Fic: Horses Over the Hill
Finished! *sweet relief*
Title: Horses Over the Hill
Rating: R
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Length: ~4100 words
Summary: I’m in you, more so when they put me in the ground.
A/N: Written for undermistletoe’s “Worst. Christmas. Ever.: The parents/relatives come to visit unexpectedly” prompt. Special thanks to svmadelyn for putting the whole thing together, and for coming up with such cool challenges!
A/N2: Huge thanks also to _inbetween_ and kageygirl for the lightning-quick betas, and for the mental and moral support. *hugs*
Horses Over the Hill
John wasn’t at his most rational: to begin with. The memory of the most recent Wraith attack and the city’s escape--an escape that wasn’t seeming any less miraculous two weeks later--still swept through him at odd moments, and while everyone else was glad to see them back from their debriefing on Earth in time to celebrate their fourth Christmas in Atlantis, John wasn’t exactly in the mood to party. He could still hear General Landry’s words echoing in his brain.
The Christmas Eve shindig had been going on for about four hours now. The first hour had seen him wary and acting overly gregarious to cover it. He’d danced with Elizabeth, Teyla, and a smattering of Marines and science-types; the entire time he was aware of Rodney standing by the buffet table, watching him. Eventually, Rodney extracted him from the arms of Lieutenant Cadman under the pretext of handing him a drink, so John entered the second hour sober and exited it a good 75-80% toward drunk, having managed to consume three large mugs of Athosian liquor in that short span of time. Now being gregarious was easier to pull off: he kept wanting to touch everyone, just to feel the solid warmth of arms and shoulders. He solved this problem by dancing some more, until the start of the third hour (and two more mugs) bade him welcome with a sudden bout of nausea.
He went and sat over by the window, rejoicing in the cool breeze, in the dark stretch of the Atlantean sky. Eventually he heard footsteps and he tensed, dreading the conversation he was going to have to hold up his side of, the awkward pauses he was going to have to fill with nods and smiles and looks of deep understanding. But it was just Rodney. Rodney sat down and for once didn’t speak, so John took one more cool breath deep into his lungs before saying, level and quiet, “You wanna get out of here?”
“Yes,” Rodney said, and they walked off, just like that. No looking back.
But John wasn’t feeling rational--was feeling almost stupid, in fact--and they had only made it about halfway to his quarters when the need for physical contact came rushing back. He reached out, and there was the back of Rodney’s neck, the familiar bits of feathery hair, the fragile bones of his spine. Rodney arched instinctively into his touch; then he said, “No, wait, John--” and jerked away. His eyes were wide, and God, he looked so fucking beautiful when his irises went big like that, and John just wanted to--
“Not in the hall,” Rodney hissed. But he obviously wasn’t at his most rational either (he’d matched John almost cup for cup), because even as he said it, his hand went to John’s hip, his thumb rubbing at the hem of John’s shirt until it slipped up, revealing a thin band of skin. “Mmm,” Rodney said, the end of the exhalation curling up until it was almost a growl. “Let’s walk faster; faster, faster, c’mon...” and then they didn’t exactly run. But it was close.
Close: John saw his doorway come into view, and that was--too much, enough, whatever-who-cares, because he needed Rodney now. He grabbed Rodney’s arm and spun him around, a move that would have been John Wayne-Quiet Man good if Rodney hadn’t tripped on his own feet and fallen against John’s chest. Actually, that was pretty good, too. John jerked Rodney up into a kiss, backing him toward the door and thinking vague Open Sesame-type thoughts. They stumbled into the room, still kissing, groping wildly at shoulders and hips, and when John opened his eyes it was only for a second, only to make sure that they didn’t run into anything or break another lamp.
He opened his eyes and he froze.
“Wha?” said Rodney, realizing that he was still attempting to make out with someone whose body had suddenly become a lot less pliant. “What are you--” He spared a glance in the direction of John’s intense stare.
He shrieked.
Oh, good, John thought vaguely. He wasn’t crazy if Rodney could see it, too.
Could see him, too.
“There’s a, there’s--” Rodney sputtered. His hands began to spasm, as if he could somehow pluck a rational explanation out of the air. But rational time was over.
“Come on,” John said, arresting one of Rodney’s rapidly moving hands. He pulled him toward the door and Rodney followed mutely. Well, mutely for Rodney: he was still making vague sputtering noises, casting wide-eyed looks over his shoulder. “There’s a, what are we, where are we going?”
They were out in the hall now. John caught one last unwilling glimpse as the door slid shut. He turned his back. “Your room,” he told Rodney.
“But there--” Rodney swallowed. “There was a man in your room.”
John nodded. He felt strangely...solid. Sober, too. “Apparently,” he said.
Rodney held up a finger, a gesture that usually meant, Quiet, genius idea forming! Now it seemed to indicate Wait, wait, I’ll generate an actual word sometime this century. “W-who?” Rodney forced out eventually. “Why?”
John shrugged. “My father,” he said flatly. “And I don’t know.”
“Your father?” Another shrug. “But...how did he get here?”
John scratched his head. “I dunno,” he said. “He’s been dead for more than four years.”
Rodney swayed dangerously. John caught his arm. “Can we go have sex now?” he said. “I was kind of looking forward to the sex.”
