ride into the sun 2/2 (sga, john/rodney, nsfw, ~15,000)
Title: Ride Into The Sun 2/2
Pairing: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Word count: ~15,000
NSFW, probably not safe for readers with triggers. See Part 1/2 for full headers with warnings.
*
The floor lowers til a gap appears: beyond this point, half the pipe is cut away. There's a metal mesh cage around it that would ordinarily keep him confined in the half-pipe, but the door of the cage is hanging open. He can't see his odds from here, so John lets himself tumble bonelessly out through the open door, ready to make a move when they grab for him.
"Finally!" Rodney says, exasperated and triumphant. John stays down, letting the tension rush out of him in a long harsh exhalation.
But if it were the Seutradstvev, he'd definitely spring up and attack right now. Absolutely.
"John?" Rodney's hand on his shoulder. Thank god.
"Get these cuffs off me," John says, but there's nothing to his voice at all. Even the shape of the words is mangled, his lips cracked and numb.
"You're white around the mouth," Rodney says, eyes huge. "That's-- not good, here," he fumbles his canteen and pulls the straw up and puts it in John's hands, bringing it to his lips. "Small sips," Rodney says, like that's going to happen, but somehow John's training kicks in and he doesn't gulp the water like he wants to, which would probably make him puke; he fills his mouth and swallows little by little.
Rodney's wearing the expression John looks for in a crisis: whitely terrified, but set and stubborn with a red furious flush across his cheekbones. That face means Rodney's about as scared as he can get and he's still sticking in there. When he's got that look, he's behind John all the way.
"You stink like a microwaved hot dog," Rodney says with tactless disgust, which melts almost instantly into worry: "Are you burned anywhere?" He slips his hand behind John's head, fingers threading through John's hair, and lifts him a little, peering at his face and neck, his shoulders.
John wants to say he's fine, but he has no intention of taking his mouth off the canteen. Anyway, he's earned this, Rodney's cool fingertips fluttering over his skin.
"Your skin's red in a few places, but nothing looks blistered." Rodney arranges John on his side in recovery position. "I need to know if you're injured anywhere."
He needs some deep breaths anyway, so John reluctantly disengages from the straw. "No real injuries. Just heat. Dehydrated," he rasps.
"Well. Good." Rodney shuts his mouth tight, but two seconds later he bursts out furiously, "I can't believe you once again used yourself as bait when there was such an obvious huge risk of getting captured-- which is, in fact, what happened! You really think having our military commander snatched and, and tortured was the better option here? This was a particular asinine episode of self-disregard, even for you," Rodney hisses. "What, do you get off on this?"
Whatever was in that last dose of gas, it's a doozy, because John answers in his shredded voice, "It's not what they taught us in SERE, but it works for me."
For a second he feels sick and shocked, but Rodney's expression doesn't change; he just presses the backs of his fingers against John's brow and says, "On top of everything else you probably have heat stroke."
"Rodney?"
Another surge of grateful relief hits John, because that's Teyla's voice. Rodney here is an enormous relief, but Teyla here is even more reassuring.
At Rodney's "Here! Got him!" Teyla glides over to them, P-90 readied as she swivels to cover while checking in every direction. So goddamn reassuring. Only when she's done full recon does she smile down at him.
"John," she says, "we are so glad to find you."
"Ronon?" he coughs out.
"We are posing as a diplomatic envoy, so only Rodney and I are in the building. Ronon is standing by with backup."
"He's massively dehydrated," says Rodney. "Oh, here," and he opens a pocket on his tac vest. "Canteen," he snaps his fingers at Teyla.
She gives it to him, and then bomps him on the head lightly in the customary team response to his rudeness while Rodney fiddles with the canteen saying, "Yes, yes, I know, I know."
Rodney pulls his own canteen from John's hands; John makes an automatic grab to get it back but Rodney gives him Teyla's instead.
As soon as the liquid hits his tongue, John almost shivers with pleasure. It's the best thing he's ever tasted: nasty fake grape, intensely sweet and thickly salty. It's like sweaty Kool-Aid. He wants to drink it forever.
Rodney tucks the Oral Rehydration Solution sachet back into his vest pocket, looking smug. Teyla crouches and declares, "We must get these cuffs off."
"Oh, I thought that was just rope-- oh, great, thanks a lot, Sheppard. I knew as soon as I gave it to you that you'd trash my t-shirt, but what is this stuff? Ew, do I even want to know what you used this for?" Rodney keeps sniping about it under his breath as he cuts the shirt off. It soothes John, the way it always does. He's been through a few dozen close calls like this by now, enough to form positive associations: if Rodney's got breath to complain, there's hope.
Rodney's multitool makes short work of the screws and bolts holding the cuffs on, and once they're off, Rodney cradles John's hands, fumbles the antibiotic gel Teyla hands him and smears it on John's wrists.
"Do you think we're safe enough here?" Rodney asks Teyla. "I think we should stick his head under a shower for the heat stroke."
She spares a glance for the energy detector hanging initialized and unheeded from Rodney's belt. "The scanner shows no other life signs nearby."
It finally registers to John that he's really, really fucking out of it, or else he wouldn't be okay with lying on the floor giving no input at all, asking no questions: he's completely incurious about their circumstances and willing to go along with whatever they say.
He gulps his mouthful of ORS and says, "I've been drugged."
"No, really?" Rodney says. "We thought your pupils were always the size of monster truck tires and we'd just never noticed. Can you stand?"
"Yeah," John says, and tries. "Or. No."
"Stay there." Rodney strides off somewhere; John can't tell, his vision dim beyond six feet or so. He is fucked. up.
And then Rodney's back, motioning to Teyla, "This way," and they hoist John up between them.
"Who knows if they still use this place legitimately, but the emergency showers still work," Rodney says, and then they're lowering John carefully underneath a lukewarm trickle of water.
It feels unbelievably good, his face and arms and shoulders cooled and soothed. "This thing off," he grates out, tearing at the bulletproof vest smothering him. Rodney's big hands bat his away and rip open the Velcro, a loud and satisfying snarl of sound. And then, god, there's water on his bare back, on his chest, it feels better than anything.
"These too," Rodney's saying, and John's kicking out of his sweat-soaked BDUs before he knows what's happening, and water's raining down on him everywhere.
"How the hell are we going to get him out of here?" Rodney asks. "Maybe I could smuggle him out in a crate."
"Rodney," Teyla reproaches. "You will worry Colonel Sheppard unnecessarily. John, we have contingency plans. A cloaked jumper is waiting for us just outside this facility."
"Which is where?" John asks between swallows.
"Seutradst," Rodney says. "As for your next question of how, or possibly why, that requires a little backstory. From what we can tell, there are three main factions around here. Faction one are the rag-tag rebels who captured AR-5."
"Shit list," John says.
"No kidding. Faction two is some significant percentage of the armed forces, led by an imperator who's staging a coup. They're the ones who attacked faction one during the rendezvous, and captured you. They must've had a mole in faction one to know where the exchange was going down. They came in through the orbital gate. We're in faction two territory now. This is a munitions factory they've taken over."
So it was different motherfuckers who stowed him in the torture pipe. "Is there a shittier list than the shit list?"
"We'll start one," says Rodney.
John spins his hand to prompt Rodney to keep updating him.
"Right, right. Faction three is the current government."
"A tyrannical monarchy," says Teyla with distaste.
"With an extremely creepy king," Rodney agrees. "He totally looks like John Wayne Gacy. You know, those beady eyes? Unfortunately the creepy monarchy is the only group that hasn't pissed us off, so any dealings we have around here are probably going to be with them."
"How'd you get here?" John coughs.
"We traced your sub-q here and contacted the imperator's forces asking nicely if they'd seen you. They lied through their teeth and said the faction one rebels must have you, and then they invited us to help them crush the rebellion," says Rodney. "On the grounds that the enemy of our enemy equals BFFs."
"We led them to believe we'd ally with them in exchange for help finding you among the rebels," Teyla says. "Rodney offered his expertise to get their munitions factory in working order again." She looks at the cage around the pipe. "It has not been used for its original purpose in some time. There are signs it has been used to keep prisoners for many years. Yet it is almost vacant now."
"The good news is, it was built around an Ancient outpost," Rodney glints enthusiasm. "They made the same mistake we did in Atlantis at first, they're using the transporters for storage, no idea what they're really for. As far as they know, Teyla and I are stuck in a broom closet halfway across the building. They won't be looking for us for a while. Based on my admittedly brief but extremely unpleasant conversations with their leaders, these losers don't even have the capacity to imagine that we're long gone from there."
"Though we should not linger unnecessarily," Teyla reminds Rodney.
"Turn off this water and give my clothes back," John says, mourning the last drops of ORS as they slide down his throat. Half his words still rasp out as whispers, but he can get his feet under him now and shakily crouch up.
"Here," Rodney unshoulders his pack and unzips it, "we brought clothes. We didn't know what state you'd be in or whether we'd need to disguise you or sneak you out somehow." To Teyla he says, "I think we should just have them land the jumper on the roof so we can all get out of here before the junta catches a clue."
"That would surrender all the strategic advantages of our deception," says Teyla. "If the jumper recovers Colonel Sheppard while we return and continue to feign cooperation, we could learn more about their capabilities and plans."
