SGA Fic: Highway Signs Keep Their Glow
Title: Highway Signs Keep Their Glow
Author: Rosie saekokato
Pairing: Zelenka/Lorne
Rating: PG
Spoilers: General for all aired episodes.
Word Count: ~4100
Summary: Wherein Radek is in love, Evan has beautiful feet, Rodney is completely obvious, and the local stitch ‘n bitch chapter meets in Lab 2.
Author Note: Written for the Czech is in the Male challenge for tekiclutch, who asked for the phrase, "It wasn’t him.", Zelenka with Sheppard, Parrish or Lorne, and UST. This is ended up being more fluff than UST, sorry!
Beta by roseclaw. All grammatical errors and weird wording is my fault. Babička is Czech for Grandmother.
Highway Signs Keep Their Glow
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Dr. Radek Zelenka was in love with Major Evan Lorne. In the grand scheme of attempting to stay alive while facing the many wonders of the Pegasus Galaxy, including the Wraith, unfriendly neighbors and a colicky city, Radek knew his emotional resonance with anyone wasn’t of particular importance to anything, but.
He was in love.
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Radek couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t wanted to participate in the weekly scientist gossip session that inevitably took place the moment Rodney took a step off Atlantis. Radek knew he was acting like a twelve-year-old girl, but he really didn’t want to listen to this. He couldn’t leave because all of his experiments were here in this lab, Lab 2, the second largest lab available that Rodney hadn’t completely taken over and rarely ever entered, and he couldn’t ask the group to leave because Rodney had a nasty habit of going straight to the largest lab first and that was the only other lab large enough to hold this group.
(Rodney said these little social sessions cut down on productivity. Radek thought Rodney just hated missing out on the really good gossip.)
“Seriously! I saw Major Lorne sneaking out of Parrish’s quarters on Tuesday. He was all James Bond, all spy-sneaky.” Lotte, a German bio-chemist, was gushing to the group. Most of them looked intrigued, but there were a few notable holdouts. “It was like he didn’t want to be caught.”
“Or he didn’t want to wake David up,” Lindmar pointed out. She was a botanist who worked co-jointly with Parrish on…something. For the breadth of his studies, Radek had never really grasped Botany. “David has a nasty habit of working, working, working, then BAM! He’s down for the count.”
“But sneaking out at three in the morning?” Lotte protested.
Lindmar smirked. “What I want to know is what you were doing in that corridor at three in the morning? Aren’t your quarters three floors down?
Lotte blushed but didn’t protest.
(Radek knew that it hadn’t been Evan that was sneaking out of Parrish’s quarters that morning. Evan had invited Radek to play a game of chess in Evan’s quarters that night as an alternative to going to the mess and watching the weekly city wide movie. Radek had agreed only as a measure of pity on the other man, or at least that was what he had told Evan, who had spent the majority of the day acting as Ronon’s teaching aide/punching bag. Evan had hardly been able to move from his spot on the bed all evening, and he’d been mostly asleep when Radek had taken his leave of him around midnight.)
The group had broken down into cat calls and good natured quips by the time Cadman strolled into the lab. She was one of the few Marines who made an effort to hang out the scientists and she seemed to have a sixth sense for being where the gossip was. She came in holding a basket of the almost-pears her (Major Lorne’s) team had left to trade for medicines the day before.
“I managed to smuggled these from the rest before they all hit the mess, since I knew there’d be a stitch ‘n bitch today,” Cadman joked, pushing the basket across the lab table toward where Lindmar and Simpson were holding court. Radek grabbed one as the basket passed him. “So, what have I missed?”
“Parrish and Lotte both have boyfriends,” Miko giggled. The Japanese engineer was one of the most devious gossips in the city. If anything happened, then Miko knew before anyone else. Rarely did anything get by her web. She snatched the fruit Simpson chose out of her hand and bit into it with a sugar sweet smile. Simpson reached for another piece.
“Really?” Cadman leered at Lotte. “So, who’s the lucky boy?”
“Jacob Jefferson,” Lotte admitted, voice soft and blush deepening.
“Ah. JJ. Good guy. Nasty left hook,” Cadman nodded.
“But that’s not the really interesting part,” Miko broke in. “Lotte saw Major Lorne sneaking out of Parrish’s quarters last week when she was sneaking out of Sergeant Jefferson’s.”
Cadman shook her head. “Nah, it couldn’t have been Lorne.”
“Sure as hell looked like him,” Lotte protested.
“It wasn’t him.” Cadman paused. She was worrying her bottom lip and it had to be the only time Radek had ever seen her look uncomfortable. “Look. Parrish is dating someone, and it isn’t any of our business, and I had promised not to say anything, but it isn’t Lorne. The Major doesn’t. He just doesn’t, ok?”
Silence feel in the room while everyone took that in. Radek could see Lotte gearing up for an argument, and he wished he had some way of politely shutting her up. Lotte was a good scientist, but she had the tenacity of a blood hound on the scent.
“Look. I know what I saw,” Lotte started.