“But--” Rodney gestured helplessly at the closed door. “But--”
Apparently there were things besides chocolate and orgasms that were capable of rendering Rodney incoherent. However, John had really had his heart set on the latter. He tried a different tack. “I’ve just had an emotionally traumatizing experience,” he said. “Comfort me?”
“But--”
John leaned in closer. “Fuck me, Rodney.”
Rodney swallowed. “Oh. Okay.”
At some point it became Christmas morning. They didn’t notice.
*
John awoke with Rodney clinging to him. This would have been precisely the awakening of John’s more hopeful imaginings, were it not for the fact that Rodney was also shaking him and hissing “John! John!” in a frantic whisper.
“What?” John asked blearily, blinking: it wasn’t even light out yet, and if Rodney had woken him so that they could go see if Santa had left any presents under their nonexistent tree, boy, was he gonna be pissed. But Rodney was not a beacon of Christmas cheer. “He’s back,” he murmured. “Your...it’s back.”
John pushed himself up onto his elbows. His father was sitting in a chair at the end of the bed, his feet planted flat on the floor, his posture perfect. His hands were folded neatly in his lap and his gaze was steady, steady, steady: clear blue eyes quietly taking in the scene before them, judging.
“Oh,” said John. He rolled back over, already two-thirds of the way back to sleep.
Rodney started shaking him again. “John!” he hissed, and now it was equal parts apprehension and annoyance.
“What?” John said.
Rodney’s eyes darted quickly toward the end of the bed before skittering back. He said, “I’m not wearing pants.”
“You’re under the covers, Rodney,” John said, rolling his eyes, yawning. “Go back to sleep.”
“What? John!” Rodney kicked him, hard, in the shin. “It may have escaped your attention,” he said, gathering more and more of the blankets to his chest, “but we’re naked in bed getting ogled by your dead dad! Now is not the time for a little extra shut-eye!”
“But it’s Christmas,” John whined. “I wanna sleep in.”
He could feel Rodney staring at him, the combined weight of two pairs of inquisitive eyes. There was a prolonged pause. Then there was Rodney’s breath hot on his neck, and Rodney’s voice, a tiny hiss in his ear. “If you want to have sex again, I don’t know, some time this century, you will get up right now and deal with this.” Then a pull and stretch of fabric, and coldness came rushing in. “I’m taking a shower,” Rodney announced loudly, sweeping into the bathroom and taking most of the covers with him. But he paused to chuck John’s boxers at his face, so thankfully, John didn’t have to break up with him just yet.
His perfect Christmas--a thing of legend he only half-believed in, his only real basis of judgment being a certain Jimmy Stewart movie, and even that was pretty fucked up when you stopped to think about it--was clearly shot, so John rolled out of bed, pulling his underwear off his nose, then up his legs. All his body hair was standing slightly on edge, as if charged with static electricity. It had nothing to do with the cold. He gave his father’s ghost an accusing look. “Cheap special effects? Really?”
His father didn’t say anything.
John looked around the room, trying to locate his shirt--or his pants. Pants would be good. His father watched him with impassive eyes. “You really have nothing to say to me?” John said, finding his uniform jacket and laying it out on the bed for later use. “That’s funny; you always had plenty to say before.”
His father remained perfectly still: not a blink, not a cursory “Boo!” “You want me to start?” John asked. He lowered his voice. “‘So, Johnny, how’s being gay treating you?’ ‘Not bad, could be worse. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is all kinds of suck.’” A quick, knife-like grin. “‘I’m enjoying the sodomy, though.’” He jerked his finally-found t-shirt over his head and met his father’s eyes, hazel staring into blue. “Is that what you came here to hear? To see?”
Nothing.
John felt something inside him collapse in on itself, felt something snap. “Go,” he hissed. “Get out of here. You told me to leave and I left. But this is my place.” The tremble in his hands was barely visible. “And I want you gone.”
And then his father moved. Silent and slow, he shook his head.
“Goddammit!” John screamed, and even to himself, he sounded like a petulant child. “Get out!” He reached forward to grab his father’s shoulders, to jerk him up, to shake that perfect posture out of him. Halfway through the motion, he realized his mistake: he couldn’t grab his father, curl fingers tight and hold on--his father was dead. His father was dead and his fingers clutched nothing but empty air...only it wasn’t empty, but heavy with cold, a cold that was more than a sensation, was instead a physical thing: opening its wide, gaping mouth and swallowing him whole.
John collapsed into the chair where his father had been sitting, trembling, feeling like he’d just fallen through a curtain of ice, or into a deep, dark well. And maybe it was bottomless, and maybe he was falling still.
It wasn’t until Rodney came out of the bathroom, stopping short with a, “Jesus, what happened?” that he realized he was crying.
“Nothing,” he said, instantly blinking back the tears. He could be weak in front of Rodney, which was exactly why he shouldn’t. “Nothing. I took care of it, see?” He spread his arms, indicating the empty room. A small, helpless giggle burbled out of his mouth. “Who you gonna call?”
“Um,” said Rodney, shifting from foot to foot, his hands twitching inside the pockets of his robe. “Possibly Heightmeyer?”