"Are we really likely to need strategic advantages with these people?" Rodney asks. "We've never come across them before, you've never even heard of them. We can take off, block their address and be done with them forever."
"Avoidance did not work against the Genii," Teyla points out. "The Seutradstvev have arms and aircraft, they seem adept at using the gate network, and they obviously have information about Atlantis. They represent a significant danger."
"That's exactly why I don't like the idea of you two going back into their tender loving care," John finds himself saying. "If we lose some advantages, we lose 'em, but we all leave together. I don't want to end up pulling either of you out of a torture pipe."
Rodney's eyes round in alarm. Christ, John didn't mean to say any of that, especially the last part. He's still unhinged from whatever they dosed him with.
"I will contact the jumper," Teyla concedes, hand already on her radio.
"Maybe there's something around here I can hack into," Rodney says, striding to the nearby console.
Of course he forgets to ask if John needs help getting dressed, but that suits John fine. He drags himself out of the emergency shower and digs into Rodney's pack, rooting out the spare clothes and Rodney's handkerchief, which he uses to try to dry off the most crucial areas to avoid chafing. He has a second of profound dissociation: naked on the cold concrete floor in a disused munitions factory on an alien planet, rubbing Rodney's crusty snotrag between his thighs. It can't really be happening.
While his brain's busy insisting this is all some big joke, John doggedly pokes his feet through the legs of his boxers, blue and white striped like toothpaste... he's going to brush his teeth for a year once he's out of this... he puts the hated, smelly bulletproof vest back on, track pants, t-shirt, uniform shirt, thigh holster and Beretta, oh hell yeah.
A little more hunting yields a pair of flattenable leather slip-on shoes in there, too. The Athosians make them; they're standard equipment, John established that rule himself after AR-3 got bootjacked on a mission and came back bloody-footed.
John's working on maybe trying to stand up when a sizzling noise cuts through the air. He looks around wildly; it's the cage door bolted to the torture pipe, it's electrified now, popping and sparking.
As quickly as it started, the electricity cuts off. John steers his gaze to see Rodney at the console, looking sickened and shocked at what he just shut off.
"So uh, thanks for showing up before that part," John says.
With quick choppy movements, Rodney opens up the console and just starts yanking shit out. "They've ruined half of these controls in order to rewire it to do... things like that," Rodney says, pulling out crystals. "There, it's useless now," he tucks the crystals into his belt pouch. "Are you dressed? We need to get you up."
Teyla comes close again, helping Rodney pull John to his feet. She says, "We can take the transporter to a higher floor, but we must still use stairs to reach the jumper on the roof. The stairways were guarded on the lower floors."
"We have flashbangs? Smoke grenades?" John still feels like his head might float away and explode any second, but with his holster strapped on, his command instincts are coming back like muscle memory.
Rodney and Teyla hand him a flashbang and get theirs ready, Teyla with the smoke grenade because she has the best sense of where to throw it.
"Rodney," John says as they sweep through the rooms on the way to the transporter. "Center mass, okay?"
Rodney can fire a gun with precision-- he can't draw a bead as quickly as a soldier, but he can put a bullet exactly where he wants it. John's seen him take down Wraith with head shots, but when he has to fire on human opponents, Rodney often twitches and misses. John finally took him aside and told him he could shoot for the legs if it would keep his aim true, and Rodney's been a better shot in the field since then, but sometimes going for the thigh just won't cut it.
"Don't worry," Rodney says, his face grim. "This time, it's not going to be a problem."
And oh, yeah, that green gas is still fucking John up bad, because he impossibly actually puts his hand on Rodney's arm and squeezes gratefully. It's about one-thousandth of what he really wants, what the gas is making it seem like a really good idea to do: grab Rodney by the back of the neck and kiss the hell out of him, just for a start, lick the gun oil off his hands, suck his cock-- his mouth's watering. Shit, shit, he has to make himself belatedly drop his hand off Rodney, get it around the flashbang again.
Thank fuck, again, for Rodney's adamantium obliviousness, because he doesn't even look at John, just presses his shoulder against John's briefly as they get into the transporter.
By the time they make it to the stairwell, Teyla on point, John's head feels as if it could crack like an egg at any moment. Almost the second Teyla gets the door open, there's gunfire coming up from below-- the fuckers are smart enough to stay out of the team's line of sight, and the rickety metal stairs don't block enough of the shots to make it feasible to run for it. Teyla lobs her smoke grenade, banking it off the wall and down among them.
John knows his limits and he's past them, so he just hands his flashbang to her so she can throw that too. Rodney does the same. There's yelling from below.
The problem is, even blinded and deafened and choking on smoke, those guys still aren't having too much trouble firing toward the exit; it's not like it takes a big effort to tell which way is up. John's sure if he wasn't gas-addled and exhausted, he'd have some clue what to do here, something unexpected, like maybe--
"Flares," he says, turning to Rodney and snaking his out of his tac vest. Rodney's crammed a powerbar in the narrow pocket with it, it comes halfway out and Rodney has to shove it back down, looking abashed. John wants to kiss him bad enough that for a second there it kind of hurts his throat, but: gunfire.
He lights the flare and tosses it down the stairs. Shouting below, confusion, and the shots thin. Teyla's already on board and lights her flare too, throws it beautifully if the yelp from below is any indication, and it's chaos down there-- they have no idea what the flares are, they're frantic, and the bullets stop flying and Teyla's already bolting up the stairs, her hand on John's vest towing him with her, and Rodney shoving him from behind, and fuck--
One of the fuckers is climbing the stairs, maybe coming after them, maybe running from the flare--
John can feel every motion as Rodney raises his weapon and braces against John's back and-- John cranes around to make sure-- Rodney nails the guy right in the neck.
It's awful, it's really horrible, it'll be joining John's nightmare reel for sure. The guy grabs for the wound, gouting blood so freely that there's more sounds from below, yells of disgust and terror, either because it's raining down on them or because they can see it painting the wall.
But it's only two, three, four seconds and then they're breaking into daylight, Teyla dragging John up, Rodney pushing him, and there are the two little guidelights that poke out just beyond the jumper's cloak to show where the door is, beckoning.
"Hold position!" John shouts, because he knows his guys are going to want to rush out to help with the firefight, but five more steps and they'll all be invisible to anyone dumb enough to give chase.
And then unbelievably they're in and it's over, the ramp slamming shut, the ground falling away, and oh look, there's a gurney all set up and ready. John sits on it but Rodney makes an awesome exasperated noise and grabs him by the shoulders and puts him firmly down, someone else pulling his legs up into place, and Teyla takes John's sidearm.
Rodney's still leaning over him, talking at him, keeping John focused on him, for what seems like way longer than necessary until John realizes it's to occupy his attention while below there's an IV going in, a blood sample coming out, his clothes cut off, and someone's palpating the bruises on his middle, where he got shot in the first firefight.
Then someone's flashing lights in his eyes and asking questions John can't figure out how to answer, and Rodney's hands on his shoulders feel like the only thing in the world that's not twisted out of all recognition.
John waits to slide out of consciousness, the usual result of an IV, but it keeps not happening and even though he can't parse what Rodney's saying anymore, Rodney's speaking in a strained, demanding tone that John couldn't ignore even if he wanted to.
Everything stays hard-edged, crisp and surreal as they thread through the gate and another gate and the Alpha site and then at last Atlantis, the jumper bay, and Rodney finally backs away as the gurney starts whizzing along and John watches the ceiling speed by, hallway, hallway, transporter, hallway, infirmary.
*
So it was an ordeal that seemed to last forever, with isolation and heat torture sandwiched by two gun battles, plus John was maced and drugged; but the fact is, most of that happens about once a month around here, and John's coping strategies are well-oiled and in perfect working order. Even though he knows it's a little nuts, it's just the truth: the next day, John's fine.
Usually when he gets antsy they find some excuse to sedate him, but they can't do that this time since he still has an alien drug in his system.
So John is plenty awake enough to be annoying. "Another six hours? Why? I'm all good."
"It's standard to keep patients in the infirmary for twenty-four hours after exposure to unknown substances," Keller recites.
"It's been more than twenty-four hours since I was exposed."
"I can't know for sure when you were dosed, so I have to start the clock from when you got back to Atlantis."
"Look, I know the drill-- you're just going to stick me in a bunk with a beepy thing on my hand. I might as well be in my own bed, right?" John wheedles. "Just give me a beepy thing and send me on my way."
Keller says, "The beepy thing alerts us if you have a reaction. If you're in your quarters, we'd get the alert, but we might not get to you in time. Sometimes it's a matter of minutes, Colonel."
"You said yourself this is just like drugs we have on Earth that are harmless." The test results came back hours ago. The Seutradstvev doped him up with something that suppressed critical thinking and induced a heightened emotional state. John has to admit it was more effective than the one he was shot up with during SERE. But then, that was training; for all he knows, it was a placebo.
Anyway, aside from the slowly waning mental effects, the gas isn't doing a thing to his vitals. He's fine.
"I said it bears a remarkable resemblance to some barbituates we're familiar with. That doesn't make it harmless." She folds her arms and looks at him. "But I'm going off shift in two hours, and usually when that happens, I wake up to find out you've sweet-talked someone into giving you your walking papers without even fixing you up with a monitor."
"Can you blame me?" John tries to look innocent and put-upon, but she's so not buying it.