Simpson cut her off. “You saw someone come out of Parrish’s quarters in the middle of the night, in a corridor that is ridiculously shadowed even in the daylight hours - I know because I happen to live across from Parrish - who just so happened to be the Major’s build. Half the men in the city match the Major’s build, Lotte, and I doubt you were at your most observant.”
“Besides,” Cadman said, her smile back in place. “Parrish is dating a civilian.”
“And just how do you know that?” Lotte demanded.
Cadman shrugged. “Teammates.”
“Then who is the Major dating?” Miko asked. “He’s been getting pretty for someone. Radek even said that he’s been wearing a new cologne.”
Cadman turned her grin on Radek, the rest of the group following, and he knew it was going to be a long afternoon. And he was never telling Miko anything in confidence again.
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Evan Lorne wasn’t a hard man to love. He was kind, humorous and honorable, traits in a man that Radek’s mother had always praised. Radek had honestly believed that such a man was only a silly romantic dream prior to Evan joining the expedition.
It certainly didn’t help that the man was beautiful. Personality wise, not just physically, but both. Or maybe it did. Radek usually didn’t care either way. He had always been attracted to the firecracker minds; men and women with intelligence in the traditional and not-so-traditional senses; those that understood the “this, this, this, then this” of his mind.
Radek had always been a little surprised that he had never taken to thinking of Rodney romantically. But the thought of Rodney in a sexual sense felt vaguely incestuous, even though Rodney was nothing like any of Radek’s siblings, and that just made the feeling worse instead of better. Though Milena shared Rodney’s tendency to annoy past distraction when trying to prove a brilliant idea.
(Not that Evan wasn’t intelligent. He was much like Sheppard, hiding the true shape of his knowledge, only allowing tiny, tiny glimpses when the need arose.)
But Radek had never had a problem concentrating around Rodney. Carson had once speculated
that the real reason any of them could work with and be friends with Rodney was that they could completely tune him out. They could ignore him when he went off on one of his classic tirades, then come back to the conversation when he came back around to whatever it was they were talking about originally.
Radek could not do that around Evan. He could not tune out part of a conversation, then come back at a later time and know exactly what was going on. Radek simply could not tune Evan out: if the Major was anywhere in the vicinity, Radek knew it and at least one portion of his mind was set on tracking his every movement.
And whenever Radek thought of him, his mind went, “He’s beautiful.” And then Radek would think of that rare glimpse of Evan’s bare feet against the dark tiles of Atlantis’s back corridors. The man’s feet were the epitome of beauty.
“Well, I should probably warn Jake not to wear flip-flops around the labs then,” Lotte’s voice broke into Radek’s thoughts.
Radek’s gaze snapped up from his computer screen, and he just blinked at her.
Lotte laughed and handed him a note covered in Rodney’s quick chicken scratch. “You had a meeting with McKay and the other department heads about ten minutes ago.” Then she left, waving a hand at Simpson, who made a comment that set Miko off with the giggles.
When Radek looked back down at his computer, his screensaver was trying to solve for extraterrestrial intelligence in the universe.
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Radek hadn’t planned on telling Rodney. Frankly, Radek hadn’t expected Rodney to be very helpful or considerate to the dilemma that was ‘Zelenka in love.’ Of course, Radek had found that plans rarely stay on their originally intended courses, especially with Rodney involved.
“You do realize he’s straight, right? Or if he isn’t, it isn’t like he’s going to be signing up for the next Atlantis Gay Pride Parade?” Rodney pointed out.
The two of them were in the mess catching a late (very late) dinner. Rodney McKay was not a quiet man under the best of circumstances, and coming off of twenty hours of frantic work keeping the naquedah generator from exploding and killing ever living inhabitant of Atlantis was not the best of circumstances. Especially if those twenty hours came at the tail end of a day long mission through the Stargate. Thankfully, it was late and the mess was all but deserted, only Radek, Rodney, and two Marines in the back corner eating.
“No, Rodney. I had not considered either of those points. Thank you for pointing them out to me.” Radek was blushing and his hands were covering his face, as if he could hide that fact.
“No need to get snippy,” Rodney snipped, frowning. His pudding cup made a sharp sound as it reconnected with his tray. “I was just saying.”
Radek sighed. “I know, I know. I do not even know why I said anything. Please forget about it. It was a, a slip of the tongue.” A slip of the tongue brought on by two dozen nosey scientists and a marine with far too much interest invested in other people’s personal lives, a missed meeting, twenty hours frantic work trying to make two equipment designs not meant to work together work together, and forced close contact with the above mentioned object of affection. Radek suddenly felt more weary than dealing with the average Atlantis emergency could account for.
Rodney absently stirred what was left of his pudding. He watched the two Marines pack up their trays and leave the mess. They were covered in a red, dusty substance that reminded Radek of Nevada, Area 51, and too much time without enough freedom.
Rodney was uncharacteristically silent until the Marines were gone. When the two of them were alone, he spoke, his voice the same soft tone that Radek had only ever heard Rodney use when talking about their fallen - about Peter, Brandon, Carson, Elizabeth.
“It isn’t that I don’t understand how you feel: I do. I hate that I do and that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I don’t like leaving things to chance, you know.” Rodney paused, still playing with his pudding. “I think what I’m trying to say is, I get it. And if you want to talk, I’m willing to listen. I won’t say that I won’t ridicule you, because there’s no way that is ever going to happen, but. I’m willing to listen.”
