.
John walks down the seemingly endless hallway - the light comes from nowhere special and the sound of his footsteps doesn’t echo. This isn’t Atlantis with her hum and warmth and welcoming touch lazy at the back of his mind. It’s not Earth, teeming with ozone smells and tension. He tries to remember how he got here, but it’s as if his life started ten minutes ago, coming awake in the alcove.
He remembers specific instances in the past - trapped half in, half out of the Stargate; the siege; the storm; breaking the window in Elizabeth’s office with the casual flick of a bare hand. And he remembers much more than that. He remembers Rodney - remembers their first kiss; the way Rodney’s mouth had covered his own, question and answer wrapped together in heat and wetness and softness. He remembers falling down, down onto Rodney’s bed, in Rodney’s arms - remembers the way he’d surrendered - easily, gratefully. Rodney’s hands, Rodney’s mouth, Rodney’s cock - in him and on him; Rodney’s gasps and moans and quiet words, his own given in return.
I didn’t expect you to want this - to want me. I didn’t think you’d let me have you this way. Why didn’t you tell me? We could have been doing this for so long.
Rodney’s hot mouth and quicksilver tongue had traced his contours, mapped his flesh, brought every part of him to life.
I’m sorry. I’m stupid. I didn’t know, I didn’t know.
So now you do. Now you know.
Now I know. And I won’t forget.
So that’s what he’s doing - not forgetting. He’ll find Rodney and Rodney will solve all the mysteries of the universe between bites of power bar and John won’t be alone and cold anymore.
And so he walks on.
Disembark in the Unanimous Night
The corridor has a subtle curve, John feels as though his path is winding back on itself, but he can’t be sure. It doesn’t really matter - he’ll keep walking. There’s nothing else to do, only the seemingly endless expanse of wall and floor and ceiling. The exercise warms him, and the quiet slap-slap of his bare feet on the floor is a tiny respite in the oppressive silence.
John’s not used to silence anymore. Atlantis hums and buzzes with activity, and he’s always got Rodney’s voice. Always - always isn’t that long, really. He keeps coming back to that first kiss and even further back, to the place where things changed. He can pinpoint it, he’ll always know it, always feel it inside - the moment that his world shifted on its axis and he opened his eyes to the possibilities that stood in front of him with pleading eyes and fingers that itched to touch - the moment John Sheppard figured it out and then felt like a moron for missing it for so long.
Rodney’s voice, so uncharacteristically uncertain, the way he stayed back a little, so unlike his usual disregard for the concept of personal space.
I would hate to think that recent events might have permanently dimmed your faith in my abilities, or your trust. At the very least, I hope I can earn that back.
Himself, standing just inside the transporter, feelings warring - anger and hurt and not a small amount of bewilderment; there was relief there, too and the thrum of exhilaration that came from cheating death yet again.
That may take a while.
Rodney’s small, disappointed “I see” cut through him like a knife, and he had to say something, do something to get the light back in Rodney’s eyes, anger be damned. What had anger ever gotten him anyway, and who was he to judge? Hypocrite wouldn’t be too strong a word for him if he condemned Rodney for disobeying orders and common sense to try and do what he considered the right thing. Yeah, the fallout had been big, but Rodney’s 5/6 of a solar system didn’t feel all that different from his own dead friends and destroyed career.
But, I'm sure you can do it, if you really wanna try.
Just that, and a small smile. That’s all he had to offer, but Rodney’s return smile was worth it - the sadness and regret in his eyes slipping away. And, when John would have reached for the touchpad, Rodney’s hand was there, Rodney moving faster than John thought possible to slip into the transporter and close the door.
I really wanna try.
Four words and then a piercing look that apparently found what it was looking for, because Rodney’s eyes drifted closed and he leaned forward and took John’s face between his big, hot hands and kissed him like he was beautiful and precious and John had never been kissed like that, ever.
He let McKay kiss him in the transporter for a long time, kissed back, even - without a clue as to what he was doing or why, but also without any driving need to make it stop. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he finally let them settle lightly on Rodney’s hips. That must have been correct, because Rodney groaned and moved closer, pressing John’s back against the wall.
It felt weird to be held there so effortlessly, but something inside John liked it, wanted it, craved it with some sort of unholy glee - Rodney’s bulk and heat and breadth pinning him down. It made him want to throw his head back and expose the vulnerable expanse of his throat.
He doesn’t remember much after that, only that Rodney somehow got them back to the living quarters and to Rodney’s room and to Rodney’s bed. John’s memory has holes in it; some parts of it are crystal clear, others shrouded in gauze.
He let Rodney strip him, listened to the gasps and murmurs as his body was uncovered little by little, felt the tips of Rodney’s fingers trace his neck and collarbones, the length of his bicep, the angle of his hipbone. John fell back onto the bed - a glorious combination of firm mattress and soft pillows that cradled his body.
And then Rodney was there - big and solid and hairy and rough, and John pulled him down and this time, he did tilt his head back to give Rodney his throat, he parted his legs to let Rodney in between. And John Sheppard, who was always with women, who was almost always on top, let Rodney touch him and kiss him and push his knees back and open him up with slick fingers and fuck him into two mind-shattering orgasms before shoving him over onto his knees and sawing into him with short, sharp strokes and coming inside him in a wash of heat that ended with both of them in a spent and sticky heap, gasping and moaning and laughing just a little at the wonder of it all.