Turns out she doesn't have to buy it, though, for John to get his way. "Give me two more hours with no arguments, and I'll sign you out when I go. But you're off duty tomorrow and the next day. I want you to come back for more tests to make sure it's all out of your system, and I want you to rest."
This is usually where John would say something like No rest for the wicked and smile as she rolls her eyes, but instead he's saying, "Okay, I will."
The doc does a double take. "Are you sure you're ready to leave? The drug's breaking down, but it seems like you're still feeling some of the effects."
"I'll be fine," says John. "I might still be a little more agreeable than usual, but that's one of the nice things about being the ranking officer. It's not like there's a lot of people around here telling me to do stuff."
"I'm tempted to take advantage and tell you to stay put," says Keller. "But I'll stick to the deal if you will. Two more hours."
"Thanks, doc."
*
John's only been back in his room for a little while when Rodney shows up.
It's always weird having Rodney in his room. It makes John hyperconscious of all the times he's laid back on his bed and fantasized about Rodney coming after him, Rodney fucking him in a few dozen different places across the Pegasus galaxy and a couple more back on Earth.
John tries not to let himself think about his fantasies, or his attraction to Rodney in general, anywhere but his bed, which is a great technique for keeping his eyes on the prize in day-to-day life but makes it even more fraught when Rodney's actually in his room.
Normally John deals with it by occupying himself with something else while Rodney's in here, fixing his eyes on a comic book or his golf clubs or his RC car while listening to Rodney rant.
Today he just sits up on his bunk. He knows he should be reaching for something to hide behind, but something gives him the sense that he should be paying attention. Possibly that's the drug too.
John straightens, rubs his palms against his knees and says, "Hey, buddy. What's up?"
"I thought we could talk," Rodney says.
"Sure."
"Are you, ah, feeling better?"
"Dandy," says John.
"Good good, wacky drugs all out of your system then-- wait," Rodney says, "Jennifer did discharge you, didn't she? You didn't just walk out?"
"Yes, Rodney, I'm all signed out, I got my lollipop and everything." John focuses on telling the truth to the actual question, even though he has the urge to confess that the gas might still be affecting him. If he can resist telling the truth about the possible aftereffects, then he's not really that affected anymore, right?
"Woolsey's struck a deal with Seutradst's creepy king," Rodney says. "He's negotiating between the three factions. They've all blown up enough of each others' installations that none of them really have much in the way of resources, so he's getting concessions out of all of them already."
"Great." He already knew Woolsey was giving it a shot, but he appreciates the update. Lorne also has teams ready to go on John's mark if the Seutradst try anything. If they do any bombing they're going to flatten that defunct munitions factory. But even though he'd love to know that place is wiped off the map, John hopes it doesn't come to that.
"Yes. Well. Can I, uh," Rodney gestures at John's task chair, grabs it and wheels it over.
"Of course."
Rodney plunks down, fidgeting. "So, I don't know if you even remember this, but when we were saving you from the results of your latest folly, you said some things."
Shit. John could swear, would have bet his life, that he remembered it all and hadn't said anything to give himself away to Rodney, but what if he only thinks he remembers? Shit. Now that he knows what the drug does, he can feel how it's giving him the urge to tell Rodney what he's thinking, but he can keep it behind his teeth and say instead, "What things?"
"I asked, rhetorically of course, if you, ah, got off on endangering yourself unnecessarily, and you... didn't answer entirely in the negative."
Okay, he does remember that, he's got an answer all ready to go on that one, scoffing, "Jeez, a guy can't make a joke? Come on, McKay."
"That might fly if you hadn't been completely strung out on something Jennifer tells me is basically the Pegasus equivalent of truth serum."
"You know there's no such thing as truth serum, right?" John says. "Mostly those 'truth' drugs just lower inhibitions, make people more talkative. Like, say, maybe a little more inclined to crack inappropriate jokes during missions."
"Listen, medicine may be so much hocus-pocus, but the biochemists gave me a very compelling rundown on how this particular compound suppresses higher cortical brain functioning and makes it very difficult to lie." Rodney folds his arms and stares John down. "I asked specifically, and they swore up and down that it doesn't have a sarcasm exemption."
"So maybe they're wrong."
"Maybe they're not." Rodney has that sick look he gets before he does something brave. "John... I really don't want to do this, but-- I, I feel it's my responsibility as your teammate and your friend to insist. You need to talk to someone about this. If it's not Teyla or Ronon or me, then Dr. Gutala."
"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," John says without conscious compunction.
Rodney lifts his chin. "Or I can report it to him and he can give you a medical order to come in for an eval."
"You wouldn't do that."
"You knowingly walked into an ambush unarmed! You were taken captive! You could have died of dehydration before we found you. Is that the kind of death wish you get off on? Not exactly a blaze of glory."
John's skin feels a size too small and his fingertips and feet are ice, but he keeps himself steady, puts on the most soothing variation of his command voice. "I did my job, Rodney. You and Teyla got me out. Everything's okay."
"What?" Rodney's gestures go choppy with outrage. "Nothing is okay!"
"You have to know I wouldn't put myself in danger if I thought there was any other way." John leans and catches Rodney's eyes, holding his gaze. "I would never. Because I know you guys are going to come for me. I wouldn't put you at risk like that if I could avoid it. You know that."
"I know you wouldn't consciously do that..."
"I'm not stupid," John says sharply. "You think I've never seen a death wish? I've seen pilots like that. That's not me, Rodney."
"Then what?" Rodney demands. "What did you mean?"
He can tell Rodney's never going to let this go if he doesn't hear something from John about it. It might as well be the truth. He's even got an alibi.
"I think about it later," John says.
"You... what?"
"After I'm out of the situation, when I'm still keyed up." John knows he could stop himself from talking, but why would he want to? The words are there for him for once. It's like his throat's been oiled and what he wants to say can just slide right out of him. "I imagine whatever fucking pit I was stuck in, only now I decide what happens there. You get it now? It doesn't affect what I do in the moment. It's later."
"You're still doped up on that stuff," Rodney realizes, eyes rounding with distress. "Son of a bitch. John, I'm sorry. If I'd known, I wouldn't have started this."
"It's okay," John says.
"No, no no no no, how could that possibly be okay with you?"
"It is. It's not like I can really lie about it right now," John points out reasonably.
"Right, it's okay with you now because you're high."
"It's okay with me because it's easy this way," says John. "Easier." He can't help watching Rodney's hands. This is always when John wants everything most, when he gets back to his room after the latest clusterfuck and he finally has a chance make it his own. It's not fair for Rodney to be here now. "It's almost easy," John says, distracted, his voice distant even to his own ears.
"John," Rodney says. There's something softly hurt and bewildered in his voice.
"Usually what I imagine is the rescue," John says. He didn't realize he'd decided to tell Rodney that too, but he must have, because here he is, saying it. "It's weird, I know. But you can't help what you're into, right. You don't get to decide."
"Who by?" Now there's nothing soft in Rodney's voice at all. It's brittle with disappointment.
"Huh?" John's responding to the tone change more than the content of the question.
"Rescued by whom?" says Rodney with exaggerated correctness. "Teyla, Ronon, some porn star fantasy, a particular Marine?"
"Quit fishing," John answers tiredly. He feels almost detached now, like he's watching himself as he uses the excuse of the drug to make his move now, before Rodney can choose one way or the other. From Rodney's tone, it's clear enough which way it's going to go, and it wears him out, knowing this door's about to close. He doesn't know what he'll hope for when he can't hope for this. "You know it's you."
Rodney leaves him hanging long enough to make John really feel the regret before saying, with almost palpable outrage, "What?"
"If you're going to freak out, I'd rather you did it somewhere else," John can't quite stop himself from saying. Maybe he doesn't try that hard.
"I'm not freaking out, I'm furious," Rodney informs him. "You can't-- that whole first year, I was crazy about you, and don't even try to tell me you didn't know. It got to the point that Elizabeth took me aside and told me to tone it down. Do you have any idea how humiliating--" he throws himself to his feet and paces, his lips smashed shut.
"I was having a hard enough time getting a bunch of Marines who didn't know me from Adam to accept my command," John says. "We were on our own out here. I couldn't take the chance it'd alienate them. We finally got back in touch with Earth, Elizabeth went to the mat to keep me posted here... I couldn't just turn around and start a relationship that went against regs."
"No, you'd just flout them every other way."
"Every other way, I could argue it was necessary to the mission to bend some rules," John says. "It would have kind of undermined that if I broke them just for myself."
"I've obviously known you too long," Rodney mutters, "when that kind of alleged logic almost makes sense."
John accepts that for the concession it is. "By the time it seemed like maybe I could risk it, you had a girlfriend."
Rodney wheels around and stabs a finger at him. "Ha! I've been single for months!"
"I saw your future!" John bites down before his raised voice becomes a shout to match Rodney's. "You were with Jennifer in that other timeline. And in this one, you went with her on that goodwill mission, you were trying to impress her," he's trying not to sound pissy about it but it's probably coming through. Why the hell not, he's already blown it.
"Well, excuse me, but if someone seems interested in me, I'm going to pursue it," says Rodney. "We don't all have hot alien babes throwing themselves at our feet. Even if you're only interested in the men, you've had no shortage of opportunities."
"You know I'm not like that."