John shot him a glare that said, far more eloquently and efficiently than words, that he was not happy with this suggestion. Not happy at all.
“I have stuff to do,” he said, getting up, pants finally in hand (they had, of course, been draped over the back of the chair). He jerked them on, shoved bare feet down into the tight coldness of his boots. “I’ll see you later.”
“But...” Rodney reached out as he passed, though his fingers proved as useless as John’s had been. “But it’s Christmas.”
“And that’s been a meaningful day to you since when?” John said, hearing the words like an echo at the back of his brain. Like a foreign presence in his mouth. “I have responsibilities; I’m an important man.”
And Rodney, who declared his own importance on an almost hourly basis, seemed to be at a loss as what to say to that. John looked at him: hair wet and curling at the back of his neck, bare feet sticking out of the robe enveloping his body, eyes wide and blue. John looked at him; then he gave a formal nod and passed out into the hallway.
John walked back to his room with a swift but steady calm; that nobody had or showed any intention of ever questioning his early-morning retreats from Rodney’s quarters was one of the many things that John was convinced were on the verge of biting him on the ass. Maybe they had banded together, were waiting to jump him all at once--and wouldn’t now be a perfect time? But the only person he saw--a Marine who’d been unfortunate enough to pull holiday patrol duty--merely flashed him a vibrant grin and wished him a Merry Christmas. When John couldn’t muster up more than a polite inclination of his head, the Marine recoiled like John had spat “Bah, humbug!” into his face.
“Must remember to keep up appearances, Johnny,” he muttered to himself, then shook his head, pausing in the middle of the corridor, feeling shaken and exposed. He turned around slowly, expecting to see his--to see somebody standing behind him, but there was nothing: the hall was empty, the only sound the Marine’s retreating footsteps and his badly whistled rendition of “Joy to the World.”
Which are you, John thought to himself, ghost of Christmas past, present, or yet to come? And as he reached his door, he realized that learning the answer to that question terrified him--terrified him more than bullets or blood, more than this thing with Rodney did sometimes, when it started to feel too real.
The door slid open; his room was mercifully empty. Atlantis usually lit up for him whenever he entered, welcoming home its favorite son. Now, though, it seemed to sense that he wanted the darkness, and nothing came on but a faint orange glow, enough so that he could maneuver without bruising his shins. Not that one needed much light for sulking, he mused, the thought spiced with a touch of self-loathing--unusual. Normally his frustration had a tendency to radiate out in waves of nervous energy which he harnessed with workouts and runs; he’d trained himself very, very well. But he would get funny looks if someone caught him running or working out on Christmas Day...and he had to keep up appearances, now didn’t he?
He lay back on the bed. His skin felt itchy, hungry for touch, and he satisfied it as best he could by picking at the blankets, at the little knots of raised cotton that even the Ancients’ fancy laundry machines couldn’t erase. Need a shower, he thought: he could still smell, could still taste last night on his tongue--Athosian liquor and Rodney, and he licked his lips and stretched his arms over his head, sighing into the dark. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his shadowy reflection in the framed photo on the nightstand. After a moment, he extended his fingers, closing them over the sharp corner and turning, tipping, so that the photograph lay flat and his own image disappeared.
When he turned his head again, his father was standing there.
“Oh,” he said. “Didn’t you leave? I thought you had somewhere else to be.”
His father, unsurprisingly, didn’t say anything.
“Yeah,” said John. “The silent, stoic act is really getting old.” And normally, John was so very good at filling the uncomfortable silences. However, it seemed that prolonged exposure to Rodney had gotten him out of practice, because now he had nothing. “Are you just going to stand there?” he said finally. And then more quietly: “Can’t you at least tell me what you want?”
At this point, he would have jumped for joy if the spirit had extended one, bony fingertip and pointed it directly at his chest. But his father’s ghost didn’t so much as blink. “Fine,” said John. “Fine. Well, I’m just going to...” He looked around for inspiration, seized upon his slightly dusty copy of War and Peace. “Read,” he said, thinking on the lights. He plunked the book down on his knees, glancing up at his father as he did so. “I can control the city with my mind,” he pointed out, and while he wasn’t feeling quite ridiculous enough to say it, he did think: When have you ever controlled a city with your mind, huh?
He tried to concentrate on his reading, loudly and triumphantly flipping each overleaf when he finished a page. If anyone asked, he would say that he was sticking to his schedule, but in fact he was less than three hundred pages in, and he kept getting lost in the army of Russian names, in the endless stream of boring parties. And while he thought Prince Andrei was pretty cool, he still couldn’t decide whether or not he liked Pierre.
“You ever read this?” he asked, knowing that he might as well be asking the empty room or carrying on a conversation with Tolstoy himself--“Does everyone have to have two or three different titles? Really?” “Probably not,” John concluded. “You were never big on free time. Not--” He swallowed, stopped. Ran his thumb across the remaining eleven hundred pages of text, weighing it in his hand. “It didn’t always used to be so bad,” he said. “Things. Between you and me.”
He glanced up. His father was standing closer, a lot closer than he’d been just a moment before, and it should have been creepy, that he had moved without John seeing, without John sensing it. But John was getting used to things sneaking up on him.
