.au fic: Morning Two - John/Rodney (PG)
Morning Two (John/Rodney) ~1,700 words (Nantucket 'verse)
.notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY dogeared!!!!!! *hugest birthday snorfles for you*
.Morning Two
On the second morning of John being gone, Rodney shuffles downstairs, stumbling over Cash and his own sleep. The light looks the way he feels, grey and reluctant, lying heavily on the countertop as though it resents the day dragging it out to face clouds and a wind that whips all promise of spring away, and standing in the square of its useless brightness Rodney glares out at the still-bare branches and the brown grass and the bleak-drab-ineffable crappiness of the world.
The day is a laundry list of coffee, email, more coffee, the slow change in the pattern of light on the kitchen floor, drawing itself out along the routine of John being gone, long stretches of aimless activity punctuated with caffeine. Rodney pokes at his equations and his lunch with equal enthusiasm and wonders how it is that he's so much less productive without John around, how he's so much less everything when John and his distracting, disheveled presence have gone off to Maine for three days.
"I bet Newton never had to put up with this," he'd grumbled once, while John's fingers traced obnoxious, thrilling patterns across his shoulders. John had smelled like sweat and sand, and sort of like fertilizer from the garden, sharp and organic. "I could be writing a proof for the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem right now."
"Newton also stuck a needle around the back of his eye, and he had mercury poisoning," John had said, and licked a stripe straight up the back of Rodney's neck. Soft breath at Rodney's collar, hands on his hips persuasive as gravity. "Come on."
And besides, you don't need a million dollars.
"Jesus," Rodney says in the here-and-now, and tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. Old wood, like almost everything else in the house, worn smooth to a color between sand and ivory, the whorls of knots like cyclones or galaxies. "Fuck."
His voice sounds odd in a house that seems determined to be silent, odd enough that Cash leaps up and comes to see what's going on; Rodney glances at the clock, and it's close enough to walk time that Cash will agitate anyways, so he gets ready to go out even though it will put him ahead of schedule by five minutes. Cash, who can tell the future by Rodney's reluctant "o-kay" and glance in the direction of the back door, races away in a joyful, smelly blur to grab his pig.
"You are not taking that out," Rodney tells him, and wrestles the pig away from Cash's grinning mouth.
The walk really isn't a walk so much as it is Rodney being hustled along at a walk-skip-jog by the wind and Cash's enthusiastic pulling. As Cash tugs him down along the edge of the menacing surf, Rodney makes himself not think about John's seaplane capsizing. Not that he could capsize in the first place, because he's flying to Maine, and isn't even in a seaplane, but Rodney's read stories about planes crashing in the sea of forest that makes up almost all of New England, swallowed up bones and crew and all.
The chill down his neck doesn't have much to do with the wind blowing cold and seaspray down his collar; Rodney tells himself he's being paranoid - no, he's being stupid committing the cardinal sin according to McKay doctrine, stupid stupid stupid even, stupid like Kavanagh after he'd mainlined Red Bull and sugar tablets and tried solving a hyperdrive power failure with two double-A Energizers and a copper wire. Stupid like his mechanical engineering advisor when he'd scoffed at Rodney's proposed dissertation, and oh, had the old buzzard had eaten the coldest, gamiest crow at Rodney's defense, you theoreticians have no workable concept of reality, Rodney's ass.
Usually thoughts like these comfort him, because irritation with the stupidity of the world is preferable to worry. When they don't, Rodney decides to become irritated with the fact that they aren't working, and tugs on Cash's leash to turn him around and head back home. He gets a faceful of wind, a mouthful of sand when he tries to curse.
Like yesterday and like this morning, this afternoon isn't much fun.
Rodney fights the wind for control of the door, and in a last gesture of malevolence, the wind shoves him inside and slams the door almost on Rodney's ass. Inside it's warm, old yellow light and stillness and no John, and the evening routine: food before Cash dies of starvation again, more water, macaroni and cheese because Rodney can't be arsed to make anything more elaborate or go out to see who, if anyone, is open on a Monday evening. The news, mostly going on about the wind and the presidential election, the wind again, state politics, and speaking of wind, this just in, a small charter aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing in Portland ten minutes ago.
Live footage from someone's cameraphone, the plane shaking in violent, invisible jaws, only the black racing stripes clearly visible against grey clouds, buildings and horizon bouncing in and out of view. Silent, so silent, leaving space to be filled by Rodney's desperate heartbeat, by his whispered no, no, no, and the plane's nose angles sharply down, and it yaws to the side and it's too far away so Rodney can't see, the windows tiny rectangles, and the ground, the runway coming up fastfastfast, and the interruption of buildings.