Rodney halts, looking pained, and comes back to sit in the task chair. Not on the bed next to John. Doesn't get much clearer than that.
"Yeah," he says. "I know you're not." Rodney frowns. "Guess this explains why you've been acting even stranger than usual. I thought maybe you were still mad at Jennifer over, uh," he glances up and at the look on John's face, he doesn't mention his close call with Second Childhood, just opens and turns his hand to indicate everything he's skipping over.
"Might be a little bit of that too." Starting this while he's still doped up, that was a brilliant strategy. John shakes his head, focuses himself. "It's not her fault. She's fine. She's great."
"Did you see the video?"
"Video?"
This time Rodney doesn't gloss over it. "One of the videos I made when I was sick," and John can't help flinching, already raw when Rodney says, "I told Jennifer I loved her."
"Huh. Okay," John says. It's easy; he's calm now. It's like he's over it, just like that. Incredible.
"We talked about it later," Rodney says. "Her and me. I don't remember saying it. My memory's shaky after the third day." He smooths his palms along his thighs. "We don't even know each other all that well. Maybe I just said it because she's pretty. That's about the level I was functioning at, once the parasite dug in."
"Okay," John repeats. Maybe he's calmer, but that doesn't make it easy to hear this.
"What, nothing? No reaction? When I told you I was going with her offworld, you gave me a weird look and walked out on me."
"I'd walk out now, but you're in my room."
"Is it just sex?" Rodney asks.
"What?"
Rodney huffs impatiently and flips his hand between them. "Your whole fantasy whatever."
John's still finding it hard to lie, but he can keep his mouth shut, so he does.
"It sounded like it's not just sex," Rodney says uncertainly.
The note of vulnerability in his voice gets to John. His numb calm is already wearing off; he's feeling the outline of just how big a fucking hole this is going to punch through him.
Rodney's a colossal asshole for telling him all these things, asking him this, and he's got a lot of nerve sounding like he's the one hurting. But John knew he was a bastard when he fell for him. It's not like it comes as a surprise.
John shakes his head. "Not just." Not just anything.
"Okay." That sounds a lot more resolute, and John looks up at him: Rodney's expression is set and stubborn, a red flush across his cheekbones. He slides out of the task chair, which rolls away abandoned as Rodney shifts onto the bed next to John, rests his hand on John's chest and kisses him.
John's not dumb enough to jerk away, even if the urge is there after everything Rodney just told him. He wraps his arms around Rodney's shoulders and pulls closer, opening to Rodney's tongue and shivering as it slides across his bottom lip.
He shifts to cup his hands on Rodney's face, ducks out of the kiss to press his lips to the little mole just under the curve of his jawline, stroking it with his thumb. He's wanted to do that forever.
Rodney allows the distraction for a few moments, but then his mouth's on John's again, wide and demanding. John gives him more of a match this time, pushing into the kiss aggressively. If this is all he's getting, he'll take it with both hands.
Rodney's kisses grow distracted, but don't stop, while he struggles out of his shoes, and then he's urging John down onto the pillows, resting himself on John, the knob of his hip just enough pressure against John's dick. John can feel the heat of Rodney's hard-on through all the layers between them.
"Do you have any idea what it would have meant to me..." Rodney kisses him hard and deeply enough to make John's mouth feel a little stretched. "I would have waited," he grates out, his breath harsh in this throat, hot against John's face. "And you know I'm not good at patient. But I would have waited."
John waits for Rodney to finish the thought, to say that now it's too late.
"Tell me what you thought about," Rodney says instead. "Tell me what you want."
"I don't want this just one time," John answers, ragged, "Don't--" he clamps his jaw shut tight before he can say Don't do that to me.
"Okay, then we'll do it a lot," says Rodney. "Don't give me that look. What was that, four minutes of thinking you'd never get a chance? Try it for four years." He takes some of his weight off John.
John wraps his leg around Rodney's to keep him there. "You picked her," he says.
"Please, you have exactly zero justification to be mad that I dated her all of twice. I didn't even know I had a choice!" Rodney scowls down at him. "And in case you haven't noticed, I'm in your room, on top of you, about thirty seconds away from sucking your cock: by what possible definition can that be construed as picking her?"
"I think about you coming for me," John says in a rush. "Every shithole I've ever been shut up in, the Genii, 912, Olesia, the Aurora, the cloister. Every-- all the time."
"And doing what, fiddling with crystals and picking locks to get you out? That's hot?" Rodney asks, his fingers busy undoing John's pants.
"Just that you're there," John struggles to reach Rodney's BDUs and gets his hands slapped away.
"I'll do it. You talk."
"Like yesterday," John says, and he never anticipated this, but it's thrilling to say it, the same feeling of exposure he creates in his fantasies. "I'd imagine you there. You wouldn't get me out right away. That pipe'd be a little bigger, so you could step in there with me, keep me there, I couldn't get away."
Rodney's hands slow. "You'd want to get away?"
"No! But," John lifts to let Rodney strip his pants off him, "but I couldn't."
"Shirt," Rodney says, and hauls his own off before he tugs at John's. "Then what?"
"You'd chew me out for ever thinking I was on my own in there," John runs his hands over Rodney's chest, amazed; circles his arms around Rodney and pulls him close. Rodney's body feels so good against his, strong but yielding, rough hair over smooth skin. "You'd, your hands-- I'd forget about being in there all that time, it wouldn't be another hole I'd been locked up in, it'd be another place we'd fucked."
"I don't think I've ever heard you say fuck before," Rodney's hips buck against him, a little jolt. "I want to hear it again. A lot."
"Okay," says John, grinning, breathless, "fuck me."
"What? Not the first time," says Rodney, "like I'd even last long enough to get inside you," and John can feel Rodney's cock pulse at the idea: it's damn satisfying, almost as good as actually being fucked. Feeling Rodney wanting him.
"But we're still going to need stuff," Rodney says, "where..."
John points, and Rodney yanks open the drawer and comes up with the container of his own sunscreen.
"God," Rodney groans, dipping his fingers in, "when you asked for this, I pretended this was why you wanted it. I got off on that idea for weeks. You jackass."
It's easy to say "I'm sorry" when Rodney's big slick hand is closing around his cock, sliding easily up and down his shaft, Rodney's thumb fitting against the sensitive spot just behind the head.
"Don't," John clutches Rodney's shoulders hard, "don't, it'll be over too fast."
"Okay, okay," Rodney stills his hand and kisses him, licks into John's mouth and nips and tastes him while John twists under him and glories in how completely Rodney's got him pinned down.
Rodney picks up on it and draws back just enough to say, "You want it so you can't get away... like how?"
John links his hands over his head. That live, light feeling in his chest opens up and spreads all through him, better than it's ever been, open as the sky, his whole body echoing with it.
"God, John," Rodney holds his wrists down with his free hand and licks broad and lewd along John's neck. "How could you ever think I wouldn't want you more than anyone? You knew," he starts up again suddenly, pumping John's dick, too good, "you had to know I was always going to come for you," and John arches up into all the strength that's holding him, his back bowing, hips snapping as he comes, a hard rush sweeping through him from his toes to Rodney's grip on his wrists.
Every inch of him is tingling. "Let me," he tugs at his hands.
"I like you like this," Rodney answers, thrusting through the mess on John's stomach. He takes hold of himself and kisses John, more and more urgently while John moans muffled protests and tries, not too hard, to get free, rubbing up against Rodney til Rodney shudders and comes in a flood of heat between them.
John lies there, dazed with the afterglow. He feels completely fucked out, like he'll never be able to get it up or get off ever again, and also like he wants to start trying again anyway right now.
Or maybe five minutes from now, because once Rodney drags a couple of tissues between them and settles over him again, John's more comfortable than he's maybe ever been.
Rodney rests more on the mattress now, less of his weight bearing down on John, just enough to make him feel sheltered. He finds the small of Rodney's back is the perfect place to rest his hand and stroke with his fingers; the dip of Rodney's spine is endlessly fascinating.
"I don't know why it's me," Rodney says eventually. "Obviously, I'm glad it is. And I get why you'd imagine being the one that never gets left behind, for a change. A break from being the hero who saves everyone else."
John turns his face to press his cheek against Rodney's shoulder, the only part of him that can get closer than they already are.
"I can handle myself out there, I can do my part. And I'd always do anything to get to you. But even with all the considerable advantages of my brilliance and ingenuity, I have to concede that the hero list starts with Teyla and Ronon, and then there's the Marines, people who've been fighting and training for years... I guess I see why you wouldn't fantasize about people under your command. But you know Teyla and Ronon would come for you every time."
"I know." There's nothing in his life he values more than the loyalty of his team. What he feels for them, he never thought he'd have.
"It's not the kind of thing you decide," John says. "But when I thought about it, I thought..." he remembers Rodney's hologram, his seamed and weary face at sixty-five, a lifetime devoted to a slim chance of fixing things, getting John back where he belongs. "You'd never give up."
Rodney nods slowly, his hand finding a path up and down John's body, over and over. "That's true." His lips move against the scratch of John's sideburn, voice warm and quiet in his ear, affectionate the way John imagined but never believed he'd hear. "I never have," Rodney says, "even when I told myself I should. Had every reason."
It turns out it doesn't take any of those fantasies to light John up inside: just Rodney in his bed, right there with him, his arms and his body and his words all telling John, "I could never give up on you."