He realized he’d been asking the wrong questions, trying to interrogate when in fact, he was the one being interrogated. He set the book aside, the heavy bulk of it making the mattress bob. “What do you want me to say?”
His father waited. It was all he could do.
“I’m not sorry,” John spat, surprised and not surprised by the sudden rush of bitterness. The ghost didn’t blink, but still John forced himself to take a deep breath before he tried again. “I’m sorry that I hurt you, that I...fractured things between us. But you were wrong to ask what you did, and I’d tell you no again in a heartbeat. A heartbeat, do you understand?”
The metaphors of the living were cruel to the dead. There was nothing he could do about that.
“I can’t be like you, Dad,” John said, and tried to pretend it didn’t sound like he was begging. “I can’t.”
The old man’s mouth twitched. John sucked in a breath, waiting for his father to speak, waiting for the words that would absolve--
Lips spread and thinned but never parted. John’s father smiled, like he knew something John didn’t; he smiled, and he vanished.
This time, John knew, he was really gone.
No, he thought a moment later, touching his chest, feeling the continual throb of his own heart, he isn’t gone at all.
This time he did run, all the way back to Rodney’s quarters. On the way he passed the same Marine, coming in the opposite direction, whistling “Silent Night.” The Marine nodded but didn’t say anything. John wondered how long it would be before he changed his tune.
He knocked; Rodney’s door slid open like a sigh. Rodney himself stood blocking the entrance, his mouth set, and while rationally, John knew that he would eventually step aside, it still hurt to see him like that, guarding the gate. Get out. Bitter and angry and betrayed. He could say it. He might.
Instead, Rodney’s voice was all weariness as he said, “What is this, Colonel?”
“No, no,” John said; and “please” and “I’m sorry,” all the while backing him through the doorway. “I’ll tell you later, I promise, I’ll explain. But please--”
“John--” Rodney said, and that was it, right there: John could breathe again.
“Yes,” he said, careful maneuvering winning him a kiss. “Yes, talk to me, say my name...”
Rodney still looked like he wanted to argue, but he was smart enough to know that he wouldn’t ever get anything out of John if John wasn’t willing. So Rodney allowed himself to be led backwards toward the bed, just like John knew he’d allow himself to be bent over and fucked, John a heavy weight across his back and the vibrations shaking through their bodies, until both of them were still.
*
When John awoke it was dark. For a moment he lay quiet, shocked: There goes Christmas.
He got up and padded over to the bathroom. He relieved himself, then bent over the sink and splashed water on his cheeks. Lifting his face to the mirror, he was barely able to stop himself from jerking back; and maybe it was still Christmas, after all, because he couldn’t stop seeing ghosts.
Walking back into the main room, his breathing felt unnaturally loud in his own ears. Rodney was curled on his side, his arms still circling the body that was no longer there. John knew that in the morning, he would have to tell him: tell him that General Landry had offered Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard a promotion, but offered it with a warning in his eyes; tell him that if he, John, cared about the future of his career at all, the few days he’d been given to think it over were meaningless, because in the end he would have no choice but to accept it, and everything it entailed.
The conversation he kept hearing, however, was not the earnest talk with Rodney that tomorrow would bring; it was something else, the words he had read in each of his father’s silent stares, the last of the old ghosts. He heard his father’s voice imploring him--gently at first, then with increasing anger and vehemence--to do what needed to be done, what any responsible son would in a heartbeat do.
It’s just politics, the old man said, just playing politics. Reynolds is dead, what difference does it make to him?
It makes a difference to me! John had replied, though his voice had wavered, had not been the righteous thing he would like to imagine. I’m not going to rebuild my career on the ashes of my dead friend! I don’t have it in me...
We all have it in us, said his father, with all the strength and conviction John himself had lacked. A basic sense of self-preservation; I know I must have given you that much.
And, I only want the best for you, son, but you have to know how to play the game. How do you think I got this far?
And: Some day you’ll be Colonel Sheppard, too. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? Isn’t that what you want?
“It was,” John said. And he started at the sound of his own voice.
A moment later he wasn’t sure if he had spoken at all: Rodney hadn’t moved, and more and more these days he was a light sleeper, jittery and tense. John looked down at him, something twisting inside his chest. Rodney’s arms were still curled in a loose circle, waiting for John to slip back into them: patient, undemanding.
They would have to wait a little longer, he thought, walking over to the desk and opening the computer. John had an e-mail to write.
*************
NOTES:
1. This wasn’t the story I meant to write. The story I intended was about how John resolved his problems with his dead dad, and about how John and Rodney then proceeded to have sweet, issue-free sex. I actually did write that story, but I didn’t believe in it; I realized that I was really writing about something else. I hope this second version isn’t too much of a disappointment; it depicts a less pleasant world, but it felt truer to me.
2. Title and summary from U2’s Dirty Day. (The original version of this story was supposed to form a bridge between that song and Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own, but I guess John has more issues than Bono does.)
3. Other influences: the opening line, you may have noticed, is supposed to echo “A Christmas Carol,” ‘cause dude, that opening rocks. Also, I shamelessly stole one line from overheardnyc. And finally, because I like to brag about this: I actually have read War and Peace (and I read it on a schedule! Before I knew anything about this fandom! It’s destiny!), and the answer to John’s question is yes: Pierre is awesome. *nods*
Title: Horses Over the Hill
Rating: R
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Length: ~4100 words
Summary: I’m in you, more so when they put me in the ground.