After shock and disbelief: he can't get through on John's cell phone, turned off as it probably is whenever he's flying, not even a ring to give Rodney hope before he's clicked over to voicemail and John's static-rough voice asking him to leave a message.
"Call me, you asshole," Rodney tells the dead air, and slams his phone shut.
Again: "John, seriously, call me right the hell now."
And: "I'm sorry I called you an asshole. Just call, okay?"
Last: "Asshole."
* * *
He doesn't sleep, typical enough when John is gone, now that he's become far too used to John's body pressed up close to him. John's voice, rough with exhaustion and distance, is reward for his vigilance; he calls at midnight to say he's okay, he's sorry he's an asshole, it wasn't too bad.
"For you it wasn't," Rodney says, and fumbles with a blind hand for the warm reassurance of Cash's head and wishes his voice wasn't shaking.
"Yeah," John says softly. "I'll see you tomorrow."
* * *
Rodney doesn't know what the company policy is on terrified boyfriends hovering in the main office, and he doesn't care; fortunately for her, Marcy the secretary doesn’t say anything, and the only person who does, Rick, almost has his head taken off.
"He's flown in combat, you know," Rick says unwisely.
"No fucking duh," Rodney snaps and refuses to feel bad. He paces out his own corner of the office, the one with the best view of the runway; beyond the straight, orderly strip of concrete, the sea tosses in foaming, ill-tempered reminder, and the few bushes along the dunes bend over meekly before snapping back when the wind loosens its grip.
"They were supposed to be here ten minutes ago," Rodney mutters. He's biting his thumbnail again, worrying the cuticle, but he can't make himself stop. "Haven't they called in?"
"It's a headwind," Marcy says, with so much patience Rodney wants to hit something, "it's when they have to - " like he doesn't know what a fucking headwind is and what it means for tin-can airplanes and John should have just… just abandoned the scientists and his stupid primitive plane and driven down to the Cape and taken the ferry.
At last, at last the phone rings and Marcy picks it up, "yes, yes, thank you, I'll tell him," and they're a couple minutes from landing, enough time if you want - but Rodney doesn't hear the rest, because it's enough time for him to rocket out of Marcy's office and down to the arrivals area, an alcove tucked underneath one of the main hangars, enough time to hear the mechanical purr of engine over the voiceless howl and whine that have kept him company for two days, and to see familiar black racing stripes streak across anonymous greyness, a right-left slewing as one set of wheels comes off the concrete for a heartbeat that lasts forever, and come back down.
There are, Rodney knows, other people here, John's coworkers and a rich, obnoxious person demanding to know when he can leave because he has business, a reporter and photographer from the Inquirer and Mirror and if he was thinking properly he might actually care and might not do what he wants to, what he knows he's going to do. But John's climbing out of the plane, yanking his headset off like he usually does, a hand passing over his face to wipe off what Rodney knows he'll see there anyway: exhaustion, relief, fear, the adrenaline that suckerpunches him when he isn't looking.
"John," he says, or thinks he does, and even though there's no possible way John could hear him over the wind and the engines and the shouting, he turns and Rodney knows when John's seen him, the same moment when the world stops being hazy and grey and becomes sharp again.
They don't kiss, but Rodney breaks the rules enough to push past the No Unauthorized Persons Past This Point sign and meet John halfway, John who's tired and winter-pale and who's hugging him - or maybe he's hugging John, he doesn't know, not really a manly spine-breaking hug so much as it is him running frantic hands over John's shoulders, the long and tense line of his back, breathing in sweat and airplane fuel that stings his nose, John's face tucked against his neck, I'm okay, I'm okay regular as the heartbeat echoing in Rodney's chest.
"I'm going to build you a plane of your own," he tells the rough curve of John's cheek, and John's laughter at this is a ghost of its usual terrible self. "Inertial buffers, state-of-the-art stabilizers. Fuel efficient." He pulls back, smiles without conviction; John's thumb surreptitiously traces the corner of his mouth, where the photographer can't see. "Crash-proof."
"I didn't crash," John tells him with some asperity. "Christ, McKay, give me some credit."
"Crash-proof," Rodney repeats.
"Okay," John says, and does kiss him this time, slick and almost effortless, but the quiver in his breath says everything John won't and Rodney can't, the speaking touch of John's fingers on Rodney's face, under his jacket. He doesn't, neither of them do, need much to warm to the kiss, two days and not-crashing, I was not scared, you idiot, just somewhat concerned about your dysfunctional relationship with gravity, bright flash of something Rodney mistakes for relief, but is, he realizes, the flash of a camera.