Radek was suddenly reminded of how, for all that he hated the danger, the uncertainty of Pegasus, he was very glad to have had this opportunity to meet and work with Rodney. He smiled at Rodney. “Thank you. You, for all your difficulties, are a good friend, Rodney.”
Rodney coughed, his cheeks turning a little pink. “Yes, yes. No need to get mushy. Besides, we’ve had a horrendously long day and tomorrow will no doubt be longer, so…” He trailed off, standing and gathering his tray to leave.
“Yes, yes. You need your beauty sleep, of course,” Radek joked. He stood and gathered his own tray.
“Very funny. I’ll have you know that I have a…”
Radek tuned out the rest of Rodney’s babble. He, as had the majority of the city, had heard it all before. At the moment, Radek was content to let it flow over him, a steady stream of normality in the face of unexpectedness.
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Radek was beginning to feel like he and Evan were Rodney’s and the Colonel’s understudies. Certainly most of the city felt so. It didn’t matter that Radek ran his own department: as soon as Rodney was elsewhere, it was up to Radek to pull rabbits out of a hat. And as much as Radek liked Rodney, being expected to pull miracles out of his ass every time something went sideways wasn’t something that Radek enjoyed.
“C’mon, Doc. It really isn’t that bad,” Evan laughed from his seat in the front compartment of the Jumper, watching Radek try to sort out just why Jumper Four’s inertia dampeners were not responding. On top of everything else. But his Babička had taught him to take problems one step at a time.
Initially, Radek had been trying an alternative setup that Allen had located in the Ancient Database and Evan had agreed to fly Radek to the mainland in order to test the Jumper (which Sheppard called Bertha, apparently because of its temperamental nature). The alternative setup was supposed to have improved the efficiency of the Jumper by twenty percent. Unfortunately, Bertha’s entire system had decided to crash just as Evan had begun his return flight. Now they were stranded in a clearing deep in the mainland forest until Radek could fix Bertha properly.
“Yes, yes. Because I enjoy being treated like a cheap side show act. Rodney can keep the magic tricks; I would just like to do my research,” Radek grumbled, scratching the back of his neck.
He switched a pair of crystals and checked his datapad before reaching for another crystal. Why the Ancients hadn’t just labeled everything properly, he would never understand.
“You can’t tell me that you don’t enjoy the accomplishment, Doc. The rush of saving the city and everyone in the nick of time.” Evan sounded skeptical, and had Radek been a betting man (which, technically he was, but that was only when it involved games of chess and Swedish messages from attractive, brilliant scientists), he would have bet that Evan was laughing at him. Radek heard movement and looked up, where Evan was watching him as Evan leaned in the doorway, an earnest expression on his face that couldn’t quite cover the twinkle in his eyes. Radek’s fingers twitched, almost aching with the desire to touch.
Radek snorted. “I am a scientist, Major, not a thrill seeker. I enjoy fixing things, yes, but only at a pace that ensures proper testing and caution. Holding the destruction of the city over my head will result only in mistakes.”
He swapped out another pair of crystals and found no discernable power difference. He sighed roughly and replaced the crystals with a little more force than was strictly necessary. Bertha, as it turned out, was not appreciative. Evan was at his side almost before the, “Ow. Damn-it!” was out of Radek’s mouth.
“You all right?” Evan had Radek’s hand in his own, checking it over for serious injury. “You should probably be more careful with Bertha here, Doc. She’s a handful with an attitude and then some.”
Evan’s hands were too warm, too intense against his skin, and Radek fought himself to keep from just jerking his hand back. He knew Evan was aware of how, no matter the situation, Radek did his very best to keep from touching Evan. What he thought about that, Radek did not speculate. It was bad enough that Radek knew he was doing it to keep what little hope he had alive.
To not touch Evan meant to not be rejected. It was a question Radek did not have the courage to ask.
“I am fine, Major. This isn’t the first time that Bertha has voiced her opinion, and I doubt that it will be the last,” Radek admitted after a minute had passed. He pulled his hand away, made a show of being able to freely move all of his fingers. Then he gave Evan a quick smile before bending over for his dropped datapad.
Even was smiling at him when he stood back up, datapad held in front of him like a makeshift shield. It is an indulgent look, much the same as the one Radek’s mother would wear anytime one of her children did something she thought particularly endearing. It was a look Radek had been seeing frequently from Evan.
“Look, you’ve been at this for a couple of hours already, and is doesn’t look like you’re making any progress. How about you take a break? Atlantis knows where we are and there’s no real rush for us to be back tonight.” As he was speaking, Evan took the datapad out of Radek’s hands and put it down on the bench next to Radek’s open and scattered toolkit.
When he faced Radek again, he was smiling widely. It was a smile that Radek found himself unable to resist - it was made Radek think of puppies and sunshine. “What do you say, Doc? We shut Bertha down, build a nice fire, and have a night off? Take advantage of our being stuck on the mainland?”
Radek frowned, knowing that he would give in but not wanting to do so too quickly. “You wish me to play hooky with you, Major?”