A/N: Written for undermistletoe’s “Worst. Christmas. Ever.: The parents/relatives come to visit unexpectedly” prompt. Special thanks to svmadelyn for putting the whole thing together, and for coming up with such cool challenges!
A/N2: Huge thanks also to _inbetween_ and kageygirl for the lightning-quick betas, and for the mental and moral support. *hugs*
Horses Over the Hill
John wasn’t at his most rational: to begin with. The memory of the most recent Wraith attack and the city’s escape--an escape that wasn’t seeming any less miraculous two weeks later--still swept through him at odd moments, and while everyone else was glad to see them back from their debriefing on Earth in time to celebrate their fourth Christmas in Atlantis, John wasn’t exactly in the mood to party. He could still hear General Landry’s words echoing in his brain.
The Christmas Eve shindig had been going on for about four hours now. The first hour had seen him wary and acting overly gregarious to cover it. He’d danced with Elizabeth, Teyla, and a smattering of Marines and science-types; the entire time he was aware of Rodney standing by the buffet table, watching him. Eventually, Rodney extracted him from the arms of Lieutenant Cadman under the pretext of handing him a drink, so John entered the second hour sober and exited it a good 75-80% toward drunk, having managed to consume three large mugs of Athosian liquor in that short span of time. Now being gregarious was easier to pull off: he kept wanting to touch everyone, just to feel the solid warmth of arms and shoulders. He solved this problem by dancing some more, until the start of the third hour (and two more mugs) bade him welcome with a sudden bout of nausea.
He went and sat over by the window, rejoicing in the cool breeze, in the dark stretch of the Atlantean sky. Eventually he heard footsteps and he tensed, dreading the conversation he was going to have to hold up his side of, the awkward pauses he was going to have to fill with nods and smiles and looks of deep understanding. But it was just Rodney. Rodney sat down and for once didn’t speak, so John took one more cool breath deep into his lungs before saying, level and quiet, “You wanna get out of here?”
“Yes,” Rodney said, and they walked off, just like that. No looking back.
But John wasn’t feeling rational--was feeling almost stupid, in fact--and they had only made it about halfway to his quarters when the need for physical contact came rushing back. He reached out, and there was the back of Rodney’s neck, the familiar bits of feathery hair, the fragile bones of his spine. Rodney arched instinctively into his touch; then he said, “No, wait, John--” and jerked away. His eyes were wide, and God, he looked so fucking beautiful when his irises went big like that, and John just wanted to--
“Not in the hall,” Rodney hissed. But he obviously wasn’t at his most rational either (he’d matched John almost cup for cup), because even as he said it, his hand went to John’s hip, his thumb rubbing at the hem of John’s shirt until it slipped up, revealing a thin band of skin. “Mmm,” Rodney said, the end of the exhalation curling up until it was almost a growl. “Let’s walk faster; faster, faster, c’mon...” and then they didn’t exactly run. But it was close.
Close: John saw his doorway come into view, and that was--too much, enough, whatever-who-cares, because he needed Rodney now. He grabbed Rodney’s arm and spun him around, a move that would have been John Wayne-Quiet Man good if Rodney hadn’t tripped on his own feet and fallen against John’s chest. Actually, that was pretty good, too. John jerked Rodney up into a kiss, backing him toward the door and thinking vague Open Sesame-type thoughts. They stumbled into the room, still kissing, groping wildly at shoulders and hips, and when John opened his eyes it was only for a second, only to make sure that they didn’t run into anything or break another lamp.
He opened his eyes and he froze.
“Wha?” said Rodney, realizing that he was still attempting to make out with someone whose body had suddenly become a lot less pliant. “What are you--” He spared a glance in the direction of John’s intense stare.
He shrieked.
Oh, good, John thought vaguely. He wasn’t crazy if Rodney could see it, too.
Could see him, too.
“There’s a, there’s--” Rodney sputtered. His hands began to spasm, as if he could somehow pluck a rational explanation out of the air. But rational time was over.
“Come on,” John said, arresting one of Rodney’s rapidly moving hands. He pulled him toward the door and Rodney followed mutely. Well, mutely for Rodney: he was still making vague sputtering noises, casting wide-eyed looks over his shoulder. “There’s a, what are we, where are we going?”
They were out in the hall now. John caught one last unwilling glimpse as the door slid shut. He turned his back. “Your room,” he told Rodney.
“But there--” Rodney swallowed. “There was a man in your room.”
John nodded. He felt strangely...solid. Sober, too. “Apparently,” he said.
Rodney held up a finger, a gesture that usually meant, Quiet, genius idea forming! Now it seemed to indicate Wait, wait, I’ll generate an actual word sometime this century. “W-who?” Rodney forced out eventually. “Why?”
John shrugged. “My father,” he said flatly. “And I don’t know.”
“Your father?” Another shrug. “But...how did he get here?”
John scratched his head. “I dunno,” he said. “He’s been dead for more than four years.”
Rodney swayed dangerously. John caught his arm. “Can we go have sex now?” he said. “I was kind of looking forward to the sex.”