And he doesn't care too much about that, either.
-end-
.notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY dogeared!!!!!! *hugest birthday snorfles for you*
.Morning Two
On the second morning of John being gone, Rodney shuffles downstairs, stumbling over Cash and his own sleep. The light looks the way he feels, grey and reluctant, lying heavily on the countertop as though it resents the day dragging it out to face clouds and a wind that whips all promise of spring away, and standing in the square of its useless brightness Rodney glares out at the still-bare branches and the brown grass and the bleak-drab-ineffable crappiness of the world.
The day is a laundry list of coffee, email, more coffee, the slow change in the pattern of light on the kitchen floor, drawing itself out along the routine of John being gone, long stretches of aimless activity punctuated with caffeine. Rodney pokes at his equations and his lunch with equal enthusiasm and wonders how it is that he's so much less productive without John around, how he's so much less everything when John and his distracting, disheveled presence have gone off to Maine for three days.
"I bet Newton never had to put up with this," he'd grumbled once, while John's fingers traced obnoxious, thrilling patterns across his shoulders. John had smelled like sweat and sand, and sort of like fertilizer from the garden, sharp and organic. "I could be writing a proof for the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem right now."
"Newton also stuck a needle around the back of his eye, and he had mercury poisoning," John had said, and licked a stripe straight up the back of Rodney's neck. Soft breath at Rodney's collar, hands on his hips persuasive as gravity. "Come on."
And besides, you don't need a million dollars.
"Jesus," Rodney says in the here-and-now, and tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. Old wood, like almost everything else in the house, worn smooth to a color between sand and ivory, the whorls of knots like cyclones or galaxies. "Fuck."
His voice sounds odd in a house that seems determined to be silent, odd enough that Cash leaps up and comes to see what's going on; Rodney glances at the clock, and it's close enough to walk time that Cash will agitate anyways, so he gets ready to go out even though it will put him ahead of schedule by five minutes. Cash, who can tell the future by Rodney's reluctant "o-kay" and glance in the direction of the back door, races away in a joyful, smelly blur to grab his pig.
"You are not taking that out," Rodney tells him, and wrestles the pig away from Cash's grinning mouth.
The walk really isn't a walk so much as it is Rodney being hustled along at a walk-skip-jog by the wind and Cash's enthusiastic pulling. As Cash tugs him down along the edge of the menacing surf, Rodney makes himself not think about John's seaplane capsizing. Not that he could capsize in the first place, because he's flying to Maine, and isn't even in a seaplane, but Rodney's read stories about planes crashing in the sea of forest that makes up almost all of New England, swallowed up bones and crew and all.
The chill down his neck doesn't have much to do with the wind blowing cold and seaspray down his collar; Rodney tells himself he's being paranoid - no, he's being stupid committing the cardinal sin according to McKay doctrine, stupid stupid stupid even, stupid like Kavanagh after he'd mainlined Red Bull and sugar tablets and tried solving a hyperdrive power failure with two double-A Energizers and a copper wire. Stupid like his mechanical engineering advisor when he'd scoffed at Rodney's proposed dissertation, and oh, had the old buzzard had eaten the coldest, gamiest crow at Rodney's defense, you theoreticians have no workable concept of reality, Rodney's ass.
Usually thoughts like these comfort him, because irritation with the stupidity of the world is preferable to worry. When they don't, Rodney decides to become irritated with the fact that they aren't working, and tugs on Cash's leash to turn him around and head back home. He gets a faceful of wind, a mouthful of sand when he tries to curse.
Like yesterday and like this morning, this afternoon isn't much fun.
Rodney fights the wind for control of the door, and in a last gesture of malevolence, the wind shoves him inside and slams the door almost on Rodney's ass. Inside it's warm, old yellow light and stillness and no John, and the evening routine: food before Cash dies of starvation again, more water, macaroni and cheese because Rodney can't be arsed to make anything more elaborate or go out to see who, if anyone, is open on a Monday evening. The news, mostly going on about the wind and the presidential election, the wind again, state politics, and speaking of wind, this just in, a small charter aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing in Portland ten minutes ago.
Live footage from someone's cameraphone, the plane shaking in violent, invisible jaws, only the black racing stripes clearly visible against grey clouds, buildings and horizon bouncing in and out of view. Silent, so silent, leaving space to be filled by Rodney's desperate heartbeat, by his whispered no, no, no, and the plane's nose angles sharply down, and it yaws to the side and it's too far away so Rodney can't see, the windows tiny rectangles, and the ground, the runway coming up fastfastfast, and the interruption of buildings.