Pairing: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Word count: ~15,000
NSFW, probably not safe for readers with triggers. See Part 1/2 for full headers with warnings.
*
The floor lowers til a gap appears: beyond this point, half the pipe is cut away. There's a metal mesh cage around it that would ordinarily keep him confined in the half-pipe, but the door of the cage is hanging open. He can't see his odds from here, so John lets himself tumble bonelessly out through the open door, ready to make a move when they grab for him.
"Finally!" Rodney says, exasperated and triumphant. John stays down, letting the tension rush out of him in a long harsh exhalation.
But if it were the Seutradstvev, he'd definitely spring up and attack right now. Absolutely.
"John?" Rodney's hand on his shoulder. Thank god.
"Get these cuffs off me," John says, but there's nothing to his voice at all. Even the shape of the words is mangled, his lips cracked and numb.
"You're white around the mouth," Rodney says, eyes huge. "That's-- not good, here," he fumbles his canteen and pulls the straw up and puts it in John's hands, bringing it to his lips. "Small sips," Rodney says, like that's going to happen, but somehow John's training kicks in and he doesn't gulp the water like he wants to, which would probably make him puke; he fills his mouth and swallows little by little.
Rodney's wearing the expression John looks for in a crisis: whitely terrified, but set and stubborn with a red furious flush across his cheekbones. That face means Rodney's about as scared as he can get and he's still sticking in there. When he's got that look, he's behind John all the way.
"You stink like a microwaved hot dog," Rodney says with tactless disgust, which melts almost instantly into worry: "Are you burned anywhere?" He slips his hand behind John's head, fingers threading through John's hair, and lifts him a little, peering at his face and neck, his shoulders.
John wants to say he's fine, but he has no intention of taking his mouth off the canteen. Anyway, he's earned this, Rodney's cool fingertips fluttering over his skin.
"Your skin's red in a few places, but nothing looks blistered." Rodney arranges John on his side in recovery position. "I need to know if you're injured anywhere."
He needs some deep breaths anyway, so John reluctantly disengages from the straw. "No real injuries. Just heat. Dehydrated," he rasps.
"Well. Good." Rodney shuts his mouth tight, but two seconds later he bursts out furiously, "I can't believe you once again used yourself as bait when there was such an obvious huge risk of getting captured-- which is, in fact, what happened! You really think having our military commander snatched and, and tortured was the better option here? This was a particular asinine episode of self-disregard, even for you," Rodney hisses. "What, do you get off on this?"
Whatever was in that last dose of gas, it's a doozy, because John answers in his shredded voice, "It's not what they taught us in SERE, but it works for me."
For a second he feels sick and shocked, but Rodney's expression doesn't change; he just presses the backs of his fingers against John's brow and says, "On top of everything else you probably have heat stroke."
"Rodney?"
Another surge of grateful relief hits John, because that's Teyla's voice. Rodney here is an enormous relief, but Teyla here is even more reassuring.
At Rodney's "Here! Got him!" Teyla glides over to them, P-90 readied as she swivels to cover while checking in every direction. So goddamn reassuring. Only when she's done full recon does she smile down at him.
"John," she says, "we are so glad to find you."
"Ronon?" he coughs out.
"We are posing as a diplomatic envoy, so only Rodney and I are in the building. Ronon is standing by with backup."
"He's massively dehydrated," says Rodney. "Oh, here," and he opens a pocket on his tac vest. "Canteen," he snaps his fingers at Teyla.
She gives it to him, and then bomps him on the head lightly in the customary team response to his rudeness while Rodney fiddles with the canteen saying, "Yes, yes, I know, I know."
Rodney pulls his own canteen from John's hands; John makes an automatic grab to get it back but Rodney gives him Teyla's instead.
As soon as the liquid hits his tongue, John almost shivers with pleasure. It's the best thing he's ever tasted: nasty fake grape, intensely sweet and thickly salty. It's like sweaty Kool-Aid. He wants to drink it forever.
Rodney tucks the Oral Rehydration Solution sachet back into his vest pocket, looking smug. Teyla crouches and declares, "We must get these cuffs off."
"Oh, I thought that was just rope-- oh, great, thanks a lot, Sheppard. I knew as soon as I gave it to you that you'd trash my t-shirt, but what is this stuff? Ew, do I even want to know what you used this for?" Rodney keeps sniping about it under his breath as he cuts the shirt off. It soothes John, the way it always does. He's been through a few dozen close calls like this by now, enough to form positive associations: if Rodney's got breath to complain, there's hope.
Rodney's multitool makes short work of the screws and bolts holding the cuffs on, and once they're off, Rodney cradles John's hands, fumbles the antibiotic gel Teyla hands him and smears it on John's wrists.
"Do you think we're safe enough here?" Rodney asks Teyla. "I think we should stick his head under a shower for the heat stroke."
She spares a glance for the energy detector hanging initialized and unheeded from Rodney's belt. "The scanner shows no other life signs nearby."
It finally registers to John that he's really, really fucking out of it, or else he wouldn't be okay with lying on the floor giving no input at all, asking no questions: he's completely incurious about their circumstances and willing to go along with whatever they say.
He gulps his mouthful of ORS and says, "I've been drugged."
"No, really?" Rodney says. "We thought your pupils were always the size of monster truck tires and we'd just never noticed. Can you stand?"
"Yeah," John says, and tries. "Or. No."
"Stay there." Rodney strides off somewhere; John can't tell, his vision dim beyond six feet or so. He is fucked. up.
And then Rodney's back, motioning to Teyla, "This way," and they hoist John up between them.
"Who knows if they still use this place legitimately, but the emergency showers still work," Rodney says, and then they're lowering John carefully underneath a lukewarm trickle of water.
It feels unbelievably good, his face and arms and shoulders cooled and soothed. "This thing off," he grates out, tearing at the bulletproof vest smothering him. Rodney's big hands bat his away and rip open the Velcro, a loud and satisfying snarl of sound. And then, god, there's water on his bare back, on his chest, it feels better than anything.
"These too," Rodney's saying, and John's kicking out of his sweat-soaked BDUs before he knows what's happening, and water's raining down on him everywhere.
"How the hell are we going to get him out of here?" Rodney asks. "Maybe I could smuggle him out in a crate."
"Rodney," Teyla reproaches. "You will worry Colonel Sheppard unnecessarily. John, we have contingency plans. A cloaked jumper is waiting for us just outside this facility."
"Which is where?" John asks between swallows.
"Seutradst," Rodney says. "As for your next question of how, or possibly why, that requires a little backstory. From what we can tell, there are three main factions around here. Faction one are the rag-tag rebels who captured AR-5."
"Shit list," John says.
"No kidding. Faction two is some significant percentage of the armed forces, led by an imperator who's staging a coup. They're the ones who attacked faction one during the rendezvous, and captured you. They must've had a mole in faction one to know where the exchange was going down. They came in through the orbital gate. We're in faction two territory now. This is a munitions factory they've taken over."
So it was different motherfuckers who stowed him in the torture pipe. "Is there a shittier list than the shit list?"
"We'll start one," says Rodney.
John spins his hand to prompt Rodney to keep updating him.
"Right, right. Faction three is the current government."
"A tyrannical monarchy," says Teyla with distaste.
"With an extremely creepy king," Rodney agrees. "He totally looks like John Wayne Gacy. You know, those beady eyes? Unfortunately the creepy monarchy is the only group that hasn't pissed us off, so any dealings we have around here are probably going to be with them."
"How'd you get here?" John coughs.
"We traced your sub-q here and contacted the imperator's forces asking nicely if they'd seen you. They lied through their teeth and said the faction one rebels must have you, and then they invited us to help them crush the rebellion," says Rodney. "On the grounds that the enemy of our enemy equals BFFs."
"We led them to believe we'd ally with them in exchange for help finding you among the rebels," Teyla says. "Rodney offered his expertise to get their munitions factory in working order again." She looks at the cage around the pipe. "It has not been used for its original purpose in some time. There are signs it has been used to keep prisoners for many years. Yet it is almost vacant now."
"The good news is, it was built around an Ancient outpost," Rodney glints enthusiasm. "They made the same mistake we did in Atlantis at first, they're using the transporters for storage, no idea what they're really for. As far as they know, Teyla and I are stuck in a broom closet halfway across the building. They won't be looking for us for a while. Based on my admittedly brief but extremely unpleasant conversations with their leaders, these losers don't even have the capacity to imagine that we're long gone from there."
"Though we should not linger unnecessarily," Teyla reminds Rodney.
"Turn off this water and give my clothes back," John says, mourning the last drops of ORS as they slide down his throat. Half his words still rasp out as whispers, but he can get his feet under him now and shakily crouch up.
"Here," Rodney unshoulders his pack and unzips it, "we brought clothes. We didn't know what state you'd be in or whether we'd need to disguise you or sneak you out somehow." To Teyla he says, "I think we should just have them land the jumper on the roof so we can all get out of here before the junta catches a clue."
"That would surrender all the strategic advantages of our deception," says Teyla. "If the jumper recovers Colonel Sheppard while we return and continue to feign cooperation, we could learn more about their capabilities and plans."
"Are we really likely to need strategic advantages with these people?" Rodney asks. "We've never come across them before, you've never even heard of them. We can take off, block their address and be done with them forever."