Evan coughed and his smile faded from puppies and sunshine to his normal winsome smirk. “Yeah, Doc. That’s what I’m saying.”
Radek made a show of thinking it over. Despite the work that waited for him back in Atlantis, Radek knew he needed a break and fixing the Jumper and returning to Atlantis straight away would ensure that he would be back in his lab working until morning. Frankly, Radek would rather spend the time with the Major - Evan had proven to be a comfortable companion, someone Radek enjoyed just spending time with, whatever his personal feelings were for the man.
“All right, Major. I will play hooky with you. But just this once.”
“Well, like you said, Doc, you want to be able to take your time while fixing the problem, no rushing.”
Radek snorted. “Well, yes, there is that. But I was thinking more that Rodney wanted my help disproving one of his sister’s equations. Not particularly a squabble I want part in.”
Evan laughed, and the back of Radek’s neck tingled.
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It was full dark by the time they sat down to their dinners of MREs and water. They sat near the center of the clearing, a close sprint to the back of the Jumper, but far enough away that, when Radek leaned back on his elbows, he could see the entire sky without interruption. It reminded him of school holidays taken at his Babička’s farm outside of the city proper.
It was his Babička who had taught him the constellations, telling him their stories long into the night, well past the time when his sisters and mother had fallen asleep. Her love for the night sky had been passed to him. That love was what had helped him decide which area of physics to concentrate his studies in in college.
She was the one he though of when he wondered how he ended up here. He knew she would have loved this sky, this second version of Pegasus he studied whenever he had a free moment, and he found himself telling Evan stories for the constellations he knew, passed to him by Teyla, Ronon and other Pegasus natives he had come in contact with, and then telling Evan stories he made up on the spot, partially based on old Earth tales and anything that would have made his Babi laugh, scandalized.
Evan had been mostly silent since reporting back to Atlantis. He seemed content to listen to Radek ramble on, occasionally laughing or throwing in a quip or two of his own. Radek wasn’t used to being able to ramble on without interruption, most of the scientists that Radek knew had a tendency to talk right over one another, and it was a nice change. Radek decided to enjoy it, to not over analyze it, and kept talking until he had run out of anything to say.
They had been quiet long enough that Radek had started debating himself for making an early night of it when Evan broke into his thoughts. “McKay had a message for you.”
“And what does the great McKay have to say?” Radek quipped with a yawn. He tilted his head toward Evan, watching him frown, before deciding that the angle, while enjoyable, was killing his neck. He sat up.
“‘No time like the present to grow a set of balls,’” Evan repeated, mimicking Rodney’s high brow tone to a T. He looked amused and faintly curious, and Radek had already thought of six ways to kill Rodney that would pass the blame onto other people.
“Hmph. I’m sure Rodney should take his own advice,” Radek scowled, staring off at the treeline. His first four plans were too whimsical and depended far too much on Rodney beating everyone else to the labs in the morning, but the other two were plausible enough to work.
“Killing McKay would probably be a bad idea,” Evan pointed out evenly.
“What?” Radek blinked. When he turned his head back to Evan, the other man was smiling. Radek rolled his eyes, but smiled back. “Yes, yes. Very funny.”
“Well, it was either that or you were plotting a way to kill me and hide the body before calling for help,” Evan laughed. “Though if you think you need to get rid of me, you should just say so. I’m not too much for picking up context clues.”
Radek snorted. “Yes, you are a blithering idiot who fails to see the obvious. Which is why I have no issues following you off-world, where my chances of survival for any given reason are usually less than promising.”
“Either you have been spending too much time with McKay or that was some sort of backwards compliment,” Evan laughed again, tilting sideways enough to bump his shoulder against Radek’s. Radek wondered when they had started sitting so closely.
“I think it is you that have been spending too much time with Colonel Sheppard,” Radek returned.
“Guilty as charged. Though it is difficult to avoid the guy when I work for him,” Evan admitted.
They both fell silent, their shoulders resting against each other. Radek was picking at a loose seam on the pocket of his trousers, shoulder rubbing against Evan’s with every pull, wondering what he should say, when Evan picked up the conversation again.
“I admire you, Radek. You do your job, you don’t complain about it, and you’ve saved my ass more times than I really want to think about.” Evan’s voice was soft and when Radek looked over at him, he was staring off into the trees, his cheeks a shade pinker than the fire in front of them could account for. “I don’t really know what to say, other than McKay is completely obvious, and that. Well. I admire you.” He shrugged.
Radek watched Evan, noting the way the moonlight shone in the darker colors of his hair. The only thought that crossed his mind was, “This man is beautiful.” His hand stopped picking at his pocket seam and moved to cover Evan’s without so much of a by-your-leave from Radek.
When Evan looked at him, a little startled and a little hopeful, Radek just smiled. “You are very beautiful, Evan.”
Evan blushed, but his smile split his face. He shifted their hands until they were pressed palm to palm, fingers laced. He said nothing, but tilted his head so that their foreheads pressed together: the traditional Athosian greeting that most of the permanent expedition members had adopted.
Radek smiled back, thinking that this might not go anywhere, but. Yes. He was in love with Evan and maybe, just maybe, Evan was in love with him.