“But--” Rodney gestured helplessly at the closed door. “But--”
Apparently there were things besides chocolate and orgasms that were capable of rendering Rodney incoherent. However, John had really had his heart set on the latter. He tried a different tack. “I’ve just had an emotionally traumatizing experience,” he said. “Comfort me?”
“But--”
John leaned in closer. “Fuck me, Rodney.”
Rodney swallowed. “Oh. Okay.”
At some point it became Christmas morning. They didn’t notice.
*
John awoke with Rodney clinging to him. This would have been precisely the awakening of John’s more hopeful imaginings, were it not for the fact that Rodney was also shaking him and hissing “John! John!” in a frantic whisper.
“What?” John asked blearily, blinking: it wasn’t even light out yet, and if Rodney had woken him so that they could go see if Santa had left any presents under their nonexistent tree, boy, was he gonna be pissed. But Rodney was not a beacon of Christmas cheer. “He’s back,” he murmured. “Your...it’s back.”
John pushed himself up onto his elbows. His father was sitting in a chair at the end of the bed, his feet planted flat on the floor, his posture perfect. His hands were folded neatly in his lap and his gaze was steady, steady, steady: clear blue eyes quietly taking in the scene before them, judging.
“Oh,” said John. He rolled back over, already two-thirds of the way back to sleep.
Rodney started shaking him again. “John!” he hissed, and now it was equal parts apprehension and annoyance.
“What?” John said.
Rodney’s eyes darted quickly toward the end of the bed before skittering back. He said, “I’m not wearing pants.”
“You’re under the covers, Rodney,” John said, rolling his eyes, yawning. “Go back to sleep.”
“What? John!” Rodney kicked him, hard, in the shin. “It may have escaped your attention,” he said, gathering more and more of the blankets to his chest, “but we’re naked in bed getting ogled by your dead dad! Now is not the time for a little extra shut-eye!”
“But it’s Christmas,” John whined. “I wanna sleep in.”
He could feel Rodney staring at him, the combined weight of two pairs of inquisitive eyes. There was a prolonged pause. Then there was Rodney’s breath hot on his neck, and Rodney’s voice, a tiny hiss in his ear. “If you want to have sex again, I don’t know, some time this century, you will get up right now and deal with this.” Then a pull and stretch of fabric, and coldness came rushing in. “I’m taking a shower,” Rodney announced loudly, sweeping into the bathroom and taking most of the covers with him. But he paused to chuck John’s boxers at his face, so thankfully, John didn’t have to break up with him just yet.
His perfect Christmas--a thing of legend he only half-believed in, his only real basis of judgment being a certain Jimmy Stewart movie, and even that was pretty fucked up when you stopped to think about it--was clearly shot, so John rolled out of bed, pulling his underwear off his nose, then up his legs. All his body hair was standing slightly on edge, as if charged with static electricity. It had nothing to do with the cold. He gave his father’s ghost an accusing look. “Cheap special effects? Really?”
His father didn’t say anything.
John looked around the room, trying to locate his shirt--or his pants. Pants would be good. His father watched him with impassive eyes. “You really have nothing to say to me?” John said, finding his uniform jacket and laying it out on the bed for later use. “That’s funny; you always had plenty to say before.”
His father remained perfectly still: not a blink, not a cursory “Boo!” “You want me to start?” John asked. He lowered his voice. “‘So, Johnny, how’s being gay treating you?’ ‘Not bad, could be worse. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is all kinds of suck.’” A quick, knife-like grin. “‘I’m enjoying the sodomy, though.’” He jerked his finally-found t-shirt over his head and met his father’s eyes, hazel staring into blue. “Is that what you came here to hear? To see?”
Nothing.
John felt something inside him collapse in on itself, felt something snap. “Go,” he hissed. “Get out of here. You told me to leave and I left. But this is my place.” The tremble in his hands was barely visible. “And I want you gone.”
And then his father moved. Silent and slow, he shook his head.
“Goddammit!” John screamed, and even to himself, he sounded like a petulant child. “Get out!” He reached forward to grab his father’s shoulders, to jerk him up, to shake that perfect posture out of him. Halfway through the motion, he realized his mistake: he couldn’t grab his father, curl fingers tight and hold on--his father was dead. His father was dead and his fingers clutched nothing but empty air...only it wasn’t empty, but heavy with cold, a cold that was more than a sensation, was instead a physical thing: opening its wide, gaping mouth and swallowing him whole.
John collapsed into the chair where his father had been sitting, trembling, feeling like he’d just fallen through a curtain of ice, or into a deep, dark well. And maybe it was bottomless, and maybe he was falling still.
It wasn’t until Rodney came out of the bathroom, stopping short with a, “Jesus, what happened?” that he realized he was crying.
“Nothing,” he said, instantly blinking back the tears. He could be weak in front of Rodney, which was exactly why he shouldn’t. “Nothing. I took care of it, see?” He spread his arms, indicating the empty room. A small, helpless giggle burbled out of his mouth. “Who you gonna call?”
“Um,” said Rodney, shifting from foot to foot, his hands twitching inside the pockets of his robe. “Possibly Heightmeyer?”
John shot him a glare that said, far more eloquently and efficiently than words, that he was not happy with this suggestion. Not happy at all.