"Avoidance did not work against the Genii," Teyla points out. "The Seutradstvev have arms and aircraft, they seem adept at using the gate network, and they obviously have information about Atlantis. They represent a significant danger."
"That's exactly why I don't like the idea of you two going back into their tender loving care," John finds himself saying. "If we lose some advantages, we lose 'em, but we all leave together. I don't want to end up pulling either of you out of a torture pipe."
Rodney's eyes round in alarm. Christ, John didn't mean to say any of that, especially the last part. He's still unhinged from whatever they dosed him with.
"I will contact the jumper," Teyla concedes, hand already on her radio.
"Maybe there's something around here I can hack into," Rodney says, striding to the nearby console.
Of course he forgets to ask if John needs help getting dressed, but that suits John fine. He drags himself out of the emergency shower and digs into Rodney's pack, rooting out the spare clothes and Rodney's handkerchief, which he uses to try to dry off the most crucial areas to avoid chafing. He has a second of profound dissociation: naked on the cold concrete floor in a disused munitions factory on an alien planet, rubbing Rodney's crusty snotrag between his thighs. It can't really be happening.
While his brain's busy insisting this is all some big joke, John doggedly pokes his feet through the legs of his boxers, blue and white striped like toothpaste... he's going to brush his teeth for a year once he's out of this... he puts the hated, smelly bulletproof vest back on, track pants, t-shirt, uniform shirt, thigh holster and Beretta, oh hell yeah.
A little more hunting yields a pair of flattenable leather slip-on shoes in there, too. The Athosians make them; they're standard equipment, John established that rule himself after AR-3 got bootjacked on a mission and came back bloody-footed.
John's working on maybe trying to stand up when a sizzling noise cuts through the air. He looks around wildly; it's the cage door bolted to the torture pipe, it's electrified now, popping and sparking.
As quickly as it started, the electricity cuts off. John steers his gaze to see Rodney at the console, looking sickened and shocked at what he just shut off.
"So uh, thanks for showing up before that part," John says.
With quick choppy movements, Rodney opens up the console and just starts yanking shit out. "They've ruined half of these controls in order to rewire it to do... things like that," Rodney says, pulling out crystals. "There, it's useless now," he tucks the crystals into his belt pouch. "Are you dressed? We need to get you up."
Teyla comes close again, helping Rodney pull John to his feet. She says, "We can take the transporter to a higher floor, but we must still use stairs to reach the jumper on the roof. The stairways were guarded on the lower floors."
"We have flashbangs? Smoke grenades?" John still feels like his head might float away and explode any second, but with his holster strapped on, his command instincts are coming back like muscle memory.
Rodney and Teyla hand him a flashbang and get theirs ready, Teyla with the smoke grenade because she has the best sense of where to throw it.
"Rodney," John says as they sweep through the rooms on the way to the transporter. "Center mass, okay?"
Rodney can fire a gun with precision-- he can't draw a bead as quickly as a soldier, but he can put a bullet exactly where he wants it. John's seen him take down Wraith with head shots, but when he has to fire on human opponents, Rodney often twitches and misses. John finally took him aside and told him he could shoot for the legs if it would keep his aim true, and Rodney's been a better shot in the field since then, but sometimes going for the thigh just won't cut it.
"Don't worry," Rodney says, his face grim. "This time, it's not going to be a problem."
And oh, yeah, that green gas is still fucking John up bad, because he impossibly actually puts his hand on Rodney's arm and squeezes gratefully. It's about one-thousandth of what he really wants, what the gas is making it seem like a really good idea to do: grab Rodney by the back of the neck and kiss the hell out of him, just for a start, lick the gun oil off his hands, suck his cock-- his mouth's watering. Shit, shit, he has to make himself belatedly drop his hand off Rodney, get it around the flashbang again.
Thank fuck, again, for Rodney's adamantium obliviousness, because he doesn't even look at John, just presses his shoulder against John's briefly as they get into the transporter.
By the time they make it to the stairwell, Teyla on point, John's head feels as if it could crack like an egg at any moment. Almost the second Teyla gets the door open, there's gunfire coming up from below-- the fuckers are smart enough to stay out of the team's line of sight, and the rickety metal stairs don't block enough of the shots to make it feasible to run for it. Teyla lobs her smoke grenade, banking it off the wall and down among them.
John knows his limits and he's past them, so he just hands his flashbang to her so she can throw that too. Rodney does the same. There's yelling from below.
The problem is, even blinded and deafened and choking on smoke, those guys still aren't having too much trouble firing toward the exit; it's not like it takes a big effort to tell which way is up. John's sure if he wasn't gas-addled and exhausted, he'd have some clue what to do here, something unexpected, like maybe--
"Flares," he says, turning to Rodney and snaking his out of his tac vest. Rodney's crammed a powerbar in the narrow pocket with it, it comes halfway out and Rodney has to shove it back down, looking abashed. John wants to kiss him bad enough that for a second there it kind of hurts his throat, but: gunfire.
He lights the flare and tosses it down the stairs. Shouting below, confusion, and the shots thin. Teyla's already on board and lights her flare too, throws it beautifully if the yelp from below is any indication, and it's chaos down there-- they have no idea what the flares are, they're frantic, and the bullets stop flying and Teyla's already bolting up the stairs, her hand on John's vest towing him with her, and Rodney shoving him from behind, and fuck--
One of the fuckers is climbing the stairs, maybe coming after them, maybe running from the flare--
John can feel every motion as Rodney raises his weapon and braces against John's back and-- John cranes around to make sure-- Rodney nails the guy right in the neck.
It's awful, it's really horrible, it'll be joining John's nightmare reel for sure. The guy grabs for the wound, gouting blood so freely that there's more sounds from below, yells of disgust and terror, either because it's raining down on them or because they can see it painting the wall.
But it's only two, three, four seconds and then they're breaking into daylight, Teyla dragging John up, Rodney pushing him, and there are the two little guidelights that poke out just beyond the jumper's cloak to show where the door is, beckoning.
"Hold position!" John shouts, because he knows his guys are going to want to rush out to help with the firefight, but five more steps and they'll all be invisible to anyone dumb enough to give chase.
And then unbelievably they're in and it's over, the ramp slamming shut, the ground falling away, and oh look, there's a gurney all set up and ready. John sits on it but Rodney makes an awesome exasperated noise and grabs him by the shoulders and puts him firmly down, someone else pulling his legs up into place, and Teyla takes John's sidearm.
Rodney's still leaning over him, talking at him, keeping John focused on him, for what seems like way longer than necessary until John realizes it's to occupy his attention while below there's an IV going in, a blood sample coming out, his clothes cut off, and someone's palpating the bruises on his middle, where he got shot in the first firefight.
Then someone's flashing lights in his eyes and asking questions John can't figure out how to answer, and Rodney's hands on his shoulders feel like the only thing in the world that's not twisted out of all recognition.
John waits to slide out of consciousness, the usual result of an IV, but it keeps not happening and even though he can't parse what Rodney's saying anymore, Rodney's speaking in a strained, demanding tone that John couldn't ignore even if he wanted to.
Everything stays hard-edged, crisp and surreal as they thread through the gate and another gate and the Alpha site and then at last Atlantis, the jumper bay, and Rodney finally backs away as the gurney starts whizzing along and John watches the ceiling speed by, hallway, hallway, transporter, hallway, infirmary.
*
So it was an ordeal that seemed to last forever, with isolation and heat torture sandwiched by two gun battles, plus John was maced and drugged; but the fact is, most of that happens about once a month around here, and John's coping strategies are well-oiled and in perfect working order. Even though he knows it's a little nuts, it's just the truth: the next day, John's fine.
Usually when he gets antsy they find some excuse to sedate him, but they can't do that this time since he still has an alien drug in his system.
So John is plenty awake enough to be annoying. "Another six hours? Why? I'm all good."
"It's standard to keep patients in the infirmary for twenty-four hours after exposure to unknown substances," Keller recites.
"It's been more than twenty-four hours since I was exposed."
"I can't know for sure when you were dosed, so I have to start the clock from when you got back to Atlantis."
"Look, I know the drill-- you're just going to stick me in a bunk with a beepy thing on my hand. I might as well be in my own bed, right?" John wheedles. "Just give me a beepy thing and send me on my way."
Keller says, "The beepy thing alerts us if you have a reaction. If you're in your quarters, we'd get the alert, but we might not get to you in time. Sometimes it's a matter of minutes, Colonel."
"You said yourself this is just like drugs we have on Earth that are harmless." The test results came back hours ago. The Seutradstvev doped him up with something that suppressed critical thinking and induced a heightened emotional state. John has to admit it was more effective than the one he was shot up with during SERE. But then, that was training; for all he knows, it was a placebo.
Anyway, aside from the slowly waning mental effects, the gas isn't doing a thing to his vitals. He's fine.
"I said it bears a remarkable resemblance to some barbituates we're familiar with. That doesn't make it harmless." She folds her arms and looks at him. "But I'm going off shift in two hours, and usually when that happens, I wake up to find out you've sweet-talked someone into giving you your walking papers without even fixing you up with a monitor."
"Can you blame me?" John tries to look innocent and put-upon, but she's so not buying it.