Author: Rosie saekokato
Pairing: Zelenka/Lorne
Rating: PG
Spoilers: General for all aired episodes.
Word Count: ~4100
Summary: Wherein Radek is in love, Evan has beautiful feet, Rodney is completely obvious, and the local stitch ‘n bitch chapter meets in Lab 2.
Author Note: Written for the Czech is in the Male challenge for tekiclutch, who asked for the phrase, "It wasn’t him.", Zelenka with Sheppard, Parrish or Lorne, and UST. This is ended up being more fluff than UST, sorry!
Beta by roseclaw. All grammatical errors and weird wording is my fault. Babička is Czech for Grandmother.
Highway Signs Keep Their Glow
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Dr. Radek Zelenka was in love with Major Evan Lorne. In the grand scheme of attempting to stay alive while facing the many wonders of the Pegasus Galaxy, including the Wraith, unfriendly neighbors and a colicky city, Radek knew his emotional resonance with anyone wasn’t of particular importance to anything, but.
He was in love.
|-|
Radek couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t wanted to participate in the weekly scientist gossip session that inevitably took place the moment Rodney took a step off Atlantis. Radek knew he was acting like a twelve-year-old girl, but he really didn’t want to listen to this. He couldn’t leave because all of his experiments were here in this lab, Lab 2, the second largest lab available that Rodney hadn’t completely taken over and rarely ever entered, and he couldn’t ask the group to leave because Rodney had a nasty habit of going straight to the largest lab first and that was the only other lab large enough to hold this group.
(Rodney said these little social sessions cut down on productivity. Radek thought Rodney just hated missing out on the really good gossip.)
“Seriously! I saw Major Lorne sneaking out of Parrish’s quarters on Tuesday. He was all James Bond, all spy-sneaky.” Lotte, a German bio-chemist, was gushing to the group. Most of them looked intrigued, but there were a few notable holdouts. “It was like he didn’t want to be caught.”
“Or he didn’t want to wake David up,” Lindmar pointed out. She was a botanist who worked co-jointly with Parrish on…something. For the breadth of his studies, Radek had never really grasped Botany. “David has a nasty habit of working, working, working, then BAM! He’s down for the count.”
“But sneaking out at three in the morning?” Lotte protested.
Lindmar smirked. “What I want to know is what you were doing in that corridor at three in the morning? Aren’t your quarters three floors down?
Lotte blushed but didn’t protest.
(Radek knew that it hadn’t been Evan that was sneaking out of Parrish’s quarters that morning. Evan had invited Radek to play a game of chess in Evan’s quarters that night as an alternative to going to the mess and watching the weekly city wide movie. Radek had agreed only as a measure of pity on the other man, or at least that was what he had told Evan, who had spent the majority of the day acting as Ronon’s teaching aide/punching bag. Evan had hardly been able to move from his spot on the bed all evening, and he’d been mostly asleep when Radek had taken his leave of him around midnight.)
The group had broken down into cat calls and good natured quips by the time Cadman strolled into the lab. She was one of the few Marines who made an effort to hang out the scientists and she seemed to have a sixth sense for being where the gossip was. She came in holding a basket of the almost-pears her (Major Lorne’s) team had left to trade for medicines the day before.
“I managed to smuggled these from the rest before they all hit the mess, since I knew there’d be a stitch ‘n bitch today,” Cadman joked, pushing the basket across the lab table toward where Lindmar and Simpson were holding court. Radek grabbed one as the basket passed him. “So, what have I missed?”
“Parrish and Lotte both have boyfriends,” Miko giggled. The Japanese engineer was one of the most devious gossips in the city. If anything happened, then Miko knew before anyone else. Rarely did anything get by her web. She snatched the fruit Simpson chose out of her hand and bit into it with a sugar sweet smile. Simpson reached for another piece.
“Really?” Cadman leered at Lotte. “So, who’s the lucky boy?”
“Jacob Jefferson,” Lotte admitted, voice soft and blush deepening.
“Ah. JJ. Good guy. Nasty left hook,” Cadman nodded.
“But that’s not the really interesting part,” Miko broke in. “Lotte saw Major Lorne sneaking out of Parrish’s quarters last week when she was sneaking out of Sergeant Jefferson’s.”
Cadman shook her head. “Nah, it couldn’t have been Lorne.”
“Sure as hell looked like him,” Lotte protested.
“It wasn’t him.” Cadman paused. She was worrying her bottom lip and it had to be the only time Radek had ever seen her look uncomfortable. “Look. Parrish is dating someone, and it isn’t any of our business, and I had promised not to say anything, but it isn’t Lorne. The Major doesn’t. He just doesn’t, ok?”
Silence feel in the room while everyone took that in. Radek could see Lotte gearing up for an argument, and he wished he had some way of politely shutting her up. Lotte was a good scientist, but she had the tenacity of a blood hound on the scent.
“Look. I know what I saw,” Lotte started.
Simpson cut her off. “You saw someone come out of Parrish’s quarters in the middle of the night, in a corridor that is ridiculously shadowed even in the daylight hours - I know because I happen to live across from Parrish - who just so happened to be the Major’s build. Half the men in the city match the Major’s build, Lotte, and I doubt you were at your most observant.”