The Shape of the Sword
The hallway curves again, and John’s starting to get a feel for it. It feels like he’s doubling back on himself, going over and over the same ground. He’s not tired, he’s not hungry or thirsty, he doesn’t have to pee. He just walks. Two thoughts in his head - keep moving and find Rodney. He somehow has faith that, if he just keeps going, Rodney will be there. It seems inevitable, and that’s enough for John. He just wants to be warm again, just wants to be back where he belongs.
He’s like a shark, endlessly swimming - he’ll die if he stops.
John’s not afraid of death. Some would say he courts it, with coy smiles and teasing brushes of his hand, his body, his life.
Are you sure your birth certificate doesn’t have an expiration date on it?
Sitting by his bed in the infirmary, Rodney’s voice cracks on the joke. John’s still restrained, still a little blue around the edges. The whole turning-into-a-bug debacle has strained their connection, mainly because John had ordered his men to keep Rodney away and Rodney, typically, had protested. Loudly. Often.
John remembers the height of it, the point where human and bug were in perfect balance, like two warriors on a rocky peak, each trying to push the other into the abyss. But balance implies harmony, and there was none of that. It was pure suffering laced with terrible exultation. The man in him cried out for Rodney, for the safety he found in strong arms and broad body, and the creature cried out also. But the creature’s cries were not for safety, but for pain and claiming. It wanted Rodney, but not the way the man did - not with the heat and passion, not the way John wanted Rodney, the way John had Rodney.
I think it’s a military thing.
What is?
Your switchiness.
Is switchiness a word?
Is now. Think about it - career military - there’s always someone under you and always someone on top. Best of both worlds. You like it when I fuck you, right? Even though you never…
I do. I didn’t know, though.
And you like it when you fuck me, right?
God, yes.
Good. Show me how much.
The creature, the monster wanted to own, to destroy, to see Rodney bleeding and broken, and John managed to relay his orders in the shaky moments just before the change gave the monster the extra strength it needed to push the man over the precipice to fall away to the jagged rocks below.
No, no expiration date. I checked.
Scratchy voice and itchy body and his head still felt like it was full of wet paper, but the man was in charge, the monster sent away, and the small bits that remained consigned to the depths of his heart, pushed down, buried.
Glad you’re back. I missed you.
Rodney held his mutated hand like it was normal, like he’d take John any way he could get him, like he would have let the monster have him, just to be close to John. It’s humbling and horrifying and beautiful in the same fucked-up way that they are, together.
John closes his eyes.
The Mirrors of Enigmas
It’s so dark on the Aurora that, for a tiny, fleeting second John misses the monstervision that allowed him to see in the dark. The second passes, and he’s swept up in Rodney’s plan to speak to the Ancients that have become these withered husks. Rodney’s being Rodney - snarky and impatient, and John’s still unsettled from his unwanted metamorposis and reversal. They haven’t found their footing again, walking softly around one another, inadvertently getting on each other’s nerves, casual barbs finding unexpected soft spots with a regularity that’s frazzling them both.
You’re sure this is such a good idea?
What’s the matter, Colonel? Don’t trust me?
No.
The word is out before he thinks, and he’d give anything to snatch it out of the air before it hits its target. But he’s got nothing to give, and the arrow finds its mark and Rodney flinches just a little before his lips press into a hard line and he turns away. John wants to apologize with his eyes or a smile, but Rodney won’t look at him the whole time he’s helping him into the pod. When their eyes finally meet, John sees the hurt there, but also the understanding, and knows that even if he’s not there all the way, he’s on the road to being forgiven. He jokes about there being no place like home, but it’s not really that much of a joke.
Being aboard the Aurora is an exercise in frustration. Also, the uniforms are really stupid-looking. He’s pretty glad that Rodney can’t see him. White is not his best color.
More frustration with a side of unconsciousness and - joy of joys - McKay’s come to visit. He’ll hold that “rakish” comment for later. The Wraith-lusting, too.
He sends Rodney back to unplug the Wraith; he’ll join him soon.
Telling the captain the truth of his crew’s fate feels like murder; worse than the seventy Genii, worse than shooting Elia. He closes his eyes and thinks that there’s no place like home.
John keeps walking. The switchbacks seem more pronounced now, like he’s getting closer to the center, closer to his goal. The path curves a bit more and suddenly he’s there, at the end. Rodney turns toward him with a welcoming smile and John’s arms open.
Well, it's about damned time! What did you do, play a round of golf? We've got serious problems!
What happened? GET DOWN!
That happened! Not so hot now!
He finally gets it while they’re watching the Aurora detonate, taking both Wraith Hives with her. One second he’s got his arm pressed against Rodney’s just enough to feel solid muscle and heat and he’s in his safest place. In the next second, his mind changes, like a bubble breaking the surface, and two sets of memories touch and then converge, moving with a sick feeling that makes his palm sweat.
But, I'm sure you can do it, if you really wanna try.
The door to the transporter closes, with Rodney on the outside.