“I have stuff to do,” he said, getting up, pants finally in hand (they had, of course, been draped over the back of the chair). He jerked them on, shoved bare feet down into the tight coldness of his boots. “I’ll see you later.”
“But...” Rodney reached out as he passed, though his fingers proved as useless as John’s had been. “But it’s Christmas.”
“And that’s been a meaningful day to you since when?” John said, hearing the words like an echo at the back of his brain. Like a foreign presence in his mouth. “I have responsibilities; I’m an important man.”
And Rodney, who declared his own importance on an almost hourly basis, seemed to be at a loss as what to say to that. John looked at him: hair wet and curling at the back of his neck, bare feet sticking out of the robe enveloping his body, eyes wide and blue. John looked at him; then he gave a formal nod and passed out into the hallway.
John walked back to his room with a swift but steady calm; that nobody had or showed any intention of ever questioning his early-morning retreats from Rodney’s quarters was one of the many things that John was convinced were on the verge of biting him on the ass. Maybe they had banded together, were waiting to jump him all at once--and wouldn’t now be a perfect time? But the only person he saw--a Marine who’d been unfortunate enough to pull holiday patrol duty--merely flashed him a vibrant grin and wished him a Merry Christmas. When John couldn’t muster up more than a polite inclination of his head, the Marine recoiled like John had spat “Bah, humbug!” into his face.
“Must remember to keep up appearances, Johnny,” he muttered to himself, then shook his head, pausing in the middle of the corridor, feeling shaken and exposed. He turned around slowly, expecting to see his--to see somebody standing behind him, but there was nothing: the hall was empty, the only sound the Marine’s retreating footsteps and his badly whistled rendition of “Joy to the World.”
Which are you, John thought to himself, ghost of Christmas past, present, or yet to come? And as he reached his door, he realized that learning the answer to that question terrified him--terrified him more than bullets or blood, more than this thing with Rodney did sometimes, when it started to feel too real.
The door slid open; his room was mercifully empty. Atlantis usually lit up for him whenever he entered, welcoming home its favorite son. Now, though, it seemed to sense that he wanted the darkness, and nothing came on but a faint orange glow, enough so that he could maneuver without bruising his shins. Not that one needed much light for sulking, he mused, the thought spiced with a touch of self-loathing--unusual. Normally his frustration had a tendency to radiate out in waves of nervous energy which he harnessed with workouts and runs; he’d trained himself very, very well. But he would get funny looks if someone caught him running or working out on Christmas Day...and he had to keep up appearances, now didn’t he?
He lay back on the bed. His skin felt itchy, hungry for touch, and he satisfied it as best he could by picking at the blankets, at the little knots of raised cotton that even the Ancients’ fancy laundry machines couldn’t erase. Need a shower, he thought: he could still smell, could still taste last night on his tongue--Athosian liquor and Rodney, and he licked his lips and stretched his arms over his head, sighing into the dark. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his shadowy reflection in the framed photo on the nightstand. After a moment, he extended his fingers, closing them over the sharp corner and turning, tipping, so that the photograph lay flat and his own image disappeared.
When he turned his head again, his father was standing there.
“Oh,” he said. “Didn’t you leave? I thought you had somewhere else to be.”
His father, unsurprisingly, didn’t say anything.
“Yeah,” said John. “The silent, stoic act is really getting old.” And normally, John was so very good at filling the uncomfortable silences. However, it seemed that prolonged exposure to Rodney had gotten him out of practice, because now he had nothing. “Are you just going to stand there?” he said finally. And then more quietly: “Can’t you at least tell me what you want?”
At this point, he would have jumped for joy if the spirit had extended one, bony fingertip and pointed it directly at his chest. But his father’s ghost didn’t so much as blink. “Fine,” said John. “Fine. Well, I’m just going to...” He looked around for inspiration, seized upon his slightly dusty copy of War and Peace. “Read,” he said, thinking on the lights. He plunked the book down on his knees, glancing up at his father as he did so. “I can control the city with my mind,” he pointed out, and while he wasn’t feeling quite ridiculous enough to say it, he did think: When have you ever controlled a city with your mind, huh?
He tried to concentrate on his reading, loudly and triumphantly flipping each overleaf when he finished a page. If anyone asked, he would say that he was sticking to his schedule, but in fact he was less than three hundred pages in, and he kept getting lost in the army of Russian names, in the endless stream of boring parties. And while he thought Prince Andrei was pretty cool, he still couldn’t decide whether or not he liked Pierre.
“You ever read this?” he asked, knowing that he might as well be asking the empty room or carrying on a conversation with Tolstoy himself--“Does everyone have to have two or three different titles? Really?” “Probably not,” John concluded. “You were never big on free time. Not--” He swallowed, stopped. Ran his thumb across the remaining eleven hundred pages of text, weighing it in his hand. “It didn’t always used to be so bad,” he said. “Things. Between you and me.”
He glanced up. His father was standing closer, a lot closer than he’d been just a moment before, and it should have been creepy, that he had moved without John seeing, without John sensing it. But John was getting used to things sneaking up on him.
He realized he’d been asking the wrong questions, trying to interrogate when in fact, he was the one being interrogated. He set the book aside, the heavy bulk of it making the mattress bob. “What do you want me to say?”