After shock and disbelief: he can't get through on John's cell phone, turned off as it probably is whenever he's flying, not even a ring to give Rodney hope before he's clicked over to voicemail and John's static-rough voice asking him to leave a message.
"Call me, you asshole," Rodney tells the dead air, and slams his phone shut.
Again: "John, seriously, call me right the hell now."
And: "I'm sorry I called you an asshole. Just call, okay?"
Last: "Asshole."
* * *
He doesn't sleep, typical enough when John is gone, now that he's become far too used to John's body pressed up close to him. John's voice, rough with exhaustion and distance, is reward for his vigilance; he calls at midnight to say he's okay, he's sorry he's an asshole, it wasn't too bad.
"For you it wasn't," Rodney says, and fumbles with a blind hand for the warm reassurance of Cash's head and wishes his voice wasn't shaking.
"Yeah," John says softly. "I'll see you tomorrow."
* * *
Rodney doesn't know what the company policy is on terrified boyfriends hovering in the main office, and he doesn't care; fortunately for her, Marcy the secretary doesn’t say anything, and the only person who does, Rick, almost has his head taken off.
"He's flown in combat, you know," Rick says unwisely.
"No fucking duh," Rodney snaps and refuses to feel bad. He paces out his own corner of the office, the one with the best view of the runway; beyond the straight, orderly strip of concrete, the sea tosses in foaming, ill-tempered reminder, and the few bushes along the dunes bend over meekly before snapping back when the wind loosens its grip.
"They were supposed to be here ten minutes ago," Rodney mutters. He's biting his thumbnail again, worrying the cuticle, but he can't make himself stop. "Haven't they called in?"
"It's a headwind," Marcy says, with so much patience Rodney wants to hit something, "it's when they have to - " like he doesn't know what a fucking headwind is and what it means for tin-can airplanes and John should have just… just abandoned the scientists and his stupid primitive plane and driven down to the Cape and taken the ferry.
At last, at last the phone rings and Marcy picks it up, "yes, yes, thank you, I'll tell him," and they're a couple minutes from landing, enough time if you want - but Rodney doesn't hear the rest, because it's enough time for him to rocket out of Marcy's office and down to the arrivals area, an alcove tucked underneath one of the main hangars, enough time to hear the mechanical purr of engine over the voiceless howl and whine that have kept him company for two days, and to see familiar black racing stripes streak across anonymous greyness, a right-left slewing as one set of wheels comes off the concrete for a heartbeat that lasts forever, and come back down.
There are, Rodney knows, other people here, John's coworkers and a rich, obnoxious person demanding to know when he can leave because he has business, a reporter and photographer from the Inquirer and Mirror and if he was thinking properly he might actually care and might not do what he wants to, what he knows he's going to do. But John's climbing out of the plane, yanking his headset off like he usually does, a hand passing over his face to wipe off what Rodney knows he'll see there anyway: exhaustion, relief, fear, the adrenaline that suckerpunches him when he isn't looking.
"John," he says, or thinks he does, and even though there's no possible way John could hear him over the wind and the engines and the shouting, he turns and Rodney knows when John's seen him, the same moment when the world stops being hazy and grey and becomes sharp again.
They don't kiss, but Rodney breaks the rules enough to push past the No Unauthorized Persons Past This Point sign and meet John halfway, John who's tired and winter-pale and who's hugging him - or maybe he's hugging John, he doesn't know, not really a manly spine-breaking hug so much as it is him running frantic hands over John's shoulders, the long and tense line of his back, breathing in sweat and airplane fuel that stings his nose, John's face tucked against his neck, I'm okay, I'm okay regular as the heartbeat echoing in Rodney's chest.
"I'm going to build you a plane of your own," he tells the rough curve of John's cheek, and John's laughter at this is a ghost of its usual terrible self. "Inertial buffers, state-of-the-art stabilizers. Fuel efficient." He pulls back, smiles without conviction; John's thumb surreptitiously traces the corner of his mouth, where the photographer can't see. "Crash-proof."
"I didn't crash," John tells him with some asperity. "Christ, McKay, give me some credit."
"Crash-proof," Rodney repeats.
"Okay," John says, and does kiss him this time, slick and almost effortless, but the quiver in his breath says everything John won't and Rodney can't, the speaking touch of John's fingers on Rodney's face, under his jacket. He doesn't, neither of them do, need much to warm to the kiss, two days and not-crashing, I was not scared, you idiot, just somewhat concerned about your dysfunctional relationship with gravity, bright flash of something Rodney mistakes for relief, but is, he realizes, the flash of a camera.
And he doesn't care too much about that, either.
-end-