Ficlet: Sleepless (G) by lisas_secret
John was watching Rodney sleep. This wasn’t a “isn’t he cute with his snorts and drool” watching. No, this was a “squinty-eyed, I bet Atlantis would help me hide the body if he doesn’t stop making that noise right damned now!” watching. Rodney was on his back and making a sound like a forlorn water buffalo or like that cow-moose-kangaroo thing when Ronan killed it with his bare hands after it tried to take a bite out of Teyla. Yes, just like that - there was the snorting, the hollow bellow, and finally the gaspy hiccupping that trailed off to nothing. Only it never really stopped. It happened over and over again. Yes, it was just like that Every Single Time.
Rodney had said that it was because he’d caught a chill on their last mission. He swore he’d caught a chill that turned into this horror: head congested, chest congested and he couldn’t breathe worth a damn. That was a crock because they’d spent the entire time on the tropical equator and if Rodney could catch a chill in 90 degree weather, then he needed to start wearing a parka. No, he’d caught a cold. A vicious cold, yes. But still a cold. Not pneumonia or tuberculosis or the black death as Rodney complained whenever he was awake. But now he was asleep and driving John crazy.
John had tried forcing Rodney on to his side, but that just made the gaspy bit more high-pitched. Rolling Rodney on his stomach muffled the sound somewhat, but the gasping seemed to last a little bit longer each time, so John had turned him back over. That was an hour ago and he was regretting that impulse more with every wheeze-bellow.
If John hadn’t had a bad reaction to the native punch on that same world - punch that made everyone else calm and happy had made John feel like he’d mainlined Rodney’s entire stash of Kona. He hadn’t slept for 3 days -- running with Ronan at all hours, sparring with Teyla and any of the marines who would take him on, until he’d finally crashed a while ago. He’d come back to their quarters with his eyes burning and his muscles twitching from fatigue. Hoping to curl up with Rodney and sleep forever.
He’d found Rodney sleeping, as he had been for most of the last few days because he really was sick, and curled around him expecting to plunge right into sleep. But even as his eyes closed, the snorting, bellowing, gasping shook him awake. The harder he tried to ignore it, the more irritating it became. It just wasn’t fair. After a long, long time, he crawled out of bed and paced, hoping that just a little more exercise would tip him past the point of caring. But no, that didn’t work. So here he was, sitting in a desk chair watching Rodney sleep and wishing he could do something, anything, to get to sleep.
As he watched, Rodney’s hand began to move across the bed. His eyebrows and mouth scrunched up into his worried/sad face. His eyes opened a little and he called out weakly, “John?” John got up and walked to the bed. “I’m cold,” Rodney said in a raspy, unused voice.
John crawled into bed and sat up against the mound of pillows that Rodney had gathered during his illness. He pulled Rodney up so that he rested against his chest and smoothed the sweaty hair back from Rodney’s forehead. Rodney sighed and fell back to sleep. His snores still sounded like a dying cow-moose-kangaroo thing, but maybe a baby one. John closed his eyes and slept.