“Besides,” Cadman said, her smile back in place. “Parrish is dating a civilian.”
“And just how do you know that?” Lotte demanded.
Cadman shrugged. “Teammates.”
“Then who is the Major dating?” Miko asked. “He’s been getting pretty for someone. Radek even said that he’s been wearing a new cologne.”
Cadman turned her grin on Radek, the rest of the group following, and he knew it was going to be a long afternoon. And he was never telling Miko anything in confidence again.
|-|
Evan Lorne wasn’t a hard man to love. He was kind, humorous and honorable, traits in a man that Radek’s mother had always praised. Radek had honestly believed that such a man was only a silly romantic dream prior to Evan joining the expedition.
It certainly didn’t help that the man was beautiful. Personality wise, not just physically, but both. Or maybe it did. Radek usually didn’t care either way. He had always been attracted to the firecracker minds; men and women with intelligence in the traditional and not-so-traditional senses; those that understood the “this, this, this, then this” of his mind.
Radek had always been a little surprised that he had never taken to thinking of Rodney romantically. But the thought of Rodney in a sexual sense felt vaguely incestuous, even though Rodney was nothing like any of Radek’s siblings, and that just made the feeling worse instead of better. Though Milena shared Rodney’s tendency to annoy past distraction when trying to prove a brilliant idea.
(Not that Evan wasn’t intelligent. He was much like Sheppard, hiding the true shape of his knowledge, only allowing tiny, tiny glimpses when the need arose.)
But Radek had never had a problem concentrating around Rodney. Carson had once speculated
that the real reason any of them could work with and be friends with Rodney was that they could completely tune him out. They could ignore him when he went off on one of his classic tirades, then come back to the conversation when he came back around to whatever it was they were talking about originally.
Radek could not do that around Evan. He could not tune out part of a conversation, then come back at a later time and know exactly what was going on. Radek simply could not tune Evan out: if the Major was anywhere in the vicinity, Radek knew it and at least one portion of his mind was set on tracking his every movement.
And whenever Radek thought of him, his mind went, “He’s beautiful.” And then Radek would think of that rare glimpse of Evan’s bare feet against the dark tiles of Atlantis’s back corridors. The man’s feet were the epitome of beauty.
“Well, I should probably warn Jake not to wear flip-flops around the labs then,” Lotte’s voice broke into Radek’s thoughts.
Radek’s gaze snapped up from his computer screen, and he just blinked at her.
Lotte laughed and handed him a note covered in Rodney’s quick chicken scratch. “You had a meeting with McKay and the other department heads about ten minutes ago.” Then she left, waving a hand at Simpson, who made a comment that set Miko off with the giggles.
When Radek looked back down at his computer, his screensaver was trying to solve for extraterrestrial intelligence in the universe.
|-|
Radek hadn’t planned on telling Rodney. Frankly, Radek hadn’t expected Rodney to be very helpful or considerate to the dilemma that was ‘Zelenka in love.’ Of course, Radek had found that plans rarely stay on their originally intended courses, especially with Rodney involved.
“You do realize he’s straight, right? Or if he isn’t, it isn’t like he’s going to be signing up for the next Atlantis Gay Pride Parade?” Rodney pointed out.
The two of them were in the mess catching a late (very late) dinner. Rodney McKay was not a quiet man under the best of circumstances, and coming off of twenty hours of frantic work keeping the naquedah generator from exploding and killing ever living inhabitant of Atlantis was not the best of circumstances. Especially if those twenty hours came at the tail end of a day long mission through the Stargate. Thankfully, it was late and the mess was all but deserted, only Radek, Rodney, and two Marines in the back corner eating.
“No, Rodney. I had not considered either of those points. Thank you for pointing them out to me.” Radek was blushing and his hands were covering his face, as if he could hide that fact.
“No need to get snippy,” Rodney snipped, frowning. His pudding cup made a sharp sound as it reconnected with his tray. “I was just saying.”
Radek sighed. “I know, I know. I do not even know why I said anything. Please forget about it. It was a, a slip of the tongue.” A slip of the tongue brought on by two dozen nosey scientists and a marine with far too much interest invested in other people’s personal lives, a missed meeting, twenty hours frantic work trying to make two equipment designs not meant to work together work together, and forced close contact with the above mentioned object of affection. Radek suddenly felt more weary than dealing with the average Atlantis emergency could account for.
Rodney absently stirred what was left of his pudding. He watched the two Marines pack up their trays and leave the mess. They were covered in a red, dusty substance that reminded Radek of Nevada, Area 51, and too much time without enough freedom.
Rodney was uncharacteristically silent until the Marines were gone. When the two of them were alone, he spoke, his voice the same soft tone that Radek had only ever heard Rodney use when talking about their fallen - about Peter, Brandon, Carson, Elizabeth.
“It isn’t that I don’t understand how you feel: I do. I hate that I do and that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I don’t like leaving things to chance, you know.” Rodney paused, still playing with his pudding. “I think what I’m trying to say is, I get it. And if you want to talk, I’m willing to listen. I won’t say that I won’t ridicule you, because there’s no way that is ever going to happen, but. I’m willing to listen.”