Turns out she doesn't have to buy it, though, for John to get his way. "Give me two more hours with no arguments, and I'll sign you out when I go. But you're off duty tomorrow and the next day. I want you to come back for more tests to make sure it's all out of your system, and I want you to rest."
This is usually where John would say something like No rest for the wicked and smile as she rolls her eyes, but instead he's saying, "Okay, I will."
The doc does a double take. "Are you sure you're ready to leave? The drug's breaking down, but it seems like you're still feeling some of the effects."
"I'll be fine," says John. "I might still be a little more agreeable than usual, but that's one of the nice things about being the ranking officer. It's not like there's a lot of people around here telling me to do stuff."
"I'm tempted to take advantage and tell you to stay put," says Keller. "But I'll stick to the deal if you will. Two more hours."
"Thanks, doc."
*
John's only been back in his room for a little while when Rodney shows up.
It's always weird having Rodney in his room. It makes John hyperconscious of all the times he's laid back on his bed and fantasized about Rodney coming after him, Rodney fucking him in a few dozen different places across the Pegasus galaxy and a couple more back on Earth.
John tries not to let himself think about his fantasies, or his attraction to Rodney in general, anywhere but his bed, which is a great technique for keeping his eyes on the prize in day-to-day life but makes it even more fraught when Rodney's actually in his room.
Normally John deals with it by occupying himself with something else while Rodney's in here, fixing his eyes on a comic book or his golf clubs or his RC car while listening to Rodney rant.
Today he just sits up on his bunk. He knows he should be reaching for something to hide behind, but something gives him the sense that he should be paying attention. Possibly that's the drug too.
John straightens, rubs his palms against his knees and says, "Hey, buddy. What's up?"
"I thought we could talk," Rodney says.
"Sure."
"Are you, ah, feeling better?"
"Dandy," says John.
"Good good, wacky drugs all out of your system then-- wait," Rodney says, "Jennifer did discharge you, didn't she? You didn't just walk out?"
"Yes, Rodney, I'm all signed out, I got my lollipop and everything." John focuses on telling the truth to the actual question, even though he has the urge to confess that the gas might still be affecting him. If he can resist telling the truth about the possible aftereffects, then he's not really that affected anymore, right?
"Woolsey's struck a deal with Seutradst's creepy king," Rodney says. "He's negotiating between the three factions. They've all blown up enough of each others' installations that none of them really have much in the way of resources, so he's getting concessions out of all of them already."
"Great." He already knew Woolsey was giving it a shot, but he appreciates the update. Lorne also has teams ready to go on John's mark if the Seutradst try anything. If they do any bombing they're going to flatten that defunct munitions factory. But even though he'd love to know that place is wiped off the map, John hopes it doesn't come to that.
"Yes. Well. Can I, uh," Rodney gestures at John's task chair, grabs it and wheels it over.
"Of course."
Rodney plunks down, fidgeting. "So, I don't know if you even remember this, but when we were saving you from the results of your latest folly, you said some things."
Shit. John could swear, would have bet his life, that he remembered it all and hadn't said anything to give himself away to Rodney, but what if he only thinks he remembers? Shit. Now that he knows what the drug does, he can feel how it's giving him the urge to tell Rodney what he's thinking, but he can keep it behind his teeth and say instead, "What things?"
"I asked, rhetorically of course, if you, ah, got off on endangering yourself unnecessarily, and you... didn't answer entirely in the negative."
Okay, he does remember that, he's got an answer all ready to go on that one, scoffing, "Jeez, a guy can't make a joke? Come on, McKay."
"That might fly if you hadn't been completely strung out on something Jennifer tells me is basically the Pegasus equivalent of truth serum."
"You know there's no such thing as truth serum, right?" John says. "Mostly those 'truth' drugs just lower inhibitions, make people more talkative. Like, say, maybe a little more inclined to crack inappropriate jokes during missions."
"Listen, medicine may be so much hocus-pocus, but the biochemists gave me a very compelling rundown on how this particular compound suppresses higher cortical brain functioning and makes it very difficult to lie." Rodney folds his arms and stares John down. "I asked specifically, and they swore up and down that it doesn't have a sarcasm exemption."
"So maybe they're wrong."
"Maybe they're not." Rodney has that sick look he gets before he does something brave. "John... I really don't want to do this, but-- I, I feel it's my responsibility as your teammate and your friend to insist. You need to talk to someone about this. If it's not Teyla or Ronon or me, then Dr. Gutala."
"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," John says without conscious compunction.
Rodney lifts his chin. "Or I can report it to him and he can give you a medical order to come in for an eval."
"You wouldn't do that."
"You knowingly walked into an ambush unarmed! You were taken captive! You could have died of dehydration before we found you. Is that the kind of death wish you get off on? Not exactly a blaze of glory."
John's skin feels a size too small and his fingertips and feet are ice, but he keeps himself steady, puts on the most soothing variation of his command voice. "I did my job, Rodney. You and Teyla got me out. Everything's okay."
"What?" Rodney's gestures go choppy with outrage. "Nothing is okay!"
"You have to know I wouldn't put myself in danger if I thought there was any other way." John leans and catches Rodney's eyes, holding his gaze. "I would never. Because I know you guys are going to come for me. I wouldn't put you at risk like that if I could avoid it. You know that."
"I know you wouldn't consciously do that..."
"I'm not stupid," John says sharply. "You think I've never seen a death wish? I've seen pilots like that. That's not me, Rodney."
"Then what?" Rodney demands. "What did you mean?"
He can tell Rodney's never going to let this go if he doesn't hear something from John about it. It might as well be the truth. He's even got an alibi.
"I think about it later," John says.
"You... what?"
"After I'm out of the situation, when I'm still keyed up." John knows he could stop himself from talking, but why would he want to? The words are there for him for once. It's like his throat's been oiled and what he wants to say can just slide right out of him. "I imagine whatever fucking pit I was stuck in, only now I decide what happens there. You get it now? It doesn't affect what I do in the moment. It's later."
"You're still doped up on that stuff," Rodney realizes, eyes rounding with distress. "Son of a bitch. John, I'm sorry. If I'd known, I wouldn't have started this."
"It's okay," John says.
"No, no no no no, how could that possibly be okay with you?"
"It is. It's not like I can really lie about it right now," John points out reasonably.
"Right, it's okay with you now because you're high."
"It's okay with me because it's easy this way," says John. "Easier." He can't help watching Rodney's hands. This is always when John wants everything most, when he gets back to his room after the latest clusterfuck and he finally has a chance make it his own. It's not fair for Rodney to be here now. "It's almost easy," John says, distracted, his voice distant even to his own ears.
"John," Rodney says. There's something softly hurt and bewildered in his voice.
"Usually what I imagine is the rescue," John says. He didn't realize he'd decided to tell Rodney that too, but he must have, because here he is, saying it. "It's weird, I know. But you can't help what you're into, right. You don't get to decide."
"Who by?" Now there's nothing soft in Rodney's voice at all. It's brittle with disappointment.
"Huh?" John's responding to the tone change more than the content of the question.
"Rescued by whom?" says Rodney with exaggerated correctness. "Teyla, Ronon, some porn star fantasy, a particular Marine?"
"Quit fishing," John answers tiredly. He feels almost detached now, like he's watching himself as he uses the excuse of the drug to make his move now, before Rodney can choose one way or the other. From Rodney's tone, it's clear enough which way it's going to go, and it wears him out, knowing this door's about to close. He doesn't know what he'll hope for when he can't hope for this. "You know it's you."
Rodney leaves him hanging long enough to make John really feel the regret before saying, with almost palpable outrage, "What?"
"If you're going to freak out, I'd rather you did it somewhere else," John can't quite stop himself from saying. Maybe he doesn't try that hard.
"I'm not freaking out, I'm furious," Rodney informs him. "You can't-- that whole first year, I was crazy about you, and don't even try to tell me you didn't know. It got to the point that Elizabeth took me aside and told me to tone it down. Do you have any idea how humiliating--" he throws himself to his feet and paces, his lips smashed shut.
"I was having a hard enough time getting a bunch of Marines who didn't know me from Adam to accept my command," John says. "We were on our own out here. I couldn't take the chance it'd alienate them. We finally got back in touch with Earth, Elizabeth went to the mat to keep me posted here... I couldn't just turn around and start a relationship that went against regs."
"No, you'd just flout them every other way."
"Every other way, I could argue it was necessary to the mission to bend some rules," John says. "It would have kind of undermined that if I broke them just for myself."
"I've obviously known you too long," Rodney mutters, "when that kind of alleged logic almost makes sense."
John accepts that for the concession it is. "By the time it seemed like maybe I could risk it, you had a girlfriend."
Rodney wheels around and stabs a finger at him. "Ha! I've been single for months!"
"I saw your future!" John bites down before his raised voice becomes a shout to match Rodney's. "You were with Jennifer in that other timeline. And in this one, you went with her on that goodwill mission, you were trying to impress her," he's trying not to sound pissy about it but it's probably coming through. Why the hell not, he's already blown it.
"Well, excuse me, but if someone seems interested in me, I'm going to pursue it," says Rodney. "We don't all have hot alien babes throwing themselves at our feet. Even if you're only interested in the men, you've had no shortage of opportunities."
"You know I'm not like that."
Rodney halts, looking pained, and comes back to sit in the task chair. Not on the bed next to John. Doesn't get much clearer than that.