His father waited. It was all he could do.
“I’m not sorry,” John spat, surprised and not surprised by the sudden rush of bitterness. The ghost didn’t blink, but still John forced himself to take a deep breath before he tried again. “I’m sorry that I hurt you, that I...fractured things between us. But you were wrong to ask what you did, and I’d tell you no again in a heartbeat. A heartbeat, do you understand?”
The metaphors of the living were cruel to the dead. There was nothing he could do about that.
“I can’t be like you, Dad,” John said, and tried to pretend it didn’t sound like he was begging. “I can’t.”
The old man’s mouth twitched. John sucked in a breath, waiting for his father to speak, waiting for the words that would absolve--
Lips spread and thinned but never parted. John’s father smiled, like he knew something John didn’t; he smiled, and he vanished.
This time, John knew, he was really gone.
No, he thought a moment later, touching his chest, feeling the continual throb of his own heart, he isn’t gone at all.
This time he did run, all the way back to Rodney’s quarters. On the way he passed the same Marine, coming in the opposite direction, whistling “Silent Night.” The Marine nodded but didn’t say anything. John wondered how long it would be before he changed his tune.
He knocked; Rodney’s door slid open like a sigh. Rodney himself stood blocking the entrance, his mouth set, and while rationally, John knew that he would eventually step aside, it still hurt to see him like that, guarding the gate. Get out. Bitter and angry and betrayed. He could say it. He might.
Instead, Rodney’s voice was all weariness as he said, “What is this, Colonel?”
“No, no,” John said; and “please” and “I’m sorry,” all the while backing him through the doorway. “I’ll tell you later, I promise, I’ll explain. But please--”
“John--” Rodney said, and that was it, right there: John could breathe again.
“Yes,” he said, careful maneuvering winning him a kiss. “Yes, talk to me, say my name...”
Rodney still looked like he wanted to argue, but he was smart enough to know that he wouldn’t ever get anything out of John if John wasn’t willing. So Rodney allowed himself to be led backwards toward the bed, just like John knew he’d allow himself to be bent over and fucked, John a heavy weight across his back and the vibrations shaking through their bodies, until both of them were still.
*
When John awoke it was dark. For a moment he lay quiet, shocked: There goes Christmas.
He got up and padded over to the bathroom. He relieved himself, then bent over the sink and splashed water on his cheeks. Lifting his face to the mirror, he was barely able to stop himself from jerking back; and maybe it was still Christmas, after all, because he couldn’t stop seeing ghosts.
Walking back into the main room, his breathing felt unnaturally loud in his own ears. Rodney was curled on his side, his arms still circling the body that was no longer there. John knew that in the morning, he would have to tell him: tell him that General Landry had offered Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard a promotion, but offered it with a warning in his eyes; tell him that if he, John, cared about the future of his career at all, the few days he’d been given to think it over were meaningless, because in the end he would have no choice but to accept it, and everything it entailed.
The conversation he kept hearing, however, was not the earnest talk with Rodney that tomorrow would bring; it was something else, the words he had read in each of his father’s silent stares, the last of the old ghosts. He heard his father’s voice imploring him--gently at first, then with increasing anger and vehemence--to do what needed to be done, what any responsible son would in a heartbeat do.
It’s just politics, the old man said, just playing politics. Reynolds is dead, what difference does it make to him?
It makes a difference to me! John had replied, though his voice had wavered, had not been the righteous thing he would like to imagine. I’m not going to rebuild my career on the ashes of my dead friend! I don’t have it in me...
We all have it in us, said his father, with all the strength and conviction John himself had lacked. A basic sense of self-preservation; I know I must have given you that much.
And, I only want the best for you, son, but you have to know how to play the game. How do you think I got this far?
And: Some day you’ll be Colonel Sheppard, too. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? Isn’t that what you want?
“It was,” John said. And he started at the sound of his own voice.
A moment later he wasn’t sure if he had spoken at all: Rodney hadn’t moved, and more and more these days he was a light sleeper, jittery and tense. John looked down at him, something twisting inside his chest. Rodney’s arms were still curled in a loose circle, waiting for John to slip back into them: patient, undemanding.
They would have to wait a little longer, he thought, walking over to the desk and opening the computer. John had an e-mail to write.
*************
NOTES:
1. This wasn’t the story I meant to write. The story I intended was about how John resolved his problems with his dead dad, and about how John and Rodney then proceeded to have sweet, issue-free sex. I actually did write that story, but I didn’t believe in it; I realized that I was really writing about something else. I hope this second version isn’t too much of a disappointment; it depicts a less pleasant world, but it felt truer to me.
2. Title and summary from U2’s Dirty Day. (The original version of this story was supposed to form a bridge between that song and Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own, but I guess John has more issues than Bono does.)
3. Other influences: the opening line, you may have noticed, is supposed to echo “A Christmas Carol,” ‘cause dude, that opening rocks. Also, I shamelessly stole one line from overheardnyc. And finally, because I like to brag about this: I actually have read War and Peace (and I read it on a schedule! Before I knew anything about this fandom! It’s destiny!), and the answer to John’s question is yes: Pierre is awesome. *nods*