Radek was suddenly reminded of how, for all that he hated the danger, the uncertainty of Pegasus, he was very glad to have had this opportunity to meet and work with Rodney. He smiled at Rodney. “Thank you. You, for all your difficulties, are a good friend, Rodney.”
Rodney coughed, his cheeks turning a little pink. “Yes, yes. No need to get mushy. Besides, we’ve had a horrendously long day and tomorrow will no doubt be longer, so…” He trailed off, standing and gathering his tray to leave.
“Yes, yes. You need your beauty sleep, of course,” Radek joked. He stood and gathered his own tray.
“Very funny. I’ll have you know that I have a…”
Radek tuned out the rest of Rodney’s babble. He, as had the majority of the city, had heard it all before. At the moment, Radek was content to let it flow over him, a steady stream of normality in the face of unexpectedness.
|-|
Radek was beginning to feel like he and Evan were Rodney’s and the Colonel’s understudies. Certainly most of the city felt so. It didn’t matter that Radek ran his own department: as soon as Rodney was elsewhere, it was up to Radek to pull rabbits out of a hat. And as much as Radek liked Rodney, being expected to pull miracles out of his ass every time something went sideways wasn’t something that Radek enjoyed.
“C’mon, Doc. It really isn’t that bad,” Evan laughed from his seat in the front compartment of the Jumper, watching Radek try to sort out just why Jumper Four’s inertia dampeners were not responding. On top of everything else. But his Babička had taught him to take problems one step at a time.
Initially, Radek had been trying an alternative setup that Allen had located in the Ancient Database and Evan had agreed to fly Radek to the mainland in order to test the Jumper (which Sheppard called Bertha, apparently because of its temperamental nature). The alternative setup was supposed to have improved the efficiency of the Jumper by twenty percent. Unfortunately, Bertha’s entire system had decided to crash just as Evan had begun his return flight. Now they were stranded in a clearing deep in the mainland forest until Radek could fix Bertha properly.
“Yes, yes. Because I enjoy being treated like a cheap side show act. Rodney can keep the magic tricks; I would just like to do my research,” Radek grumbled, scratching the back of his neck.
He switched a pair of crystals and checked his datapad before reaching for another crystal. Why the Ancients hadn’t just labeled everything properly, he would never understand.
“You can’t tell me that you don’t enjoy the accomplishment, Doc. The rush of saving the city and everyone in the nick of time.” Evan sounded skeptical, and had Radek been a betting man (which, technically he was, but that was only when it involved games of chess and Swedish messages from attractive, brilliant scientists), he would have bet that Evan was laughing at him. Radek heard movement and looked up, where Evan was watching him as Evan leaned in the doorway, an earnest expression on his face that couldn’t quite cover the twinkle in his eyes. Radek’s fingers twitched, almost aching with the desire to touch.
Radek snorted. “I am a scientist, Major, not a thrill seeker. I enjoy fixing things, yes, but only at a pace that ensures proper testing and caution. Holding the destruction of the city over my head will result only in mistakes.”
He swapped out another pair of crystals and found no discernable power difference. He sighed roughly and replaced the crystals with a little more force than was strictly necessary. Bertha, as it turned out, was not appreciative. Evan was at his side almost before the, “Ow. Damn-it!” was out of Radek’s mouth.
“You all right?” Evan had Radek’s hand in his own, checking it over for serious injury. “You should probably be more careful with Bertha here, Doc. She’s a handful with an attitude and then some.”
Evan’s hands were too warm, too intense against his skin, and Radek fought himself to keep from just jerking his hand back. He knew Evan was aware of how, no matter the situation, Radek did his very best to keep from touching Evan. What he thought about that, Radek did not speculate. It was bad enough that Radek knew he was doing it to keep what little hope he had alive.
To not touch Evan meant to not be rejected. It was a question Radek did not have the courage to ask.
“I am fine, Major. This isn’t the first time that Bertha has voiced her opinion, and I doubt that it will be the last,” Radek admitted after a minute had passed. He pulled his hand away, made a show of being able to freely move all of his fingers. Then he gave Evan a quick smile before bending over for his dropped datapad.
Even was smiling at him when he stood back up, datapad held in front of him like a makeshift shield. It is an indulgent look, much the same as the one Radek’s mother would wear anytime one of her children did something she thought particularly endearing. It was a look Radek had been seeing frequently from Evan.
“Look, you’ve been at this for a couple of hours already, and is doesn’t look like you’re making any progress. How about you take a break? Atlantis knows where we are and there’s no real rush for us to be back tonight.” As he was speaking, Evan took the datapad out of Radek’s hands and put it down on the bench next to Radek’s open and scattered toolkit.
When he faced Radek again, he was smiling widely. It was a smile that Radek found himself unable to resist - it was made Radek think of puppies and sunshine. “What do you say, Doc? We shut Bertha down, build a nice fire, and have a night off? Take advantage of our being stuck on the mainland?”
Radek frowned, knowing that he would give in but not wanting to do so too quickly. “You wish me to play hooky with you, Major?”