"Yeah," he says. "I know you're not." Rodney frowns. "Guess this explains why you've been acting even stranger than usual. I thought maybe you were still mad at Jennifer over, uh," he glances up and at the look on John's face, he doesn't mention his close call with Second Childhood, just opens and turns his hand to indicate everything he's skipping over.
"Might be a little bit of that too." Starting this while he's still doped up, that was a brilliant strategy. John shakes his head, focuses himself. "It's not her fault. She's fine. She's great."
"Did you see the video?"
"Video?"
This time Rodney doesn't gloss over it. "One of the videos I made when I was sick," and John can't help flinching, already raw when Rodney says, "I told Jennifer I loved her."
"Huh. Okay," John says. It's easy; he's calm now. It's like he's over it, just like that. Incredible.
"We talked about it later," Rodney says. "Her and me. I don't remember saying it. My memory's shaky after the third day." He smooths his palms along his thighs. "We don't even know each other all that well. Maybe I just said it because she's pretty. That's about the level I was functioning at, once the parasite dug in."
"Okay," John repeats. Maybe he's calmer, but that doesn't make it easy to hear this.
"What, nothing? No reaction? When I told you I was going with her offworld, you gave me a weird look and walked out on me."
"I'd walk out now, but you're in my room."
"Is it just sex?" Rodney asks.
"What?"
Rodney huffs impatiently and flips his hand between them. "Your whole fantasy whatever."
John's still finding it hard to lie, but he can keep his mouth shut, so he does.
"It sounded like it's not just sex," Rodney says uncertainly.
The note of vulnerability in his voice gets to John. His numb calm is already wearing off; he's feeling the outline of just how big a fucking hole this is going to punch through him.
Rodney's a colossal asshole for telling him all these things, asking him this, and he's got a lot of nerve sounding like he's the one hurting. But John knew he was a bastard when he fell for him. It's not like it comes as a surprise.
John shakes his head. "Not just." Not just anything.
"Okay." That sounds a lot more resolute, and John looks up at him: Rodney's expression is set and stubborn, a red flush across his cheekbones. He slides out of the task chair, which rolls away abandoned as Rodney shifts onto the bed next to John, rests his hand on John's chest and kisses him.
John's not dumb enough to jerk away, even if the urge is there after everything Rodney just told him. He wraps his arms around Rodney's shoulders and pulls closer, opening to Rodney's tongue and shivering as it slides across his bottom lip.
He shifts to cup his hands on Rodney's face, ducks out of the kiss to press his lips to the little mole just under the curve of his jawline, stroking it with his thumb. He's wanted to do that forever.
Rodney allows the distraction for a few moments, but then his mouth's on John's again, wide and demanding. John gives him more of a match this time, pushing into the kiss aggressively. If this is all he's getting, he'll take it with both hands.
Rodney's kisses grow distracted, but don't stop, while he struggles out of his shoes, and then he's urging John down onto the pillows, resting himself on John, the knob of his hip just enough pressure against John's dick. John can feel the heat of Rodney's hard-on through all the layers between them.
"Do you have any idea what it would have meant to me..." Rodney kisses him hard and deeply enough to make John's mouth feel a little stretched. "I would have waited," he grates out, his breath harsh in this throat, hot against John's face. "And you know I'm not good at patient. But I would have waited."
John waits for Rodney to finish the thought, to say that now it's too late.
"Tell me what you thought about," Rodney says instead. "Tell me what you want."
"I don't want this just one time," John answers, ragged, "Don't--" he clamps his jaw shut tight before he can say Don't do that to me.
"Okay, then we'll do it a lot," says Rodney. "Don't give me that look. What was that, four minutes of thinking you'd never get a chance? Try it for four years." He takes some of his weight off John.
John wraps his leg around Rodney's to keep him there. "You picked her," he says.
"Please, you have exactly zero justification to be mad that I dated her all of twice. I didn't even know I had a choice!" Rodney scowls down at him. "And in case you haven't noticed, I'm in your room, on top of you, about thirty seconds away from sucking your cock: by what possible definition can that be construed as picking her?"
"I think about you coming for me," John says in a rush. "Every shithole I've ever been shut up in, the Genii, 912, Olesia, the Aurora, the cloister. Every-- all the time."
"And doing what, fiddling with crystals and picking locks to get you out? That's hot?" Rodney asks, his fingers busy undoing John's pants.
"Just that you're there," John struggles to reach Rodney's BDUs and gets his hands slapped away.
"I'll do it. You talk."
"Like yesterday," John says, and he never anticipated this, but it's thrilling to say it, the same feeling of exposure he creates in his fantasies. "I'd imagine you there. You wouldn't get me out right away. That pipe'd be a little bigger, so you could step in there with me, keep me there, I couldn't get away."
Rodney's hands slow. "You'd want to get away?"
"No! But," John lifts to let Rodney strip his pants off him, "but I couldn't."
"Shirt," Rodney says, and hauls his own off before he tugs at John's. "Then what?"
"You'd chew me out for ever thinking I was on my own in there," John runs his hands over Rodney's chest, amazed; circles his arms around Rodney and pulls him close. Rodney's body feels so good against his, strong but yielding, rough hair over smooth skin. "You'd, your hands-- I'd forget about being in there all that time, it wouldn't be another hole I'd been locked up in, it'd be another place we'd fucked."
"I don't think I've ever heard you say fuck before," Rodney's hips buck against him, a little jolt. "I want to hear it again. A lot."
"Okay," says John, grinning, breathless, "fuck me."
"What? Not the first time," says Rodney, "like I'd even last long enough to get inside you," and John can feel Rodney's cock pulse at the idea: it's damn satisfying, almost as good as actually being fucked. Feeling Rodney wanting him.
"But we're still going to need stuff," Rodney says, "where..."
John points, and Rodney yanks open the drawer and comes up with the container of his own sunscreen.
"God," Rodney groans, dipping his fingers in, "when you asked for this, I pretended this was why you wanted it. I got off on that idea for weeks. You jackass."
It's easy to say "I'm sorry" when Rodney's big slick hand is closing around his cock, sliding easily up and down his shaft, Rodney's thumb fitting against the sensitive spot just behind the head.
"Don't," John clutches Rodney's shoulders hard, "don't, it'll be over too fast."
"Okay, okay," Rodney stills his hand and kisses him, licks into John's mouth and nips and tastes him while John twists under him and glories in how completely Rodney's got him pinned down.
Rodney picks up on it and draws back just enough to say, "You want it so you can't get away... like how?"
John links his hands over his head. That live, light feeling in his chest opens up and spreads all through him, better than it's ever been, open as the sky, his whole body echoing with it.
"God, John," Rodney holds his wrists down with his free hand and licks broad and lewd along John's neck. "How could you ever think I wouldn't want you more than anyone? You knew," he starts up again suddenly, pumping John's dick, too good, "you had to know I was always going to come for you," and John arches up into all the strength that's holding him, his back bowing, hips snapping as he comes, a hard rush sweeping through him from his toes to Rodney's grip on his wrists.
Every inch of him is tingling. "Let me," he tugs at his hands.
"I like you like this," Rodney answers, thrusting through the mess on John's stomach. He takes hold of himself and kisses John, more and more urgently while John moans muffled protests and tries, not too hard, to get free, rubbing up against Rodney til Rodney shudders and comes in a flood of heat between them.
John lies there, dazed with the afterglow. He feels completely fucked out, like he'll never be able to get it up or get off ever again, and also like he wants to start trying again anyway right now.
Or maybe five minutes from now, because once Rodney drags a couple of tissues between them and settles over him again, John's more comfortable than he's maybe ever been.
Rodney rests more on the mattress now, less of his weight bearing down on John, just enough to make him feel sheltered. He finds the small of Rodney's back is the perfect place to rest his hand and stroke with his fingers; the dip of Rodney's spine is endlessly fascinating.
"I don't know why it's me," Rodney says eventually. "Obviously, I'm glad it is. And I get why you'd imagine being the one that never gets left behind, for a change. A break from being the hero who saves everyone else."
John turns his face to press his cheek against Rodney's shoulder, the only part of him that can get closer than they already are.
"I can handle myself out there, I can do my part. And I'd always do anything to get to you. But even with all the considerable advantages of my brilliance and ingenuity, I have to concede that the hero list starts with Teyla and Ronon, and then there's the Marines, people who've been fighting and training for years... I guess I see why you wouldn't fantasize about people under your command. But you know Teyla and Ronon would come for you every time."
"I know." There's nothing in his life he values more than the loyalty of his team. What he feels for them, he never thought he'd have.
"It's not the kind of thing you decide," John says. "But when I thought about it, I thought..." he remembers Rodney's hologram, his seamed and weary face at sixty-five, a lifetime devoted to a slim chance of fixing things, getting John back where he belongs. "You'd never give up."
Rodney nods slowly, his hand finding a path up and down John's body, over and over. "That's true." His lips move against the scratch of John's sideburn, voice warm and quiet in his ear, affectionate the way John imagined but never believed he'd hear. "I never have," Rodney says, "even when I told myself I should. Had every reason."
It turns out it doesn't take any of those fantasies to light John up inside: just Rodney in his bed, right there with him, his arms and his body and his words all telling John, "I could never give up on you."