Evan coughed and his smile faded from puppies and sunshine to his normal winsome smirk. “Yeah, Doc. That’s what I’m saying.”
Radek made a show of thinking it over. Despite the work that waited for him back in Atlantis, Radek knew he needed a break and fixing the Jumper and returning to Atlantis straight away would ensure that he would be back in his lab working until morning. Frankly, Radek would rather spend the time with the Major - Evan had proven to be a comfortable companion, someone Radek enjoyed just spending time with, whatever his personal feelings were for the man.
“All right, Major. I will play hooky with you. But just this once.”
“Well, like you said, Doc, you want to be able to take your time while fixing the problem, no rushing.”
Radek snorted. “Well, yes, there is that. But I was thinking more that Rodney wanted my help disproving one of his sister’s equations. Not particularly a squabble I want part in.”
Evan laughed, and the back of Radek’s neck tingled.
|-|
It was full dark by the time they sat down to their dinners of MREs and water. They sat near the center of the clearing, a close sprint to the back of the Jumper, but far enough away that, when Radek leaned back on his elbows, he could see the entire sky without interruption. It reminded him of school holidays taken at his Babička’s farm outside of the city proper.
It was his Babička who had taught him the constellations, telling him their stories long into the night, well past the time when his sisters and mother had fallen asleep. Her love for the night sky had been passed to him. That love was what had helped him decide which area of physics to concentrate his studies in in college.
She was the one he though of when he wondered how he ended up here. He knew she would have loved this sky, this second version of Pegasus he studied whenever he had a free moment, and he found himself telling Evan stories for the constellations he knew, passed to him by Teyla, Ronon and other Pegasus natives he had come in contact with, and then telling Evan stories he made up on the spot, partially based on old Earth tales and anything that would have made his Babi laugh, scandalized.
Evan had been mostly silent since reporting back to Atlantis. He seemed content to listen to Radek ramble on, occasionally laughing or throwing in a quip or two of his own. Radek wasn’t used to being able to ramble on without interruption, most of the scientists that Radek knew had a tendency to talk right over one another, and it was a nice change. Radek decided to enjoy it, to not over analyze it, and kept talking until he had run out of anything to say.
They had been quiet long enough that Radek had started debating himself for making an early night of it when Evan broke into his thoughts. “McKay had a message for you.”
“And what does the great McKay have to say?” Radek quipped with a yawn. He tilted his head toward Evan, watching him frown, before deciding that the angle, while enjoyable, was killing his neck. He sat up.
“‘No time like the present to grow a set of balls,’” Evan repeated, mimicking Rodney’s high brow tone to a T. He looked amused and faintly curious, and Radek had already thought of six ways to kill Rodney that would pass the blame onto other people.
“Hmph. I’m sure Rodney should take his own advice,” Radek scowled, staring off at the treeline. His first four plans were too whimsical and depended far too much on Rodney beating everyone else to the labs in the morning, but the other two were plausible enough to work.
“Killing McKay would probably be a bad idea,” Evan pointed out evenly.
“What?” Radek blinked. When he turned his head back to Evan, the other man was smiling. Radek rolled his eyes, but smiled back. “Yes, yes. Very funny.”
“Well, it was either that or you were plotting a way to kill me and hide the body before calling for help,” Evan laughed. “Though if you think you need to get rid of me, you should just say so. I’m not too much for picking up context clues.”
Radek snorted. “Yes, you are a blithering idiot who fails to see the obvious. Which is why I have no issues following you off-world, where my chances of survival for any given reason are usually less than promising.”
“Either you have been spending too much time with McKay or that was some sort of backwards compliment,” Evan laughed again, tilting sideways enough to bump his shoulder against Radek’s. Radek wondered when they had started sitting so closely.
“I think it is you that have been spending too much time with Colonel Sheppard,” Radek returned.
“Guilty as charged. Though it is difficult to avoid the guy when I work for him,” Evan admitted.
They both fell silent, their shoulders resting against each other. Radek was picking at a loose seam on the pocket of his trousers, shoulder rubbing against Evan’s with every pull, wondering what he should say, when Evan picked up the conversation again.
“I admire you, Radek. You do your job, you don’t complain about it, and you’ve saved my ass more times than I really want to think about.” Evan’s voice was soft and when Radek looked over at him, he was staring off into the trees, his cheeks a shade pinker than the fire in front of them could account for. “I don’t really know what to say, other than McKay is completely obvious, and that. Well. I admire you.” He shrugged.
Radek watched Evan, noting the way the moonlight shone in the darker colors of his hair. The only thought that crossed his mind was, “This man is beautiful.” His hand stopped picking at his pocket seam and moved to cover Evan’s without so much of a by-your-leave from Radek.
When Evan looked at him, a little startled and a little hopeful, Radek just smiled. “You are very beautiful, Evan.”
Evan blushed, but his smile split his face. He shifted their hands until they were pressed palm to palm, fingers laced. He said nothing, but tilted his head so that their foreheads pressed together: the traditional Athosian greeting that most of the permanent expedition members had adopted.
Radek smiled back, thinking that this might not go anywhere, but. Yes. He was in love with Evan and maybe, just maybe, Evan was in love with him.